When a small business approaches advertising, they have to consider what they want to say to the audience. It helps to know who your audience is and what their habits, likes and dislikes, and opinions are. A company I recently reviewed messaging with was having trouble selling their product to the "over 40" group. Since several of the individuals in the classroom were in that category, we decided to help him a bit as doing research with the target audience is a valuable method of discovering the best messages to deliver to that audience.
First of all, this company sells after-market turbo charge units for vehicles. Now, this sounds like something a teenager, or young man in his early 20's would definitely want on his car for the power, and the "coolness." This is what the company advertised to their audience and their audience seemed restricted to that age group and demographic: male, teenaged to early 20's. Not a huge target audience, even for a world-wide company.
As my class and I discussed this company's needs, we asked them to tell us more about the product. We discovered that adding this after-market turbo charged unit would increase the gas mileage of a car, make it cleaner for the environment as the emissions would be reduced, and make it more efficient as well as extend vehicle life. Now, doesn't that sound like messages that an over-40 group of environmentally conscious individuals would like to hear about the product? As the company representative went on, we also found out that the technology was patented, unique, and delivered greater power reliability from a vehicle. OK. "Power reliability" is just another way of saying "turbo charged engine for fast getaways" right? Of course it is, but it communicates it in a language that a different target audience would relate to.
When developing your targeted messages, you should always research the audience. In this instance above, this company had the opportunity to review messages and ideas and concepts with the class and in so doing, found that there were plenty of messages that were important to the over-40 crowd. In fact, some of the messages for the younger set were valuable to the older crowd (for example, "powerful" was still important). The reputation of the company and the fact that the technology was patented and unique were important messages world-wide as was the ease of installation. This product could be delivered and installed by your own mechanic and in many instances by a savvy mechanical individual who loved working on his own cars.
As we worked with this company, the class supported the idea that if this product could increase fuel efficiency, reduce emissions, and decrease cost of vehicle use, then fleet vehicles would be ideal to use this product. Large delivery trucks that are generally gas hogs could add this product on after-market and deliver a longer life of service, greater fuel efficiency, and be more ecologically friendly. That sounds like a selling point not only for the company installing the part but for the company using the part ("our trucks are just as environmentally conscious as we are").
Using the feedback of the audience in our classroom, this company was able to develop the foundation of a whole new advertising program for several different audiences: companies with fleet vehicles, and anyone older than 30 or 40 years old.
Targeting your audience with the right messages will deliver much better results. To target the audience correctly, spend the time to get to know the audience, their habits, and opinions. This helps your company to determine what and how to communicate the value of your product or service to your target audience.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Susan_Mclain
