“Nothing happens until somebody sells
something.” –Arthur “Red” Motley
Once you’ve found your good idea,* one essential business
ingredient at any level is finding the customers with money to spend. But you
need to know where to look and have a clear definition of your goals. And if
you’re buying lists of prospects for direct sales, direct mail or online marketing,
the following geographic locations, segmented by states, metro areas, counties,
neighborhoods and individuals, are the most productive places to look.
*“The
best way to come up with a good idea is to have lots of ideas.” –Linus Pauling
STATES to
focus on, in order: California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, Florida,
Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas, Minnesota, Washington, North Carolina, Oregon,
Louisiana, Iowa, Missouri, Georgia.
METRO area focal
points: NYC; Los Angeles; Chicago; Washington-Baltimore; Boston; San Francisco;
Philadelphia; Dallas-Ft. Worth; Houston; Atlanta; Miami; Detroit; Phoenix;
Seattle; Minneapolis-St. Paul; San Diego; Cleveland; St. Louis; Tampa;
Pittsburgh; Sacramento; Charlotte.
GO METRO Because that’s where the money is, make metro
areas your prime marketing linchpins. Metro areas account for more than 70% of
most kinds of sales. In broader terms, concentrate sales efforts in metro
corridors like Bos-Wash and San-San.
ZERO IN ON THE WEALTHY COUNTIES within those
corridors. Note the following sample of East and West Coast, Rocky Mountain and
Southern examples: Middlesex, Norfolk and Essex counties near Boston; Nassau,
Westchester, Fairfield (CT), Hunterdon and Morris (NJ) near NYC; Montgomery,
Delaware, Bucks near Philadelphia; Montgomery, Prince George’s and Howard (MD);
Fairfax and Loudon (VA) near Washington; Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and Santa
Clara near San Francisco; Douglas (CO); Forsyth (GA).
The U.S. has
around 3,000 counties, and 60% of the national population resides in about 200.
These prime potential customers are most often found within 25 miles of major
cities. They tend to be concentrated in affluent suburban neighborhoods within
select counties in metro areas of the wealthiest states. Whether you’re selling
to businesses, or individuals through direct sales, direct mail, or the Internet
go first to where the dispensable income is and save on cost of sales while
generating greater profits.
GET GRANULAR Next locate the nation’s most affluent
neighborhoods, and there are many. Most are within the richest counties. Now
we’re getting ever closer to where the money you can tap into resides. You can deliver
right in the hood, drop brochures or catalogs door-to-door and use inserts in
newspapers. These distribution options may generate more business than any
other marketing exercise. The downside is gated homes and communities and
high-rise, high-priced condos where you can’t get to the door, but the mailman,
concierge, paperboy or Internet can. Now let’s get very micro and go to . . .
CONNECT TO MONEYED INDIVIDUALS This is the future and the critical marketing thrust
going forward. The most accurate segmentation tools not only provide access to
wealth through traditional and online means, including social media and mobile
devices, they can also slice and dice data according to individuals’ preferred brands,
income, ethnicity, political leanings, reading preferences, spare-time
activities, gender, marital and health status—I could go on. Equally useful B2B
data is also available.
Data companies
like Experian can help your organization better understand and segment existing
customers, boost the identification and capture of new customers and connect to
individuals with money to spend.
“Only connect.”
–E.M. Forster
Business
Insights, Future Quality Intent, Discussion Topics: 70% of new
business ventures fail within two years, often for the same reasons: (1) A
great product or service is developed, but potential customers who need it are
in short supply. (2) The potential market is too small to achieve profitability.
(3) The product is saleable, but the market is wrong, e.g., sunglasses and
sunscreen in chronically cloudy locales. (4) Profitability is sought at the
expense of quality. (5) The market is saturated with less-expensive matching
products.* (6) Customer service is low-quality. I could go on, but will leave
this topic with a final reminder: Whatever you’re selling and despite the
product—be it food, entertainment, technology, whatever—follow the money and
market using proven data.
*Also known as
Commodity Hell where too many businesses in a tight geographic area offer
similar products and services, like one more pizza joint, or another Bridget
O’Flynn’s pub on the block. Banks, for example, spread like Kudzu. And how do
drugstores make a decent buck when there are two on the same block? If a new
Walgreens opens in the Midwest, a CVS will soon open across the street and vice
versa. And they’re now equipped like supermarkets setting up even more
competition for low-margin products.
Whatever your
business, be wary of a store appearing next door, especially one with lower
prices. Similarly, shun locations where established competitors are located.
How, you may ask, do all those men’s and women’s departments co-exist
contiguously in big stores like Macy’s? I don’t have the answer, but I caution
you to be careful with your geographic positioning.
THE BEST VALUE PROPOSITIONS
INCLUDE UNIQUENESS The winning
business bets in the new economy will focus on quality, price and uniqueness.
Singular products and services are increasingly critical. Apps for mobile
devices are a good example of a limitless growth market. But before developing new
apps, be very sure there are enough potential buyers. One online game cost $200
million to build. Now there’s a big bet that could have gone very wrong. Sort
of like a Hollywood blockbuster that turned into a box-office bust.
Restaurant
business and food sales in general are now and will continue to be a huge
growth area. Given the fast-growing attention to individual marketing,
satisfying personal culinary tastes when and where they want it is loaded with
profit potential.
WINNING THE RACE FOR THE LAST
MILE Note the Amazon Fresh Food trucks
out in some metropolitan areas. And many small companies are competing in the
last mile to deliver organic food within 30 minutes. The value proposition here
is a combination of speed, quality, diversity and price. The winners will deliver
all four. Few people patiently wait for purchases. They want fresh food, a new
piece of clothing, or a physical book on their doorstep now.
STOMACHS ARE LIKE HEARTS, THEY
GO WHERE THEY ARE LOVED Unique restaurants
and other food establishments offering value will continue to proliferate. Found,
a new restaurant in Northwestern University-based Evanston, IL, meets all the
attractive criteria and more. It has achieved the ultimate home-away-from-home
ambience, plus the food and service is consistently first-rate. Reminder:
service is a product, and to insure top quality it must be managed with
statistical care.
Students love
bagels. A store selling high-quality bagels is located on a Manhattan upper
west-side block near the Columbia University campus. A variety of bagels is
about the only thing they sell, or need to sell, and my are they good and
fresh. Like most successful spots the lines are long; but in this venue, thanks
to prompt service, the wait is short and the made-to-order rewards are
scrumptious. As you go through life/Whatever be your goal/Keep your eye upon
the bagel/And not upon the hole
FIRST PRIORITY Fresh, fast, unique, plus fair prices are indispensable
attributes in the new economy, but none of these are viable business assets if
your product or service is not of high and stable quality. It’s rare to read a
business book, article or listen to a talk and hear the word quality. But it is
the number one priority across all product and service organizations. Unfortunately,
too few businesspeople know what quality is or how to achieve it. As often
said, quality can’t be installed like a new air conditioner or refrigerator. It
must be an endless way of business life that constantly improves systems and
processes within those systems. Beware: Entropy is increasing.
As a
businessperson seeking or attempting to hold onto success, ignore the tireless
pursuit of consistently high-quality products and services at your peril. For starters,
go online and read about and adopt American quality legend W. Edwards Deming’s
14 Points of Management. Then begin using the seven quality tools, adopt PDCA,
work on the chain reaction of quality and improve leadership, training and your
organization’s constancy of purpose.
“The secret of
success is constancy of purpose.” -Benjamin Disraeli
NOTE:
If it’s not live on the page, please copy and paste the URL below to see unique
fiction and non-fiction books by Richard J. Noyes on amazon.com> http://amzn.to/19QmSVH
No comments:
Post a Comment