Recently I was at the store and decided to buy a dark chocolate bar. As looked at the options, this bar caught my attention immediately. While other bars had relatively similar wrappers, mostly with big writing and a focus on how good their chocolate is, the Salazon wrapper uses an image to capture the attention of a niche audience. And I am a member of that audience.

This picture resonates with me because I enjoy staying fit and active and I love the outdoors. So I didn’t have to make a decision of which bar to choose. The choice was made for me by the smart people at Salazon. The other bars were looking at me indifferently, but this bar was whispering my name and asking me to buy it. And provided the bar tasted great (it does), I knew I’d be a customer for life.

This is an example of the value of taking a stand and carving out a niche and letting the world know who you want to serve and why you are the best at serving that niche. (It’s also an example of using imagery vs. words to tell a story and win people over – more on that in a future post). The folks at Salazon know that a limited audience will be drawn to their bars as strongly as I was. But they also know that when members of the audience they’ve chosen to serve are standing in front of a choice of chocolate, they’ll almost all choose Salazon.

I admire them for being bold enough to make it clear who they want to serve, and not worrying about the rest. The other bars can fight it out for the larger general audience, while Salazon completely dominates their niche. Trust me, that’s a fun type of business to run!

Wil