False Assumptions About Your Target Market

Posted by User ImageLinda (Who am I?) - on July 25, 2008

Are you making false assumptions about your target market members?

We often assume that other people think as we do and from the same level of experience and information. But this false assumption can result in lost sales and damaged relationships.

A Story

Let me demonstrate some potential pitfalls with a story about my daughter when she was four, I was trying to teach her to dress herself. She was doing well except for her panties. She kept putting them on backwards.

Many times, I had laid out her panties in front of her and told her that the wider side was the back and the narrow side was the front. She could recognize the front from the back of her panties, yet she continued to put them on backwards.

I couldn’t understand why until one day when I was repeating this explanation, she said, “but Mommy, what is the front and back of me?”

Once I explained the front and back of her body to go with the front and back of the panties, she never put her panties on backwards again.

I assumed that she had information that she didn’t have, and because of that false assumption, all my attempts to help her were in vain.

Do You Make Similar Mistakes?

Now this may seem an extreme example because she was a child and I an adult, but I see business owners making similar mistakes due to false assumptions about their target market member’s knowledge and experiences.

The more you know about your target market, the more likely you are to avoid such mistakes and the lost sales and damaged relationships that they cause.

How Much Do You Know About Your Target Market?

You can start building knowledge about your target market with a free target market report. Your report will reveal the most shared characteristics and best appeals for your target market instantly. Click on the link in this sentence to get your target market analysis.

You can then flesh out your report with my e-book, Know ‘em Sell ‘em: How To Discover The Best Appeals For Your Target Market. And you can save $10 by purchasing it from the one-time offer page after you register for AutoMarketAnalysis.com.

Would You Like A Free Customized Target Market Report?

You can start learning about your target market quickly and easily by getting your free target market report and Know ‘em Sell ‘em.

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Posted 7-25-08: False Assumptions About Your Target Market

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Category: Target Markets

In Today’s Competitive Environment, Quality Products Demand Target Market Knowledge

Posted by User ImageLinda (Who am I?) - on July 24, 2008

In today’s competitive environment, quality products are designed to meet the needs of a target market and then are marketed to that market. If you, as a small business owner, want to assure that your product is perceived as a quality one, you need to consider the three major elements that impact the perception of a product’s quality. They are:

How well the product meets the target market’s needs,
How well marketing promotes the product’s quality, and
How good the customer service is that supports the product.


In Today’s Competitive Environment, Quality Products Depend on The Needs Of The Target Market

Every target market has a different definition of quality. The one common denominator is that all target market members want products that meet their needs by providing the benefits they want.

The needs and benefits will vary by target market. What your target market considers quality, another target market will consider mediocre because it only partially provides the benefits that they seek.

You have to assure that your products are designed with features that meet the needs of your target market. Then you have to monitor the manufacturing process and check final products to determine that those features work as designed.

In Today’s Competitive Environment, Quality Products’ Perception Demands Good Marketing

Regardless of how well your product’s benefits and features match your target market’s definition of quality, if it’s not marketed well to the target market, the product will not get a quality reputation.

In today’s competitive environment, quality products may be made in a factory, but the perception of quality is established through good marketing. So you must assure that your marketing is relevant to, and appropriate for your target market.

In Today’s Competitive Environment, Quality Products Must Be Supported With Good Customer Service

No matter how well your product is made, how well it provides target market benefits, or how well you market it, if your customer service fails, your product won’t be considered a quality one.

Today, more than ever, people are fed up with poor customer service. In most people’s minds, customer service for a product is directly tied to the quality of the product. So in order to improve the perception of your product’s quality, you must support your product with quality customer service.

Everybody expects certain elements of customer service. But some target market members consider additional elements important that another target market may find irrelevant.

In Today’s Competitive Environment, Quality Products Require Knowing Target Market Characteristics

Each of the three major elements contributing to the perception of quality, relate to knowing the target market. The more you know characteristics that distinguish your target market from another, the better you’ll be able to produce, market and support your quality produce. The better you comprehend your product’s target market characteristics, the more successfully you can build a quality perception into each element.

You can get a free target market report and discover the characteristics and best appeals for your target market at www.AutoMarketAnalysis.com/

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Posted 7-24-08: In Today’s Competitive Environment, Quality Products
Demand Target Market Knowledge

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Category: Product, Target Markets

Market Segmentation And E-Mail Marketing

Posted by User ImageLinda (Who am I?) - on July 23, 2008

Market segmentation spreads through marketing venue after venue. Now it’s making strides in e-mail marketing.

Earlier this week, I read an article in the July 2008 issue of Internet Retailer. The article focused on the future of e-mail marketing and concluded that the bet way to survive low response rates and high unsubscribe rates of e-mail lists is to use market segmentation.

Below are a couple of quotes from the article:

“To combat these problems, e-mail marketing experts and vendors point to the need for greater segmentation of e-mail lists to target distinct groups of customers with messages they’re more likely to want and reduce the number of e-mails sent to customers.” Scott Olrich , chief marketing officer at Responsys, Inc.

“… the effectiveness of broadly written and sent e-mails has weakened. … This is where segmentation comes into play, where you can target groups of people more relevantly, like with a subject line that speaks to them. … This requires lots and lots of testing, and thinking very specifically for different customer groups.

“Showing different customers different subject lines, images, products or calls to action can make e-mail messages more applicable and thus more effective.” Julie M. Katz, e-mail marketing analyst at Forrester Research Inc.

These two top-notch marketing experts recognize the value of market segmentation and using it in e-mail marketing. Yet I’ve found that many of the emails I receive are totally ineffective.

Do Your E-mails Use Your List Members’ Language?

Do you get e-mails that are broadcast to 1000s of people on an Internet or retail marketers list? I surely do. Yet, I often find that they don’t speak to me at all. Part of that is surely because I’m a Boomer while most Internet business people are in Generation X. But the e-mails would be far more effective for me if the marketers used market segmentation to separate their lists by generation.

I know that requires gathering some information from list members, but I agree with the marketing experts quoted above, that the effort would pay off with a better return on e-mail marketing investment.

Do You Separate Your List By Their Actions?

Another part of the reason that many e-mails don’t speak to me is that the marketers don’t bother to do even basic list separation. I was on one Internet marketer’s list because I opted in for some freebie. I almost immediately bought one of his e-books. Yet I continued to get e-mails marketing that e-book. I eventually unsubscribed from his list and haven’t bought anything from him since.

If you want to avoid turning off your list members, you need to start using at least basic market segmentation like list separation. If you really want to be successful with your e-mail marketing, you need to learn more advanced market segmentation methods.

Do You Know How To Use Market Segmentation To Improve Your E-Mail Marketing?

To get information on a quick and easy market segmentation process that you can use, see my Market Segmentation E-book.

Or you can get a free report on my market segmentation process by completing the form below:

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Posted 7-23-08: Market Segmentation And E-Mail Marketing

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Category: Market Segmentation

Blogs Get a Boost With Entrecard and Sezwho Partnership

Posted by User ImageLinda (Who am I?) - on July 22, 2008

Too often good blogs go unnoticed. But last Tuesday the partnership between Entrecard.com and Sezwho.com promise to bring attention, traffic, and comments to bloggers who write good posts and leave good relevant comments on other people’s blogs.



Why Is This Entrecard and Sezwho Partnership Important?

At one time just blogging brought you traffic. Today more than one million blogs make it hard for even the best blogs to get noticed. I’ve been blogging for about 3.5 months. I’ve posted more than 100 posts. Yet few people visit my blog and even fewer people comment on my blog or go to my Web site from my blog.

I post five days a week, do keyword research, and write posts relevant to marketing, market segmentation and target markets. These are topics that should interest all small business owners. Yet, I’ve had trouble getting people to visit my blog.

How Can Entrecard Help?

An Internet marketing friend recently recommended Entrecard, and I’ve been pleased with it. The traffic hasn’t been great, but two of my Entrecard new acquaintances have joined my affiliate program, and several have visited my site multiple times.

When I visit Entrecard blogs, I always read enough of the post to determine if I can contribute to the information. When I believe I can, I leave a comment. Otherwise, I just drop and go to another site.

What Does Sezwho Add To The Entrecard Experience?

With the partnership between Entrecard and Sezwho, I will now get credit for leaving relevant comments that contribute to a post. I’m excited about that and about the potential of more people actually reading my posts and commenting on them.

If you’re a blogger who came here from Entrecard, I hope you share this excitement and will also join Sezwho. If you just somehow found my blog without coming through Entrecard, welcome. If you’re also a blogger, I recommend that you check out Entrecard and Sezwho for yourself.

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Posted: 7-22-08: Blogs Get a Boost With Entrecard and Sezwho Partnership

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Category: Internet Marketing

Employee & Service Marketing & HRM Need Market Segmentation

Posted by User ImageLinda (Who am I?) - on July 21, 2008

Employee & service marketing & hrm (human resource management) needs market segmentation. Why? Because people differ as employees and as clients just as they do as consumers.

How Does HRM Influence Employee & Service Marketing?

Human resource managers (hrm) recognize differences in people through all management phases. Some people will fit in a particular organization better than other people. Some people will be more motivated by a certain organizational culture, while others will find that same culture inhibiting or demotevating.

Some people love playing office politics and thrive in environments where playing office politics well earns rewards like promotions and raises. Other people hate office politics, refuse to more than passively participate, keep their noises to the grindstone, and never get rewards for their productivity in highly political environments. Thus, they aren’t happy and usually take their productivity and accomplishments to a different organization.

How Does Market Segmentation Improve HRM Employee & Service Marketing?

Market segmentation can help human resource managers assure that only people who will thrive within an organizations are hired. Market segmentation can also help to assure that employee’s and clients’ personal goals mesh well with the organization’s.

Thus, employee & service marketing & hrm requires doing the same type of target marketing that business marketers do for consumers.

Employee & Service Marketing & HRM Step 1: Recruiting

So the first step in blending employee & service marketing & hrm is to determine the type of person:

  • who will thrive in the organizational culture,
  • whose personal goals align with the organization’s goals, and
  • whose work habits will make a contribution without attracting negative attention from colleagues.

    • Market segmentation aids human resource managers to select demographic and psychographic characteristics that will most likely include best employee and client prospects, who will be successful and satisfied within and with the organization.

    Employee & Service Marketing & HRM Step 2: Retention

    The second step in blending employee & service marketing & hrm is to increase retention. Market segmentation can also help identify those in danger of leaving the organization and determine how to bring them back into the fold, if that is in the organization’s best interest.

    Employee & Service Marketing & HRM Step 3: Marketing

    The third step in blending employee & service marketing & hrm is to determine how to get happy employees and clients to spread word-of-mouth marketing about the organization. Market segmentation helps by determining what people most value, and assuring that they get their needs met in a way that makes them feel positive about the organization.

    There is no better marketing than positive statements made to friends and acquaintances by happy employees and clients. Similarly, there is nothing more damaging to an organization than having unhappy employees and clients making detrimental statements about the organization to others.

    Employee & Service Marketing & HRM: Conclusion

    Market segmentation aids employee & service marketing & hrm through all three major steps: recruiting employees and clients, keeping them happy, and turning them into marketing agents.

    But to do all these successfully requires understanding the relationship of demographic characteristics to personality and behavior characteristics. You can do just that with Know ‘em Sell ‘em: How To Discover The Best Appeals For Your Target Market. To learn more click on the book title above.

    Or you can get a free report to see how easy my matrix market segmentation process is to use by completing the form below:

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    Posted 7-21-08: Employee & Service Marketing & HRM Need Market Segmentation

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    Category: Market Segmentation

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