How Target Markets Impact Brand and Other Musings
I’m speaking to the Women’s Regional Publishers of America this week and in preparing for that event, I’ve looked specifically at branding. It’s a favorite topic and one that must be communicated with every one of the critical audiences. In publishing, there are two primary customers – readers and advertisers. Recognizing that, I still found myself thinking that there’s one way to talk about brand.
Brand. Unlike a tag line or a logo, you don’t just build brand and quit. Branding involves the totality of what you do. It’s a process, not a one-time thing or event. Building your brand involves grappling with the essence of what you do and how it’s conveyed.
As magazine publishers, your publication is one piece – the most visible one, of course – of your brand. So too is the collateral in your media kit, your offices, your sales representatives and their presentations. Brand is pervasive in that it is everything. What does your brand say about you?
Step one is to identify your publishing segment – or the segment you want to own. Who is your customer? What do they want? Most of the answers to this begin at the superficial level. “Oh, we appeal to all women,” is the answer I might expect to get. Go deeper. Today’s boomer woman is dramatically different from today’s young professional. And the business owner has little in common with the call center employee.
Rachelle published a motivational ezine and had been in the business with it since 1998. Her list had grown to several hundred subscribers. The problem was turnover. Nearly 40% of her list turned every year. When we started working on the problem, Rachelle couldn’t describe her average customer to me. Together we decided to create Martha.
Martha was the fictional name that she used to describe her audience. What did she read? Where did she shop? Was she married? Where did she live? Was she concerned with politics? Did she care about what was happening in the world? You get the idea. Rachelle found a picture that represented Martha and began to assemble the parts of her world. A pet. A home. She used a process called a visual board to get clear about her target and begin to build brand.
Target marketing describes the process of focusing on the segment that is your customer. We use target to describe the center, the central point of an effort. Typically it is pictured as a red dot in the middle of several related circles. This is because you drill down to the target. It may not be the first answer as you begin to narrow your efforts. Instead of "ready, fire, aim" think "aim!" Think target.
Brand. Unlike a tag line or a logo, you don’t just build brand and quit. Branding involves the totality of what you do. It’s a process, not a one-time thing or event. Building your brand involves grappling with the essence of what you do and how it’s conveyed.
As magazine publishers, your publication is one piece – the most visible one, of course – of your brand. So too is the collateral in your media kit, your offices, your sales representatives and their presentations. Brand is pervasive in that it is everything. What does your brand say about you?
Step one is to identify your publishing segment – or the segment you want to own. Who is your customer? What do they want? Most of the answers to this begin at the superficial level. “Oh, we appeal to all women,” is the answer I might expect to get. Go deeper. Today’s boomer woman is dramatically different from today’s young professional. And the business owner has little in common with the call center employee.
Rachelle published a motivational ezine and had been in the business with it since 1998. Her list had grown to several hundred subscribers. The problem was turnover. Nearly 40% of her list turned every year. When we started working on the problem, Rachelle couldn’t describe her average customer to me. Together we decided to create Martha.
Martha was the fictional name that she used to describe her audience. What did she read? Where did she shop? Was she married? Where did she live? Was she concerned with politics? Did she care about what was happening in the world? You get the idea. Rachelle found a picture that represented Martha and began to assemble the parts of her world. A pet. A home. She used a process called a visual board to get clear about her target and begin to build brand.
Target marketing describes the process of focusing on the segment that is your customer. We use target to describe the center, the central point of an effort. Typically it is pictured as a red dot in the middle of several related circles. This is because you drill down to the target. It may not be the first answer as you begin to narrow your efforts. Instead of "ready, fire, aim" think "aim!" Think target.
Labels: branding, critical audience: customer, target marketing, WRPA
posted by the profitmeister at
6:37 AM
1 Comments:
Spot on, Mary Ellen.
And, I've found in working with my clients that what they initially think is their target often isn't..and even that what they thought was their product isn't - some "oh by the way" should really be their focus (that's where I end up putting on my product manager hat). And so it goes.
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