Market segmentation, targeting & positioning for Climate Tech brands

Written By Joseph D. Simpson

This is the third post in our Ultimate Guide To Building An Climate Tech Brand.

You'll get the most out of this guide if your desire to scale your brand is exceeded only by your willingness to execute on the concepts within this guide.

This guide is designed to describe all major aspects of branding, from your brand’s foundations to strategic messaging for sustainability startups to positioning yourself as a thought leader in the emerging impact economy to building your relationship with the press.

Overview

This guide will showcase 7 major sections including:

Target audience for Climate Tech brands

Just like we have to watch the words that we use in the story we tell, we have to ensure that we’re telling the right story to the right people. Ideas, when they’re told to the right people, spread. When an idea is told to the wrong person, it doesn’t. The difference between an idea that spreads and an idea that doesn’t is the person which it’s told to.

If your story doesn’t resonate with them, if they don’t feel involved in it and don’t subsequently pass it on, your story won’t spread. You may imagine that as a brand, you’ll say or do something and it will reach an audience. Like an antenna distributing one signal to 100 people. Sender, receiver-style. However, in reality, it’s more likely to work like this.

You have an idea and you tell one person. That person loves your idea so much, they tell a further two people.

Those two people are so enthusiastic about your idea that they tell two more.

Sooner or later, you have an audience of 100 people, but it all starts with telling the right story to the right person first. That’s because people spread ideas. And because people believe people they know or are connected to in some meaningful way.

They don’t believe strangers selling stuff. Identifying who the right people are and creating a story not only for their consumption, but which they will be happy to spread is key in ensuring that your idea spreads. 

Just like a story spreads, so too does new technology. The adoption of new information leads to innovations that challenge our existing world view. Challenge a world view, you challenge the world order. And this is by no means a new phenomenon. Going back in history, we can find many concepts which challenged the dominant ideology of the day.

The idea that the world was round was floated for the first time in the 5th century BC by Greek philosophers. The paradigm was gradually adopted throughout the Old World during the Middle Ages and by the time it was widely accepted, technology had evolved significantly.

The adoption process of this concept paved the way for the first voyages across the Atlantic ocean. Christopher Columbus’s determination to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia was underlined by this thought process. However, the existing world order is, almost always, resistant to change.

Only a few years after Columbus made his voyage, Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli said the following words:

“There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things…Whenever his enemies have occasion to attack the innovator they do so with the passion of partisans, while the others defend him sluggishly, so that the innovator and his party alike are vulnerable”. 

How the Innovators Bell Curve applies to sustainability startups

Today’s resistance to addressing climate change can in many ways be compared to the historic resistance to new ways of thinking. One way that we can learn from the comparisons that they draw is through the lens of acceptance, a concept that American sociologist and communication theorist Everett Rogers brought to light in the mid 20th Century.

Considered a founder of modern communications theory, Roger’s Diffusion of Innovation, examines how ideas spread through society. An innovation, for Rogers, is an idea, practice or project that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption.

Diffusion analyses the conditions that increase or decrease the likelihood that an innovation — a new idea, product or practice — will be adopted by a group. Because new ideas are not adopted by all individuals in a social system at one time, Roger’s combined these two concepts into a sequence of adoption.

“One reason why there is so much interest in the diffusion of innovations is because getting a new idea adopted, even when it has obvious advantages, is often very difficult,” says Rogers.

Adoption of technology or change to the status quo by an individual takes five steps. It begins with awareness and knowledge; the acknowledgement of the presence or existence of the new innovation or technology, as well as a general understanding of what it might entail.

Next come persuasion and interest; the act of processing information associated with the innovation, inspiring the individual to find out more about the product or services.

The third is decision and assessment; Having considered the persuasion factors, the individual will at this point make a decision — by gathering evidence, data or opinions — about whether to adopt or reject the innovation.

Fourth comes the implementation and exploration phase; The series of activities wherein the innovation is put to use for the first time. The success of this stage solidifies the adoption of innovation in the individual’s mind. Lastly comes the confirmation and adoption stage; this is where behaviour is reinforced by the innovation’s actual delivery against the claims of relative advantage.

As an impact entrepreneur, you’re undoubtedly trying to solve a global issue in a new or novel way.

This newness is inherently uncertain in its applicability. And just like there was resistance to the science of climate change, the spherical earth theory or the theory of evolution, there will undoubtedly be resistance to your solution. To make sense of this process of acceptance, Roger’s theory splits society into five distinct segments. They include innovators, early adopters, the early majority, the late majority and laggards. 

  • Innovators (2.5%). Innovators are the first individuals to adopt an innovation. Innovators are willing to take risks, are the youngest, have the highest social class, have great financial lucidity, are very social and have the closest contact with scientific sources and interaction with other innovators. Risk tolerance has them adopting technologies which may ultimately fail. Financial resources help absorb these failures. 

  • Early Adopters (13.5%). This is the second-fastest category of individuals who adopt an innovation. These individuals have the highest degree of opinion leadership among the other adopter categories. Early adopters are typically younger in age, have a higher social status, have more financial lucidity, advanced education and are more socially forward than late adopters. More discrete in adoption choices than innovators. Realizing judicious choice of adoption will help them maintain a central communication position.

  • Early Majority (34%). Individuals in this category adopt an innovation after a varying degree of time. This time of adoption is significantly longer than the innovators and early adopters. Early Majority tend to be slower in the adoption process, have above average social status, contact with early adopters and seldom hold positions of opinion leadership in a system.

  • Late Majority (34%). Individuals in this category will adopt an innovation after the average member of society. These individuals approach an innovation with a high degree of scepticism and after the majority of society has adopted the innovation. Late Majority are typically sceptical about an innovation, have below-average social status, very little financial lucidity, in contact with others in late majority and early majority, very little opinion leadership.

  • Laggards (16%). Individuals in this category are the last to adopt an innovation. Unlike some of the previous categories, individuals in this category show little to no opinion leadership. These individuals typically have an aversion to change-agents and tend to be advanced in age. Laggards typically tend to be focused on “traditions”, likely to have lowest social status, lowest financial fluidity, be oldest of all other adopters, in contact with only family and close friends, very little to no opinion leadership.

Understanding how society adopts new technology and accepts new ideas is crucial to creating a communications strategy for a startup in the impact or the technology space. Because as impact entrepreneurs, we’re social beings, we inherently tend to focus on the largest social group possible.

…The whole.

However, according to Roger’s bell curve, we should be focusing our efforts on communicating with those most open to change. Our businesses are built on better ways to do things. Because these news ideas challenge the existing status quo, the greatest chance we have to have them grow our innovations into socially accepted alternatives lies with convincing the innovators and early adopters first.

They’re the ones who are likely to be most open to your solution. To be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and help you leverage their network for the sake of bringing your solution into the world. In other words, they’re imperative to your success as an impact entrepreneur. But where do you find them? Innovators and early adopters of new innovations:

  • Are actively seeking a competitive edge

  • Have the ability to find new uses for an innovation

  • Seek out and sign up for early trials and beta tests

  • Like to be unique and share new products because it makes them feel good

  • Are technological leaders in their organizations

  • Are willing to use a product that isn’t complete

Innovators don’t have the solutions but they have the problem that you’re in business to solve. These problems aren’t global — like climate change or plastic pollution — they are business issues like “my investors want me to measure my impact but I don’t have the capabilities” or “how do we communicate about sustainability without sounding like we’re greenwashing”.

Identifying the problem is key to positioning your product or service as a solution. As we have seen, the first step of adoption is awareness and knowledge.

To bring awareness to your solution, it’s imperative to have a solid pulse on the issue, who suffers from it and how it affects their lives. As your startup introduces a new product to the market, find the place where your target audience is talking about the problems that your product addresses.

Whether it’s in traditional media, online forums, blogs, social media, etc, find them and contribute to the conversation. And when you find them, showcase your passion for solving their problem rather than your product.

If innovators are those who create new ideas or tools that are more efficient than their predecessors, then the early adopters are their first users of the cutting edge technology of the day. Both are catalysts for new ideas.

Innovators are likely to, if they complete all five stages of adoption, pass on their experience to the early adopters. The early adopters are the influencers of the early majority and so on. 

Targeting the innovators and early adopters

How do we frame our solutions to such problems like climate change and food insecurity in a way that will trigger a call to action?

As an impact entrepreneur or sustainable startup, it’s normal to believe that your business is united with the cause that you’re dedicating so much time and energy to solve. To a certain extent that’s OK.

But when you harp on about a global problem, as we’ve talked about earlier, people tend to switch off. Before we look at how we should communicate as an impact-driven brand, let’s first poke the elephant in the room. 

If your goal as a startup or small business is to change the views of the general population in regards to sustainability (or any other cause you hold dear) and have them change their ways, you’re not in business, you’re trying to build a social movement.

Social movements communicate with a sole goal in mind: Change the way society acts in relation to a cause. They target large audiences with similar messages in the hope that they inspire enough people to reach a tipping point for change.

Examples of social movements are the Civil Rights Movement, the Me Too Movement and Extinction Rebellion. But if you’ve decided to create a product that you need to sell to grow your impact, then you have to communicate like a business.

Why? Because the biggest section of the pie, the majority, are good at ignoring what you have to say. They’re simply not interested in joining your movement if they’ve never heard of it before, just like if they have no need for your product. 

Seth Godin, American author and one of the forefathers of modern marketing theory, states that there are two major reasons why you shouldn’t target the majority:

They don’t want to hear what you’re saying.

“They have problems that they find far more significant than the ones your product solves and they’re just not willing to invest the time to listen to you”. 

- Seth Godin

They don’t always listen to the innovators on the left of the curve. The majority “want protocols and systems and safety that new products rarely offer.” Because of this, many new businesses never get the chance to target the majority at all. 

If you’re a small business, targeting the majority with your messages about the dangers of sustainability and climate change is a waste of breath. You’re unlikely to change any minds and if you do, they’re unlikely to be in the market for your product due to other constricting factors.

As Godin puts it:

“If they’re not going to listen to their friends, why should they listen to you?”

Informing the innovators with a message about the dangers of climate change is just as futile. Innovators already know about the significant challenges which we face. If they don’t, they can’t possibly be innovators. 

Our goal with communications as sustainable businesses should be to define the struggles that these innovators are experiencing and work hard to solve them, not try to bring about a social tipping point by educating and informing the masses. We should be outlining the problems our company solves, our solutions and why the company has chosen to take up this battle.

In short, it should be to help our company grow.

However, I quite often work with startups who are committed to spreading their knowledge or disseminating information with their communication campaigns. Instead of growing their company, they want to “inform the public” on the perils of climate change or the necessity to transition towards a sustainable society. 

These general messages can span anything from going vegan to getting solar panels at home or driving an electric vehicle and they’re, generally, ineffective. Informing the public about stuff you care about is the equivalent of standing on top of a cliff with a megaphone. If your goal is to scale your impact, then the more people you bring along on your journey, the better. But you have to start one by one and let those people help you build. 

Communication goals for sustainable startups should look something like this:

  • Underscore the challenge that you’re facing and why your company has chosen to focus on solving this challenge

  • Increase brand awareness of your company for potential customers or partners by identifying the problem that you’re solving

  • Demonstrating that you are an authority in your niche and that you’re the one who’s best positioned to confront the challenge

  • Create demand for your products and drive it into your sales funnel

  • Create awareness for fundraising (VC, angel investors or corporate partners) and building brand’s equity

Communications can help turn strangers into fans, introduce your brand to the market and help your future clients become aware that you exist. It’s the top of your sales cycle and it’s a key element that provides the fuel for growth.

If your goal is to grow your business and take your solution to the world, it can be the way to let the world know you’re coming. But if your goal isn’t to be recognised on the market as a leader in your field, but rather to inform or challenge general public opinion, you’ve fundamentally misunderstood the task at hand for two reasons. 

Firstly, to grow your user base and your network of potential partners and investors, it’s important to target the people who will become your biggest fans. Focusing on changing the general public opinion about a topic so broad as deforestation won’t lead to increased action on the topic, but rather it will just add to the white noise surrounding it.

See, the thing is that you don’t just walk up to the masses and give them something unique and obscure. You give it to the innovators — those lining up for days for a new iPhone or pair of Nike Airs — and let them tell the masses for you.

Following the innovators’ curve, if you’ve created a new and innovative solution you’re in your first year or two of business, you should be directly communicating to the top 2.5% of innovators who might actually use your product.

If you’ve already got a client base, then perhaps it’s time to start looking to the top 15% of early movers and innovators. Your job marketing your startup is to wow this small demographic, excite them and then retain their attention. 

Turning the innovators and early adopters into superfans of your brand

This demographic may not need to be convinced that the problem exists. They already know climate change is an issue and they know the challenges we face in solving it. They’re desperately looking to leverage their utility to find solutions.

What they don’t know exists is your solution. Getting your solutions into their hands will increase the likelihood that you can reach the critical mass of society. They’re the Evangelists, the unabashed cheerleaders and salespeople for your product and, if you are creating a new market, for your company vision.

If you talk down to or lecture evangelists, they’re far less likely to advocate for your brand. This leads me to reason number two.

When you, as a marketeer, try to penetrate the masses with your messaging they’re likely to turn off or view it as offensive or untrustworthy. Imagine you’re walking down the street and somebody stops to tell you that you should change your superannuation to a fund that has divested from fossil fuels.

Your reaction is likely to be one of disdain or annoyance.

“Who do you think you are and why should I even care?” But now imagine that you have a good friend who tells you the same thing at a BBQ. Would you hear them out? Maybe hear more than just what you need to do? Maybe even the why?

When a message is delivered by someone you know and trust, you’re much more likely to be receptive rather than sceptical. These messengers are called evangelists and they’re your brand’s biggest fans. They’re the ones who grow brands and they’re the ones you should be targeting. 

I’ll give you a personal example. Since I moved to The Netherlands, I’ve had a massive problem with banking. I originally banked with Rabobank but after getting stuck in the Middle East without any money on three separate occasions, I knew I needed to change. The solution would have been to give me a Visa or a Mastercard, but because I was a foreign national, they refused.

Next I went to ABN AMRO, after three trips to the bank where their system was down, they also refused to give me a bank account with a card that would work outside of Europe. Then I found BUNQ, a Dutch challenger bank.

It was more expensive than the rest, but I had my account within an hour. I had my visa card within a day.

Now I’m a BUNQ evangelist. Whenever I pull out my card and people ask me, I tell them with fury about my struggles and how BUNQ solved them. I’ve convinced multiple friends in similar scenarios to swap banks too or open business accounts with them.

Heck, I even read a book on the company and I hate banking! Although I’m aligned with their mission, it was their ability to solve problems for me that turned me into an evangelist. 

Your first job as a marketer is to turn innovators into evangelists.

If you believe you have succeeded in this, then next your focus should be to give your evangelists the information that they need to spread your message for you.

Innovators are usually extremely preoccupied by being the first to get their hands on something. They take pride in being the first to know that something exists, before everyone else...and they’ll want to tell others.

Ultimately, if you tell someone what to do, they’re likely to do the opposite. But if you give people an alternative, you can build the economy of the future. In this way, marketing goes beyond telling the customer about the problem but offering them a way that they can actually make changes.

For many companies however, this is difficult because it forces them to reassess their brand promise — what is the effect or result that clients will have when they work with that company?

Segmenting, targeting and positioning for Climate Tech brands

Once you’ve got a clear idea who you are as a brand and what you stand for, the next step is to gain a greater understanding of your target audience. To successfully communicate, you’ve got to know whom you’re talking to. Why? Because not everyone wants what you’re selling.

And nor should they.

Market segmentation is the process of dividing all of your potential customers into smaller groups, based on certain characteristics. I.e., industry, company size, annual revenue or challenge. This is undeniably important when it comes to communicating your position in the market and your value proposition.

If you don’t have a clear target audience in mind when you begin to communicate, your value is going to be spread too thin. Your conversion rates will be lower and your cost-per-acquisition will be sky-high. Simply put, communicating with everyone is a waste of valuable resources. By doubling down on your ideal customer, you can actively craft a message which speaks directly to them.

An essential pillar of brand building, market segmentation follows a 3-step chronological framework often referred to as segmenting, targeting and positioning (STP).

  • The segmentation process identifies the market to be divided into customer profiles; identification, selection and application of bases.

  • Targeting is the process of selecting the most attractive segments from the segmentation stage which usually amount to the best economic potential.

  • Positioning is the final step in the process, where the business must assess its competitive advantage and position itself in the consumer’s minds to be the more attractive option in these categories.

By understanding the needs of your most valuable customers, you can tailor your communications to address these pain points and offer your solution. But it all starts with knowing your ideal customer. 

“We need to accelerate the creation of the impact economy right? So then why not sell directly to everyone?”

- Literally all my clients.

At first, it may be appealing to believe that you can sell directly to anyone and everyone. It’s a common misconception within the sustainability industry, that because our solution is solving global issues, that everyone will want our solution. Many of my clients often tell me that their target audience includes governments and multinationals.

As a startup, it’s just impossible to target such a large demographic. Within this belief comes an even larger issue. We’re selling a product not solving a problem. People buy products and services to solve their problems.

For instance, no one wakes up in the morning and says, “Today, I’m going to invest in an electric vehicle”. No, they’ve got existing problems: “My car won’t be allowed in the city centre in 5 years” or “My car doesn’t reflect my green identity” or “The price of petrol is unstable” and they’re going to solve those problems with that new vehicle.

Customer segmentation lets startups create personalized messages which focus on solving these problems, which their ideal customers usually respond better to than generic and impersonal marketing. 

Niching down as an Climate Tech startup

As a startup, you have limited money and manpower to execute your communications efforts. By focusing on a small market segment, you’re able to allocate your precious resources and focus on the audience that has the highest probability of purchasing your solution.

If you successfully target multiple customers within the same segment, you can build early momentum as a problem solver within that specific niche and build a cache of success stories.

The fact is that it’s easier and cheaper to narrow down your target audience and communicate with your ideal clients directly.

The narrower your audience becomes, the quicker you’re likely to gain market traction and cement your reputation with your early adopters. They are the people who are more likely to turn into evangelists, spreading the news of your solution to their market peers, because it solved their specific problem so well.

By niching down and focusing your efforts on a small segment of your entire market, you can quickly build a small but enthusiastic crowd of brand ambassadors to spread your message.

By niching down and focusing your efforts on a small segment of your entire market, you can quickly build a small but enthusiastic crowd of brand ambassadors to spread your message.

I recently spoke to startup marketing mentor and market segmentation expert Csaba Dudas from Climate KIC to ask him how to do just that.

Csaba works with sustainability startups based in the European Union to help them attract their first customers and build their brand. “For impact startups, it’s a life or death to invest in marketing,” he says.

“I always encourage the startups I work with to self-educate in marketing and communications because their impact is not going to be realized if they’re not communicating properly.” 

When I asked Csaba about his initial process, he said that their basic need is to look credible and reliable.

“I check if they have their foundations in place and I don’t talk about any communications without having the proper digital assets.”

Then he says his approach is to find the shortest, easiest and most cost-efficient way to their initial clients.

“When we’re talking about the way to market for startups, there’s always going to be a very small niche that’s waiting for the solution with open arms. This is especially true for B2B brands. For a startup, it can mean wonderful early traction if they find the easiest way to these clients. It’s much easier to build trust with these clients — who are innovators and early adapters themselves — rather than in the early or late majorities.”

Csaba has his clients brainstorm every possible category of market that these early adopters could exist in. For instance, he gives an example of a client of his creating a high-end acoustic panel made from waste materials from the fashion industry.

“While they know their product can be sold to many people around the world, for a startup that’s not feasible. It would require a marketing budget that’s huge compared to their current stage and no investor would give them this kind of money until they generate early traction.”

Instead, he had them write down each market that may be interested — from hotels to the music industry to interior designers — and then do outreach to potential clients within each industry itself. 

Once he has identified his early adopters and innovators, he suggests to reach out to them directly.

“Cold reaching out usually works because we — Climate Tech brands and sustainability entrepreneurs — usually have the advantage of being those who “do good”. We’re the ones who are working towards a better future. So for us it’s much easier to have this type of market research than our for-profit peers who usually need to pay participants. It’s typical to have between 15-20 interviews. I usually encourage them to do the interviews until they begin to see the same patterns, which means that they’re reaching some kind of statistical significance.”

At first, he says they compile a list of hypotheses that they assume is true for their market segment. Then they create a list of interview questions that they would like to ask potential customers or industry experts.

“They actually compile a questionnaire which they use during the interview but they also have an open-ended dialogue, we encourage them to get these people for an hour of conversation. Not like a survey, because this way, they might get unexpected hints and advice from these peoples. A lot of the time, they get back from the interviews, the best potential market segment could be different than they initially thought.”

Once his clients end up finding their certain niche, they get back to their labs and workshops and start working to integrate the findings into their product.

“By this time, we usually have some companies from this research group showing interest as future clients and we encourage the teams to befriend these companies because they’re the innovators in the space. Then they can get a foothold in the market through these clients. If everything goes well, then they’re bringing a product to these clients that they’re really happy about, they’ll become their first references. Then new teams will be ready to go and target the wider audience in the segments.”

For impact businesses in a growing marketplace for purposeful companies, it’s essential to find their first customers and solve their problems.

Finding your gap in the market, pain point and opening where innovators are craving solutions

It’s just so important to find the gap in the market, a pain point or opening where consumers and businesses are craving solutions. The main word in that sentence is “solutions”.

Every single time we purchase anything for our business, it’s because we need to solve a problem. On an office scale, it’s a printer that works better than the last one. On a consumer scale, it’s using an app rather than standing in a taxi rank. The best and biggest problems that our planet faces all have solutions, but whether people are willing to pay for them or not is another question. 

When it comes to real sustainability-orientated companies, this concept holds its weight. Our impact can only be scaled if our solution not only takes on a global problem but also a consumer or customer issue. We must consider what problems our business solves and then create value surrounding that concept. As this value begins to hold its weight, that’s when your business can start to scale and your impact will scale accordingly. 

How to segment the market as a sustainable brand

To segment a market, you will ideally start with your total addressable market, anyone who may buy your product and create different groups. Start with coming up with all of the markets that would possibly get value out of your product.

By putting everything on the table, you avoid the classic tunnel vision trap and open yourself up to a whole lot of different opportunities that you may not have considered.

For instance, if you have a product to make buildings more sustainable, you can consider commercial real estate owners as well as say hospitals and hotels.

What about schools and airports? There are four main types of market segmentation which can help narrow down your audience and within each of these types, there are multiple sub-categories which further segment audiences and customers. They are demographics, psychographic, behavioural and geographic. 

  • Demographic Segmentation. The most popular and commonly used types of market segmentation referring to statistical data about a group of people including age, location, income, etc.

  • Psychographic Segmentation. Categories audiences and customers by factors that relate to their personalities and characteristics including values, motivations, priorities and jobs-to-be-done.

  • Behavioural Segmentation. How a customer acts and what patterns they display including their purchasing habits, spending history and how they interacted with products in the past.

  • Geographic Segmentation. The most straightforward segment based on locational borders, which includes data like postcode, city and country. 

In this first stage, write down as many market segments as you can imagine. This process gives founders the ability to get outside their predetermined assumptions and explore new opportunities.

By dividing the total market into segments, founders can acquire a better understanding of the needs and wants of customers.

This ultimately enables them to tailor their company’s solution itself towards a customer’s problem, rather than simply present the solution as a stand-alone object.

Get specific with your market segments

Once you have a list of between five and 10 main market segments, it’s time to start getting specific and targeting. Whilst you may have already decided your product or service will fit, it’s in your best interest to identify any untapped needs in the marketplace itself. Are your potential customers being underserved by competitors? Can your potential customers afford your solution? Which would be the best base from which to grow? Serial entrepreneur Bill Aulet suggests filtering your potential segments by asking several questions in his book, Disciplined Entrepreneurship. 

  • Is the target segment well funded? — I.e. Do they have the spending power to purchase your product?

  • Is the target customer readily accessible to you? I.e. Is the distribution channel to reach your target customer feasible for you to execute? 

  • Can you enter adjacent markets from this segment to scale? I.e. Does gaining a stronghold in this market allow you to springboard into other markets quickly?

  • Does the target customer have a compelling reason to buy? Find out if the customer is happy with what currently exists. Are they doing workaround or perhaps they’re doing nothing about the problem at all?

  • Can you deliver a complete product? Based on what your customers’ needs are, can you deliver a product which satisfies those needs fully, not just partially?

  • Is there an incumbent competitor that could block you? Are you going against a market leader head to head which you can’t compete against?

  • Is the market consistent with your passion and goals? Are you willing to commit years of your life to this market segment and will this give you the satisfaction of achieving your individual goals? 

At the end of this process, you should be left with only a few segments that are viable, assessable and attractive. The next step is to figure out how those markets will respond to you and your solution and find your beachhead market.

A beachhead market can be defined as a small market with specific characteristics that make it an ideal target to sell a new product or service.

A beachhead market comes from a well-defined military strategy wherein the protagonist wins a small border area that becomes a stronghold from which to advance their campaign further.

In business, this term represents the smallest market that you can own from which to advance into the broader market itself.

The term itself references the 1944 invasion of Normandy, where allied troops focused their attention on taking Normandy, their beachhead from which they used to stage a counter-invasion of Europe. 

To find your beachhead market, “the answer lies in doing primary customer research,” Aulet says. By going out and talking to real customers, finding out what problems are and walking in their shoes is essential to creating a product that they will pay for.

“Don’t trust what you see on the internet, go out and see for yourself because the answer lies with the customer.” Ask them about their problems and their challenges, tailor your solution to fully solve these problems and demonstrate expertise in the market itself.

Don’t worry about going too small, once you have a stronghold in your beachhead market, you can always grow from there.

Choosing your target market as an impact brand

One of the most important concepts when communicating with your brand is your “niche”. I know that this may sound obvious, but it’s one of the hardest concepts to get your head around. When you find your niche, you will know your audience and be able to speak to them directly (see below for more information).

Your niche is your beachhead market, polarized. Honestly, it took me ages to figure out my own niche. For a long time, I didn’t understand the concept and then even when I did, I still couldn’t get there. I knew I wanted to work with branding and impact entrepreneurs, but it was still vague.

It was only when I heard the word “polarized” that I truly got it. Whatever you end up on, split it into two. So say if you’re trying to market your technology to boutique architecture firms, go one step further. 

Create two worlds, one of which is the exact audience and the other one, which probably won’t want your solution anyway.

For example, I want to work with for-profit impact entrepreneurs and sustainable startups that create positive impact, rather than those who reduce negative impact. My target audience is for-profit impact entrepreneurs and sustainable startups.

My niche is those who actively create positive impact on our environment through innovation or technology rather than reducing negative impact by stopping plastic pollution or working to stop deforestation.

It’s not that I don’t find these topics important, it’s because I’ve found a market that I can service best if I focus directly on one topic which I’m passionate about. If you’re a startup or entrepreneur that reads that and thinks, “hell yeah, that’s us”, then it’s probably that I’m your man. If not, you’ll probably not hire me anyway. 

Polarize your target market: The ultimate tip for sustainability entrepreneurs

This polarization keeps those who don’t fit into your world away before they even try and enter. It saves time in the long run and only brings leads into your world who are genuinely interested in what you have to say.

Let’s talk about me for a moment. My niche is not just B2B impact start-ups. It’s B2B impact start-ups who instead of fluffing around with eco-friendly consumer products, are building the technology which will create tomorrow’s sustainable economy.

If you see that and it speaks to you, you’re in the right place. If that doesn’t speak to you, then I’ve saved myself time and effort by not engaging with you anyway.

Determining your target audience as a polarized concept is integral to the success of all of your start-up’s communication endeavours. You have to know: who they are, how they speak and what they read to be able to craft a message that is specifically for them. Because it’s better to have 100 people that think your product is bloody amazing than a million people who think it’s OK.

I want you to take a moment here to write down your target audience and then polarize it. To do this, create two worlds.

The first one being: “Everyone else in the beachhead market who doesn’t believe what I believe” and the second, “My people who believe what I believe”.

So say if you’re trying to market your technology to boutique architecture firms, go one step further and market it to boutique architecture firms who believe the energy negative buildings will be the future.

Fill in the following exercise for your own brand:

I want to work with ________________that _________ rather than those who ___________________________.

For example, my answer is: “I want to work with for-profit impact entrepreneurs and sustainable startups that create positive impact through technology, rather than social enterprises who focus their energy on reducing negative impact with ecofriendly products.”

Take a couple of attempts at this until it’s so small that it begins to feel uncomfortable. Until you think “is there really that many of these people out there?”

That’s when you know you’re onto the right path. Once you know your niche, I would suggest giving them a name. For example Charley the CEO or Middle Manager Max.

That way you can refer to them in your meetings as if they’re in the room. This should be as specific as possible. Consider the following and try and narrow it down as far as you possibly can. Your buyer persona should include the following information:

  • What are their job responsibilities?

  • What industries are they present in?

  • What is their annual revenue?

  • What are their challenges?

  • What level of experience do they have?

  • What are their goals?

Who are they and why are they coming to you for help? What problems do they have in their job? Perhaps they have to convince their boss of why they want to invest in your solution.

Perhaps they’re buying it on their own and they’re worried about the quality. Or perhaps they’re looking for your solution but they’ve no idea that you exist? Whoever they are, get to know them like you would your own family. Once you’ve defined them, write a list of the following topics on:

  • Major pain points that drive them towards your solution or product

  • Google research: How would my customers find me online? What are they searching for? 

  • Use LinkedIn to search for 20 leads that you believe would benefit from having your product. 

  • Create a list of all the solutions which your target audience may already be using. How are they communicating? Look at your competitors and see whom they’ve partnered with. Analyse their ecosystem and see if you can find any similar companies to strike up a conversation with.

  • Go deeper into research. Ask your potential target audiences where they get their information, what publications they read and what would convince them to work with you over someone else. 

  • SEO. Write a list of your keywords. What your customers are using. What’s being circulated in their ecosystems. What the news talks about.

Brand positioning for Climate Tech startups

Brand positioning is the final stage for successful market segmentation for your business. It’s where you determine where your brand sits concerning similar brands in the same market. You’ve defined your total market as well as your ideal target audience.

Now it’s time to determine what sets your company apart from the competition and creates a defined place in your customer’s mind for your brand.

To create a defined brand position means you have to study the playing field and carve out a little chunk that you can call your own.

It’s the action of shaving down your competition and creating something unique for yourself. Then, when the time comes to communicate that position, you already know which tone to take and what angle.

According to Hubspot, there are six steps to brand positioning.

Determine your marketplace. How is your brand currently positioning itself? Who else is active in your space. Who out there are you going to compete against. Maybe it’s for clients, but this can also be for talent and investment. Keep your market analysis wide.

Know your enemy. Once you know who they are, get to know your competitors. What do they offer? What’s their pricing? What are they good at? What are their pain points? How are they communicating?

Carve out your corner. Once you know the landscape, you need to find out what makes your brand unique. This is important to differentiate yourself against your competitors. And keep in mind to always focus on your target audience. If your company X and you have a slightly more sustainable version of Product A than company Y, this may be interesting to you, but in the long run, it’s the customer that decides. What sets you apart from them?

Map it out! Create as many different X and Y axis maps as you can. Price (low to high) vs Quality (low to high), Practical vs Indulgent, Modern vs Traditional, Basic vs Complex.

Write a brand positioning statement: According to The Cult Branding Company, “A positioning statement is a one or two-sentence declaration that communicates your brand’s unique value to your customers in relation to your main competitors.”

  • Target Customer: What is a concise summary of the attitudinal and demographic description of the target group of customers your brand is attempting to appeal to and attract?

  • Market Definition: What category is your brand competing in and in what context does your brand have relevance to your customers?

  • Brand Promise: What is the most compelling (emotional/rational) benefit to your target customers that your brand can own relative to your competition?

  • Reason to Believe: What is the most compelling evidence that your brand delivers on its brand promise?

  • Test it. The goal of having a defined brand position is that you own that segment of the audience’s mind. It’s good to consider that even if your startup doesn’t actively craft a position in the marketplace, it will receive one in the eye of the audience anyway. Proactively considering and crafting what makes your brand distinct from the rest of the marketplace can be a large help when it comes to marketing and business development. 

The benefits of a brand positioning may not seem obvious in the beginning.

Down the road, however, a solid brand position makes the entire communications process smoother and easier. By holding a certain position in your target audience’s mind (ie. value for money/organic or innovative/traditional), you can begin to differentiate your brand in the market, show your customer your unique value and attract the right ecosystem.

This is especially true when it comes to impact start-ups.

As entrepreneurs, we often think that there is no product out there like ours. Why else would we put such time and effort into making a company? As impact entrepreneurs, it’s even worse.

We tend to imagine our target audience exists of everyone on the planet. Or at least a large chunk of it, because everyone needs our product. However, when it comes down to selling, it’s back to the drawing board.

For example, imagine that your company is a technology provider. You have, after years of hard work, created a unique methodology which backs up your innovative technology and as a result, you have a product that has a high level of sustainability and applicability in your field; say, cities. It’s going to be a game-changer.

Whilst you may think that there is no competition because no one has a similar product or outlook, the truth is that there are thousands of methodologies out there and thousands of technologies. If your brand position is “unique” and “sustainable” then it doesn’t really say anything, does it?

This mentality — the idea that your product is truly unique and as a result, everyone will buy what your selling — is counter-productive to growth. By narrowing this down and creating a specific and recognisable position for your brand, you can give your start-up a better chance to scale in the growing sustainability landscape. 

Next steps: Strategic messaging

In the next section Strategic messaging for Climate Tech brands, we will look at the importance of framing communicating sustainability as an opportunity and how to use strategic messaging in your copy and communications to get leads, attract investors and challenging the status quo.

Joseph D. Simpson
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