Sometimes General is as Specific as You Need

I’ve gone organic.

When I made this announcement all of my in friends immediately informed me that I’d now be shopping only at specialty health food stores. So, being the obedient person I am, I marched myself right into my usual, normal grocery store and effortlessly (and affordably) bought just about everything an organic-eating consumer might need. Not only that, but I found affordable grocery store private-label organic products as well as major brand organic versions of favorites. Had I gone to the specialty store (with specialty prices) I would have missed out all of these welcome surprises.

As I’ve been doing my new healthy shopping I have kept a watchful marketing eye on the products and people frequenting these healthy aisles. And I have noticed two amazing things. First, in both specialty stores and supermarkets I am seeing consumers…just plain ole consumers. Second, the brands that choose to place their specialty products in the regular supermarkets seem to be gaining larger audience share because they’re introducing their product to a wider audience rather than going after a specific shopper.

Ironically, we just received a request to put together a marketing proposal for a new specialty natural, healthy juice product. Under normal circumstances I would have advised going after the fitness and health enthusiast market. But now, having seen who is actually shopping for these products, I recommended that they go big and wide…and general.

Knowing when to microtarget and when to go general can offer great possibilities and list savings to savvy marketers at a time when cutting costs is key. When you eliminate the segmentation costs you can go bigger in list size for a lower cost. Since return on investment is dependent on profit, this strategy could be the way to go.

Sometimes.

As marketers, we’ve all been efficiently programmed to microtarget our lists. Go into SRDS or Nextmark and you’ll find the most minutely pinpointed lists that defy sensibility. Do we really need to get all this focused in scope? Is it always necessary to put our audience under a high power microscope? Quite possibly, we may have strayed past the point of reasonable targeting and into the impossibly narrow. Just because you can doesn’t necessary mean that you should.

Case in point: The other day I was in my regular supermarket and walked over the organic produce section. Who do you’d think might be shopping there? Well, let me tell you who was there. A nice grandfatherly, chubby gentleman who was intently looking everything over before he put anything into his cart. So if those brands had chosen to only micro-market their products to a fit, young audience they’d be missing out on sales.

So what are the guidelines? If you have a very specific product that would be of absolutely no interest to the general population to purchase or refer to a friend, colleague or relative then go micro. The same goes for very high priced items: you need to make sure your audience can actually afford to purchase it. But, if like our natural, healthy juice manufacturer you have a specific product that has the potential to be of interest to the general population then go big and go wide.

Before marketers start segmenting it may makes sense to take a look at the demographics of today’s general consumer and really understand the marketplace. Whether you choose to examine the general audience on a nationwide or market-specific basis, it pays to look before you cut off what could be a mighty share of your buying audience. For example, if you are selling a golf product it may very well make financial sense to go general consumer audience in specific golf-course-heavy markets rather than selecting golf-enthusiasts on a national level.

When budgets will be tight, it might make sense to take an “old” new look at what consumer targeting is really all about. There’s no shame in not microtargeting an audience.

Before there were overlays and enhancements there were just consumers–and sometimes, that’s enough.

Carol Lustig is marketing director of Options Media, Boca Raton, FL.