In Walk Your Customers Journey First, I talk about The Accountant and The Prospect. I describe a typical customer journey of a prospect to becoming a valued client.
In this example, The Accountant was very clear on who he wanted to work with, who he could help. In the earlier example, I highlighted the story of an accountant with lots of social media icons on his website which led to confusion on who he actually served best. He was giving the impression he could (and would) work with anyone!
By selling to anyone, you have no clear direction on how to market your business. This is when marketing becomes expensive and overwhelming. It’s sporadic, it changes direction or becomes more aggressive as you go after anyone, like everyone else.
Being super clear on who you are going after makes marketing easier, less confusing and less expensive! Let’s take an example of a HR company. There are lots of HR companies and they all pretty much do the same thing. They help their clients with employee legislation and engagement to manage their business better. You can imagine if they all went to the same networking event or provided similar content as I describe in Be Where They Hang Out, it would be incredibly difficult to stand out. They all sound the same, do the same and go after the same people – any business.
Why niching works
Now if the HR company looked at their current client base, they may realise there is a common theme in who they look after and how. Let’s say we have two HR companies. One specialises in professional services, the other in manufacturing. One discipline but two very different markets with different needs, approaches and service.
Professional Services will attend different types of networking events. The HR company that wants to talk to more Professional Service businesses, needs to be there to raise Awareness. Manufacturing companies may not attend such events but can be found in other ways. This type of business may attend industry exhibitions or conferences for example so being there is more time efficient for specialist HR company. They are in the room full of their market and know how to engage with them based on their current clients’ stories (needs and wants).
If you service mainly one sector you can work out where you need to be to get in front of them. You can also create content ideally suited for them. In Consideration, the content you put out will be recognised and will strengthen the decisions they make when looking for a new supplier. They see in your content the advice you are giving, the way in which you support clients and they see how connected you are to their world. When other HR companies are not, they are left in the mix with all the others.
You can offer a tailored Trial which will work for professional services but may not for manufacturing. However, lots of Professional Services pick up on your Trial and this leads them to get in touch. A help guide, a video tutorial, a workshop … fit for one market, not all. Attract more in one sector and become the expert, the go to company. Keep on finding out more about the Pains and Gains of that sector and keep showing up in the right places, with the right messages and content to make them take notice. When they are ready to buy, when they see what they are missing, that’s when the right clients will get in touch. In the meantime, your marketing tactics are winning as you have built campaigns that talk to your target market. The ones you know you are selling to and how they go to buy from you.
