Widening Your Market Base
One of the basic premises of targeted marketing is to market to a defined demographic. In this recession, some companies are learning that widening their market base, even if they need to seek out a business loan option to do it, can be advantageous to generate more sales. They may have depended on a particularly tight demographic, like technology companies that targeted teens or early twenties, only to find that during this recession they are the least likely demographic to be employed. Without a job, the likelihood that they’ll be able to continue pay for high-priced technology toys is in question and it’s best to be proactive.
Understand the Factors Influencing Your Chosen Demographic
When you understand that more women than men are remaining employed, it makes sense to widen your demographic if you were previously only targeting men. In some cases, it’s understandable if you only were selling men’s business suits, but that means that you will need to start another line for women to help you widen your inventory to demographics that may have money to spend. For technology items, some manufacturers are paying attention to the elderly as potential new converts as they retire and start to have more time to investigate newer technologies. Plus, they also have the money to spend.
Tweak Your Product Line
Even if you have to borrow to tweak your product line to make it more suitable to a better demographic, it can mean the difference between surviving a bad economy or not. It may be as simple as having bigger letters on a keypad for seniors with poor eyesight or it can be an entire new direction. Don’t forget to include your chosen demographic in your marketing campaigns to help introduce and sell the products to a wider audience. If it starts to take off, your investment in product development or market research can pay big dividends in the form of new customers who were just waiting for something that appealed to them in particular.