Do you find it tempting to target everyone who could conceivably buy your product – especially when you’re a mass marketer? Are you being happy at the thought of expanding your target audience?
Well, you may want to reconsider your decision of reaching to all people, because in marketing one size/thing/product/service doesn’t fit all. Your target market doesn’t include everyone who buys your product.
Wondering how is this possible? Why someone who buys your product can’t be included in your target market?
Let me explain you with the help of an example.
Coca Cola Company
I’m sure you are not a mass marketer as big as the Coca Cola Company. They are present in most countries across the world touching almost all segments of society. Let us, for example, say that their product Coke is for mass. True, but the company doesn’t intend to sell Coke to those who suffer from diabetes because of its sugar content. Still many people who are diabetic consume their product.
So, everyone who buys their products is not their target customer. This calls the need for producing more focused content. More thoughtful it is, better it will stick.
Let us go through another example.
ABSOLUT X Event Series
ABSOLUT VODKA is a Swedish company owned by Pernod Ricard, French Group. Sold in 126 countries, they are the third largest alcoholic spirits brand in the world following Bacardi and Smirnoff.
It already has esteemed customers who buy products on frequent basis. However, the brand is exploring new territories as well as thinking of adding value to the lives of their loyal customers. To do this, the company had come up with ABSOLUT X which is a masquerade event series. They collaborated with artists from three different disciplines – art, music and mixology.
Along with the celebrations, the brand invited creative minds to create and submit their designs for ABSOLUT X official posters for one of the cities from among Miami, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Austin and New York. The condition was that the designers must take inspiration from cocktails, music or art to illustrate something that symbolizes creativity and finesse.
In addition to get a chance of designing one official poster for ABSOLUT X for one city, the winner would receive $1,000, exposure, recognition and promotion of their creativity across company’s social media channels and two VIP passes to the city of their choice.
Now the event not only saw brand’s loyal customers but it also attracted creative minds who were not their customers. The focus was to hold entertainment events for their existing and potential customers and reinforcing the finesse of their brand. However, they also got access to the best talent as well as some of the most creative works in the process which is a plus point.
The idea is to showcase that even those who didn’t actually belong to their target segment or occasionally bought their products also attended the event but the main focus of the company remained on delighting the senses of their customers.
It’s true that your product sometimes is consumed by those who don’t actually belong to your target audience but that doesn’t mean you start working on identifying all possible customers (though infrequent) instead of focusing on the niche.
In case of content marketing, more you focus on your niche, better is the content marketing plan that you come up with and better it will stick.
Of course, keep open your offerings for who don’t belong to your target audience so that they also can take advantage of them. However, it is not necessary to work on acquiring them until you have plans and resources to do that.
No matter how big you are as a mass marketer, your target market is deliberately exclusive. You don’t need to produce or at least be all things to everyone. There is no denying in that that it can seem really tempting to expand your customer base but then you’ll end up putting more efforts in this area than where you should exactly put. It’s better to deeply touch the life of a few than touch the majority and get lost in the tangle.