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Deadly Marketing Sin #4: Thou shalt not market ice to Eskimos!

Did you know that 53% of marketing campaigns fail to reach the desired target audience?
Surprising, isn’t it? Though when you break it down (and we’ll do just that), it’s easy to see why.
This brings us to…

Deadly Marketing Sin #4: Thou shalt not market ice to Eskimos!

There are two key reasons why more than half of marketing campaigns miss the mark:

  1. Ice – The wrong message. You haven’t hit the right pain point or offered the right solution.
  2. Eskimos – The wrong audience. You’re talking to the wrong people.

How do you make your marketing connect?

You need to get your audience and solution right.

  1. Market hot meat pies to Eskimos! Change the solution so that it is attractive to your target audience.
  2. Market ice to sand people! Use the same solution but choose a more relevant target audience.

How do you choose between options 1 or 2? That all depends on what you are most passionate about.

  1. If you are passionate about who you serve, enhance, change, or refine your product offering to ensure it’s exactly what they want (NOTE: Remember, it’s what they want, not what you think they want!).
  2. If you are passionate about your solution, find a different target audience that values your offering. (NOTE: A word of warning on this one, though, there may not be a target audience that values it as much as you think they will, option 1 is a much faster, easier path to success).

Once you know which way to go and have the right audience and solutions, you need to communicate it to them.

How do you communicate your marketing well?

I’d like to tell you it gets easy from here, but the truth is it really doesn’t. This step can be fraught with issues too. Here are the most common mistakes we see:

  • The wrong channel/s is used – We’ve all heard things like ‘You need to be on Facebook!’, ‘Instagram is killing it’, ‘LinkedIn is so effective’, and ‘Google Ads is king’. But if your audience isn’t here, how will you connect with them?!
  • The target audience is too broad – ‘Our product is for females aged 16-65’ is far too broad. There are many target audiences within this target audience, and each are at a different stage of life with different priorities. Finding one message that will resonate with an audience this large is beyond difficult.
  • The execution is ineffective – Advertisers like Google and Facebook love to take your money. If you don’t plan, execute, and manage campaigns well, then a good 20-30% of your budget will be wasted, and your ads will never reach or connect with your desired audience.

Don’t make me niche slap you!

As a wise man once said, ‘The more specific and focused you are, the more successful you will be’. Choose a niche or two and double down on them – it will make your marketing much easier and far more effective.

Ready to create a winning marketing strategy?

Find out more about how you can create a winning marketing strategy for your business here

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