Correct way to market any product
Just like any science, studies in any other fields too advance and improve. Marketing now and marketing 5 years back is not the same. During my marketing class in MBA, there was an interesting discussion about the target profile VS target audience. At the end of the discussion, lecturer made it clear that “target audience” concept was simply wrong way to market products. Why?
Here is why
In “target audience” concept, when we want to market a product we try to determine an audience. Let’s say I want to sell my “color picker” product.
In this concept, I would assume that my target audience is:
- People who are 18-29 years old
- Males
- IT related people (webmasters, bloggers, web designers..etc)
It does sound logical to define the target audience in this manner. But let’s be frank, not all 18 year olds need my color picker, not all males want to pick colors too… some IT related people are just busy with servers (they would say color what??) So what would be the correct way to define the correct customers for my product?
Target Profiles my friend…
In target profiles, you simply concentrate on one person. The idea here is that you single out one person that will need your product. And then you assume that there are thousands of similar people to this person in the world.
So again, color picker example… I would single out “person who uses Adobe Photoshop extensively”. Person who works with photoshop here can be Graphic Designer, Web Designer, Blogger, Programmer…etc As long as the person is a Photoshop user, I am not interested in their profession (age, gender, demographics…etc either) but I am interested if he or she is a Photoshop user. If yes, then I want to target that person!
Because my product solves the problem of loading heavy photoshop again and again when you need to capture a color (code) from the screen. When photoshop user see my color picker, he/she would say “hey, that’s a nice tool. it would make my life a lot easier!”.
Once I have identified my customer, in my case who is a photoshop user. I would need to find these photoshop users and advertise them my product. They can be in photoshop forums, they can be reading photoshop magazine and they can be purchasing photoshop filters (in this case I can contact photoshop filter seller and partner with him, bundle my product or give discounts to their customers). You got the idea, right?!
Once you have identified that one person who needs your product, the possibilities of advertising your products is endless. I hope this post was useful.
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By Sergio on Oct 13, 2007
interesting, thanks!!!
By Matt on Oct 13, 2007
Not sure if I would need it now, but definitely looks good for in the near future!
By Distressed Graphic T-Shirts on Oct 13, 2007
This is an interesting take on the subject. Do you have any data to prove or disprove that this is more effective than the target audience approach? I think it makes sense theoretically.
By Ades on Oct 13, 2007
Unfortunately I do not have any research results on this. I will post it if I find any, I think marketing institutions should have.
By amirez on Oct 13, 2007
very good and clear information. thx ades
By hectril on Dec 20, 2007
Its a nice overview in how to market your product, Your right about proposing to a single individual rather than ten individual who doesn’t even know how to use your product. By choosing just one individual by word of mouth or even just by experience using your product they could advertise it to some of their friends who are interested in using your item. Like Ebook on Adwords, its better to market to those individuals who are keen in using adwords or want to maixmize their adwords strategy than to those who dont even know what adwords is.