So you think you can sell to everyone?

This is 2016 and we think “Customer is the King”. We like the customised approach on Netflix and we get irritated by popping-up  items on Facebook from the online store that we checked out in the weekend. Whatever the reaction, we aren’t indifferent to such a personal attitude of the companies to our intrests and desires. The questions is: why are there companies who still believe that they can sell to everyone? 

While reading books about content marketing, social media and communications I notice that the modern authors draw much attention to the significance of target audience and the importance of understanding your public.  They repeat it more and more thoughout their books, as if they try to convince their readers that defining a potential customer is crucial.  2016!

Nowadays business is all about building relationships. It is the same principle as in friendship: you can’t be friends with just everyone. You can’t sell to anyone. But you can build relationship with those who are dear to you, your company’s values and your products.

When it comes to new innovative businesses, start-ups, you can see their eagerness towards experiments and tests.  This includes experimenting with potential target as well, better to say, trying to find the target by testing everyone.  But is it right? You invest time, effort, money into various marketing activities without understanding of who you are actually trying to reach.  You hope that someone would respond to your posts, contests, events and this is how you will figure out who your customers are.  Does it sound effective?

Let’s return to the basics. When you come up with a brilliant business idea, a real innovation on the market, you should analyze for whom this innovation would be relevant and useful. In other words, who would become happier from your business?

Defining your target audience (your future friends, to put it clearly) from the beginning of your journey “from the idea to the real thing” will help you to stay focused, to spare a lot of time, money and energy. Analyzing your potential customers, understanding  their intrestes, desires, passions and worries will help your company to find a way to their hearts and to build stable connection with them.  Understanding your target group will help you in:

• Choosing the right channels for your message because you know where your potential customers hang out and what media they use.
• Creating content that will satisfy their needs and engage them because you know about their interests, needs and passions.
• Choosing your brand voice and tonality because you know how they prefered to be talked to.
• Deciding on timing and frequency of publishing your content because you know when they are active and available for engagement with your brand
  etc.

Still think you can sell to everyone?