The market is your customer-Now that’s deep.  What I mean to say is the person who uses your services is your market.  This can be the lady who just locked her keys in her car, the trucking company fleet manager with a downed unit or the auto repair shop owner who needs one towed in.  Your market is anyone who’s in the position to decide who to call when towing services is needed. And yes although not desirable motor clubs are one of your markets. Remember, the car you’re towing may not be owned by the same party who’s paying your fee.

More often than not, if a customer has a good relationship with their regular repair shop, they’ll go to them to refer a tower. So even though the repair shop isn’t paying for your services, they’re still your customer. They can give you a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

Ok…in the broadest sense, everyone in your area is considered your market. That is unless you live on a secluded island that doesn’t allow motorized vehicles… If so, then why are you reading this?  Go pick some coconuts or something. If that’s not the case, at some point in their lives, everyone in your area is gonna need your services, or at least they’ll know someone who could use a referral.

That doesn’t mean you can use a one-size-fits-all approach to marketing your business.  Although some messages will overlap and have an impact on multiple markets, to be effective, you need to define and focus on individual markets. For example, you wouldn’t develop a message directed to the concerns of a repair shop owner when attempting to attract a cash customer who locked her keys in her car.  And you wouldn’t share a message designed to educate cash customers as to their choices when deciding what towing company to call with your auto shop customers.  Besides being inappropriate, it would be a waste of time and money.

So get to it, define a single target market, someone you want to be your customer or someone who’s already your customer. Think about what questions you would ask if you were in their shoes.  What questions have you heard? Then answer those questions as if you didn’t own a towing business. What I’ve done is used radio advertising and a testimonial from a woman whose Grandson was locked inside her car.  It’s quite emotional and gets the point across that we provide quick service.

You might be thinking, “that’s great if I only want to attract people who’ve locked their kids in their cars,” but the value in that piece is the emotion.  Every mother knows how horrible it would feel if they had that experience. It’s not that much of a stretch for them to make a connection. A connection that, hopefully, lasts long enough to remember the next time something car-related happens to them.  There are many other things that can cause high stress and emotion to run rampant. Being late for work, stranded roadside, stuck in a ditch- and knowing who to call can be invaluable.

The beauty with honing in on one particular segment of the market is that you’re speaking directly to a person who’s been there before, or knows someone who has. And even though that person may never need that particular type of service they’ll remember the commercial and connect the dots that your company can provide a solution.