Mindshare Marketing

We have discussed story tellers at length, but most of that discussion applies to established business and not to entering a new market.  The concept, however, applies to both.  To understand this, it is easiest to refer back to our tackle shop example from before.

Rather than already owning the tackle shop, assume we want to open one this spring.  We have found a location in a somewhat remote but popular fishing location just outside of town.  In any given day, 100 people pass through the area.  Of those one hundred, 15 are “Dock Dwellers,” 35 are “City Slickers,” and the remaining 50 are “Locals.”  We know nothing of their buying habits yet, but we can easily determine the kind of brand image each segment would favor.

The Dock Dwellers and Locals are very much the same, but the first group spends their days fishing and chatting with tourists while the Locals just live here and work nearby to run the local infrastructure (farmers, school teachers, boat shop mechanics, etc.).  The City Slickers show up wearing expensive clothing, driving large cars, and usually seek out the Dock Dwellers after they get lost.

A Dock Dwellers store would highlight fishing equipment, a Local store basic home goods, and a City Slicker store would be clean and have EVERYTHING they might have possibly left at home.  Without referring back to the outcome of our last scenario, who might we select to tell our story?  We have to design our store layout, product offering, and brand image to target this group.

Do we have enough information yet?  What else might we need to know or understand before moving forward?  If you have enough information to make a decision, which segment would you target and why?

Please leave your comments and we will discuss the outcome tomorrow.

If your market is saturated, it might be difficult to find a competitive advantage over others.  Your products are likely identical, and your prices very much the same.  Production is as optimized as it can be, and there are few to no differences between your and your competitions’ company structure.

What you need is a comparative advantage - something your customers will see not when they look at your offering in isolation, but something recognized when they compare you to others in the market.

The easiest route to take is insurance.  The extended service plans on cars or computers typically set one Chevy dealership apart from another or differentiate the offerings of Best Buy and Office Depot.  Unfortunately, many people forgo the added expense of the service plan because they find it unnecessary or because they don’t trust “lifetime” really means for life.

Instead, focus on service.  Larger companies tend to take on the image of franchises - different managers run their stores differently and one employee might provide a higher level of customer service than another.  Focus on standardizing the experience your customers receive and ensure your employees are living the brand image.  Walmart, for example, does this fairly well.  While not the ideal example of a well-manicured brand, their service and overall experience is the same whether I visit a store in Oregon or on the East Coast.

What stores/restaurants/dealerships have you visited that have had inconsistent levels of service and differing customer experience qualities?

I have been very lax in my posting over the past week and for that I apologize.  I wanted to take a moment to explain myself before beginning my regular updates.

I recently started a retail sales position at a local mall.  The “part-time” position evoloved into a “full-time plus” position after the first hour and has monopolized all of my free time over the past week.  The positives of this situation are that I am earning additional income with which I can support this site and gaining deeper insight into consumers and shopping habits.  I have a few new theories under development about product categorization and marketing which will be posted here either in whole or in part sometime soon. 

From the looks of things, I still owe you 8 entries from the 31 days of blogging.  Expect the next post on “Going to Market” by noon tomorrow.

Thank you for your patience; I apologize that it was asked for.