By Jo-Ann McArthur, Connection Architect
Most days I still feel like I’m living in that marketing ivory tower back in my P&G and Unilever days. Probably the most used word was “target” market. I still hear that term (and confess to slipping back into that habit myself from time to time). Why do I hate that term? Because it assumes that your audience is static and if you just shoot enough arrows you’ll hit the bullseye. It worked when I was selling Pampers to moms and could cover 96% of them by airing a TV commercial across 3 national networks. Kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. Those days were easier, but they are gone. Move along!
In today’s market you need to set yourself, your cause, your brand up as the target or bullseye. Reverse the flow by doing or making something remarkable. Share something that’s of value and helps people get through life and then those future customers will find you. Make it easy for those relevant groups to find and connect with you and start having a conversation. They will self-qualify themselves.
We call them “latent fans”. You need to meet them where they are (on a couch in front of their TV or sharing their thoughts on twitter, often at the same time) and connect with them in the way they want to be connected with. It takes more work upfront – you still need to do or make something remarkable and find insight into this group from listening, but you don’t need to shoot all those expensive arrows and wonder if anyone was hit. With Connection Architecture you know – because they hit back!
I’ll end with a tweet this month that came from Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com a company recently purchased by Amazon for close to 1 billion dollars. Amazon was buying their fabulous customer centric culture, not their shoe inventory.
