By Roy MacNaughton I was driving by a restaurant location recently and I spied a sign that said: "Family Restaurant & Sports Bar-Grill." It made me wonder just exactly what this place really was. Was it a family restaurant, appealing to a man and wife with a couple of young kids or teenagers? Or was it a loud, raucous bar with 17 television screens all blaring different sports at the same time to dozens of mostly young men, all screaming for their favorite team, while consuming copious amounts of cold beer? Does the sports bar have a children's menu, with smaller portions and lower prices? Does the family restaurant seating area provide visual access to the multitude of television sets? Is there any smoking permitted? What about inadvertent bad language, is that allowed? These questions bombarded my mind while I searched the parking lot for cars to try and get an idea of who might be there on a Sunday night. The lot was about half full, but mostly the cars indicated potential ownership in the 18-35 male category....souped up rods, high-powered street cars, and old clunkers. 'Not really what you'd expect the average family to be driving if they could afford to eat out. As I got past this establishment I was reminded of the need to target your marketing efforts...right from the very beginning. Before you design your business, KNOW who you are targeting. In this day of extreme specialization, one must decide just "who" is your desired target and then unswervingly direct everything you do towards that specific target group. I may be wrong, but my common sense tells me that, unless I'm missing something here, families don't mix with noisy sports bars...even if you do put the word "grill" on the end of the name. So why would someone do this when investing so much money to open up a competitive outlet? Usually it's two things: greed and ignorance. I know, strong words, but true. First off, many retailers do not see the benefit of specializing or focusing on just one market niche. They reason that since they are going to be spending all this money on (in the case of this food service outlet) seating, signage, parking lot, kitchen, and decor, they might as well make it count for more than one group of customers. Next, they are afflicted by rank amateurism. They are ignorant to the laws of marketing, and they combine this not knowing or not wanting to pay for any expert advice, with their greed for more return for their buck. They wind up with a mess that is almost impossible to market and profit by in this hyper-competitive retail environment. If you want to appeal to more than one target group, you have to pick a way to do this, by correctly choosing the target groups that might work together, either in terms of what you sell, or when and how you sell it. For instance, if you want to appeal to those two target groups, you might want to call your place a "restaurant" plain and simple; but a restaurant that has a family skewed menu and prices, that (after ten at night until closing),offers television sets (take the cloth hoods off them at ten) and lots of sports with snacks and bar food 'till closing. Naturally, this might not work well, because even then, families might not understand that they are welcome, while the sports enthusiasts might miss many of their favorite games due to the time of day they are aired, live. To offset this potential drawback, you could record the most popular games and offer a special service for those sports folks who are not able to come over during the live telecast, but would love to show up at ten to see a videotaped version of the game then. This would be differentiating yourself and offering a niche service to the sports-oriented group, when the vast majority of the family diners had long since been home getting ready for bed. Chances are, the two different target groups would not mix at the same time. In reality though, it is best to have a primary target group and direct all your marketing tactics at this group. If you have some extra operating time, space or product/service, then you can adapt by entertaining your 'secondary' target group (in this case, the sports enthusiasts) only when you have exhausted your efforts on the primary one. Otherwise you will both confuse and appeal to not much of any market. You will stand there, wondering why your parking lot is so empty. Copyright, Roy MacNaughton, 2007 Roy MacNaughton is a niche marketing coach and business writer. Hes a seasoned marketer, with more than 30 years of international marketing experience, including nine years online. His new e-book, (Marketing Yours), teaches solo practitioners, entrepreneurs and professionals how to market their most important product. Learn more at his blog: http://www.UmarketingU.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Roy_MacNaughton http://EzineArticles.com/?Using-a-Rifle-Not-a-Shotgun-or-Why-You-Must-Define-Your-Target-Group&id=453634 buy phentermine online mastercard
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