50 years ago, the average consumer had less choices of where to shop, and less options for entertainment, news and information. Market analysis meant predicting product interest in a market region and comparing the target age group against television programs or publications. Today, we can use modern resources to determine exactly what device, show, venue or activity our target persona (read about or make your own personas) is engaged with at any given moment. If you truly know your customer, you can find them and plan on how to get your message in front of them. You can evaluate their behavior and determine the best times to show them your messaging. Is that scary?

So, you’re asking, how do I get my product in front of my customer, right? If you’ve already learned about personas, and you know who your customer is, it shouldn’t be too hard to find them. In fact, a little exploratory marketing (drop us a line if you’re looking for help in that area), will help you zero in on which channels reach more of your audience. The problem is that with so many choices, your audience is spread out. If you take the generalist approach, sending your message to the largest volume of consumers, it will almost certainly get lost under the wheels of the larger brand machines in the industry. If you focus on channels that contain mostly your target audience, your ROI might come up short as not enough conversions come out of your investment. To further muddy the waters, today consumer behaviors and popular channels change so rapidly that a carefully worked out strategy in 2014 might be obsolete by now.

So, what’s a business or an entrepreneur to do? Well, you know this one already. One of the first things you learned in business school (or the school of experience). Delegate. Hire a dedicated professional to determine who your target audiences are, and where they are/will be. We’ve done some of the leg work, so use our persona worksheets. Use in-house staff, have your PR company task a junior with the assignment, get your most promising intern to do it – you can use our guidelines, or as part of a larger assignment, we’ll train you or your staff. Coordinate that data with your marketing team and launch campaigns that target your best audiences with your message. What, you don’t have a marketing team? Then you definitely need to call us 😉 (or someone)! Whether you do it yourself, outsource it or use your own staff, you should match your marketing message with your customer and your customer with your products. Don’t forget, business to business companies still have target audiences – they are usually called buyers. Those buyers and other decision makers have channels of interest and can be marketed to just like any other audience.