Advertising has been about targeting for a very long time. These days we literally have it down to a science. We’ll create a paint-by-numbers picture of the person you should be targeting. We show you how to aim at the consumer most likely to use your product. We create an ad designed to register emotionally with your prototype customer and place your ad exactly where he or she is most likely to be. If it’s Millennials you want, research lets us know where they hang out, how long they hang out there, what they read online, what platforms they use the most, where they go next, what they watch, how long they watch, what they listen to, who they pay attention to and so on and so forth. Marketing is under a deluge of data and there’s no denying that playing by the numbers works. However, since we like playing devil’s advocate, we acknowledge there’s a good case to be made for broad strokes. Sometimes it’s good to expand the playing field rather than shrink it. Now and then, it’s good to do the opposite of what everyone else is doing.
The Market is Already Mini
Every industry loves to quantify stuff. That’s okay. Reasonably accurate numbers give us something to go on. So, marketers look at the enormous size of the marketplace and say, “Let’s target our customer.” The reality is that on any given day, an estimated 1% of the marketplace is actually in the market for your product or service. That figure is narrowed further by the number of interested consumers who will actually see and/or hear your ad. In that sense, the marketplace is fairly small to begin with, unless you are playing on a national stage. If you are operating in a city of 1,000,000 there are roughly 10,000 consumers interested in your product at any given time. If 1% of the interested are exposed to your ads, and 1% respond, that’s one customer. There are about a hundred other factors but that gives us a slightly different perspective on the playing field. That’s why the message itself is so important.
The Wizard of Ads
Roy H. Williams wrote a great book about advertising called The Wizard of Ads. In one of the chapters, he talks about advertising “reaching the right people.” Williams says having the right message is what matters. “It’s not who you reach, it’s what you say that makes the difference.”
This reminds us of a slick, beautifully designed and written print ad we once saw in Sports Illustrated. It was for a Swiss watch company whose products were very expensive. The Sports Illustrated demo at the time was essentially high school age boys to 24-year-old young men; very few of them could afford the products. Readers of the magazine were the wrong target; they were not reaching the right people!
Actually, the point was to inspire that age group to aspire to the product. The ad was meant to establish and reinforce awareness of the brand, creating a sale sometime in the future. Few businesses can afford to place ads that won’t pay off for a decade, but it underscores the concept that the “right people” is a broader group than most marketers think.
Create a Broader Target
A little further along in the book, Williams expands on reaching the right people and concedes, “Of course it matters a little!” Williams just hopes to dissuade marketers from the notion that perfect placement is a panacea. Campaigns that flop are often reaching the right people, he says, just not saying the right thing.
Today’s marketers tend to take a pinpoint approach, isolating a demo, developing prototypes. We do that. But we also know that expanding the target and creating a compelling message are ways to increase the numbers of “right people.” You can catch just so many fish with a fishing pole. Now and then it’s good to cast a net.