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Truly successful marketers target people and other businesses that are on the fringe. What is the fringe? The fringe is everywhere the masses aren’t.
When you look at a standard bell curve, you see how it looks like an upside-down U. In marketing you want to market to the people on the edges of the graph. This is where your marketing efforts are rewarded the most and will typically result in higher profit margins. Avoid like the plague that middle 68% of the people. In that area you are competing for the attention of the same consumers as Coca-Cola and Nike. For example, if you are in the market of credit cards, you want to target the people who American Express targets, not the everyday person who is fighting for the typical Visa or MasterCard. Only certain people qualify for an American Express card, but almost anyone can get a Visa or MasterCard.
There are a couple major benefits to targeting the fringe market. First would be the availability for more people to talk about your product or service to others. If everyone knows about you or your product, it will rarely be brought up in conversation because when everyone knows about your product, it is no longer REMARKABLE.
Secondly, targeting the fringe often means you can get into markets that not a lot of people are in. If you don’t have to spend a ton of money advertising, then you can take that money you save from advertising and make your business or service even more remarkable now that it is unconventional. Go the extra mile to make every person feel excited about your product, make them feel treasured by offering a free coupon for their friends or any other thing imaginable to get people talking about you. In most cases, making yourself remarkable will save you more in advertising and result in higher sales than any traditional marketing. So find your fringe market and meet their needs in a way that has never been done before. When you do, the customers will do the advertising for you.
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Hi Josh! Just found your blog through Entrecard and what you have to say makes complete sense (cents). I’m wondering if these same principles would apply to say a charity? Raising awareness? As I read I’m seeing the business side, just trying to figure out how I might apply it for myself. Any insights? I’ll subscribe in case you reply.
Luanne Ribble’s last blog post..One of my interests, is this yours too?
@Luanne I sent you an email asking more about your questions.
Thanks Josh! Got your email and sent you a reply with more information. If you could point me in a few directions that would be wonderful. I understand you’ve got to be really busy, so if you can’t I’ll understand. Hopefully I’ve given you the idea of what I’m doing online along with my dilemma
Luanne’s last blog post..Scoring in Life or Still Stuck Down Field?
There are so many ways to target consumers now, millions of people are watching videos on online platforms like YouTube, MySpace, DailyMotion. I think that is also very effective medium to target consumers. I recently came across this amazing video marketing platform, Scope by divinity Metrics. I think American Express, Mastercard, Visa and all the brands in the world could hugely benefit from this technology.
Scope looks like they have thought things out pretty well. I like the idea and ability to pick a market like you tube watchers and be able to target them and effectively track the results, that is what Scope looks like to me.