Marketing up Close and Personal

Talking to an individual within a targeted audience versus promoting to the entire group makes the message and the promotion feel like it’s a personal choice. Such personal attention will always generate reciprocated interest – in business – in the form of sales.

Getting Up Close and Personal

There are a number of ways to get up close and personal with marketing and promotional messages. A few obvious ways include building messages and campaigns around the hot topics of the day. It’s a well publicized fact that household pets have become the center of many homes and households over the past several years. The pet industry is huge and getting bigger.

It is a safe bet these days that almost any demographic or target market is involved with the pet craze in some way. Find those ways and then use pictures or video or messages that incorporate dogs or cats in marketing and promotional pieces.

Have a product that is aimed at the family unit? Get up close and personal by generating messages and campaigns including sound bites or pictures of a diversified family unit. Betty Crocker’s promotional message – “Bake someone happy” is a perfect example of getting to the heart through the family. Most of their television commercials show the family unit sharing one of the many Betty Crocker cake products.

Marketing to the baby boomers? This group is fast approaching retirement ages but still see themselves as being fortyish which means you need to market to them using slightly younger messages and images.

Marketing to Gen Y? Make the messages fast and in a digital text format or use the Internet to reach them. For Gen Y - it helps to use images of groups of people in an area – but – each person in the group has to be working alone, slightly aloof from the group. Why? Because market research will tell you that is how that particular generation interacts and how they relate to marketing messages.

One more generation - Gen X – make the message one of independence and self-sufficiency. Look them in the eye and tell them what the product or service will do for them personally.

Make the Promotion Even More Personal

Incorporate statements about personal success – overcoming obstacles – image – the future – feeling good – feeling better – feeling younger into the marketing plan and the promotional messages.

One of the greatest strengths of some of the greatest United States presidents such as Ronald Reagan or John F. Kennedy is that when they communicated to an entire nation at one time, the message still felt individualized and went straight to the hearts of every American.

President Kennedy made each individual believe in the why, when and how they could make it to the moon. President Reagan made Americans believe he could help them out of the recession in the 1980s. He did so by reaching out to each American on an individual level. Both made their audiences feel good – protected – encouraged because they made the messages reach out on a personal level.

See the Faces in the Demographics

Buying trends show over and again that people buy what they feel fits them on a personal level. People connect with products and services more often than they connect with companies. In certain instances, if the consumer feels connected enough to a certain product or service, they will also be more loyal to the company. Take eBay for example. There’ve been many online auction companies try to build a following without success because eBay made the personal connection long ago – and the company and the service has helped many of their consumers earn a living or forge a new business.

Each individual in the target demographic feels that their particular purchase is unique. The thousands of people who purchased an iPod for the first time last week feels the iPod sets them apart and that the purchase was exclusive and personal.

Consumers make their purchases personal, marketers need to make their messages personal by drilling down and actually see the faces of the demographics and gettin up close and personal - one person at a time.

Target the individual for increased sales.

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