The Dartboard Approach to Marketing

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"Adam, over the past six years, I've had the pleasure of 'bumping into you' on at least three business and marketing related forums. Your contributionsto discussions have always been courteous, astute, incisive and practical,delivered with good humour, and based upon 'real-world' business experience. You are clearly an experienced business professional who actually knows what he is talking about. I wonder if your clients know what a gem they have in you? As one business professional to another, I salute you.

Good Wishes,
John Williamson - The Wealth Coach
www.thewealthcoach.com
www.retaildisplaysecrets.com

+++++++++++++++++++

I just LOVED "7 Clues to a Profits Leak".

Steven Walker - Profit Improvement Advisors
Calgary, Canada

+++++++++++++++++++

You will be proud how your protégés are proceeding! We have expanded the business to Katherine and Alice (Tennant is also on the list). T he catering side of the business is far less stressful and is actually profitable, now that we only take the good jobs.
We will never forget the assistance you gave us in re-inventing our business!

Karen Sheldon

Managing Director

Karen Sheldon Catering

Darwin, Australia

+++++++++++++++++++

The chap is Adam Gordon whom I have known for many years. He is a former resident of Darwin having lived here for perhaps 25 years, is an excellent communicator and has a very good appreciation of small business, business plans and all that goes with it. In fact Adam is regarded as a business guru.

Charles Wright, QS Services, Darwin, Australia

+++++++++++++++++++++

Thanks for the catch-up the other day. It's great to be working with a legend in the small business community.

AJ Kulatunga, BLKMGK ICT

Darwin, Australia

+++++++++++++++++++

The 7 Clues is a great.

What I like the most in the Seven Clues report is that it clearly explains that accounting is merely a subset of proper financial management and

that only the business owner can practise financial management. The accountant does the accounting, and in doing so supports the business owner's financial management. And the business owner uses the accountant's information, but relying on the accountant to do full-blown financial management is short-sighted.

The report nicely "grounds" an otherwise complex topic which many business owners are afraid of touching, so they often move ahead in blissful ignorance. The water hose and the soggy soil under the leak makes an excellent and easy-to-comprehend example, upon which the financial management concept is nicely built.

Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan, Organisational Provocateur Dynamic Innovations Squad
Personal and Firm-Wide Performance Improvement for Management Consulting Firms

Vancouver, BC Canada

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
You have played a very important role in my development in business.

You were there with the right information at the right time, I thank you for that.
By adding the next level of systems, and marketing knowledge that you brought to the table we able to identify our objectives, acknowledge the gaps in our business and put in place the planning so as to achieve those objectives. Within 5 years we achieved 9 of our ten stated objectives. In that same year we won the NT Telstra Small business of the year"

Greg Haigh
Director - Trade Group
Regional And Northern maintenance services
RANms

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Recent newsletters include:

How well do you know your market?
How turning away customers leads to profits
How to create Superior Value
How to win against your competition
Do you need to make changes to your business?
"Our customers are costing us too much!"
Why competition is good news
What makes a web site effective?
Most businesses have one, but...
How to improve your quotations
How to raise prices without losing sales
Is your business resilient?
How to develop a new product in your niche
How big is your profit gap?
How discounting destroyed value
Benchmarking for best practice
From all customers to some customers
How to take the guesswork out of growth
Should your USP be based on logic or emotion?
How to triple your quotation success rate
How to dramatically improve your quotations
How to make more effective decisions?
How to develop your USP
Do you want to make better planning choices?
Are youmaking these mistakes in planning?
How to use SWOT properly
Does your sales conversation balance the scales of justice?
The perils of profitless cash flow!
So what is more important, cash flow or profit?
Are you getting value from your pricing?
Do you report to yourself monthly?
Follow the money trail!
Performance also counts!
Get more bang for your buck!
Without measurement there can be no improvement!
Where would your business be without customers?
Using your monthly report to improve your profits
Just who is your customer?
And what do you know about your customer?
How branding can increase your profits!
Can branding make you more money?
How to balance the value equation
Tilting the balance in your favour
How to pin the tail on the donkey
Are you groping in the dark with your real cost of labour
Mastering core marketing principles
Building a 5P marketing plan
Profit leaking processes
Should you be trying to increase or decrease cash flow
At times it is folly to hasten
5 steps to create your future
What will be the X-Factor in 2009
Lies, damn lies & statistics
How to use a squad profit leak detectives
Confidence leads to action
Increase sales - so easy to say
So you want to know how to increase sales
Is selling a necessary evil?

The Dartboard Approach to Marketing

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Try and visualise this: your entire potential market can be represented as a dartboard. Each of those coloured areas bounded by a number and by the rings on the board is a possible segment in the market place. And each segment has a different score, the potential value of that segment.

That dartboard with all its segments is everyone who could possibly be in your potential market.

There's just a couple of problems:

Have you Googled 'everyone' lately? Try it. I bet you won't find anyone you recognise as a customer.
"The most certain way to go broke, and stay broke, is by insisting that everybody is your customer. It could be true that everybody could buy your product but is never true that everybody is motivated to buy your product. Everyone is not your customer." Dan Kennedy

By targeting everyone you are likely to get no-one!

Let's come back to our dartboard. And our darts. Imagine you have three darts, and those darts represent the time and money you have available to invest in winning customers for your business.

Are you just going to fling those darts at the board, and be content with whatever segment you hit, and the score it gives you?
Or are you going to aim at those segments which give you the highest score. Depending on the game you are playing that could be the triple twenty, the outer-bulls eye, and the bullseye.

Clever marketers target their highest probability prospects, their ideal customer, the 20% who provide 80% of profits, and don't worry at all about all the other segments in the marketplace, the 'everyone". You are playing 'blind darts' if you just throw and hope.

So how can you refine your targeting, to guide your darts with more precision? Well, the obvious thing to do is to know as much as you can about that target;

Here is a good list of questions you need to explore:

1.   What motivates him/her?
2.   What problems, issues, pain, predicaments or challenges are they facing?
3.   What are their needs and burning desires?
4.   What are their fears?
5.   What are their frustrations?
6.   What are their questions and doubts?
7.   What objections do they have?
8.   What are the triggers that prompt action?
9.   Where are they?

Knowing who and where your customers are empowers you to target them more effectively. Once you can answer those questions you are in a good position to develop the marketing tactics you need to reach each of those targets.

By marketing tactics I mean the 7 'Ps" of the marketing mix: position, product, promotion, price, place, process and people.

You will also be able to create the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and Core Marketing Message that will apply to that segment.

The next step is to picture that ideal customer. In fact go beyond that; describe him or her. Write a couple of paragraphs about that customer, their age, where they live, are they married, children, how do they dress, the car they drive.

The reason? When you come to write to your promotional material you will be speaking to them personally, a one-to-one conversation with the client most likely to buy your product or service.

A message targeting everybody targets nobody. You are targeting those motivated to buy.

Use the dartboard to help develop communications that will speak directly and effectively to your identified audience... very powerful!

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