Market Mapping

I received a Mothers’ Day Coupon Book from my son this weekend. It had the typical mother’s day offers “clean my room”, “make my bed”, “wake up early”, and then the offer that came straight from a seven year old heart and mind, “play any video games for an hour”, no expiration date.

I laughed, of course, because he truly believes that one hour playing video games is the best gift he can give me and well, maybe he is right. But then, I laughed at myself, because how many times do I offer my prospects or my clients what I like and not what they need.

We hear it so often from marketing gurus, “talk about benefits, not features”, but it doesn’t come easy to us. Thinking about what we like and what we want is ingrained in our genes, part of that survival instinct I think that made us believe that the Earth was the center of the universe.

To think about our clients needs require much thought, reading time, questions and research. I had a difficult time defining my markets and speaking to my prospects needs until I read Ram Charan’s book, Profitable Growth is Everyone’s business.10 Tools you can use Monday Morning.

The issue he tell us is that we are in business to “help our customers find new opportunities to grow” whether we sell a pen, insurance, graphic design or research. Therefore the question is not what do my clients need, but what do their clients need and how can I help them satisfy their clients so that they can grow and I can grow along with them. In essence who buys what and why do they buy it?

Thus if I want sell a pen, my immediate client is the office supply store, but his client may be a school kid, her mother, the husband buying a mother’s day gift or the office assistant buying a gift for his boss, so the question is what kind of pens will my client need to satisfy his customers and can I provide it?

There are several tools that can help on this such as market mapping which Ram Charan describes in some depth. I’m interested in reading more about market mapping so if you know of any good book on the topic, please let me know.

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