Concentrated or Differentiated Marketing

Should you market only to a niche audience or should you spread your message across channels for maximizing return on investment (ROI)? Do you advertise using only one channel or do you use multiple channels? Do you market using one message or a several different ones at various intervals? The answer to all these questions depends on the nature of the product or service that you are marketing. Every product should have a distinct brand personality and understanding this personality helps choose the right marketing approach for that product.

If you own a local restaurant in a particular area and want to attract traffic, then the best approach would be concentrated marketing. This approach is also referred to as the “waterfall technique” in marketing as opposed to the “sprinkler technique.” In the waterfall technique you need to focus on convincing opinion leaders within your area about the deliciousness of your menu.  If you can convince one opinion leader about how delicious your food is, then the message will start spreading. Offering a free sample is a great way to get the first opinion leader addicted to your recipe.

When you walk through a busy street in New York and suddenly feel hungry, how do you decide which restaurant to step into? You probably look in a restaurant and if it is full you assume it must be selling tasty food. As opposed to this if you see a restaurant that is completely empty you assume (rightly or wrongly) that the place is not for you. You think if no one goes there then the place is probably not worth your while. Hence, for a local restaurant, waterfall marketing would be the best approach.  AvidTrak also uses concentrated marketing in that the company offers complete call tracking solutions to its clients who are looking for easy to implement solutions for complex call tracking problems. AvidTrak aims to fulfill all the user needs within its target audience, the more unique and challenging the user requirement, the happier the AvidTrak team.

In contrast to this concentrated approach would be diversified marketing in which you aim to reach a broader audience. For example, if you sell souvenirs, you want to attract an international audience. A hotel catering to tourists would fall in the same category. Here, your customer can come from a remote city in India much more than your local neighbor. In this case the “sprinkler technique” would successfully attract an audience that is spread across continents.

Whether you use the concentrated or diversified approach to marketing, you can use call tracking to determine which of your channels and messages are generating productive leads. In this way you can adjust your technique to optimize ROI.

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