Aaron Hoos

The following is a case study derived from working with a client: BizTrade, the Community-Powered Business Exchange.

PROBLEM: The client approached me because they were dramatically changing their business. For several years, they had worked in the highly competitive business brokerage industry, helping business owners who wanted to buy or sell a business. But they were changing to a community-driven model and were figuring out what it looked like, how it worked, and how to communicate it.

SOLUTION: First, we worked through how the business was changing and we created numerous information assets to communicate it to all parties — essentially communicating that the current business brokerage model was broken and that a new model was required. This work included press releases, web copy, and ebooks. Next, we worked through the business model itself and this went through numerous iterations before finally settling on the model you see today. My role throughout the process was to provide the assets to be used to inform and instruct key targets (including clients and related professionals) and to create content strategy that would feed this model with high-value business content to attract and engage users.

RELEVANCE TO THE BUSINESS DIAMOND FRAMEWORK: Content strategy is a key activity of the Business Diamond Framework. Each part of the Framework needs information assets to communicate to those outside of it. BizTrade’s Leadership Function Diamond needed content to keep stakeholders up to date. BizTrade’s Support Function Diamond needed content that would instruct users on how to buy memberships. And BizTrade’s Value-Add and To-Market Function Diamonds were the basis on which I created the content strategy that would move them out of their old business model into their new business model.

We can’t sell all of our products to everybody. If you’ve approached business with that mindset (“who WOULDN’T want my product?!?”) then you’ve been throwing away your money with ineffective marketing.

Businesses are more successful when they narrow their customer base, understand those customers really well, and ignore everything else. When I stopped writing content for anyone who contacted me, and focused on only 3 niches (B2B, real estate, finance), my productivity went up, my rate went up, the quality of my writing went up, and the quality of my clients went up. About once a year I pull out my customer list and compare it to where I thought I’d be and where I want to be.

Anthony Tjan wrote a post for Harvard Business School’s blog entitled “Want to Understand Your Customers? Go Psycho“. In his article, he talked about using psychographic information to figure out who your clients are (or who they might be) and to shape your offering and your marketing. In one excellent paragraph, he rightly points out that you may not have a lot of demographic information for a particular niche you’re planning to target but you may have some quality psychographic information.

Thanks to the openness and proliferation of social media, we can make pretty informed psychographic research where our demographic research may have fallen short.

Why not take a moment right now and draft a paragraph describing each of the target markets your business services. Then, think about what you can do for those audiences to add value to their lives.

In terms of the Business Diamond Framework, this is a key Leadership Function Diamond activity that influences every other aspect of your business.

I recently wrote an article, published at EvanCarmichael.com, called: “Lifting the Hood of Your Small Business Engine: An Introduction to the Business Diamond Framework“.