Just a couple of weeks into the auspicious Year of the Dragon already some of the hoped for good luck is occurring in the economy with today’s good news about the U.S. jobless rate dropping last month.
Will the luck extend to your business? The Roman dramatist Seneca told us that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. So what preparations are you making today for your business when opportunity comes knocking – or flying in on the wings of a dragon?
One excellent preparation will be revisiting just who is your target market that you are selling your products or services and are you reaching them in a meaningful way.
Businesses – small, medium and large alike – need to be relevant to their consumers. It’s a customer-centric world, where shoppers have been trained to expect products and services tailored to their needs and wants. The better you understand and focus your attention on your customer segmentation, the more successful you will be.
This focus requires making a tough realization. Specifically, you cannot be everything to everyone. Rather, you are better served if you can pinpoint who you can serve best with your product or service offering and make that your focus. The example that is often used to illustrate the importance of specialists is in the medical care we choose four ourselves and our loved ones. We take our children to pediatricians not general practitioners; likewise, we want to be seen by a cardiologist if we’re having heart problems.
In the marketing industry, we call this focusing: segmenting, targeting, positioning, and niche marketing.
I recently read a very interesting article in the recent issue of Fortune magazine that brings attention to a growing niche market that has historically been ignored by many businesses.
Based on his upcoming book, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, New York University sociology professor Eric Klinenberg wrote about how America is within a couple percentage points of having a majority of single people.
In the article, he reports that 28 percent of all households now consist of just one person – the highest level in U.S. history and double of what it was in 1960. That statistic increases in urban communities, including Portland and Seattle where the percentage is 34 percent and 42 percent, respectively.
Based on his research, Klinenberg found that a most of these singletons, as he calls them, chose this lifestyle. “The proof is what comes out of their pocketbooks,” he writes, “since they willingly pay a premium for the privilege of living alone.”
Businesses should pay attention to singles in their communities. As Klinenberg writes, compared with married people, singles are more likely to eat out in restaurants, exercise in a gym, take art classes, attend public events, and volunteer. As a bachelor, I couldn’t agree with this more. Compared with my married buddies, I am more likely to eat out during the week, make more discretionary purchases (outdoor gear is my vice), and have the flexibility in my schedule to attend more community events or to take off the coast for the weekend.
Singles also have more discretionary dollars than their married counterparts. Their average per capita annual expenditure was $34,471 in 2010, according to the federal Consumer Expenditure survey, compared with $28,017 for married individuals without kids and $23,179 per person in the highest-spending families with children.
Klinenberg goes on to cite a Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate that singles contributes $1.9 trillion to the U.S. economy annually.
Some national businesses have taken notice. Lowe’s TV commercials feature single women tackling remodeling projects. Coldwell Banker reminds its Realtors to pay attention to single buyers, after all they buy about one third of the homes today. But by and large, businesses have only just started to respond to the Singleton market.
Marketing to Singletons or other target groups doesn’t just mean featuring a single person/retiree/soccer mom in your advertising, but making sure the benefits you promise in your product or service have a special appeal to that market niche.
After ensuring your product or service appeals to that market, next make sure you speak their language and understand the “hot buttons” for that market. One point made in Klinenberg’s article is that Singletons don’t like being characterized as lonely or that they are single only until they can get married.
These hot buttons may also include how you package the offer – single people may love your product, but are turned off by having to buy it in family-sized quantities. Your buy-one-dinner-entry-at-the-regular-price-and-get-one-free coupon has little appeal to a Singleton, despite the higher likelihood that it is Singletons who are eating out.
A little bit of research – whether through interviews, research at the library, or searching the U.S. Census data – can help you learn your target market’s language and other demographics.
If you think you’ve figured it out, but remember to test and adapt to what you learn. By testing, you can better gauge the market’s receptiveness to your product or service and its messaging. By testing, you also keep your risks manageable.
And also pay attention to the competition for this market niche. Look at competitors’ ads, brochures and Web sites, looking for their key selling points, along with pricing, delivery and other service characteristics.
Your marketing dollars will go further and be more effective when you sharpen your focus whether you market to Singletons or married hipsters, Asian Americans or Hispanics, teenagers or retirees, the cost conscious or big spenders.