“Everyone is not your customer.” – Seth Godin
If you cast your net wide enough you are surely to catch something, right? Probably a lot something. Sounds good, but is that “something” what you really want?
There is a saying in sales and marketing that “if everyone is your customer, then no one is your customer.” Another variation is “when you speak to everyone, you speak to no one.” I have heard several other variations and I am not quite sure to whom it is originally attributed to. The gist is the same for each; be deliberate in your targeting.
Using the shotgun or wide net approach might deliver your message to more people and create the illusion that you market is larger than it is. However, is your message being heard? That is the key question. To be effective, your message must be heard and consumed by your intended audience. The message is useless if it fall on deaf ears. Think of mass mailers and junk mail. Little marketing postcards are sent to every household for product x. The majority of these postcards are most likely tossed in the trash because most people do not need or want product x.
Who didn’t throw out the postcard? Those are the ones that are important. How can a marketer distill their message to reach those people and others like them? How can one define that group of people that read the postcard? What is it about product x that resonated with those people? How are they similar? These are just a few questions to ask. There are hundreds.
If you aim to please everyone you will end up pleasing no one. Or at least not enough to call a viable market that can sustain a business. It is important to know and understand your market as best you can. Create avatars for you ideal customer so you know as much as you can about them. That way you can create messages that will actually be read by them about products and services they actually want and need and are willing to exchange their money for.
At the end of the day, it is better to have a small market that you can serve well with a high rate of conversion than a large market with low conversion. When you create that market and truly understand them you will chow how to please them. That will create a market of loyal customers that will continue to buy from you.
Once you lose sight of your market and how to serve them you lose your ability to please them. That will be the beginning of the end of your business.
Talk Soon,
Kevin W @LEAP272
Owner-Operator
You have to leap if you want to live
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