Fresh Fish Minus the Fluff and Filler

'Cheap fish, no cheap skates!'

Every day I am taught a valuable marketing lesson, or come across a marketing principle that I hold dear, reassuring me that no, I am not losing my marketing marbles despite my advancing years!  And that’s why today’s blog is all about fresh fish.

You see, a fishmonger’s has opened up in Horsham, the town in which I live. Since opening, the shop has been packed to the rafters with customers and not just on a Saturday, but throughout the week too. Walk into the shop and you know immediately what you are getting as a huge display of the most amazing fresh fish is there to greet you. Some of it has already been filleted; some of it is the entire fish. In the time that I have been buying fish from the shop I have been willingly seduced into buying all manner of fish beyond my usual safe palette of haddock and cod.

This shop has got their positioning absolutely spot on. The young lad who runs the fishmongers tells me that his Granddad catches the fish every morning on his boat in Eastbourne. Without a middleman, the grandson then takes over to do the selling.  Not only is this a charming story, it means that the pricing strategy of the business is pretty keen too. Okay, the fish is not cheap but the prices are comparable to the supermarket and you also have the added advantage of an amazing price if the catch of the day is particularly abundant. All this shop sells is fish. Superb quality, fresh beyond belief, fish; 90% of it caught locally.

What has this got to do with marketing and more precisely with your business?

It can be easy to get caught up in diversifying your business; to add more services and products in a bid to attract more customers. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. For many businesses, diversification can be sensible and profitable. However, if you have been wandering off track and allowing yourself to be diverted by what turn out to be business red herrings, maybe it’s time to  stop, reflect, review and pull back. Time to focus on your core offering; to identify how this can be improved. Perhaps you need to strip it back to bthe asics so that your audience understands what you offer, can see the benefits at a glance and so can readily engage with you.