ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Image Source: eDynamic Learning
Entrepreneurship gives a lot to business owners:
It helps them make money,
If offers them financial freedom,
It enables you to do what you love to do,
It enables you to spend your resources wisely eg, spending time with family;
It reduces guilt,
It brings recognition and success.
POSITIONING
Entrepreneurship is built to succeed if you position yourself and your business appropriately. That involves knowing who you are, knowing the problems that you solve and who you could serve profitably.
There are two ways of positioning your business:
1. How your company is situated relative to its competitors;
2. How your products and services are situated in the minds of customers and target audiences.
Positioning is a mental space in your target audience’s mind that you can own with an idea that has compelling meaning to the recipient. Here what you serve via your product, solution, service or company’s most important benefit and the customer’s most important need meet, and hopefully form a meaningful relationship.
Positioning is like story telling. It needs to be appealing. If done poorly, you stop reading.
KNOW WHO YOU ARE
Knowing who you really are involves knowing the strengths and weaknesses of you and your business.It involves knowing all the options you have and choosing what you REALLY want to pursue.
KNOW YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILES
As a business owner you know whom you are serving by creating a list of ideal customer profiles for your business.Further, you could choose whom you want to work with too.Defining your target market enables you to interact and engage directly to your target audience through the verbiage, color and images on your website and other marketing/promotional materials.
Fairfield Inns and Suites chooses to serve Upper Midscale Hotel segments.
Marriott chooses to serve Upper Upscale Hotel segments.
Ritz Carlton chooses to serve Luxury Hotel segments.
So as you see they have a very specific target market for their products and services.
Customer profiles are groups of people who are genuinely interested in your business offering.They immediately perceive a need that your business can fulfill. You want your business to be positioned to help your ideal clients achieve their goals and overcome their problems. Clarity from knowing your target audience creates significant impact for your clients and more value.
EVERYONE CANNOT BE YOUR TARGET MARKET
To Market Successfully, Your Customer Can’t Be ‘Everyone’.
Notice the way you perceive Olay, Lancôme and Shiseido? Each of them serves a unique market with a wide array of products.
e.g. ‘All People Ages 18-55’ Is not the appropriate Target Audience for a fairness cream! Clinique serves a younger women age-group as compared to Elizabeth Arden.
Typical customer profiles try to figure out the following for your business:
Demographic: Attributes related to age, city or region of residence, gender, race and ethnicity, and composition of household.
Socioeconomic: Attributes related to household income, educational attainment, occupation, neighborhood, and association memberships.
Brand affinity / Product usage: Attributes associated with product engagement on the basis of their behavior.
Psychographics: Attributes related to lifestyles, life stage, personality, attitudes, opinion, and even voting behavior.
Generation: Attributes related to a specific identifiable generation cohort group.
Geography: Attributes related to the geographical area in which consumers reside and work.
Geo-demographics: Attributes that combine geography and demographics which may cluster into identifiable groups.
Benefits Sought: Attributes related to the benefits that consumers seek when they shop for products and services.
HELPING YOU LOCATE YOUR CUSTOMERS
Customer profiles help you locate your customers eg.
Digital places your customers are attracted to?
Where do they hang out?
What do they read? Both online and offline?
What do they search for online?
One specific message won’t resonate effectively with everyone.
One specific message won’t resonate effectively with everyone. For example: Children vs parents have a different set of buying principles.Men interpret a need for a product in a different way than women.Teenagers might decide to buy a product for different reasons than their parents.
Demographically different groups have unique preferences.They travel through the buying process at varied times and speeds.Some of your customers may be at an early stage where they are aware of your product but need more information to make a buying decision.Some of your customers may have used your product once and are coming back for more. Some of your customers may have used your product, didn’t like it and returned it as a dissatisfied customer.Some of your customers may have all the information about your product with them and are ready to make the purchase immediately.
WAY IN WHICH POSITIONING CAN HELP YOUR BUSINESS
Positioning your business on search engines helps you validate your idea.
It saves you from experiencing multitudes of failure and spending thousands of dollars.
It protects your confidence even before you begin your journey towards profitability.
It helps you to focus on your real target market and channelize your resources effectively.You spend money and resources on marketing materials that result in customer acquisition.
It helps you to market your products and services to people who are genuinely interested in your product.
It guides you to format your website & marketing materials according to buyer personas.