Think about something Bill Cosby said and ask yourself "how does this apply to your current marketing. Cosby stated I dont know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone."

Are you trying to be everything to everybody? Are you even trying to be one specific thing to everybody?

Re-examine your marketing strategy and trim the fat and focus on very specific niche markets. Heck, go even further than niche marketing and fragment that niche to micro levels.

For example there are two broad markets that relate to some of our offerings. They are "investors" and "traders". These are two very different and distinct groups of people which approach stocks and futures trading completely different.

So we go to the internal niche markets of "traders" and look at "stock traders", "futures & commodity traders", and "forex traders".

In fragmenting these markets we go on a micro level to create multiple opportunities such as "stock day traders", "emini stock day traders", "futures day traders", "index futures day traders". How about options trading? You have "stock options traders", "futures options traders" and "forex options traders."

The needs, wants, desired, must haves, should haves, etc of each fragmented group are different.

While they all want to make money in how they trade, why they trade and what they trade getting to the output requires different input and processes.

By understanding this and marketing accordingly, you can more strategically and intelligently build up monster profits as you cater to the specific customized needs for each fragment.

Take a look at your market? Are you targeting a niche right now? If not, what are the possible niches within the broader market you are targeting? If you are targeting a niche, what are the possible fragments of that niche?

For example, many would consider Gardening to be a niche. Inside this niche you have "kinds of gardens", like the popular Japanese Garden.

However, when fragmenting the Japanese Garden down on a micro level, you have "tea gardens", "rock gardens" and even "water gardens" which all represent "kinds of" Japanese Gardens.

A quick look at these different kinds of Japanese Gardens will reveal that, while they do have needs that are similar, they have many needs that differ.

What other kinds of Gardens are there? How about "Organic Gardens"? How about a "Vegetable Garden"? What about Plants? How many different kinds of plants are there that people grow in their gardens? How could these possibly be fragmented? Perhaps "Roses" and "Tulips" could represent fragments.

How about "Indoor Garden", "Outdoor Garden" or "Garden Furniture" as some other quick examples for possible fragments?

Make sure you discover the power of going beyond the niche market and into fragmenting those niches into even smaller, more specific and specialized pieces to sure up even greater profits from stronger micro positioning.

Look to dominate fragments which can lead to dominance in the niche. Sure, you will end up with fewer clients and customers on a fragmented level. However, these will be better clients and customers... and when it comes to fragmented marketing less is more when then are loyal.

Copyright 2005 Stephen Pierce