You are what the market says you are

In yesterday’s blog we mentioned that the market will categorize your business to suit it's own perceptions of what you do. You have little or no choice in the matter.

‘No way, we are totally different, unique. There is no one like us. We’re in a category of our own,’ you cry indignantly and we can understand why. But….

…unfortunately its true - the market decides not you.

There are a number of reasons for this, but for the purposes of this blog entry, we’ll just cover the one that our experience shows is the most important.

First and foremost – markets have a habit of categorizing things to make it easy to find, compare and buy what it classes as similar products. If they didn’t can you imagine how many unique categories vendors would invent to make their products special. Just think about how difficult it would be to buy something as simple as a packet of clothes washing powder, or is it liquid, or tabs, or liquitabs or whatever comes next.

See what I mean and that’s only for one tiny category.

Now for the kicker. The washing powder marketers have gone to all that effort to invent a new product category so their products are different, shiny and exciting. So what do the supermarkets do? They stack them all in the same aisle as the traditional washing powder.

Why, because that is where the washing powders and detergents all belong and where we expect them all to be, no matter how much the manufacturers and their marketing teams might complain.

If they were in a different aisle you would have to go and look for it. Have you got the time for that and can you be bothered? Me neither.

So what has this to do with Triple X or your products? Well we cover this in the book, which is just about ready to publish, but it boils down to making your products easy to find, compare and choose for your customers. 

If you don't the chances are you won't make the sales you want.

Of course you could completely ignore all of this and go down the ‘educate the market’ road but you’ll probably need some pretty deep pockets for that.

By Tim Sandford