Quick Marketing Tip: Clarifying Your Marketing Focus - Part 1
Once you have done the hard work necessary to craft your business concept, select your target market, and establish your marketing advantage, you are ready to clarify your market focus. The most straightforward way to do this is through the creation of three key identity components for each product line:
- A Mission Statement
- A Sustainable Competitive Advantage
- A Unique Selling Proposition
Because the market segments that a single studio serves can be so different, it is wise to create these statements for each market segment. Doing so is difficult work, but it will pay off in terms of the quality of the marketing that flows from them.
Creating A Mission Statement
The purpose of a Mission Statement is to help the business stay on course. Well-managed organizations look to the company’s Mission Statement when approaching strategic decisions by asking: Will this action be consistent with our Mission?
Most Mission Statements take the form of a brief paragraph that directly addresses three elements (in any order):
- The Purpose: What opportunities you address.
- The Business: What you do to address these needs.
- The Values: What principles or beliefs guide your work.
The best Missions Statements are those that are:
- Easy to understand.
- Free of jargon or wordiness.
- Appealing and convincing.
- Brief enough to be easily repeated by employees of this market segment.
Bear in mind that it is far easier to craft a Mission Statement for each of your major product lines if you have done a thorough job of completing the activities suggested in the first three chapters of this Guide.
Following is a Mission Statement for Persnickety Pet Portraits that includes a parenthetical explanation of each of its components:
Mission Statement
Our mission is to reflect the joy pets bring to the lives of our clients (the purpose) through personalized, decorative art and accessories (the business) that honor the compelling bond between pets and the people who love them (the values).
The Professional Photographer's Guide to Marketing Success
by Ann K. Monteith.
Categorized In: quick marketing tips
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