Target Marketing

The advertising world buys and sells media based on demographics. Mass media sells it based on age and gender.

If you want to do a radio advertising campaign, I dare you to call up the local station and ask for the number of listeners they have who are men, 42 years old, divorced, and are depressed.

Mass media doesn't work that way. You sell one to many. The message is delivered to the masses of listeners or viewers and the attention of those you're trying to reach will be grabbed if the message is appealing enough.

Mass media works like a bucket of water. If you have a big enough bucket, you will get enough people wet that there is a good chance your ideal customer will be one of them.

In the internet world, effective target marketing forces advertisers to have one-to-one conversations. There is a relatively new term called Avatars that describes the target audience.

In the old days, one could ask the mass media how many women aged 35 to 54 listened to their TV show or radio station. In a retail environment, this can still be effective today.

But what if you're not in retail? What if you're trying to leverage your business through e-commerce or on-line strategies? What if your business is not bound by geographic or logistical boundaries?

In the new internet world, if you are trying to have a conversation with an Avatar who is a 42 year old man divorced, depressed, and thinking about a career change, you can do it.

You build your messages geared to your Avatar. You send it out to the world talking directly to that person. While the rest of the world won't care about your advertising, the target audience you're trying to reach will feel like you're talking directly to them. 

Because you are! 

You're sending out a message in a bottle and dropping it into the ocean. Sounds ineffective. But wait. The internet is not like the ocean. It is not a vessel. The internet is just a series of connections from computer to computer or person to person. People are the vessel. The ones who don't pay attention to the message aren't the target audience. The ones that do will share within their tribes.

 

The internet allows you to talk to your audience with more impact, greater detail, and insight.  You have to find the tribe. If one doesn't exist, you have the privilege to create it.  

Do you think there are enough 42 year old divorced men who are depressed and thinking about a career change in North America? If you do, and you have a product that fits their needs, you might want to figure out how to target them on-line.