In our last tip we explored how you can earn more peoples’ attention by making your solution clear. We discovered how important it is to know our audience’s specific problems and pains in order to offer our products and services in a way that honors their humanity and shows empathy towards their needs.
But at the end of the day, let’s say you own a business that believes “man’s best friend deserves the best nutrition.” Even if you’ve developed the best, most nutritious dog food on the planet, it doesn’t matter how clearly you communicate that as there is really only one type of person for whom that solution matters…
In this case, even if you are reaching millions of people with a crystal-clear message about the solution you offer, if you aren’t reaching a growing audience of people who are actually dog owners, your message will fall on deaf ears. There’s nothing more frustrating than wasting your marketing efforts on an audience of people who will never buy from you. {Sad tuba}
Which brings us to the tip topic for this week: get your solution in front of the right audience.
Now, let’s be honest— the dog food example is pretty straightforward. What if the audience for the solution you provide isn’t quite that simple? There are often many nuances to consider when trying to narrow down and build the best audience.
With so many details to consider like demographics, interests, behaviors, etc. the first thought might be to just go broad and target as many people as possible. After all— not only is it much easier since it requires less thought— but isn’t a big, broad audience better? More people means a higher volume of potential customers! Well, sort of…
In practice, this isn’t typically a reasonable approach for most of us. Unless you’re a massive brand with a large disposable marketing budget, precious resources will certainly be wasted through the process of targeting a broad audience in this way. (By the way, if you’re reading this and you are a massive brand, give us a call! We’d love to work with you…)
For the rest of us, let’s look at a specific example by means of illustration. When advertising on Facebook you are paying for Impressions. Basically, every time you show your ad to someone in their news feed it costs you. So every single time you pay to place your ad in front of someone who isn’t “qualified” (think: NOT a dog-owner) you just wasted a percentage of your budget since they’d never buy from you. Multiplied over and over each time your ads are shown… that can add up quickly!
So what’s the alternative?
This is where the principle of “niche-ing down” comes into play. When working with our partners, we often draw a comparison here to archery. Think of your specific marketing efforts (a video, a marketing email, a social media post, etc.) each as an arrow in your quiver. Trying to market to too-broad an audience with one, single video is like trying to hit multiple bullseyes with only one arrow. Impossible, right? Chances are, if you’re aiming at two different places, you’re going to hit somewhere in the middle— and miss them both entirely.
So, while it might be tempting to “go broad,” don’t do it! Think about it this way: How many arrows can you afford to shoot? Don’t you want to make sure each one hits exactly where you intend it to?
This is a simple principle, but we can’t tell you how many times, in practice, our partners have been tempted to go after multiple types of people with one video. We get it! But we always work to help them to niche down.
Trust us on this: if you do nothing else but remain diligent and disciplined and craft your marketing efforts to go after one, specific, bullseye audience in this way— it will force you to develop hyper-focused, relevant messaging that’ll hit them right between the eyes— and with that kind of impact, you will start seeing tangible results.
The principle of “niche-ing down” means focusing on delivering a clear solution to a specific problem or pain (firing an arrow) experienced by a clearly defined type of person (at a “bullseye” audience).
Much more could be said on this topic, but for the sake of brevity, we will leave it at that. Next time, let’s take a deeper dive into the practicals:
How exactly does one “niche-down” in concrete and specific ways?
What are some tools, techniques, and best practices that ensure your messaging is landing with your target audience in ways that translate into results?
We have some ideas for you…
Until then, Fiat Lux! (Let There Be Light)
