Planning ahead for success
When I was teaching Writing for the Media in grad school, I stressed to my students the importance of knowing their audience. It completely affects how you do your work! I’d use the example of how the audience would affect their coverage of a sporting event that all of them were watching together if one person was writing for Sports Illustrated, one was writing for the local paper, one was writing for a celebrity gossip rag concerned with the star-dating member of one of the teams, and one was writing for Highlights for Children. Totally different!
When I was doing publicity for musicians, I would stress the importance of defining success. What is the point of working your tail off to progress towards an undefined goal? If a major label deal and fame and fortune are not what you really want, but you don’t take the time to personalize your definition of success, how likely is it that you’ll succeed? Not likely. But if you just want regular gigs and the chance to teach music to people who really respect you– that’s far more achievable and when you get there, you’ll be successful.
Today I was thinking about how important it is for people who are spending money on marketing to clearly define (in advance) the four things I think are critical to a successful effort:
1. Who are you trying to talk to? (Define your audience.)
2. What are you trying to say? (Define your message.)
3. What are you hoping to accomplish? (Define your goals.)
4. How will you know if you’ve succeeded? (Define your metrics.)
I know this is a bit open-ended, but it’s the idea I wanted to exchange.
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I think a lot of people hesitate to clearly define a target audience because writing directly to some people risks alienating others; this is something I’m working through in regards to my company’s brand. In order to differentiate and promote ourselves effectively, we may need to take a stand as a company that makes us less appealing to some existing customers. Although this is scary, our past strategy of wide appeal is no longer adequate, and it’s time for a change…
And how many times have I heard “everyone” as the answer to my question of who the target audience is! It is just me, or do you get that as well?
Ladies, I can’t tell you how surprised I was the first time a client told me she felt uncomfortable targeting an audience because she didn’t want to appear exclusive or to alienate potential customers. From my perspective, targeting is not at all about leaving people out– it’s about conserving resources and operating efficiently.
In my experience, targeted marketing efforts are the most cost-effective and the most successful. If you’re selling a product that’s only available in one store in Riverside, and you take out a broadcast television ad that will reach all of Southern California, you may be hitting your target, but the money and time you’ve spent on reaching people you won’t be able to serve is going to cut into your ROI at best. At worst, it could generate negative word of mouth amongst people who feel they’ve been mis-led.
Beyond geographic targeting, though, it just makes sense to identify who will like your product most and find a direct path to them. Would you open a winter-wear shop in a tropical climate just to make sure you weren’t missing the handful of people there who would respond well to it? Maybe– but hopefully you’d start somewhere with a high demand for winter wear.