Avoid the Niche Market and Fail
Dont know were I found this but its good Stuff
This isn’t rocket science, but it does represent a kind of discipline. And it is here that management shows itself most lacking. Most leaders, when it comes down to making marketing choices, will continue to shy away from making niche commitments, regardless. Like marriage-aversebachelors, they may nod in all the right places and say allthe right things, but they will not show up when the wedding bells chime. Why not?
First, let us understand that this is a failure of will, not of understanding. This is, it is not that these leaders need to learn about niche marketing. MBA marketing curricula of the past 25 years have been adamant about the need to segment markets and the advantages gained thereby. No one, therefore, can or does plead ignorance. Instead, the claim is made that, although niche strategy is generally best, we do not have time—or we cannot afford—to implement it now.
This is a ruse, of course, the true answer being much simpler:
We do not have, nor are we willing to adopt, any discipline that would ever require us to stop pursuing any sale at any time for any reason.
We are, in other words, not a market-driven company; we are a sales-driven company.
Now, how bad can this really be? I mean, sales are good, right? Surely things can just work themselves out, and we will discover our market, albeit retroactively, let to it by our customers, yes? The true answers to the previous three questions are: (1) disastrous, (2) not always, and (3) never in a million years.
The consequences of being sales-driven during the chasm period are, to put it simply, fatal. Here’s why: The sole goal of the company during this stage of marketing development must be to secure a beachhead in a mainstream market—that is, to create a pragmatist customer base, we must ensure that our first set of customers completely satisfy their buying objectives. To do that, we must ensure that the customer gets not just the product, but… the whole product, the complete set of products and services needed to achieve the desired result… Whole product commitments, however, are expensive… Therefore must be made not only sparingly but strategically… This can only happen if the sales effort is focused on one or two niche markets…
