Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Know your niche

Today marked my first entrance back into the design community after a two-year departure. I attended a seminar at the Boston Design Center on starting, managing and maintaining a design firm. I attended with the hopes of a quick refresher on the subtleties of design-based businesses and the speaker, Jared Miller, did not disappoint.

But it was the audience that will get the attention of this post. For the past two years I’ve been working in the insurance industry and attended a number of industry seminars. The audience always had the same composition – very serious, lots of suits, heavy text driven PowerPoint presentations and even-tempered, sometimes disengaged attendees. The audience at today’s seminar was all about business, yet lighthearted, suits were mostly absent being replaced with a mix of stylish/trendy clothing, large splashes of color and wild bags and accessories, people were friendly, engaging and full of life and the PowerPoint was full of images.

What’s the point? – Audiences differ by industry and if you’re marketing to niches (which in today’s marketplace you most likely are) you need to know your niches intimately. Messages should be tailored to them, presentations should be spoken in their language and representatives from your brand should blend and/or compliment the individuals that make up the niche. With a tailored message for each niche you’re more likely to create an engaging exchange with your prospect and once the engagement is created, your brand becomes open to having a meaningful conversation and taking the next step in creating your next customer.

Image credit: Sean Econo

1 comment:

mrktg said...

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