Understanding Market Segmentation - The Danger of Wrong Assumptions
When considering the demographic you serve, the emotional makeup of your core customer, lifestyles they live and even their relgious or cultural beliefs, you've got to be careful not to make generalized assumptions that can backfire against you.
That's why it's important to understand the overall customer you serve so that your marketing to them will be effective - and not offensive. People will forgive you for a little while, but make a mistake of assumption too much and they'll eventually permanently drop you as someone that can serve their needs.
The major thing to remember is that while there are certain traits that are part of general demographic segments, there are still many people within that segment 
that won't respond to your marketing message if it's done in the wrong way.
This is why we must endlessly understand who are customer is and what their values are. One example that we all hear about, is for instance, age groups that watch television. The key group everybody is marketing and reaching out to is between the ages of 18-49 years old.
The things about that is that it means in America alone there are millions upon millions of people in that age group that don't watch tv. What should our assumptions be about them if we were in the business?
The point is that every niche will have sub-niches that could be a potential business that could even outperform the original business you started. Don't assume because certain people within a niche like what you're centered around, that there isn't a lot more ways you can mine them and serve their wants and needs.
Just make sure that when you breakdown your niche even further that there's enough people and interest to justify creating new products and spending extra time marketing to.
Never stop finding out who your customers are. Nothing can replace that kind of valuable information for business purposes.
Other Niche Marketing Resources:
Niche Marketing: Searching for a Profitable Niche
Niche Marketing: How to Define a Unique E-Business Niche
Niche Marketing vs Mass Marketing
Niche Marketing - How to Find Your Perfect Niche Market
» Lessons Learned from the Slowing Growth of Social Networking Web Sites from TheAlphaMarketer
What's happening with the social networking space, as advertising numbers are projected to fall short of expectations for 2008, and overall growth starting to plateau; especially with market leaders MySpace (NYSE:NWS-A) and Facebook?The answer is t... [Read More]
Tracked on: June 14, 2008 10:26 PM | Permalink to Trackback