Page 30 - MetalForming July 2010

Michael Bleau has served manufacturing and consumer- related industries since 1986. Prior to forming Industry Scope, a strategic b2b and b2c sales and marketing consultancy, in 2002, he held executive positions for several automation and press manufacturers. Michael regularly consults with manufacturing companies on strategic planning, sales and marketing, brand and product development, PR and sales-channel development. Industry Scope
tel. 810/397-1429
mbleau@industry-scope.com www.industry-scope.com
Over the next few months we will cover some recently asked about activities that involve various ways to reach out to employees, existing cus- tomers and prospective customers in current and new markets. With this in mind, this column will lay a foundation common to all of these activities; really the essential, first step in any sales and communications endeavor—targeting.
For the moment, imagine a sharp- shooter pointing his weapon in the gen- eral direction of a “target” and then simply pulling the trigger—hipshot. After the moment passes it’s impossible to change the course of the bullet, so the probability of hitting the target is extremely low. Missing with a bullet is unmistakable, as the paper target remains intact. But with communications (inter- nal or external) or other sales activities it’s not always so cut and dry.
Given the right circumstances, a marksman may recover quickly by col- lecting themselves, identifying the tar- get, taking proper aim and sending another round down range. In this case the event cycle is compressed—feed- back is near instantaneous and so cor- rective actions can follow quickly. Even so, that first round is wasted and attempting to salvage it by redirecting its course in midair isn’t going to be pro- ductive, if at all possible. If you account for lost opportunity in terms of multi- ple targets being available, then more than double the effort is consumed by firing again at the same target. I’m not suggesting that if you take your time you’ll always hit the bullseye, as envi- ronmental influences play a factor, but your probability for success increases as you make the upfront effort to appro- priately take aim.
Scale up the scenario, extend the feedback loop and apply a reckless “hip- shot” style to any communication effort and you’ll likely agree that it proves to be expensive. Yet we don’t always take the time to identify our targets or take car- ful aim—why not? Maybe we think we know intuitively who or what we’re tar- geting, so we don’t take the time for a gut check? Or maybe we’re impatient, or we’re unsure of how to go about it.
Considering the recent business cli- mate, you may want to enter new mar- kets, but are not sure which to target. Attempting a machine gun or shotgun marcom approach to hit a lot of areas through shear volume doesn’t make sense, nor compensate for diminished accuracy. It’s simply costly. The better we define our targets, what drives them, and what words (see sidebar) and approaches resonate with them, the more effective we become.
The purpose of targeting is to reduce waste by eliminating those “ears and eyes” that fall into the category of being unintended targets. Typically, we set out attempting to segment a large popula- tion into smaller, specific chunks that best define with whom you want your communications to resonate. In con- sumer marketing, the audience is seg- mented through definitive combinations of demographics, geodemographics, psychographics or behaviorgraphics. The last two—physiological and behav- ior-based—are better predictors for future action, but prove more costly to collect, quantify, analyze and under- stand than basic descriptive traits and location-based quantifiers. While you may start with industry or company type, to be effective you need to break it down to the account and functional
28 METALFORMING / JULY 2010
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THE BUSINESS OF METALFORMING MICHAEL BLEAU
Precision: Pick your Targets