Thursday, 09 December 2010 06:32

Narrowly Focused

Business development is among the most essential aspect of any company. The marketing team's biggest concern is how to gain new customers while making sure the existing customers are satisfied. Frequently updated marketing messages can garner a lot of attention and gather new customers but it can also disable companies that don't concentrate on their core competency.

Knowing that few companies can do many things well, successful marketers consistently narrow their focus to retain market leadership in one or two core areas. As Ravi Kalakota and Marcia Robinson said in E-Business 2.0: "No visionary company shines in every dimension of business cost, quality, price, convenience, and ease of use."

From a marketing standpoint, there are these three most common categorized focuses in response to different business strategies:

Cost-Leadership: Delivering messages of efficiency and low price points.

Superior Service: Marketing in a customer friendly way, by delivering what customers want with hassle-free service and value.

Continuous Innovation: Surprising consumers with functional, and emotional creativity.

To be a cost leader requires a strong will to resist the temptation of fighting against high-end competitors. Your marketing messages should always be focused for price sensitive consumers. Anyone can claim they are the lowest price provider, or they have the best product below a certain pricing point, but your customers only care whether they would get a better deal from you.

Superior service focus means to select a few high-value customer niches and then make a concerted effort to serve them well. This strategy requires a marketing team to anticipate the customer's needs, and share information with your customers to provide expedient self-service to meet with their expectations. The attitude of your marketing and sales team is especially important to this strategy.

Continuous innovation sounds very exciting, yet it demands great dedication to change change and change: Innovate or Die! Marketing for a radical innovation can be high risk and before marketing a new product/service, you always want to ask yourself these questions: How do I convince the market that this new product/service would better fulfill their needs? How do I overcome the resistance to change among my customers?

Someone may argue that being narrowly focused limits possible opportunity. However, it is truly important to find your own niche and then stick with it, dig in deep, and thrive in it! For example, Apple never markets itself from a price standpoint; LL Bean has made a real effort to improve its customer service and it's paid off; and AMB Property Corporation is not even interested in residential real estate, when millions of other commercial real estate investors made a huge fortune from it. Rather, these organizations win and maintain leadership positions because they provide intrinsic, narrowly focused value that their customers care about.

FiG Advertising and Marketing (Focus Identity Group, LLC), can help your business better focus on your niche and target customers, to deliver more concentrated marketing initiatives that lead to growth and increased sales.