The world has changed.
Am I just stating the obvious? Have I only now, just realised the impact of the global financial crisis? No, I’m tuned into the news everyday since October last year. But it’s been 5 months of hearing bad news on both the local and global scale, that the Prime Minister of Australia has finally declared that we’re in recession last week, Australia is not spared.
How did we get here, and can we ride this out? I will not try to answer the first question, but I dare say we can ride this out – by changing the way we market our businesses.
This would be the fifth economic recession that I’ve experienced in my life, the first four when I was residing in Singapore. The first recession was at a time when I was preteen, a few months going on thirteen. I can’t say I had a full grasp of the economic climate then, but I do know that it was a time when the rise of mass-produced merchandise giant retailers, i.e. the major departmental stores, were threatening the livelihood of small retail/craft businesses like my dad’s, he was a tailor. The cheaper, “instant gratification” and trendy alternative of purchasing apparel from modern departmental stores outweighed the option of made-to-measure quality fabric clothing my dad and his workers would take a week to be sewn and delivered.
Already operating in a climate of declining customer demand, when the recession hit, my dad’s tailor business didn’t stand a chance, he went bankrupt. There was no social service in Singapore, but thanks to the government’s housing policy, we still had a roof over our heads. My dad closed shop and moved his sewing machines, work bench and fabric back home. For the next many months, he worked out of one of the bedrooms in our tiny three-bedroom apartment, while the rest of the family slept in the other rooms. He maintained a small niche of customers who still appreciated the value of a well-tailored shirt and pants. My dad serviced his niche and marketed through them, via word of mouth. This was the very first example of niche marketing in my life.
The Asian currency crisis in the 90s hit Asia hard. I was in my late twenties then, managing a shopping centre located on the western end of Singapore. This was the only full service shopping centre in the area, servicing residential suburbs within 5km radius. With a train station just outside the mall, commuters were walking and shopping through the centre as they go to and fro work everyday. We focused our marketing only on the niche surrounding catchment areas. Products and services were priced affordably which resulted in no less than a million people traffic through the doors every month. Residents outside the targeted catchments heard about the centre’s activities and came shopping on weekends. Tenants who failed to fulfill the needs of the niche market perished. For the rest of us, we came out of the recession together. My second experience of the impact of niche marketing.
Fast-track to 2009, what have lessons of past taught me that I may apply today?
- Understand the market / category you are in
- Find your niche audience for your product or service
- Understand the needs of your niche audience
- Fine-tune your communication messages and tailor your value proposition
- Harvest the power of viral – customers get prospects/customers
Interesting read:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/marketingcolumnistkimtgordon/article49608.html
http://www.genuineresidualincome.com/AboutNiches/
Yean :)
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