Every marketer dreams of successfully launching a fantastic new brand that changes the world. Is there room for another shouting voice about the next big thing? Every product has a campaign. Every campaign has advertisements. No one can escape either. Can your consumers hear you over the noise?

There is nowhere a person can run to get away from any form of advertisements. Sitting at home? Don’t watch TV. Or go on the internet. Or read a book. Or take a shower. Or open your eyes. Everyone everywhere in north America gets force fed more advertisements than you can consciously process. I bet you are saying to yourself, because you are highly intelligent, “but surely this can’t be the same for everywhere. What happens when you go into the middle of the forest?” So long as you don’t look down at your feet, or pants, or anything you brought with you. Every product is branded just like an advertisement. Companies just can’t do it any other way. So your hiking shoes? Branded. Your jeans? Branded.

Today, consumers move about their world without consciously noticing the majority of advertisements they are bombarded with. Picture a room with our consumer in the middle, Janet. As if she were going regularly about her day, for every advertisement she would have encountered, we will add a marketer into that room. Let’s say she walks for an hour down her street. Every car brand adds a marketer. Every for sale home sign adds a marketer. Every store, gas station, restaurant, billboard, radio, cell phone, and clothing items passerby’s wear adds a marketer. It doesn’t take long to fill that room. Now we have a room full of people all competing for one young lady’s attention. What happens when you keep a room of people full while letting them talk? The volume starts to rise. Soon enough the room is complete chaos. Welcome to the real world environment your customers live every day.

The question now becomes how do you get lovely Janet’s attention? If I can borrow your imagination for just a few more seconds let’s get back to that room. Yelling people all rage for Janet’s attention. Then some sterling marketer, for sake of demonstration let us use the silver fox of himself George Clooney, shifts through the room and squats down in front of our Janet here. They lock eyes. She stares deeply into her cool green eyes, “Hi Janet.” The hair on the back of her neck stands up. “I’d like to talk to you for just a second.” A good marketer knows more about their audience than their audience knows about themselves.

To be effective, a marketer has no choice but to drive deep for one section of one demographic in one market. Broad marketing simply no longer works. Marketers must select specific targeted audiences to have any effect. “Women from ages 25-35” no longer works. “Caucasian women, ages 25-35 with post-secondary education, unmarried, parents still together, living in urban areas with income of $35k-$50k,” is more like it. Psychographics are more powerful than demographics, higher quality leads are more powerful than the mass.

Why be a noise in a room when you can be the suave voice that calls to your consumers?

- Loagan Stroud