Do not just throw jello against the wall - Targeting your audience

New Media Marketing is one of several strategies you should use as part of your integrated marketing program. Thus it still requires following certain basic marketing and sales principles. New Media Marketing is NOT for you if you practice one of the following proven-to-fail-every-time marketing strategies:

1. Try everything as if you are throwing jello against a wall hoping that something sticks or
2. Follow Einstein's Definition of Insanity - repeating the same failed process hoping that new outcome will occur next time.

Rule #1: Define your target audience. Often your marketing objectives go unachieved simply because your audience is not able or willing to help you achieve those objectives.
Any successful marketing program, new or old, must include you knowing and targeting your audience. Often during our Branding workshops, we ask the client team who are their targeted audience. If the answer is everyone - our response is "so you really do not know who you are targeting to sell to". Even in the direct mail universe, there is a saying - "junk mail is really good mail sent to the wrong person."

Rule #2: The more you are able to sub-define your targeted audience, the more successful your marketing strategies will be.
Even with you targeted list, you need to be able to sub-target to who, what, and how you communicate with them. If you were sending Christmas Cards, to some you would send out a generic Happy Holiday card, to some a Christmas Card, others a card with a short message, and to others a family newsletter of what has happened during the past year to keep friends up-to-date. KNOW and target your audience. Note: what we are moving toward is the topic of relevance that we will cover in detail in a subsequent blog.

Rule #3: First know who you are and who you are not
Another question we frequently ask our clients is the who and what of their business. This often takes the longest to answer. Here are four basic questions to ask yourself to help answer this all important question.

1. Who has a need (problem) or want that my product/service can solve or fulfill?
2. What type of customer/client do I like to work with? (do not just say someone with money)
3. Is this group easy for me to communicate with? (one of NMM's benefits is that it makes it easier and most cost-effective to communicate with a larger segment of your targeted audience)
4. Can this target afford my products/services?
5. Are there enough buyers in my targeted audience to sustain my business?

Rule #4: Know your targets demographics - who are they?
Some basic demographic questions (so simple but we often cannot answer - and again the wrong answer is everyone). Depending on if you are business-to-consumer (BtC) or business-to-business (BtB), your answers will be different. In BtC will be the consumer in BtB will be the decision maker.

• Age
• Gender
• Average income/revenue
• Title/position of buyer/decision maker
• Georgraphic limitations
• What are their interests?
• Any cultural/ethnic considerations?
• What do they buy and how?

Rule #5: Know your targeted audience psychographics - how do they feel!
This is even more important than demographics. 80% of all purchasing decisions are emotionally based:

• Needs - what problem do they really need a solution for
• Wants - do not make the mistake of confusing needs and wants - our clients will often do that for us
• Stereotypes - every client/customer has a preconceived idea about you, your industry, your organizations, or product/service. Effective marketing campaigns often are directed toward changing or re-enforcing these stereo types and we all have them (think of the many used car salesperson or lawyer jokes that exist in the marketplace)
• Emotions - what specific emotions do clients often exhibit or you want to invoke - remember 80% of buying decision is emotionally based.

Once we follow these five basic rules, we can then communicate to the right audience, creating the succinct marketing message. Thus the topic for our next blog (Blog #4 in this New Media Marketing series) - Creating the Right Content (to be posted Tuesday, March 10)