Become A Super Promoter - Lesson 1

You -- The Leading Expert

In a crowded marketplace, where your potential clients have lots of choices, you can standout by being the leading expert.  This is the exact opposite of mass marketing.  It’s not about being all things to all people, but being a mini-celebrity to the right people.  It’s about targeting your market and developing a reputation as a great resource – trustworthy, knowledgeable, and close at hand.  Your goal is to become the lord of a small, profitable domain of your choosing.  Within that domain, you will attract more clients, including those you want most.

Naturally, such results require thoughtful and consistent efforts.  These efforts will take many different forms, but underlying and guiding them are just six basic principles:

· Targeting the best prospects
· Developing a unique market niche
· Positioning your business as the best solution
· Maintaining your visibility
· Enhancing your credibility
· Establishing your brand and reputation

Working on these principles is your recipe for getting out of the anonymity trap, creating you as the leading expert, and building a successful business.  In the pages that follow, we’ll look more closely at what these principles call for in the way of action on your part.

How to Target Your Ideal Prospects

Market research is like sticking your toe into a lake before jumping in.  If you know who you want to reach and what their needs are, you avoid wasting time and money in poorly conceived marketing programs.  You can alter your products or services to fit the needs of your target market, and you can craft a message that reflects your business and your client.  Moreover, market research needn’t involve expensive consultants, surveys, or focus groups – it can be as simple as asking your best clients the right questions.

Your U.S.P. (Unique Selling Proposition)

Large companies aspire to total market domination.  Small businesses with a leading expert strategy flourish by establishing themselves within a carefully selected segment of a market; they target a market niche that they can realistically hope to dominate.

Market niches can be defined by region, by special client needs or by demographics, such as a particular ethnic or age group; sometimes just a product that’s a variation on an established one can generate a market niche.  (Interestingly, the word “niche” comes from the French meaning “nest.”)   As a small business you want to build your nest somewhere away from the hawks of big business.

How to Position Your Business as the Only Solution

In a crowded marketplace, it may not be enough just to carve out a niche.  You’ve narrowed your focus, but you still have competitors.  This is the time to distinguish yourself as a pre-eminent source of solutions by refining your expertise and conveying it to your target audience.  You need to know more about something, or be better at something, than anyone else, and you have to let people know.

When you can honestly convey such a message, potential clients see you as the obvious answer to their problems and challenges, and the logical choice when they’re looking for a supplier.

Keeping in the Public’s Eye

When was the last time your name appeared in print?  Yesterday?  Last week?  A month ago?  Even if you remember, that doesn’t mean a potential client will.

One key to succeeding in the marketplace is to have your message out there, if not continuously, then often enough to keep your name alive in clients’ minds.  This is the meaning of visibility, and if you’re not visible to your potential clients, you cease to exist.  If you haven’t done any marketing in months, you’ll miss getting clients because they forget about you, and instead call your competitor, whose name was in the morning’s paper.

Visibility is a cornerstone of every business strategy, and it begins by placing your core marketing message in front of as many of your target clients as possible, as often as possible. 

Enhance Your Credibility

The surest way to make a credible name for yourself is by becoming a recognized expert.  Who counts as an expert?  Experts include authors, speakers, consultants, business owners, managers, and professionals.  If you have in-depth knowledge about a specific subject – and that subject can be your business – you qualify, too.  The test is how much you know, and if you know a lot about something, you can leverage that knowledge into a halo of authority.

In addition to making the news, you can augment your marketing and your business by creating information products – booklets, e-books, classes, audiocassettes – around your area of expertise.  These will cement your place as the leader in your market niche.

Choosing Your Ideal Niche

Many businesses think that selling to the widest possible market is the likeliest path to success.  They are afraid to pursue a market niche because they fear they’ll lose business by turning away clients.  But this takes all comers approach is not very effective.  It’s hard to stand out when you market your practice without a distinctive set of prospects in mind.

Occupying a niche means you won’t be competing with a lot of similar businesses solely on price.  And because you will be selling services that are customized to the specific needs and predispositions of a select group of people, you can often charge more.  Your services serve a market that can’t easily find alternatives. 

To determine if a particular niche is right for you, ask yourself these questions:

· Do I have an identifiable target population with similar interests and needs?
· Is the market large enough to support my business?
· Can I tailor my products, services and business identity to address that market’s particular needs?
· Is my target market currently underserved?
· Can I reach my potential clients in a cost-effective manner?

Your niche will give your marketing efforts a natural, sharp focus.  The more you specialize, the more your market will see the value of your services because you speak directly to their unique situation.  Assuming your niche is large enough, you can do quite well by becoming a provider of services that can’t be found anywhere else.

Although many discover their niches by accident, the most rewarding market niches are usually identified through deliberate effort.  Choosing a market niche is a strategic process that matches your desires and resources to opportunities in the outside world.  You can define your niche to include all existing clients, just a subset of them, or a wholly new population.  First identify those clients you most want to serve within market niches large enough to sustain you, but not dominated by competitors.  Then, steer your research in that direction.

Research Your Markets

Once you have a working idea of the market you’d like to serve, you need to dig deeper to test your assumptions.  The process starts with market research: analyze your best potential clients, your competitors, your market’s predisposition toward your services, and your ability to serve these people so well as to make you their practice of choice.

Market research can provide relevant information for establishing a solid foundation under any business.  Even if you have been in business for years, it’s a good idea to stay up-to-date with market research that might help you understand where your market niche is going.

Market research can, among other things, help you understand your potential clients, the likelihood that they’ll buy your services, why they’ll buy them, and how much they’ll pay.  Market research can also help you evaluate your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, thereby providing one of the keys to dominating your niche.

Librarians can help you locate a huge amount of free material, including listings for:

· Local, state, and national chambers of commerce
· Industry associations
· Trade journals
· Periodicals
· Vendors and suppliers
· Government agencies and departments