Target your Persona

Your target should be broad enough to be financially viable (so you can figure this out if you look at the total population in the target and projected trial and repeat you can multiply that out and figure out the financial viability. But also it should be specific enough to be meaningful and easily understood. So one way to think about this is the “shout out the window test”. If you’re driving down the street and you shout out the window, would the people you’re targeting hear that you’re calling to them and turn around. So…if you said “hey mom’s” or “hey everybody who thinks they want to get more excitement in their life or “hey whatever that is” is it something that people would identify themselves with if you yelled it out the call window.

The right target then depends on the product or service that you’re marketing and the objectives for the company and the Brand. so.. If your company is focused on growth, the target that you identify needs to have strong potential for growth. If you’re focused on profitability, you need a strong potential for loyalty…that would be important. Obviously it might be both. Targeting to specific groups and well defined groups allows for both economic success and strong positioning. so…Obviously a large and/or growing target will provide more opportunity for economic success as long as it isn’t too broad to allow for a strong positioning…but if a target is too broad, then it loses it’s meaning.

It also bears noting anytime there’s a discussion of positioning, that you really need to think about taking care to ensure that your target is approached ethically. It’s really important to step back and ask “Is this responsible?” “What will the impact of this be?” and This is especially important for more vulnerable targets such as children so if you’re advertising to a target like that you need to be especially careful.