Marketing Building Blocks March 4, 2024 Selim Maalouf 6 min read
Or should I say "Whom"? It is funny how much I went back and forth with the headline of this article. Why is it that proper grammar can sound so weird, yet be so correct?
If I had written the correct form, you lot would have been put off by it. I can picture you in my head right now, putting your hands up and mocking my "bourgeois" linguistics. I wouldn't want your friend to give you weird looks after reading the headline of the article you so nicely reacted to, commented on, and shared because you are amazing and without your support, I cannot continue producing this content and afford for my...
Wait what was I talking about? Right...
While this little stunt might backfire for the distribution of this article, it shows that I am in tune with who my audience is. A common mistake made by the common man towards whom this series is targeted (I can only dare flout the grammar gods once).
Boiling down the concept of marketing into its simplest form shows us three important pillars:
- Message
- Target audience
- Response
In my first entry in the series, I discussed one aspect of messaging (Check it out here).
In this issue, we will discuss why knowing your audience is key to any successful marketing activity.
So buckle up, kids, and let me teach you a thing or two about how to choose the strangers you talk to.
It helps you approach them better
Take this funny picture of puffins having a normal conversation.
If the lovely puffin had taken the time to actually learn about Jeff, he would have known that Jeff didn't care about his discount because Jeff is on a tight budget and is living off of food stamps, and he's also a flipping bird.
Talk about birdseed or something, sheesh.
Take George, for example. He left his old foreman job at the grill factory and started his own business (no not that George, the guy we talked about in my first issue, keep up). I need to understand more about him in order to know how to start a conversation.
What am I looking for?
Gender
If you need to ask, go ahead. I would ask his phone, his laptop, his web browser, his smart speaker. I would even go as far as checking public records. But whatever you do, don't assume this kind of information...
Age
Is he a snotty little kid or an old fart? Is he a Boomer, a Zoomer, Gen X, or one of the avocado people? If he's the latter, maybe you can blame him for ruining your industry...
Knowing the age of your audience can save you some headaches due to some regulations related to advertising to kids.
Income
You need to know if they can afford your products before wasting your time pushing ads onto every computer screen, tablet, or phone they ever interacted with. So maybe stop slipping me real estate ads inside my avocado crate?
Geography
Hold on, we're not being xenophobic here. Until we can all afford personal teleportation booths, knowing where your audience lives is important.
Profession
Especially if you are selling to businesses, knowing in which industry your audience works can help you avoid some awkward conversations. Asking Sam the photographer if there are any new developments might result in some uncomfortable pauses.
Interests
Does anyone care, anymore? I can just stop here and...Oh, you're still reading. Just ask their bankers.
People might actually listen
Do you know what the best feeling is? Sending out that newsletter and having half of your recipients unsubscribe.
No really, you should try it, it's like the email equivalent of people yelling at you to shut up when you randomly approach them at the mall to sell them your latest music album.
Jokes aside, people are inundated with constant advertising from all kinds of businesses trying to push all kinds of products. A lot of noise is out there, and people are quick to tune it out. If you are out there trying to reach anyone and everyone with your message, you are part of that noise. You will blend in with the rest and will be tuned out just as much.
Instead, learn from the wives of the world. Whenever the ball game is on, their husbands tune them out harder than a customer ignoring my invoices (You know I can see you opened it, right?). A simple trick can snap him out of his coma and get him to do anything she asks for.
She simply cracks open a can of beer. Suddenly, he's all ears.
He loves her, you know. He was never trying to get out of doing chores around the house. But the game is so engrossing to him, that everything fades away into the background.
You need to find what your audience will listen to. You don't need years of intimate relationships, though. You just need to know where to look.
It's cheaper...in the long run
I started working a sniper rifle vs shotgun analogy in my head. The more I developed it, the more I realized it has some baggage in a lot of communities around the world, so I will keep the analogy concise.
Targeting the correct people might seem like a bigger investment at first. A lot of research, market surveys, higher ad rates, more overhead.
But with time, you will start noticing that a higher percentage of your audience engages with you, visits your channels, go through your customer journey, and converts to a sale. This increased conversion rate will lead to more efficient spending of your resources.
Let's make it really simple:
Shotgun (No targeting)
Sniper (Targeted approach)
Even when the cost per click doubled, it was still cheaper to reach our target of 3 conversions. Yes, this is an oversimplification of the reality of the expansive world of CPC advertising, but it helps you follow along with how having a targeted approach can yield more cost-effective results.
This brings our second marketing lesson to a close. If you feel like this sounds too simple, congratulations! You are doing better than a big percentage of marketing professionals who do this for a living. Everyone gets caught up in the metrics, especially in the digital marketing space, and they end up forgetting the simple basic concepts that make great marketing.
As always, reach out to me, ask me a question, and I'm ready to answer.
And if you feel a more intimate, one-on-one approach is more your speed, I can definitely do that. But it's going to cost you...my standard consulting rates.
What? I have rent to pay!
