Defining market focus is far trickier than product focus marketing. Tagoras defines a market focused approach as when your company pours its resources into “determining new or emerging needs in your market and coming up with new products [or services] to meet these needs. Don’t assume you know your market needs, but rather [be] bent on discovering them and serving them.”
A market focus strategy enables business to dominate a niche by concentrating on a limited part of a market, according to Small Business. Some major components of a market focus strategy are:
- Developing a plan: Forbes notes that a marketing plan directs the sales staff. Without a plan the sales team will employ “shotgun marketing” as a self-motivated strategy to make sales quotas. Set profiles for the types of clientele needed for longstanding growth.
- Utilizing a data-driven approach: A study conducted by StrongView found that email, social media and mobile marketing have all increased in prevalence.
- Knowing the Customer: Study the activities of your largest specific clientele and model that behavior to lower-value clientele. According to Forbes, beyond demographics, knowing the existing customer can allow the company to create a “brand experience” to cater to future customers. Focusing on key customers segments in which you have a competitive advantage will facilitate data that allows you to satisfy the unique needs of this group better than your competitor.
- Narrowing the Target Market: To better build a brand and a niche market focused marketing strategy, a company must narrow the target market by conducting market research. The Small Business Administration defines target market research as “the process of analyzing data to help the company understand which products and services are in demand, and how to be competitive.”
At Access/Information, we have over 30 years of experience of conducting market research to help businesses like yours establish and nourish a sustainable market focus strategy. Are you targeting the best customer?