Aaron Gerdes

Boost marketing success: Targeting your product/service let’s you provide less bulk with more meaning.

Think the last marketing message aimed at you that “broke through”. Here’s what got it that far: Targeting. The message tapped into your circumstance, interests, sense of humor, or style (probably in that order).

From a marketing perspective, a specialized product or service is key to success. But why not pursue the widest appeal possible? People’s minds have become so good at filtering out things they’re not interested in. We’ve adapted to cope with chaotic sensory input (or crappy advertising).

We’re naturally interested in things concerning us. Something targeted to a “Seattle-based business owner with clients scattered all over and slightly tech-geek inclination” is much more likely to get my attention than something targeted to “any business owner, anywhere, with any interests”.

There are many ways to narrow your target audience. A few of them are:

• By geographic region
• By industry
• By organization size/individual income
• By organization style/individual personality
• To be compatible with another product/service
• By acceptable risk level

When the “cult of simplicity” talks about making your product or service leaner, understand you can market to a smaller group and get more from it. By increasing your ratio of user success to features (specializing your product/service), you’re gaining benefits: more targeted marketing, a differentiator (or unique selling proposition, etc), more successful (happy, loyal) users, and the repeat business and buzz that brings. And you don’t have to play “feature cold-war” with the competition.

Remember: An object trying to move in all directions equally does not move.