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Step 3 - Identify your market
List your prospects and your targets.
If you can afford professional market research by all means purchase it and skip this section.
In our local paper this week there was an article by the director of a marketing company headlined "Why junk mail really works." You can't argue with him: scatter your shot far enough and wide enough and eventually you will hit something. Sending out junk e-mail in particular is so inexpensive that the waste doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter to whom? This is hardly the perspective of someone who cares about clients. Applying The Outwith Principle highlights how infuriating it is to receive a dozen e-mails a day which are of no possible interest, and also how damaging it is to your potential to sell if you are seen as a "spammer".
In any case, there is now so much "spam" that many people program their software to reject all unexpected e-mails.
The more care you take to target your market, the greater the response rate and the more satisfaction you get from your marketing. Blind spamming of e-mail lists may not achieve one response in a thousand but precise targeting can get you better than one in ten.
One way to identify your market is to define the industry or sector you are in. You could then send out mail-shots to anyone in that line. Or you could start with yourself and your product or service and try to imagine who could be persuaded to buy it.
But let's apply The Outwith Principle. Think about your exisiting clients. What needs of theirs are you meeting? If your business is in its early stages, name people you know who really need the help you can give (and if you can't think of many, is there really a market?).
You now have a much sharper picture of the particular people who are potential customers. You are no longer targeting "a sector": you are now targeting "people who need the Benefits Of Buying from you." This will also get you "thinking outside the box" about other types of business to which you have something to offer.
It's not always easy to define your market. It's often harder still to work out how to reach it.
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