Robert Kiyosaki has a statement that has stayed with me, “If you are running a business, you are in sales. Period…”
The basics of business development are still the same –
- Create value for customers.
- Expand your reach to the target audience.
- Get in front of right people and companies.
- Cultivate relationships.
- Provide quality service.
The internet and social media channels provide new ways to do all of this. In this post and whitepaper, we will bring up one of the ways to grow business. That is, by identifying, capturing and sustaining market niches.
How do you do that?
We have been able to do this for a number of our partners using a five-step process.
One: Discover your Opportunities
The online research and feedback from sales activities give you insights as to where you could focus and grow. You don’t know what you don’t know.
Conduct a thorough competitive analysis to base your strategy on real data.
The key is to zoom into specific market niches. Be targeted. Segment your market. Be specific in your positioning. See how to get in front of right people.
Two: Nurture your Nature
Maximize your relationships and network that you already have.
Have the right positioning and marketing content. And then use that to strengthen your relationships. Email marketing, networking using social media channels, your 24/7 online presence can make it easier for you. Save your time, cut down your cost and maximize your resources.
Three: Have a Go-To-Market Plan
Make an informed strategy. Understand your current constraints, see what would enable you in overcoming them, and then have a focused approach.
Four: Establish a Content Strategy
What do we do when you meet with prospects and customers? We provide information. We answer questions.
What do you do when you network with others? Engage in quality conversations.
What do you do for customer service? Provide product/service information. Answer questions. Guide them in use of the product.
What do you do when you run a Public Relations (PR) campaign? Articulate the value prop. Connect with audience.
A cohesive content strategy helps you in creating a system that helps with all of the above and some more –
- Establish content as a resource to cultivate relationships, serve customers, support sales.
- Build quality conversations that make your word-of-mouth even stronger and wider while saving you time.
- Generate leads.
- Establish/augment your brand credibility.
- Do your PR without actually spending time and money into it. Or, you if you already are doing PR, then you can leverage the same initiatives for all of the above.
Five: Implement a System to Measure
Marketing is measuring.
The web and CRM (Customer Relationships Management) systems have created priceless opportunity to measure the effectiveness of the marketing and sales. If you aren’t using it, you are missing out on a big party.
Join now.
Download our whitepaper and learn more about it.
What do you do to capture specific market segments? We would love to hear your ideas and stories.
Questions or Comments?