The Problem With Target Marketing

Garth Beyer

It’s hard to curb the enthusiasm toward mass marketing for some business owners.

After all, the problem with targeting a specific market is that you’re excluding a lot of people who may be interested in the business.

What’s true in that statement is that everyone – the masses – may interested in the business. However, in target marketing, you’re not excluding them, rather, you’re prioritizing them. Why? Because a single message won’t resonate with all at once, but multiple messages targeted to specific groups over time can.

The problem with target marketing is not the marketing itself, it’s the way you’re looking at it.

 

Stay Positive & Priorities Will Out

Worth It?

Garth Beyer

“Was it worth it?” is a question we ask ourselves quite often. If you’re like Seth, then the answer can always be “yes” if you look at the effort you put in as the reward.

While I have that attitude most of the time, some things aren’t worth it and I can’t trick myself into believing the effort I put in was rewarding. So here’s my back-up mentality.

“Can I still make it worth it?”

I don’t give up until I do.

When you or anyone else asks you if it was worth it, “it” doesn’t need to signify an end of effort.

Just as you have the choice to look at effort as the reward, you can look at effort as an ongoing endeavor.

 

Stay Positive & It’s More Work…But It’s Worth It

In The Box Podcast

Episode 19: Interpretation, Delight, Place Of Anger And More – Podcast

Garth Beyer

On this episode of In The Box Podcast, we talked about the concept of forgive and forgetting. We also chatted about handling situations where someone interprets a situation differently than you, why it’s hard for businesses to delight customers, what it means to be a professional and if it’s possible to do good work when you’re angry.

Download our podcast here.

Forgiveness – Forgive and forget?

Interpretation – How do you handle a situation where someone interprets something completely differently than you?

Delight – Why is it so hard for businesses to delight customers?

Expert/Pro – What does it mean to be a professional or to go pro?

A place of anger – Do you find you do good work when you’re angry, fed up or frustrated?

 

Stay Positive & Focus On The Passion

Thinking Worker, Working Thinker

Garth Beyer

It’s often thought that there are thinkers and then there are doers. Moreover, that which thinkers think should be produced by workers and not the thinkers themselves.

A PR pro thinks of a new brand positioning strategy and calls the doers to see it through while she goes back to thinking, planning, strategizing. Is it right for their to be a divide between thinking and doing?

I came across this statement by art critic John Ruskin, “It is only by labour that thought can be made healthy.”

Thinkers may come up with good ideas, but it’s really only when they themselves see the idea through that they naturally turn it into something remarkable.

Just as the thinker falls short in their thinking when they don’t do, the worker falls short when they don’t think. That’s why there are so many products, services, business that don’t work; there is a disconnect between thinking and working.

 

Stay Positive & Can We Change This?

Make Yourself Available

Garth Beyer

There are writers, chiropractors, artists,  attorneys, and firms of all kinds that make it impossible to be yelled at. No email address, no phone number, no active Twitter account. Maybe they have a contact form that sends your message to an inbox they never look at. This is unfortunate for two reasons.

First is they also make it nearly impossible to be asked an honest question, to be told something that would be important to them, to be offered a  lifetime chance at having their work shown at a beautiful gala. Too bad they’re not reachable.

Secondly, if they’re not yelled at over the phone or in an email rant, then people can blog, can leave reviews, can comment so everyone else who follows that person or business can hear their complaints…and see them never addressed.

Wouldn’t you rather have a client yell at you than yell to 10 other people about you?

You can’t expect to grow or to succeed if you’re not listening.

 

Stay Positive & An “Inbox Full” Bounce-back Doesn’t Mean You’re Listneing

Stopping At Success

Garth Beyer

It’s hurtful to work for more failure, but why do we not work for more success?

Success ought to be argued with, ought to be challenged, ought to be pushed. Energy is positively spent making things better. It’s how we make a dent in the universe.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Stop At Success

“I Think It Would Work”

Garth Beyer

Other variations you might here during a strategy planning meeting: “I like the idea.” “I’m convinced.” “You’ve got me hooked on the idea.”

While certainly positive and supportive statements, normally you’re not your target market.

It’s fantastic the idea appeals to you, but what about the tribe it’s truly meant to appeal to? If you don’t plan on investing in the product or service your marketing (if you’re not part of the tribe), then how you react to the marketing strategy doesn’t matter much.

Rather, when you use language like “I think that would really resonate with who we’re trying to target” or asking your colleagues if they feel Kasey (your target) would share a piece of content instead of asking if they (your colleagues) would share it, you begin to drive marketing that matters.

 

Stay Positive & Put Yourself In Their Shoes (Then You Can Use First-Person Pronouns)