Do you understand which prospects are likely to become good, profitable customers and which ones won’t? 

Do you know specifically why your customers choose to buy from you and know other prospects to approach who would probably buy from you for the same reasons?  (This is beyond the market requirements of quality, delivery, and price.)

Finding the answers to the important questions – like those above – is what strategic marketing is all about.

The benefits of identifying the target BEFORE pointing the gun:

• Higher profitability per customer
• Signing more customers from less sales calls / proposals
• Less time and money spent on activities that don’t work
• A greater ROI from the money you spend on your sales and marketing

(identifying the target = strategic marketing; pointing the gun = traditional sales and marketing efforts / tactical marketing)

Any type of marketing could improve your revenue – more exposure to more people gives you a better chance of reaching someone who needs your product / service (the shotgun approach) but to drive the highest profitability from your sales and marketing efforts you need to know the answers to the questions above so you know where to point your gun (e.g. your marketing & sales efforts).

Sales and marketing efforts are very important – don’t get me wrong – but if you’re going to spend thousands of dollars participating in a trade show why not do it where 50% of the attendees would have good reason to talk with you rather than 5% of the attendees?

Knowing who your target prospects are (by really understanding what you do well from your customers’ perspective) eliminates all the time and money you might have spent trying to impress those companies who are really not likely to buy from you.  Many times companies search for prospects in the same industry as current customers, and industry is one factor, but more times than not, the reasons your really good, profitable customers chose you is more subtle than that. . .

• Maybe it’s because of your expertise handling a particular material or process
• Maybe it’s because of the combination of services and/or products you offer
• Maybe it’s because you offer a supplemental service that others don’t (e.g. expertise in an area of importance to their business or inventory management or JIT delivery or special packaging or user training, etc.)
• Maybe it’s something that you’ve totally taken for granted but that your customers see value in

Taking the time and energy to understand and then use this information will increase your marketing (& sales) ROI, increase your profitability per customer, and you will have more customers who you really enjoy working with.

Contact Me if you’d like to have a free, no obligation conversation about your particular challenges and goals.