Effective marketing is becoming more about going deeper with fewer people than reaching the masses. It’s about developing an audience for your brand, your product or services. There was a time when a business could release a product with mass advertising and that is all it took. Today, consumers are more sophisticated and have a variety of channels and a multitude of information available to make purchase decisions. Businesses that take an audience mentality approach to communications find they are creating a group of dedicated fans that will share the word about their company. Traditional media, like television and radio, target a mass audience. More and more we are becoming a nation of niche markets, with additional fragmentation on the horizon thanks to the Internet. Network television doesn’t have the power to develop an audience like it used to, and people are making their own decisions about what they like instead of relying on network executives.
Would you rather communicate with a few interested customers or the masses, which includes people that are uninterested in your company? Digital technology allows you to communicate with the customers or prospects that could potentially become engaged with your company. Finding these “fans” and making them spokespeople for your company is the audience mentality approach to marketing, and it is the future.