What Are You The Best At?

There's a big push towards niche marketing. Asadvice is to not compete at all. You can make a
more and more markets commoditize, brandlot of money offering the high-end products that
becomes a critical factor. And in most large cashthey cannot. You can make a lot of money
cow commodity markets, there are only two orproviding products that are above Target. So
three major players. Everybody else is left pickingwhy should it surprise or anger people when
at single digit marketshare with little to no growthWal*Mart puts small Mom & Pop's out of business.
opportunities.So you have basically two optionsThey simply need to adapt with unique offerings.
for growth. One, you can launch a break-throughThey'll be more profitable and sustain future
product or service in your category. Think baglessgrowth. In theory, Mom & Pop shops have the
vacuum cleaners. When there were only baggedadvantage of convenience. They should be closer
vacuums, everybody was pretty much equal.to their customers and they definitely have
Then the bagless came out in Japan andpotential for much better customer service.So,
revolutionized the market - and put most of theyou will be relegated to commodity status if you
aftermarket bag suppliers out of business. It wascannot easily answer and defend what you are
a game changer. Before that product came outthe best at. Start planning now how your
people just assumed you needed a bag to catchproducts and services can change the game or
the dust.The second method is to be seen asstand out from the competition. Once you can
"head and shoulders" better than anything else ineasily answer the question, your audience will
the market. Think Dyson. Until that brand wasbegin to find you. People are always looking for
launched there was little growth or movement inspecialists to solve their problems. Being
vacuum cleaners. Now Dyson is stealing sharerecognized as an expert makes your marketing
from everyone. They really didn't invent anythingefforts a lot easier. Jeffrey Gitomer said it best,
new or revolutionary. They've done a great job"No one wants to be sold, but everyone likes to
of promoting the things people really care about -buy." Being seen as a specialist creates a buying
weak vacuums that lose suction and pass a lot ofenvironment, not a sales situation. Even after you
dust through back to the carpet. And they'veare seen as a specialist, you still need to market.
done it with stylish advertising and marketing.Marketing gives you the ability to even further
They look high tech, expensive, and worth it. Therefine your customer set and profitability criteria.
funny thing with Dyson is that he was not trainedIt's about creating more demand than capacity.
as an engineer, but as an industrial designer. He'sIt's about creating choices.What do you do better
turned a stale market on its end and is raking inthan anyone?Nick Rice is responsible for Business
the profits.More and more firms are moving to aDevelopment and Design Management at Cre8tive
niche marketing strategy. They want to be seenGroup, an interactive firm focused on developing
as the best provider of a very specific offering.visualization and user engagement solutions for
The Long Tail theory tells us that a lot of smallcorporations and organizations with complex
providers with very passionate customers can bestories. For over 12 years, he has given sound
as powerful as one or two large providers - thatmarketing and advertising advice to companies
they control more of the marketplace thanlike IBM, Lexmark International, Adobe, Farmers
previously realized. The hard part is getting themInsurance, Reynolds & Reynolds and Dell.
organized and focused towards a commonAdditionally, Nick is also an author for and
goal.Very few firms in the world can be aStrategic Design (nickrice.blogspot.com), his
Wal*Mart (in fact no one can). The averagepersonal blog devoted to bridging the gap
retailer cannot compete with Wal*Mart. So mybetween business and creative.