| The essence of niche marketing is to create an | | | | attributes with a raw score of 1-10. Rank the raw |
| intimate partnership with a market segment that is | | | | scores by importance with a weight of 1-5. Calculate |
| under-served or not served at all. The entrepreneur | | | | the total score for the customer. Do this ranking for |
| provides a carefully crafted solution to this customer | | | | all your customers; this will allow you to create a |
| segment, but only after intense research and testing. | | | | stacked ranking of your customers from best to |
| Through this special relationship the customer gets | | | | worst. When my clients have done this ranking, some |
| what want and, in return, the entrepreneur gets | | | | of their customers scored very high, while other |
| customer loyalty and higher profits. And little, if any, | | | | customers may scored very low. |
| competition. | | | | The question then becomes how can you raise the |
| But, this niche market success is dependent on the | | | | score of the low ranking customers? Maybe you can |
| right mix of customers. So, what does the "best" | | | | raise their prices. Or, how soon can you replace them |
| customer look like? One way to determine which | | | | with customers which better fit you and your |
| customer/s are best is by creating that I call the | | | | business? Why exhaust your resources trying to |
| "preferred customer profile". Create a list of the | | | | serve customers that don't pay their bills on time, |
| criteria that are most important to you and your | | | | that are difficult to work with, or don't fit with your |
| business. That list might include:o proximity to your | | | | future product plans. |
| office or shopo pays bills on timeo easy to do | | | | Focus your energies on your high scoring customers. |
| business witho future need for your product or | | | | Direct your marketing efforts and new business |
| serviceo profito fun relationshipo size of customero | | | | development on finding new customers that fit your |
| industry or vertical | | | | preferred customer profile. |
| Rank your current customers based on these | | | | Life is short. |