Up until now, we grouped women into segments, identified their needs, figured out what we can offer then, and found out who is competing with us for their attention. We also dug deeper and tried to understand what these competitors are doing so that we can do it better or differently. That was the discovery phase of our effort. Now, we are going to tackle the strategizing phase, and we are going to be creative about it. We are going to do the reverse of what we did earlier. We are going to start with the competition, identify who they attract, and figure out how we can fulfill their needs.
At this point, let us take a few steps back to how we defined strategy-based dating:
Strategy-based dating is about presenting yourself in way that makes women see you as more valuable than the other men around you.
So, obviously, this implies that you have to show women that you are superior to other men who are your competitors in this case. This brings us back to competitors. You need to make it obvious who your competitors are, and why you are better than them. That will make it clear to women that you are the superior alternative, and it will make it easy for them to choose you because you are better than everyone else who is competing with you. The beauty of a well-thought strategy is that you get to pick and choose who your competitors are. Picking your competition is an important part of competing in the marketplace, so you need to choose wisely.
Let us go back to the target segment of women who value wealth. I will use this as an example to illustrate the creative process. Your competitors are wealthy men and we can position them as such:
As you can see, there is a lot of competition from the different types of competitors, and they have all offerings of value covered. There is no place to position yourself without having competition. You can try to come up with different offerings not represented on the graph, and that is very acceptable. For example, what about offering a family-oriented lifestyle? However, is this offering really interesting to someone who values luxury, adventure, and leisure? Probably not. They are probably someone who wants to enjoy life for now, not be burdened with family life right away.
Instead, what you can do is choose one of the competitors and compete with them directly. When choosing a competitor, try to choose the competitor who:
If you look carefully at the graph, you will see that the competitors who live off family money seem to occupy a large space on their own. They tend not to work too hard and live a life of luxury and adventure. Luxury and adventure, the competitor's offerings, are very desirable to the target segment. Assuming you can match these offerings, this looks like a good group to compete with. Now how can you differentiate yourself from them in a way that makes you more appealing? What else do we know about men who live off family money? They are usually dependent on their family, which is not a very desirable trait. What you need to do then is present yourself as luxurious, adventurous, AND independent. That will differentiate you from the others and give you a competitive advantage.
So, your offerings within wealth are: luxury, adventure, independence. Now you need to backtrack one more step and identify from among the 10 target segments we had originally the segment which really appreciates and values exactly what you are offering. That is your Target Audience. These are the women you need to focus on because they are the ones who are most attracted to what you have to offer.
In the Segmentation section, you did your research and answered several questions about your target segments, including your Target Audience. What is left are 2 important questions you need to answer for you Target Audience:
You know who your competitors are and how you can surpass them. You know how to attract your target audience, how to lower their resitance to you, and how to make their life better. Your strategy is now complete.
Now that you have a strategy, what is left is to put it to good use. You will do that through branding.