When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton famously replied “because that’s where the money is.” Many e-commerce businesses adopt Willie’s strategy by focusing their marketing efforts where all the people are. That may work for robbery, but it’s a poor strategy for e-commerce. Instead, adopt an inside-out strategy by focusing where the fewest people are. Here’s why, and how. A simple way to think of growing your business is to divide the universe into a few market segments and use the right approach for each segment.
Rudy, I totally agree with you on focusing away from the bulk. The competition is just way too high. From an online marketing perspective, you can work and work to outrank amazon, walmart, and overstock for a SKU, and you can do it - but good luck for more SKUs. So much easier to find a niche that they don't dominate.
"Segmenting and focusing" is the nice way to say "divide and conquer"--but it works all the same. The trick is disseminating the data to your retail counterparts when you start getting in data on the various segments. In my experience, the straw that we trip on while reaching for the straws is actually using the data we gather.
DeFelice makes excellent points in his article. The business intelligence (BI) aspect can be horrible, though. (I like Domo [www.domo.com], but I'm interested in hearing what others have to say!)
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Turn Your Marketing Inside Out
Posted by: Rudy DeFelice January 12, 2013 05:00 AMWhen asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton famously replied “because that’s where the money is.” Many e-commerce businesses adopt Willie’s strategy by focusing their marketing efforts where all the people are. That may work for robbery, but it’s a poor strategy for e-commerce. Instead, adopt an inside-out strategy by focusing where the fewest people are. Here’s why, and how. A simple way to think of growing your business is to divide the universe into a few market segments and use the right approach for each segment.
AJ Wilcox
www.domo.com
DeFelice makes excellent points in his article. The business intelligence (BI) aspect can be horrible, though. (I like Domo [www.domo.com], but I'm interested in hearing what others have to say!)