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
target 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 threshold
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 these prospects to buy so that they can
get onto your customer list. When that happens, you will
see why guerrilla marketers continue to be guerrillas. Your
profits will rise as your marketing investment diminishes.
Because it now
costs you six times as much to sell something to a new customer
as it does 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, what they
like, what they need, and how much they'll spend. Bu t 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.
Jay Conrad Levinson
is the author of the "Guerrilla Marketing" series of books,
the best-selling marketing series in history, now in 37
languages and required reading in many MBA programs. His
website is at
jayconradlevinson.com.
