This is the third article in the First Principles of Marketing series where I approach marketing from a fundamental level. Also check out the previous parts: First I explore what marketing is and why marketplaces exist and then how to approach groups and their gatekeepers.
In the last post we’ve discovered that the easiest way to find people is through groups. You can connect to those groups through gatekeepers who guard “their” crowd from everybody who isn’t a part of it.
But what makes a good group to target? How big should it be? Can’t you just address everybody on the planet?
Let’s start from zero.
You need to make a sale to stay in business. But a sale doesn’t happen at the first contact between you and your potential customer. It takes between five and ten interactions—marketing lingo calls these “touches”—to close a deal. For some businesses this number may be even higher. But without a doubt it’s more than five.
People don’t buy at the first contact for a number of reasons: Some want to look around first, some haven’t decided that they need the product at all, some don’t trust you yet because they don’t know you, some would have bought but then got distracted and some are just learning about the problem for the first time.
Whatever the reason, it takes more than one touch to make someone your customer and you have to find ways to get more interactions with them.
If you target a huge group of people it’s hard to be exposed to the same people multiple times. Every time you manage to get a contact, it will be with a new person.
But if the group you target is so well defined that, for example, they meet at the same place every week, then you can be seen by the same people just by being at that location every week. But that’s not enough. You need to approach the same people via multiple paths.
Imagine you build a product that helps surfers who live inland to improve their balance—a skill needed for surfing. That group is well defined and the only bad aspect is that they live all over the continent. But all other specs are great: They have online communities. The ones who train far away from the ocean come together at standing waves on their nearest river or go wakeboarding behind boats. They even seem to have their own name: Inland Surfers. A wakeboard producer has chosen that exact name for their company. You could narrow down the group even further by only focusing on river wave surfers. This narrow group gives you lots of paths to interact with its members.
If you build such a specialized product, you are probably an inland surfer yourself and are already part of the community. This is your first touchpoint: Talking to your friends while surfing or when you meet for drinks in winter.
The same goes for online forums. Ask them what they think about your invention. Maybe make a short video showing how to use your product. Do the same thing in real life. Hang around your favorite river surfing spot even more and talk to people about your creation.
There is at least one specialized magazine for inland surfers. If how you’ve invented your product is an interesting story, they might write about you. Later you can take out an ad on their website or buy an ad in surfing forums.
All of this is easy if you are solving a real problem for your peers and you are sincerely helpful—but hard if all you want to do is to sell a halfhearted product.
A niche doesn’t have to be small. But people in the niche should all answer your questions the same way. Where do you read about surfing equipment? Which online forum do you use? How often do you go to river wave X? Which magazine do you read? How do you learn new skills? How many other inland surfers do you know? Which pro athletes do you like?
If they all give the same answers, that’s a great niche to target. It means everyone in that niche hears about your product from multiple sides when you target all those channels.
But if everyone answers these questions differently, the niche is too broad. Despite you targeting all the channels, the people in the group will only occasionally hear about you from one source. They should hear about you every time they do anything remotely related to surfing.
In the next article I’ll look at this from the other side: How does Sue, a beginner inland surfer, first learn about the product and which steps does it take to make her a customer? Read the article when it comes out next week. Subscribe to the Blog Newsletter below to get an email once it’s online.
