Marketing Principles: How to stay away from “Everybody Trap” (and focus on water hole)
Like everyone, I had created a mobile app for everyone, and in the end, no one wanted. I have received good feedback from friends since they never wanted to disappoint me. I had followed the principle of Nike’s theme, “Just do it.” But in the end, it failed miserably. The theme and concepts work for big companies and corporates but do not work for startups.
Time is an essential factor when we fail, and we cannot get that time back in our life. Later I have understood that the positioning for the prospect’s mind should be prepared and well planned before we prepare the product. This way, we will be ready with our product and positioning as well. Also, we would not end up creating a product that nobody wants.
I had made a mistake of targeting everyone and failed miserably on finding a water hole. A water hole is a place where your real prospects are alive and available. This article will cover three parts of staying away, targeting everybody, and preventing this mistake.
1. How to find an opponent for an opportunity
2. Identifying a product relevant to the age
3. Expanding through distribution
Let’s cover the first part: How to find the opponent for an opportunity
Every day we see great products become successful. We praise their success and understand their hard work and effort. But do we ask ourselves whether there is an opponent for an opportunity available? When we ask the opponent of opportunity, we will find a water hole.
what is opponent of opportunity? There is always a unsatisfied person, and the market available exists in this universe. But the unsatisfied need is not available until there is a successful product category. If we ask this question on the opponent for an opportunity, we will think about the successful product’s opposite side.As a startup, it allows us to thrive in that opposite market.
For Example Sex is one category where we can always find the opponent of the opportunity. The brand Revlon’s Charlie was the no.1 brand in women’s perfume. So the entire perfume industry was trying to find a market with in the women’s perfume category. The bulk of the business is in one direction (Feminine Brand names), But the opportunity lies in the opposite (A masculine brand name). Now, let’s cover the second part.
Identifying a product relevant to the age
When I had developed my mobile app product, I never thought about the target’s age group. For example, I did not ask, “what would be the right age limit for my product? When we set out to target our product without the age category, we would not understand the target audience’s needs. For example, we have a school bag online store. We are trying to target and advertise the school bags for grown-up adults as well as with cinderella cartoons. Hence, identifying the target group age is essential for selling our products. Now, Let’s move towards the third part.
Expanding through distribution
There is an excellent opportunity to expand your product across different distributions. When a product is available as part of one distribution, the same product may not be available across all the distribution channels. Elon musk proved and became successful with this concept. Space traveling is a product, and Nasa kept distributing space travel to the atmosphere, moon, and other space parts. But Elon must saw that space travel product is not distributed to Mars and there is no competition for this distribution. Hence he had used the same product space travel and distributed this idea as “space traveling to Mars.” The idea is not new, but this idea’s distribution was not there in our prospect’s minds. Now, Let’s go through the summary.
Summary
Often startup initial ventures become a failure because the marketing principles are not known to them. Once a startup focuses on positioning their product in sex, age, and expanding distribution category, they will have more clarity. Also, by asking opposite questions for the opportunity, they will find a niche water hole that they could not see it before. Now they can go and develop the products more confidently than ever.
