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The Power of Being Different
Lesson 6:
Identifying your Target group. Depending on your goals, you should know whom you are aiming at. Who will be
your clients? Who are the ones that you can sell your product to? What are
their habits? How can you reach them? What do you expect from them? These are
some of the questions that become important at this stage. If your target group is a whole society, keep this in mind: It is tremendously important to make yourself familiar with
a society's culture before trying to penetrate it. It's always easy to see
things from your own perspective, assuming that everyone should understand
what's so wonderful about your product or service. Just reading about all the blunders made in history by large
multinationals, proves that even the most sizable and experienced marketers
make that error time and again. (Marques, 2001, The Importance of
Recognizing Culture in Marketing) It may be extremely important to follow a few steps when
entering a market, no matter whether the reason for entering is for business,
personal, or other purposes. Here are the basics: ·
Don't assume that everyone sees or accepts things the
way you do. Historical and cultural baggage can "color" the way people look at
things. Even the simplest things like choice of colors, gestures, conversation
distance; time scheduling, etc. could become painful issues. ·
Make sure you know someone in that society that can
bring you "at level" with local habits. Convince yourself that this person is
aware of the latest slang and habit-changes in the target area. ·
Try to find out what really intrigues this society.
Different cultural groups have different ways of catching each other's
attention. In Caribbean communities, for instance, the joke-sketch style is
what catches the attention. Serious ads don't even work when you try to
convince them to pay taxes! ·
Always ask several people within that culture what they
think of your product/service. The more opinions you can gather, the better
your insight will be in possible hurdles you may encounter. ·
Keep an eye on developments. What's generally accepted
today may be abandoned tomorrow. Nothing is more awkward than trying to look
"cool" by using stuffy, outdated terms. Before anything else, though, try to figure out the level
and criteria of acceptance. In Europe it's generally accepted to use
stronger language and show more nudity or cruelty on mass media than in the
U.S. On the other hand, Americans have
a more "open" attitude toward each other in a conversation than Europeans. Yes,
the world is developing into a global village, but we're not there yet. Not by
far. So while we're working on it, respect local cultures?(Marques, 2001, The
Importance of Recognizing Culture in Marketing) Zooming in on the clients: a more detailed view. Realize that, although there may be plenty of potential clients out there,
you want to focus in on the ones that will provide you (or your organization)
the highest satisfaction in return for what you provide them. "A small number
of clients typically generate most of a business?s sales and profits."
(Slutsky, 1992, How to get clients, p. 3) Slutsky continues, "To begin to understand where you might
improve the quality of your client base, create different categories, then see
into which ones your clients fall. Discover what they have in common and group
them accordingly." Slutsky (1992) provides us with 4 helpful hints in order to identify our
target group, given the product or service we formulated in our mission
statement. He recommends that, for every potential client we want to consider,
we should ask these questions: 1.
Does the client need [my] product or service? 2.
Can the client use [my] product or service in quantities now
or in the future? 3.
Does [my] product or service meet the client's specifications? 4.
Can the client afford my product or service? (p. 6) Slutsky's book focuses in-depth in the target group issue by
explaining the most important things to keep in mind when dealing with clients: 1.
Identify the less profitable part of your business and skip
it! 2.
Establish credibility to attract your target group 3.
Persistence is the key to success in reaching your target
group.. Implications of each idea: 1. Identify the less profitable part of
your business and skip it! 2. Establish credibility to attract
clients. 3. Persistence is the key to success in
reaching your target group. We can learn from children. §
Slutsky illustrates this point with the example of a
child nagging her mom to go out and play. The child persists at least 16 times,
after which the mother finally yells "Okay! Get the hell out and come back in
half an hour!" (p.134). He then mentions the book "Green Eggs and Ham",
by Dr. Seuss, about a salesman named Sam-I-Am, and a Cat. Sam-I-am never quits
in trying to "sell" the cat a new product until the cat tries it, just to make
Sam-I-Am shut up. Slutsky reasons that children learn how to persist from the
books they read, and apply it in their life. So why can't we in reaching our
target group? You've been doing great! Here's the link to: Lesson 7
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