Demographic Building Blocks Of Great Marketing

As marketers and coaches for our clients, knowing that there are real differences between men and women’s basic interests, details, focus, reaction to messages, empathy, trust, expectations and dozens of other traits that must be considered if marketing is to be effective.

Before we can be any benefit to our clients, we have to know exactly who the target is for the marketing you are going to suggest to your client. A starting place is to determine if the target is primarily men, women, kids or that the target is non specific.  Next it is important to consider age, social economic considerations, interests like boating, fitness, gardening, etc..   

Consider automobile marketing. A mid priced family vehicle targeting women will stress safety, always have children in the ad, be perfectly shiny and bright and stress affordability and any special deals to save some money. 

Ads for men will present rugged dusty locations, no kids in sight, specs on towing capacity, engine performance, and if a pickup truck you can expect to see some load capacity info.

Keep in mind that this is not absolute and men might also be interested in the financial or safety information, but focused marketing is usually more effective than a general message unless the message is gender neutral and general in nature.

Additionally, selecting the promotional item that will deliver the message has to be appreciated by the target prospect. When projects are designed and built with these considerations, clients will be thrilled with the results in most cases.

When developing messages be careful not to offend by accident. While gender is an important component to consider, messages should not make specific references. For example the above ads don’t say “The perfect truck for active men” or “Women love trips to the market and ease of power tailgate”. 

How does all this have anything to do with a phone number on an ice scraper? Promotional products media has a long history of being stand alone message delivery media. Messages are generally brief and may be nothing more than contact information. With the competition from online sellers of promo products and a significant number of DIY (Do It Yourself) younger business operators, offering something much more valuable at the same or even lower investment than DIY, can attract new clients.

Lean more to being a marketing professional than to being a product peddler. It just takes a focus on the outcome the prospect is investing in rather than the product they likely have been shopping for online. 

It has been very effective to have a promotional product component as part of a marketing program. Formulating that larger message is where knowing the target is going to be valuable. Our promotional industry has great suppliers of custom packaging appropriate for longer messages and attractive graphics. A custom imprinted promo item in a custom package has a much greater impact than the promo alone.

Over the years that I have been helping promo consultants build projects, using some of the budget to cover packaging and focusing on a smaller distribution generated great results. Rather than reaching a thousand general prospects, identifying the four hundred best prospects to contact, is a fundamental strength of promotional products media. Getting messages into the right hands without reaching uninterested people is what builds success.