Is everyone your audience?

I love to run. I know, crazy-person talk, right? But I’ve gotten some great ideas and have worked through major challenges while thinking on my feet during a run. When I’m struggling with how to solve something, or have writer’s block, I’ll often go and do a couple of easy miles to get the brain going, like I did a few days ago to work through a content flow hurdle.

During that short run, I passed a few people who were jamming to music on their runs WITHOUT headphones. They were so loud I heard it through my own headphones! This is super annoying - but as I grumbled to myself about it, I started to wonder WHY I found it so irksome. And then of course, I thought of a marketing parallel that became my light bulb moment.

Blasting music on the trail for everyone around you to hear is like marketing to everyone without considering their needs and/or wants, or whether they even find value in what you’re telling (selling) them. It’s like shouting “MY PRODUCT IS SUPER COOL AND WORKS GREAT AND THAT’S MY MESSAGE PLEASE BUY IT” in your marketing. Yeah, maybe someone will hear the beat you’re playing and jam with you, but most will not.

Marketing an unspecific message that’s the same for every audience isn’t going to create brand recognition nor stickiness, and it certainly isn’t going to move your prospects down the marketing funnel. A small amount of time put into thought about the needs of your target market will let you make much better use of your marketing energy and dollars. Kind of like if you want to play music for everyone in your group run, not your solo run.

Your message segmentation can be as high level or as specific as you feel confident your data can support. You might play Dua Lipa for a larger group (1:manymarketing), but if you’re following me around, you’d probably play old-school punk rock (1:some or 1:1 marketing). Either way, a little focus on your audience goes a long way.

And please put on headphones on the trail :-)