Whats the best market to target?

Target Market for custom cd-rom

• My company creates custom CD-ROM's using Macromedia Director. We have done catalogs, service manuals, union information, software sales, invitations. Each client is unique and each CD-ROM is created exclusively for these clients. Each time we complete a project, we have to move on and find another client - there is very little repeat business for our service. We are desperately searching for a specific target market for our services and need to know why would this market needs or uses CD-ROM? The shotgun approach and leads that we get from our web site are okay but we need to increase sales significantly in the next 6 months. Having some idea of a target market would increase our ability to sell our services. The clients we have worked for in the past have been extremely pleased with our CD-ROM work. We also provide video production and web development for our clients if they need those services. We have a great company, talented employees - all we need is a target market!

• Answer:

  In search of a target market. Answer: The key here is finding repeat business. I worked in publishing for years, and I know that you create a much steadier revenue stream with a newsletter than you do with a marketing brochure. That said, I've come up with a four markets that could use complex, interactive (read: expensive) CDs on a recurring basis. I know from experience that it’s better to market to a small, definable group with money to spend than to spread your efforts over a large audience, most of which doesn’t receive your service. The industries below share three common characteristics: 1) You can get a list of useful contacts either through a list broker or some Web research. 2) They need the service but are likely to either not have someone in-house to do it, or because of the recurring but infrequent nature of the product would choose to outsource rather than hire. 3) They traditionally face pretty serious deadlines. If you can’t work fast, you won’t get the job. All of the markets below offer good potential targets for your business, but, as is always the case, your ability to market yourself is of tantamount importance. In some of these markets, you’ll be competing against entrenched producers. Be prepared to differentiate yourself. 1: Producers of annual reports. All publicly traded companies in the United States have to file annual reports with the SEC. Several thousand of them produce printed annual report, with marketing and financial copy. Many are effusively designed and quite colorful. Some of these companies produce CD versions of the annual report. They tend to be very rich in interactive features. Here you have two potential markets, which you would probably not be able to separate. First, you could compete for the business of companies that already do this. Second, you could try to sell the annual report producers on the benefits of an interactive CD. Personally, I’d go for option two, simply because I can’t find a list of annual reports available on CD. Many nonprofit entities, like colleges, hospitals, and museums, also produce very detailed annual reports, some of which are already available on CD. To tap into this market, you sell to people with titles like Corporate Communications Director, Public Relations Director, and Investor Relations Director. This will not be an easy nut to crack, but the rewards are pretty impressive, in the form of high-dollar business that recurs every year. 2: Real estate companies A lot of real estate companies produce market reports. They tend to be heavy on statistics. I don’t know of many who distribute via CD, but it’s a market ripe for that kind of dissemination. Companies that produce these reports usually do them either quarterly or semiannually, so the business would definitely repeat. To tap into this market, target directors of communications or public relations at real estate companies. 3: Publishers Here, you want to find companies that produce large, detailed printed publications that require frequent updates. Possibilities include encyclopedias, textbooks, and academic or business books sold to a mass market but revised every year. These jobs would be very labor-intensive. The deadlines wouldn’t be quite as tight as they would be with the first two groups, but the size of the potential projects would be much larger.There are two ways to attack this market. The most lucrative is to sell yourself directly to the individual producer of the publication. That could be difficult, as job titles and descriptions tend to be ill-defined in the publishing industry. Still, you’ll make more money if you contract with Professor Bloated Prose to deliver the CD that accompanies his textbook update every year or convince the Organic Flower Network to let you produce their annual catalog and directory. Probably the most high-percentage way to tap this business is to market yourself to publishing companies and get on their list of outsourcers. Publishers, like everyone else, are scrambling to cut costs. Outsourcing is an increasing trend, and if you present a good front, you may be able to cash in on it. 4: General corporate communicationsW What I’m thinking here is something like a press kit. Plenty of companies like to distribute press kits in the form of CDs. They can pack on a lot of glossy marketing copy and data without sending a huge pile of papers no reporter will have room to keep at his desk. This target market is probably the least-recurring of the ones I mentioned, and offers the smallest-ticket jobs. But there are a lot of people out there who could use this service. To tap this market, target directors of public relations at either regional companies or regional branches of national companies. For some general information about lists and links to list brokers, check out my answer to an earlier question at https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=107446.