7g. Target Marketing
I have a good friend, named Harold, who is an extremely talented musician, composer, arranger, performer, who was also, more or less, clueless about marketing his work.
I put this example together for him but it applies equally to most everyone else in business.
On one level, marketing is pure math.
the way everybody else does it
1. let’s put three of your songs that are completely different music on a webpage.
2. let’s invite all the people we know WHO WE THINK might like your music to webpage.
3. let’s say 1000 people listen to your music
4. we might get feedback from 5% or 50 people
5. divide that by 3, that's 10-20 comments for each song.
6. how would we define your audience?
7. best I can do is "people who like Harold and his music"
now let’s try this my way
1. let’s put three of your songs that are musically totally different on a webpage.
2. let’s invite everybody, especially diverse people in diverse places that we do not know to your webpage
3. lets invite a 100,000 people to the website
4. we might get feedback from 5% or 500 people
5. divide that by 3, that 100-200 comments for each song
6. but let’s do some analysis, the results probably more like
50 liked song a
100 liked song b
350 liked song c
7. let’s follow up with them and ask them one more question
8. was it the music or the lyrics that caused you to like this song?
9. now how would we define your audience?
10.best I can do is "people who like Harold and his music when he's doing a blues shuffle in the Key of A with clearly spiritual lyrics"
now go write and produce three more songs
what formula do you think you might start with?
when you are finished with the next three songs, let’s repeat the process.
after several iterations of this, which is what every business does every day, in a sense. develop, refine and repeat a production/distribution process
your math will get stronger and stronger.
I met a serious writer the other day; the guy has been published with awards, for twenty years. He said something, I will not forget.
"when you ask someone if they like your poem (story/song/whatever), when they answer, they are telling you about themselves, not about you!"
The whole point here is:
most marketing efforts start out with the following assumption
1. I like it
2. I am normal
3. there are alot of other normal people out there, just like me, who will like it too.
this worked well when back when there were three television channels (CBS, NBC & ABC), three flavors of ice cream (Vanilla, Chocolate & Strawberry), and most everybody drove either a Ford or a Chevolet. The complex myriads of consumer choices today require a different approach.
put the songs out, and let your “target” market find you.
that's what every marketing man really does anyway, in spite of the cloak and veil of buzzwords, tricks and mirrors.
once you have some customers that can be defined in groups, then you can “target” more people just like your customers. But, at the same time, shouldn’t we also be looking for new “groups”? And forget about what you like or don't like. don't think too much. just try it, my way.
Recommendation #3. Go places you would not ordinarily go and meet people you would not ordinarily meet.
I have a good friend, named Harold, who is an extremely talented musician, composer, arranger, performer, who was also, more or less, clueless about marketing his work.
I put this example together for him but it applies equally to most everyone else in business.
On one level, marketing is pure math.
the way everybody else does it
1. let’s put three of your songs that are completely different music on a webpage.
2. let’s invite all the people we know WHO WE THINK might like your music to webpage.
3. let’s say 1000 people listen to your music
4. we might get feedback from 5% or 50 people
5. divide that by 3, that's 10-20 comments for each song.
6. how would we define your audience?
7. best I can do is "people who like Harold and his music"
now let’s try this my way
1. let’s put three of your songs that are musically totally different on a webpage.
2. let’s invite everybody, especially diverse people in diverse places that we do not know to your webpage
3. lets invite a 100,000 people to the website
4. we might get feedback from 5% or 500 people
5. divide that by 3, that 100-200 comments for each song
6. but let’s do some analysis, the results probably more like
50 liked song a
100 liked song b
350 liked song c
7. let’s follow up with them and ask them one more question
8. was it the music or the lyrics that caused you to like this song?
9. now how would we define your audience?
10.best I can do is "people who like Harold and his music when he's doing a blues shuffle in the Key of A with clearly spiritual lyrics"
now go write and produce three more songs
what formula do you think you might start with?
when you are finished with the next three songs, let’s repeat the process.
after several iterations of this, which is what every business does every day, in a sense. develop, refine and repeat a production/distribution process
your math will get stronger and stronger.
I met a serious writer the other day; the guy has been published with awards, for twenty years. He said something, I will not forget.
"when you ask someone if they like your poem (story/song/whatever), when they answer, they are telling you about themselves, not about you!"
The whole point here is:
most marketing efforts start out with the following assumption
1. I like it
2. I am normal
3. there are alot of other normal people out there, just like me, who will like it too.
this worked well when back when there were three television channels (CBS, NBC & ABC), three flavors of ice cream (Vanilla, Chocolate & Strawberry), and most everybody drove either a Ford or a Chevolet. The complex myriads of consumer choices today require a different approach.
put the songs out, and let your “target” market find you.
that's what every marketing man really does anyway, in spite of the cloak and veil of buzzwords, tricks and mirrors.
once you have some customers that can be defined in groups, then you can “target” more people just like your customers. But, at the same time, shouldn’t we also be looking for new “groups”? And forget about what you like or don't like. don't think too much. just try it, my way.
Recommendation #3. Go places you would not ordinarily go and meet people you would not ordinarily meet.
Upcoming:
The Culture Clash between Business and Facebook
The Culture Clash between Business and Facebook
