My son Corbin frequently asks me to play Nerf Gun Wars. We each head to a different part of the house, count to twenty and then attempt to Styrofoam dart the other one to death. The last time I hunted him down, it occurred to me that many business owners’ approach to marketing can be compared to Nerf Gun Wars (NGW). The business owner attempting to target and hit his/her target customer, and the target customer, who tends to want to avoid sales people or being sold to, shoots back in defense.
The Sniper. My usual NGW strategy. Find a strategic location, establish a nest, site up where the target will emerge, and finger on the trigger. This is the highly focused owner who uses limited scope marketing to prospects that are more likely qualified to have a need his or her business can provide. These owners are willing to spend more marketing dollars per prospect per impression, much like a sniper is willing to wait for the ideal targeted shot, because they know their bullet or method will deliver. They are willing to pay more for highly filtered prospect lists and have screening methods for clients. Often, this strategy is more concerned with maximizing profit margins per unit sold, rather than percentage of market. This strategy works well with premiere or niched products where the potential client needs a high value touch. Price point as a competitive value is also not as important.
If you are going to try sniper marketing, you’d better make sure your scope is accurate and precise, and your advertising bullet is effective and impressive enough for “the kill” with a single shot.
The Sprayer. Any kid with ADHD or an aggressive outlook tends to use this NGW strategy. Upon the 20 count, they emerge and blitzkrieg any suspected target area spraying Nerf bullets everywhere. Their theory is ‘one of these shots will surely be lucky.’ These business owner’s marketing is all about number of impressions (highest CPM at lowest cost). If a marketing bullet whizzes by someone’s ear and doesn’t land, their thought is, ‘at least the person will know about who we are and what we do.’ This strategy works better on goods and services where price is a competing factor and market share is a key measurement.
If you are a sprayer, each bullet has to be very cheap per shot since you are going to unload tons of ammo as compared to the waiting sniper. Can you cover a broad enough swatch of prospects that you will land a few of them?
The Strategists. There are always the masterminds who develop elaborate schemes. The last NGW I had with Corbin, he had set up a cage of laundry baskets and moved his laser sight to a different part of the room in an attempt to fool me into thinking he was really there. As I had counted to twenty, I headed towards his room only to catch him still in the process of setting up his Stephen Hawking-esque elaborate scheme. As he built away, unaware that I was there, he soon was wasted in my onslaught. This personality is akin to business owners who love incessant planning, tweaking and re-tweaking never to actually execute or try any actual marketing activity.
If you are an over-planner, force yourself to have milestones to try something, even if you feel your plan needs further work.
The Send Your Sister. Corbin will often send his sisters to spy out where I am, but it is very easy for me to sway them from giving away my defensive position (usually it only involves a chocolate chip cookie bribe). As a result, he gets bad intel and rarely has the ability to make the kill. Some business owners so love making the product or providing the service that they relegate all selling to their ‘sisters,’ or professional sales force. As a result they get separated from the front lines of actual messaging and delivering a sales presentation. This can quickly become a fatal disconnect for the business, where the owner becomes a backroom general who has no idea of his business’ marketing challenges.
If you are a technician type business owner, make yourself sell your product or service to clients at least once per week. This will help you help your sales force message your core value more clearly.
Grab your marketing gun and get going. What other marketing as Nerf Gun Wars come to mind?