As an amoeba separating a Petri dish, the market can be viewed as an ever-expanding sea of categories. During my career as a management consultant with Deloitte, I experienced this Division Law many times.
I joined Deloitte when the consulting profession within the framework of Big 4 (Big 8 at the time) accounting and consulting firms was in its infancy. At that time, the consulting business was one.
Over time, we were divided into Consulting Services, Implementation Services and Quality Assurance Services. These different categories of services are further categorized into “Strategy”, “Operations”, “Organization” and “Technology”. These categories are again divided by industry specialties, such as telecommunications, technology, financial services, health care, consumer goods, etc.
Another division occurred in terms of geography in terms of emerging markets and industrial regions; and then another level of specialization appeared in North America, the EMEA region (Europe, the Middle East and America), and also in the APAC regions (Asia-Pacific countries).
Although at times these levels of detail and focus were made for internal purposes, most of the time it was the market evaluating expertise in accordance with these categories. At each stage of the journey, we faced new competitors and had to learn to adapt to these new participants in the consulting business.
As in the consulting business, the automotive industry began as a single category. The market was dominated by three brands (Chevrolet, Ford and Plymouth). Then the category was divided, and today we have luxury cars, moderately priced cars and cheap cars. We also have full-size cars, intermediate products and compacts. And we have sports cars, all-wheel drive cars, RVs, SUVs and minivans; another example of an ever expanding sea of categories.
In the television industry, ABC, CBS and NBC used to make up 90 percent of the audience. Now we have network, independent, cable, pay and public television with an instance, interactive and even IPTV networks (niche oriented programming over the Internet) ... sometime watch CNBC online? This programming is available both on my cable network and on my PC or laptop (for free).
Beer started the same way. Today we have imported and domestic beer; premium and popular beer; light, draft and dry beer; we even have non-alcoholic beer.
Each segment is a separate and separate object. Each segment has its own reason for being. And each segment has its own leader, which rarely coincides with the leader of the original category.
In the world of computers, IBM is the leader in mainframes; HP in the middle class computers; Dell and Apple laptops; and Sun, now part of Oracle is the leader in workstations.
Instead of understanding this concept of separation, many corporate leaders hold the naive belief that categories unite. Synergy and its holistic cousin, the corporate alliance, are the key words in boardrooms around the planet.
We have seen AOL and Time Warner team up to take advantage of the convergence of television, music, publishing, and computing. How it works?
The benefits of synergy and mega mice are rarely realized. Categories are divided, not combined, in a sea of niche categories (and this is well described by Chris Anderson in his book “Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is to Sell Less”).
Wealth is in niches.
The path to the leader, to maintain its dominance, is to address each new category with a different brand, as General Motors did with Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Cadillac.
What makes leaders launch another brand to reach a new category is the fear of what will happen to their existing brands. General Motors was in no hurry to respond to the super-premium category, which was installed by Mercedes-Benz and BMW. One of the reasons was that the new brand at the top of Cadillac disgraces Cadillac GM dealers.
Compare this with the principle of work of Andy Grove, the former CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Intel, the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer and one of the most advanced companies in the world where only paranoids survive. “Essentially, this principle develops Intel to cycles of survival and leadership based on the ability to eater and jump to cross the abyss in the area. They constantly divide successful product areas into new categories, creating wildly successful and profitable new markets and avoiding other located at the bottom of the high-tech abyss.
As an internet marketing professional, you need to understand the law of the department. As the product category separates, there are leading opportunities to rush and become No 1 in one or more new categories.
Timing is also important, but you must have the courage or the money to hang there long enough for this category to develop.
Better to be early than late. You cannot penetrate the perspectives head (as described in Law No. 1 of Leadership) for a category if you are not ready to spend some time waiting for the development of events.
Many internet marketing entrepreneurs use methods and tools such as mind mapping, keyword research, attraction marketing formula, magnetic sponsorship, and MindMeister to conduct marketing research and planning for a successful marketing campaign. They then use the marketing capabilities of MyStory, You Inc brand and hypnotic writing skills in their marketing campaigns to actually realize their brand position and strategy they want to pursue in a world that includes Division Law.
The goals are not to emphasize, because their offer is better, functionally and functionally, compared to a competitor, but in order to develop a message that is recognized, accepted and agreed to tempt and convince the client into a new category, that what is offered to the target market, really and will work for them.
Marketing is not a battle of products. It's all about the strategy that you use to take advantage of the Law of the Department, and if you are not a leader, then you should monitor the market and as a dividend by category, be prepared to rush into No. 1 in one or more new categories.
You can learn more about internet marketing and home businesses by reading the updates that will be published on my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a wonderful book to read is Rice and Trout, The Constant Laws of Marketing. This is the source of some of the materials presented in this article.
