If there are sayings I don’t like about business advice today it would be the one size fits all advice. And this – “You have to create what people want – what they find value in. Businesses that thrive are the ones that solve a problem people have or add a value that people want,” says so many business leaders I dare not ascribe it to one in particular. But what about when people don’t know what they want? Or when it’s a product new to market or a product creating a new market (think Red Bull, the energy drink). I find this advice paradoxical to the idea of innovation. You know innovation, right? It’s the word we hear all the time, or at least I do. It’s the word that people use and want you to define for them. Sort of like a “show and tell” in reverse. They “tell” you they want something innovative giving you little instructions or vision to pull from and you come back and “show” them what you’ve created. They may like it, and it may be exactly what they had in mind, but then again they may not. But let’s say they really do like how you executed the idea. You would want your creation to get in front of those it was intended for right? Absolutely!
And the frustration begins – where are the people???!!!
All this talk about marketing and brands is interesting, but the aspect of target audiences is one that I have so many questions about. I’m talking about those particularly when the brand is perceived as inferior or otherwise not as preferred as other brands or is a newbie to the market. You can identify a target audience, set a creative strategy to reach them based on research, and through evaluation find out that you reached people but still not your intended audience or you completely miss everyone all together. You can have a great product, a great pitch, a defined target audience, good content, active on social and still see mediocre revenues and minimal brand mentions online.
A friend of mine told me about a clothing line that sold quality clothes, but closed their stores nationwide due to a drop in sales. This person even owned at least one article of clothing from the brand for over 10 years still in like new condition! Price was the driver for that brand’s marketing – they offered quality clothing at an extremely low price (think wool coat for less than $40) and thus had hundreds of stores nationwide, celebrity sponsorships, and endorsements and they still shut down. Why?
Even after you identify your target audience, do research to understand them better, find out which platforms they are active on or how they consume media and information, create content and speak their language, there’s absolutely no guarantee they will receive what your brand offers or respond to any of your calls to action. How can we MAKE them? We can’t.
Take this product, Cute Shift™. It’s a gear stick knob accessory for your car geared towards women and teenage girls who can drive a car and identify with going through life changes. The product is available on Etsy, but like many products out there though innovative and creative, Cute Shift™ currently has low sales. Is this a target audience issue? SEO? Or is this an issue related to what people want or find value in? And how can value be created? Is the marketing all wrong?
And social doesn’t make things easier. Well, it makes some things easier and more affordable, like purchasing ads, but there are still no guarantees on conversion. Cross-channel audience analysis and audience personas are research based ways to understand your target audience better using analytics and data available to brands through their social media channels (Buryan, 2018). The problem is, what if your brand is new or what if your following is small (less than 1,000) on any given social media platform. Is that enough data to inform you of who your audience really is (regardless of who you’re targeting) and enough data to create an audience persona? An audience persona is what one business coach defines as an avatar, which basically means the makeup of your ideal customer (Lukes, 2018). The next step is to personalize your content to them. But again, what if you’re personalizing your brand message to the wrong folks based on who the data says your target audience is?
I’ve found more articles on how to define, research and measure a target audience than how to attract and convert a target audience. There’s definitely no size fits all approach here. Furthermore, how do you stay on brand and reach target audiences without becoming who they want a brand to be and not who that brand actually is? To stay in business, it seems many brands have to conform somehow to their target audience whoever they may be and wherever they are.
For sure, my research continues…gotta go find “the people”….
Buryan, M. (3, May 2018). Target audience on Facebook: How to reach and convert them. SocialBakers. Retrieved from https://www.socialbakers.com/blog/target-audience-on-facebook-how-to-reach-and-convert-them
Lukes, J. (8, May 2018). Why the buyer persona is even more important than social media. SocialBakers. Retrieved from https://www.socialbakers.com/blog/why-the-buyer-s-persona-is-even-more-important-on-social-media