The Guerrilla's Three
Targets
By
Jay
Conrad Levinson © 2004
You're a guerrilla. So your marketing plan probably identifies your target
audience. As a business owner or marketing honcho, you probably have done
your homework to learn at whom your marketing should be directed. You have
probably put into writing your exact target prospects. Now, I invite you
to aim at larger targets as well as to more targets.
Realize as all guerrillas do, that you don't have merely one, but three target
markets at all times. Your first target market, and this is the largest of
all three markets, but will generate the least profits for your company,
is absolutely everybody in your geographic area, giving no thought to how
well they fit your customer profile. The name of this target market is the
universe, and if you are thinking sanely, you are investing 10% of your marketing
budget talking to these people.
They are too important to overlook, regardless of what's happening right
now. Things and people change. Marketing messages grow stronger when nourished
by time.
Your second target market, and it will generate substantial, but not gold-medal
profits, is your prospects, those members of the universe who do fit your
customer profile. They have the right demographics, psychographics, income,
proclivity to buy, and they have the kind of problems you can solve -- or
the kind of goals you can help them achieve. Thinking clearly, you should
be investing, 30% of your marketing budget talking to these people -- these
potential customers, poised on the threshhold of purchasing, needing you
to nudge them a little -- maybe even a lot.
Your third target market, and this is the teeny-tiniest of your markets,
but can and should generate, by far, the highest profits for your company,
is your customers, Guerrillas happily invest 60% of their marketing budget
talking to these wonderful, special, tasteful, discriminating people.
When you are in the guerrilla mode of investing marketing funds directed
to all three target markets -- and use the percentages only as a rule of
thumb -- you will realize that marketing isn't an event as much as it is
a process. It's the process of moving members of the universe onto your prospect
list, then motivating prospects to buy so that they can get onto your customer
list. When that happens, youll see why guerrilla marketers continue
to be guerrillas. Your profits will rise as your marketing investment
diminishes.
Because it now costs you six times more to sell something to a new customer
than to an existing customer, your marketing costs will go down because it
costs you relatively so little to market to current customers. After all,
60% of your budget goes to them and you already know who they are. But customers
move, they die, and they get wooed away by competitors, so you must always
add new people to your customer list, and they will come in a steady flow
if you consistently market to prospects. Think in terms of them being a solid
long-term investment for you. Realize that members of the universe have ways
of becoming prospects, and it's a lot easier to sell to a prospect who has
heard of you than one who hasn't.
Most likely, you are aiming almost 100% of your marketing budget at prospects.
Does that mean you are wasting 70% of it? I hate to tell you this in public,
but it does. The rule of thumb says 30% goes to prospects, 10% goes to the
universe, and 60% goes to customers. Marketing works well that way. Ask any
guerrilla.
About the Author:
Jay Conrad
Levinson is the author of the Guerrilla Marketing series of books,
the most popular marketing series in history with 14 million sold, now in
39 languages. At his new
GuerrillaMarketingAssociation.com,
youll find a new source of profit-producing ideas plus a list of 100
marketing weapons. Join up for telephone and online access to The Father
of Guerrilla Marketing. |
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