Target-Centered Marketing Approach
A Target-Centered Marketing Approach fulfills most of the marketing a business needs. It helps retain your current customers; it’s a method of offering additional services to an existing base; it manages your image, helps create a controlled profitable growth and it helps attract desirable new clients.
A business’s primary function is to sense, serve, and satisfy the needs of its clients. Target-Centered Marketing is essentially a relationship development process.
A few things to remember:
- “Clients don’t purchase services, but rather purchase your promise to produce a more favorable future for them on schedule, within budget, and in a manner that meets their expectations.”
- A good way to find out what your clients’ expectations are, is by asking the following questions: “How will you and I know when I’m doing the job you expect of me? “ The answer you receive to this question will surface both reasonable and unrealistic expectations that need to be negotiated.
- Services are really “bought” or rejected in the “gut” by clients, and the decision is justified to themselves and others by the use of proposals and testimonials.
- “Value is always defined by the recipient, not the provider. It is always rooted in one’s needs system. Value is a function of one’s needs being identified and satisfied in ways that meet one’s expectations. “
We identify a target market as one that consists of all actual and potential clients as well as those individuals who are influential in using, retaining and referring you. The identification of a target market enables one to find a “niche” that you enjoy serving and are confident that you can produce exceptional results. Once this is accomplished, your marketing plan can be developed, so that you can dominate this marketing segment.
Understanding the needs of your target market is the most difficult and perhaps the most time consuming part of the overall process. The most effective way to identify those needs is to ask, and that is accomplished best in a face to face meeting. For example, a focus group. One-on-one visits can be effective providing that you can get access to your target market with the sole intention of asking questions.
A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn’t feel like it. Alastair Cook
Nick J. Petra CFP
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