The value of a niche marketing plan

BY JONATHAN L.EBENSTEIN

When it comes to marketing, many real estate and construction companies use a shotgun approach when a rifle-based solution would be more appropriate. If you want to be successful with your marketing efforts, you can’t use the same broad-based, one-size-fits-all marketing approach to go after every potential client. Niche marketing is a vital concept to consider when developing a marketing plan. By identifying and analyzing how to effectively reach the different niche markets that you serve, your marketing plans for them will become more effective.
Key elements to a marketing plan. Before tackling a niche plan, you’ll need to make sure that you have covered the basics. Any marketing plan should start with a description of your target market, competitors, and products or services. Additionally, you’ll need to put together a budget which will contain your advertising and promotional plan along with a detailed account of costs allocated for the development, creation and execution of the marketing initiatives/tactics detailed in your plan (i.e., website, ad creation, public relations, sales collateral, search engine optimization, social media, etc.) You’ll also want to make sure you’ve thought through such things as geographical boundaries (i.e., do you want to be local, regional or national?) and industry trends. Completing a SWOT analysis of your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats is often very helpful in forcing yourself to better understand the nature of the market space you are playing in. Lastly, you’ll also need to determine your pricing strategy and revenue goals.
Focusing your marketing plan on a niche. After you have put together the basics of your marketing plan, it’s time to concentrate on a specific niche. Many companies in this industry tend to chase, without rhyme or reason, any business opportunity that crosses their path. While you can net business this way, this model lacks focus. The secret to being successful in driving new business opportunities is focusing on your niche specialty and then putting together a strategic marketing plan with focused goals and objectives that are specifically tailored to target and attract the target audience that inhabits that niche space.
Defining your team and your mission. Once you’ve determined what your niche specialty is, the first step is putting together your team that is going to focus on executing your niche marketing strategy. This needs to be a dedicated group of people who are committed to growing the business. Once your team is intact, the next step is to create your mission/vision statement. This will serve to guide the actions of your group, spell out its overall goals, provide a sense of direction and direct decision-making. It will help keep you on track when the desire to go back to the shotgun marketing approach comes calling.
Choosing a target audience. Your target audience is the primary group of people you want as customers. But, when developing this group, you need to think beyond just decision makers such as business owners. That’s too broad. Some questions to think about: What are your target audiences hot buttons? What size does the client need to be to be considered ideal? What is the best way to communicate with them? Who needs to hear the message? Who has influence over your target market? Who must be moved to action in order to get a meeting or a request for quote? What events do they typically attend? Who else is competing with you for your target audience and what are they
doing to target, attract and
communicate with them?
Monitoring and evaluation. Clearly it is imperative that you put some kind of system in place to monitor and evaluate your marketing efforts. Without a tracking mechanism it is difficult to know what strategies work best and those that should be either revised or not carried forward in the future. A customer relationship management system will track new customers and allow you to determine how they learned about your business. You can also track repeat customers and referrals to help determine which customers are truly helping you generate the most business. Another way to track your efforts is, as you get to know your repeat customers/referral sources better, meet with them for detailed feedback and ask them for ideas and suggestions about how you can introduce your business to more prospects whoare just like them. BXM

Jonathan L. Ebenstein is the managing director of Skoda Minotti Marketing Services. Reach him at (440) 449-6800 or jebenstein@skodaminotti.com