Identifying Your Target Market, Or Why I Don’t Want A Monster In My Pants
Since I put my email address out there for all the world to see, I’ve gotten a lot of spam. (Attention, Spambots! I can be reached at naomi@ittybiz.com.) This is kind of funny, because I actually like spam. When you work in marketing, it’s cool to see how others are doing it.
My favorite spam is penis spam. (How do you like that, SEO freaks?) People who write penis spam emails are the most creative people I know. Man, these guys really bust it out. They know everybody deletes their emails, so they’re getting really creative. Today’s example is my favorite. I’ll make it big so all the people at your office can read it.
Don’t miss it out! Grow a monster in your pants for New Years!
This ain’t your father’s Viagra ad, people.
The problem with this company’s highly effective marketing technique is that I’m not exactly their target demographic. I’m a woman, and my husband is in the prime of his life. We have no need for monsters in our pants, thank you very much. Our monsters are just fine the way they are.
So what does this have to do with you, other than the fact that your life is now better having read that classic piece of copywriting genius?
Here’s a little target demographic metaphor.
Imagine the target is, um, a target. And you’re the dude with the gun or the bow and arrow or whatever. If you hit the target right in the middle, you get 50 points. If you hit the outside circle, you get 10. If you aim at 50, you might get 50 or you might get 10. If you aim at 10, you might get 10 or you might get nothing.
So why are you aiming at 10?
Your target demographic is your version of perfection. These are the people who are begging for your product or service. They have money to spend and they want to spend it on you. Maybe they don’t know it yet, but you do, and that’s all that counts.
Here’s an example:
Fellow home business owner Aruni at BabbleSoft sells software for babies. (Well, it’s software for the caregivers of babies, actually.) (EDITED TO ADD: It has come to my attention that I didn’t link to Aruni’s blog because I’m a jackass. So there. I’ve done it. Can I mention that her blog is called “Entrepremusings”? How cool is that?)
From the website: Baby Insights helps families gain insight into their newborn’s patterns. With this information, families can make feeding/pumping related decisions as well as crucial medical decisions. (She sells other stuff, too, but I have two more posts to write today and I’ve got to get a move on.)
I don’t know if Aruni has identified a target demographic for Baby Insights, but the average Joe would probably say her target demographic is parents.
Sadly, Joe is wrong. Sorry, Joe. You lose.
BabbleSoft has two groups of people to which they can market, parents and non-parents. To save space, we’ll just talk about parents here. In the parent category, we have:
- Mothers who are anal retentive.
- Fathers who dig all the latest technology.
- Parents who live in the US and are subject to the BULLSHIT PARENTAL LEAVE laws, forcing them to go back to work too early.
- Parents of multiples.
- Parents who work opposite shifts.
- Parents with older kids, especially those with high needs.
- Mothers with post-partum depression. (When you’re depressed, you need someone to think for you.)
That’s off the top of my head. If BabbleSoft were to specifically target any one of these groups and market to them appropriately, she’d have more customers than she’d know what to do with. That’s not even getting into potential baby shower gifts, gifts from distant grandparents, gifts from nagging grandparents, gifts from overinvolved grandparents, etc.
Homework time!
I wasn’t planning on giving homework but I’m drunk on my own power. Make a list of 10 potential targets. Make them really, really specific. Come back tomorrow.
Read the other posts in Marketing School:
Marketing School, Day One: What Is A USP And Why Should I Care?
Marketing School, Day Two: DIY USP
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Hey there Naomi,
Found your site through Entrepremuse/Aruni, and I have to say this is a pretty funny and useful blog. I’m wondering what is your stance on using mass email marketing (aka spam) to market your product? I’ll definitely come back to this site.
Hi Naomi,
What a great post! I can’t remember having seen ‘targetting’ described as good and fun as this. Looking forward to the rest of the ’school’.
I came up with 14, and I could probably keep going. I’m sure I’ve missed some.
Also, for the fun of it, I’m going to post them here (okay, that’s a lie; I’m going to forget them if I don’t write them down someplace convenient…)
Buyers who want:
A convenient, one-stop shop
A personal touch and relationship
A team to handle volume projects
A team to handle multiple needs for different types of copy
To avoid throwing their money away
To support small businesses
High-quality content at affordable rates
A business willing to bargain and negotiate
Respect for their dollar
Additional advice and consultation on online marketing through content and copy
Professionals with experience able to understand quickly and turn around a project perfectly – the first time.
Also, buyers who are:
Running an online business (small to mid-sized) with moderate success
Small businesses seeking to make the investment in good copy count
Tired of cheap content that doesn’t help or improve their business
Seeking to have their faith and trust in freelancers restored after dealing with less-than-pros from god knows where.
That’s 15, actually. I can’t count. If I could, I’d be an accountant - it pays more.
My favorite bit of spam zen was “your penis will make more shadow than a tree.” A lovely little spam poem. Or koan. Or something.
This is good homework. I will ponder.
One of my favorite things about blogging is that you can go from discussing respect for the dollar and support for small business to spammy penis zen.
I love my job.
Oooo, it’s so nice to be part of a semi-serious, quasi case study blog post. :-) We have so many target markets I don’t even know where to begin! I’ve had to spend more time on R&D and s/w testing then I’d like…that’s the problem when you have only one of yourself. You forgot to add parents of nannies.
I’m about to hire someone to help me with SEO work so this post will come in handy. I’ll come back with you with my new keywords and ask you to update the post with a bunch of links that point to my site…
I’d like to add that even if you aren’t depressed you need someone to think for you when you are massively sleep deprived and can’t stand your spouse.
I’d also like to add a statement to those spammers out there: Just like Naomi I am not a man who needs drugs and I’m also NOT married to one who needs those drugs right now. With all those social networks out there, it would seem as if you would know I’m a woman by now. Do you also not realize that most bloggers know that when you post 10,000 links on your post that you are a spammer?
BTW, if you had linked to my blog I would have been pulled out of my software testing reverie sooner and come over here faster. :-)
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