Is Winning 1% of the Market Worth the Effort?
Would you go hard to win just 1% of the total available market?
Intuitively, the answer might be a sharp ‘no’. Yet the below post from Seth Godin raises a good point …
“If you have a million Twitter followers, that means that 99.9% of the people on Twitter are ignoring you, which, with a little rounding, means you have 0%.
If you write a book and it sells a million copies, it will be one of the bestselling books of the year. It will also reach far fewer than 1% of the country’s population, never mind the world.
There are very few things that ever rise to 1% of the market. Not only don’t you need everyone, the act of chasing everyone is probably keeping you from reaching anyone.
Zero (rounded) is enough.”
Let’s focus on this one statement “Not only don’t you need everyone, the act of chasing everyone is probably keeping you from reaching anyone”. Yes Seth, yes. It will be.
If you’re targeting ‘everyone’ and holding tightly to any that threaten to leave or the naysayers, it’s a trap. A well-known way to throw money away, the sales and marketing equivalent of nailing jelly to the wall.
So what is the right way?
Know the segments of the market that have a problem, that aligns with your products/services, get clear on how you meet their need and get busy!
We wrote a post on this specifically four years ago called ‘Everyone is not a target market’, so please go have a read.
And check out the FREE workbook to get clear on who you want to get up close and personal with.
One percent of the total market might be 16,500 people who deeply value what you do and are happy to spend their hard-earned cash on it, and you can engage them quickly and more effectively by investing in them and only them, what have you got to lose?