Know-How Exchange : Customer Behavior

Let's look at the competition you face. For one thing, they're spending a lot of money on advertising. My point is, are they spending it wisely? There are ways to sell products for 10x less or even 100x less than the "standard" models of marketing.

Your job is to focus on those people who like the product you have. The kind of person who'll buy it. Don't try to market to everybody and anybody, it's a waste of time and money - it's something the corporations of this world haven't learned yet.

Which is where you come in. You need to get clever, advertise to those who like what you do. So your first job is to work out WHO is buying your competition's products. That they advertise to everybody doesn't mean that everybody buys them. So who does, and why. That's your first entry point. After all, the audience you're targeting trusts the other product, so there's a good chance they'll trust yours if you present it in the right way.

Then work out what makes your product different. Because to a certain sub-set of the buyers (see above) your product is better. How many there are is as yet unknown. You're about to find out. So get clever now, and target those people especially. They'll chose your product because they chose the other - just doing that may be enough. You'll be a lot more effective than the big guys. That is to say, if your profit from sales is greater than your advertising costs you have a business. That's when you can refine your advertising to why they choose YOUR product. Then your advertising spend is a factor of ten cheaper than before.

You can use social media, Google adwords and their display network. Those are the most cost effective media around. Once you have those sorted, you can move upwards and claim a slice of the market for yourself.