Essentially, no matter how experts slice and dice any market into buying groups, it’s typically agreed upon that only 3% of people are ready to BUY NOW. This is the audience your competitors and most business owners target. That leaves 97% of the market virtually ignored & up for grabs. The Larger Market Formula touts that focusing on the 97% rather than the 3% leads to less competition, lower cost per click rates, more sales, greater customer loyalty, and a huge advantage of your competition.

What is the Larger Market Formula?

If 3% of people in your market are interested in doing business with you right now, then about 17% of people are still in information gathering mode.

That leaves approximately 20% of people who know they need some form of help, but aren’t quite committed to solving their problem just yet.

While at the heart of things is a whopping 60% of people who aren’t even aware they have a problem you can solve. This is what your market looks like:

Two Modes of Marketing

The reason the Larger Market Formula is worth talking about is that it puts your market and your opportunity into perspective. Using the Larger Market Formula and appealing to the broad audience of potential customers in need of nurturing gives you the biggest opportunity to scale.

There are two modes of marketing you can implement:

1. Market to the 3% ready to buy now
2. Market to the 97% in need of nurturing

Now, if you’re like most business owners, you’re thinking right about now, “Why wouldn’t I market to the 3% ready to buy, they’re READY TO BUY, that’s my ideal customer right there!”

Right, you and every other business owner out there, including Fortune 500 companies with larger marketing budgets than your net worth.

That’s why we’re talking about the Larger Market Formula.

The first mode—targeting the 3% of customers ready to buy now—is where companies feel the most confident. While the second mode of marketing is where the opportunity lies. 

Focus Your Marketing Resources on the 97%

If you can establish the relationship and develop rapport before people are ready to buy, then you’ll be the obvious choice when they’re ready to buy.

To do that, it’s important to understand where your target audience is looking for information when in research mode.

Essentially, it’s safe to say your competitors (and most of the business world) are targeting the top 3%, so if you target the 37%, 60% or 97% of the market being ignored, you can swoop up the majority of the market your competitors are missing—AND AT A LOWER COST!

So, ask the questions: Where does my target audience go to find the answers they seek? Is it Google? (The world’s largest search engine!) . . . YouTube? (The world’s 2nd largest search engine!) . . . Blogs? Books? Social media? Do they search using desktop or mobile? Is it all word-of-mouth?

Knowing these details will help you get in front of your ideal customers and move them up the pyramid so they know you, like you, trust you, and buy from you when they’re ready to pull the trigger.

How to Define Your Ideal Customer

Check out our article on defining your ideal customer to continue learning where your target audience is looking for you, and how to get in front of them, captivate them, nurture them, and inspire them to take action.