Page 28 - Duct Tape Marketing

Strategy Before Tactics

The Owner Is the Customer
Understanding the characteristics, desires, and behaviors of a nar-

rowly defined target market is very hard work, but essential to your
success. Every marketing book or expert will tell you this, but few
can give you the magic tablet that allows you to go deeply into your
prospect’s psyche. You can acquire some measure of knowledge from
various research techniques, but nothing beats living, breathing, and
feeling the same things your prospects do. Some of the surest successes
in history have come from founders who created a product or service to
meet a personal need and discovered a business by virtue of doing so.

The Market Understands the Offering
Some entrepreneurs dream of locking themselves in a padded

room for a year or so and emerging with the world’s greatest innova-
tion. Sounds romantic, I know, but if your innovation simply solves
an incredible problem people don’t yet know they have, you may wind
up burning through the money before they get it. Better to innovate
around a proven market, borrow genius from an unrelated industry,
or discover an unmet need in a mature market crying for a solution.

The Market Already Spends Money Here
Sometimes marketers shy away from competition. If market

research shows that there’s too much competition in a given area or
industry, the thinking is that the market is saturated and there’s prob-
ably no room for your start-up. To that I say, “Nonsense!” While it
may be true that your neighborhood couldn’t possibly stand another
coffee shop, I’ve found the success of several businesses in an industry,
even in the same direct community, can spell opportunity.

If people are already spending money on a product or service, then
two-thirds of your work is done. They understand and value the offer-
ing enough to whip out their wallets. All that’s left for you to do now
is show them how much better you can make the experience. Few

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