In marketing, it pays to match the range of products and services you offer to the breadth of the market you offer them to.
Think about a triangle, with the point at the top. The point represents a narrow range of products and services, while the base of the triangle represents a very broad market – that’s how a company like Grimmway (the giant carrot producer) sells carrots: they’ve got a very narrow product offering (carrots), and they market them to everybody possible.
If you broaden out the product and service offerings (the point of the triangle) while keeping the market (the base of the triangle) the same, you end up with a square – a broad range of products marketing to a very broad marketplace. An extreme example would be growing everything from radicchio to Burbank Russet baking potatoes, and selling the whole lot to everyone from urban foodies to Iowa corn growers.
When you market with a square, it’s just plain hard to stand out from the crowd. Because the definition of value and quality varies with different segments of the market, it’s almost impossible to provide a wide range of products that is perceived as high value to a broad marketplace – so you end up competing on the basis of price, instead.
And that’s not sustainable.
Now, invert that triangle so that you’ve got a very broad range of products and services, but you’re marketing to a very narrow market. Most farmers in the organic and local food movements are already doing this to some extent by marketing to customers with an elevated commitment to those values. But too many small growers continue to try to be everything to everybody who might be interested in the product categories they have to offer.
You need diversity, but too much diversity at both the top and the bottom of the triangle becomes too difficult to manage effectively. Think about how to narrow the bottom of that inverted triangle: instead of marketing CSA shares to an entire city, what about marketing to a select neighborhood, or to a select self-identified community? Instead of marketing through a CSA, wholesale, and farmers market, what about picking one segment, and doing it really well?
Think about a triangle, with the point at the top. The point represents a narrow range of products and services, while the base of the triangle represents a very broad market – that’s how a company like Grimmway (the giant carrot producer) sells carrots: they’ve got a very narrow product offering (carrots), and they market them to everybody possible.
If you broaden out the product and service offerings (the point of the triangle) while keeping the market (the base of the triangle) the same, you end up with a square – a broad range of products marketing to a very broad marketplace. An extreme example would be growing everything from radicchio to Burbank Russet baking potatoes, and selling the whole lot to everyone from urban foodies to Iowa corn growers.
When you market with a square, it’s just plain hard to stand out from the crowd. Because the definition of value and quality varies with different segments of the market, it’s almost impossible to provide a wide range of products that is perceived as high value to a broad marketplace – so you end up competing on the basis of price, instead.
And that’s not sustainable.
Now, invert that triangle so that you’ve got a very broad range of products and services, but you’re marketing to a very narrow market. Most farmers in the organic and local food movements are already doing this to some extent by marketing to customers with an elevated commitment to those values. But too many small growers continue to try to be everything to everybody who might be interested in the product categories they have to offer.
You need diversity, but too much diversity at both the top and the bottom of the triangle becomes too difficult to manage effectively. Think about how to narrow the bottom of that inverted triangle: instead of marketing CSA shares to an entire city, what about marketing to a select neighborhood, or to a select self-identified community? Instead of marketing through a CSA, wholesale, and farmers market, what about picking one segment, and doing it really well?
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