2021 is weeks old and it’s time to say it like it is. If your marketing is focussed on one niche and one way of operating you have a misunderstanding of how marketing should work, or indeed you’ve been mis-sold by a slick marketing sales person stuck in the 90’s.
‘Pick a sector and stick to it. Concentrate on what you’re good at.’ Seemed like good advice. Or was it? What about when you’ve grown your business to be laser focussed on one sector and when that industry fails through circumstances… like now… how do you stop your own business from doing the same? For example, if you built a serviced business on targeting the events and hospitality industry… now what?
There’s another saying, maybe you heard it from your Granny,
‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket!’ They were right!
Let me explain…and hopefully you’ll catch the picture. Take a videographer solely focussed on weddings. Everything shifted. Lockdown cut their legs away. What should they do? Well, in short, they need to think about being more diverse to ensure they never find themselves in that place again.
Weddings would be one of the service offerings for a company serious about being unaffected in the future, 2021. Transform the business in to People, Products and Presentations.
People: (Outside) All people, different moments
Products: (Studio) Think what these people might buy
Presentations: (Editing with Stock Video) Short videos that act as scene-setting.
Shift the focus from niche product to the audience you serve. People wanting to get married are of a certain age, working at a high level, needing presentations, and they might even run a business that sells online. With this approach you’ve mitigated risk and now have a business that serves a demographic (successful, professional millennials). You can build a crowd of people just like that. The niche isn’t the activity, it should be a range of products designed for your audience. The videographer should invest time and thought on how people, products and presentations might work together.
That videographer could just say, well, I like weddings and I’m best at that, but if they thought a little harder they could build a stronger business that could scale. Too many businesses become blinkered.
What are you doing that could serve a different sector?
You might manufacture flight cases, but with no planes, what are you going to do? How about producing smaller cases for example to pack away a home studio…
In the midst of a pandemic, I have been amazed at the companies we work with who have pivoted their businesses. One such team are Queen and Whippet who are high end caterers for Weddings and Corporate events. They launched Home Feasting, and basically allowed people to enjoy high end restaurant quality food in their homes, prepared and delivered! www.queenandwhippet.com
Even though weddings are not happening, the type of people Queen and Whippet serve still love eating out, and now they can have a high end experience from home. Furthermore, with this service linked to their weddings site they have also provided another opportunity to sell to those ‘dine in’ lovers, wanting to tie the knot. The message remains the same, high end food, and although the service has adapted they are catering for a similar audience. They doubled down on who they already know really well, their type of people, before and after marriage!
The biggest misconception in marketing is not understanding the law of niche and not being open to explore differing ways to serve the same people. Serve your niche, but widen the services that can help your niche. Diversification by offering more than one product protects your business and your legacy. In simple terms, when beards are trendy, razor sales go down. So, what does the razor company do? Ship beard related products to the same audience. Or, address the women (most I know don’t have beards), but shipping beauty kits to the other half would work. So in that subscription box, offer some discount for the other half to become a customer. This is intelligent marketing.
For Cre8ion, we know we love working with organisations that serve entrepreneurs. That’s our niche. Our focus is on the business owner that serves them. We understand the type of businesses that serve that demographic and with our insights, we help them connect.
We understand that those people also have a lot of synergies with us, because we love entrepreneurship. Whether it’s schools (future entrepreneurs), or accountants (who love growing businesses), or restaurants (independents where entrepreneurs would choose to enjoy their success), we are diverse enough to handle huge shifts in the market and give people space.
When focussing on a niche, make it wider and more focussed on the decision makers. Yes, be clear on the persona you want to reach but make sure that you have more than one product. Any serious restaurant now will always have a delivery service, even if that delivery service involves a third party.
Cre8ion work with schools, (tomorrow’s entrepreneurs) and many other companies that serve entrepreneurs. Our audience may appear broad but we can be niche on the decision makers, ie. the age and habits of business owners who serve entrepreneurs. This approach allows us to work across diverse fields as entrepreneurs all invest, network, learn, and even escape the grind (at restaurants not on jet planes).
If you are laser focussed on the people you want to work with and offer more than one service your skills are working across multiple sectors.
Being diverse helps build stronger businesses and creates more opportunities. If I said we only work with schools, firstly my creative would dry up and secondly our team would get bored. It’s the power of working across multiple sectors that makes the work we do with schools more creative, rather than selling the same template with a logo change and wow, there are hundreds of those! Schools can do better and should do better, and we have proved getting it right can really transform a community. A brand is so much deeper than a website!!!
The secret is out, that successful businesses don’t need a niche service, they need diverse services that the same audience would buy from. If you market this way, even in a pandemic, you’ll be confident in where your focus should be and significantly improve your odds for success.
When you really understand who your ‘who’ is and the opportunities you can offer them, you can be the very best by offering your audience more value.
So, if you remember one thing today at Cre8ion University – think diversity!