These are the first three questions you need to answer before you spend any marketing money. I ask these three questions whenever I start a new project. In fact, I find it impossible to build a solid plan without these answers.

1. What is your key consumer insight? I had a recent consultation with a relationship therapist looking to establish a client base. She asked me, “How can I attract new clients in a cost effective way?”

I asked her a series of questions about her prospects. Her answers forced her to identify her strengths as a therapist and what type of client she wants.

You can see where this is going. There are lots of perceptions about therapy, ranging from “I’m not crazy, I’m not going to a therapist,” to “I’ve been in therapy all my life.” Understanding your target’s need state is the first question to answer.

Before we continue… As a businessperson, it’s tempting to say, “I would take any of those clients.” It’s important to make the distinction between customers you’d accept versus customers you target. If someone walks through your door that you weren’t targeting but that you can (and want to) help, great! You just got a new customer.

For your marketing strategy, however, I recommend you focus your acquisition efforts around a few market segments. The logic is obvious. If the therapist in our example is looking to counsel recent divorcees, she’d spend her time and money differently than if she were targeting teenagers with low self esteem.

2. What is your source of volume? There are two basic choices here. Increasing the category and stealing share. (There are others: increasing pack rate and accelerating the replacement cycle, for example. Email me if you’d like me to write about them.)

Increasing the category. At Cardiac Science, we sell AEDs (automated external defibrillators), potentially life-saving devices for the approximately 365,000 sudden cardiac deaths in America each year. According to OSHA, the Occupational Safety + Health Administration, 13 percent of all workplace fatalities are sudden cardiac arrests. Yet, the penetration of AEDs is frightfully low.

When we advertise AEDs, we are looking to “increase the category.” We are looking to put AEDs where there were none before. We are building the overall size of the AED market.

Stealing share. My former employer, Safeco Insurance, provides a classic example for stealing share. Car insurance is mandatory in America. If you drive a car, you have car insurance (or you could be in really big trouble!).

So when Safeco solicits you for business, they ask you to switch from your present insurer to them. They are looking to steal market share. This is usually a zero-sum game.

3. What is your positioning statement? The first two questions help prepare you for this third one. I suggest that this is the most important of the three.

Fill in these five blanks.
To (whom),
(who/what) is the (what is your frame of reference?)
that (what is the benefit that the “whom” will realize?)
because (what are your supporting claims?)

This is an exciting (if not scary) formula because it forces you to squarely identify what you’re about. See the differences among three of my positioning statements.

To Zachary and Lucas, Joe Hage is the loving parent that gives you all the love and support you can handle because everything he does, he does for the two of you.

To a Biznik indie professional, Joe Hage is the marketing strategy expert that can help you focus on the right strategies to build your business because Joe helped other Biznik professionals successfully.

To Cardiac Science Corporation, Joe Hage is the marketing strategy expert that can raise the overall brand awareness of the company among our prospects because Joe has a 16-year history of marketing accomplishments, including those we accomplished in our six months together.

Each of these descriptions is so different, but it’s the same Joe Hage each time. For each, I’m positioning myself as the right person for the job.

What job do you want? And for whom?
Let me know if you need help.

P.S. Special thanks to Marc Gibeley. He taught me this — and more — back at Kraft Foods.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 at 11:00 am and is filed under Marketing strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.