On Monday, I proposed we analyze a market entry situation. We have three market segments to consider and must determine who our perfect customer (story teller) would be: Dock Dwellers, City Slickers, or Locals.
Considering that fishing is a seasonal activity, we need to focus on customers who will be around year-round: the Dock Dwellers and Locals. These two segments live in the area and will be most likely to frequent our little corner of the world when not searching for bait.
At the same time, we can’t really target both segments. The Dock Dwellersare outdoorsmen, shopping for fishing gear one season and stocking up on other sporting goods in the next. The Locals are families in the area who would most likely come in for a loaf of bread or gallon of milk. We can definitely provide for both needs, but we can only build our brand for one.
Both of these segments will be loyal, but we choose to target the one that will bring in additional customers. Our third segment, the City Slickers, will be most effected by the Dock Dwellers during fishing season. Remember, the Dock Dwellers spend “their days fishing and chatting with tourists” and the City Slickers “usually seek out the Dock Dwellersafter they get lost.” This high level of segment interaction helps us identify the Dock Dwellers as the most appropriate segment to target when we enter the market.
Look back at the last time we used this scenario. See how we arrived at the same conclusion?
Now we sign our lease and begin buying merchandise – always keeping the needs of our target customers in mind. Our store layout will be catered specifically to the Dock Dwellers, although we will keep some basic home goods on stock for the Locals.
In order to create our brand and tell our own story, we need to thoroughly understand who we want our audience to be. Our perfect customer is the one who will carry our story to others. Knowing what kind of story they would want to tell is the first step to building our brand and successfully entering the market.
Your use of “sharks”, and the market place taking on the look of a feeding ground is
interesting, and has been relevant. Moving into a new ocean is interesting in light of the fact that they are finding sharks in waters where they have not been traditionally found.
I look at the new markets as a swarm of leviathons, slowly ambling about in a sea of
comfort and ample food supply, i.e. a booming economy. As a small, new company, it is hard to get these behemoths to move aside, or to consider that the food I consume has any impact on them.
As I dart around amongst these gentle giants, they just tolerate me through their gentle ignorance. Sure, I find the small morsals in the form of beginner market niche. As the population of the giants grows to a critical mass, the external marketplace food supply favors us little darting fishlings. Then in come the traditional sharks, who have now come
into this calm little blue ocean, and we start all over again, only this time us little fishlings flourish while the sharks focus on the bountiful food supply contained in the gentle giants. The general inefficiencies of the sharks increases the fishlings food supply without extending the associated dangers.
Now when the fishlings get a little plump, and the gentle giants become few and far
between, it becomes time to move on to a new ocean. Not as fishlings, but as plump
mid-sized fish.
This is a lot more fun than using math to figure this out. Anyway, I agree that there is a time to move to a new blue ocean, but it is not as a fishling, and definitely before you become the target for the sharks.
Hmmm, seems to be a pattern here…