Why “Most People” Are the Worst Kind of Targets for Your Marketing Efforts

Seth Godin’s book, “Tribes,” is full of great insights. One of the quotes I like best from this book sums up the MindEcology approach to marketing very well:

“Almost all the growth that’s available to you exists when you aren’t like most people and when you work had to appeal to folks who aren’t most people.”

(“Tribes,” Seth Godin, pp. 69)

There’s a whole lot of wisdom packed into Seth’s statement. At MindEcology, we say something similar: “You succeed when you narrow the focus.” We also say, “Trust the data.” The data points the way.

If your business is trying to be all things to all people, your company will have trouble hitting its true stride. There are two facets to the kind of hyper-targeting that we promote:

1. Skipping over households (B2C) and companies (B2B) in your marketing activities that do not match your company’s ideal customer profile, while directly blasting with intense focus those that do.

2. Tightening up your message around the needs, desires and buy-buttons of your best customers (and therefore, of your best prospects who are most likely to buy from you).

Both of these types of actions will drive your conversion rates sky-high because you are effectively reaching out and touching “not-most-people” in the most effective, targeted and convincing ways possible.

Do this correctly and they will be pulling their wallets out faster than you can fulfill the incoming orders. (And, that’s a very good problem to have).