The Hidden Cost of a Broad Target Audience in Brand Strategy

If there’s one scenario I get all the time, it’s this: Clients come to me with a list of goals and a “target audience” that completely lacks a “target.” Their ambitions are boundless. I’ve been told that the ideal demographic for a certain brand is specifically females “from elementary school to professional age,” or “men and women of all ages.”

It’s understandable why organizations talk this way. No one wants to scratch an audience from their potential customer list. It feels limiting—and it is. But the urge to cast a wide net may ultimately cause your organization to lose out in a way that is far more dangerous to your bottomline. 

I don’t mean to bash this “wide net” impulse entirely. If you’re passionate about your business and understand its remarkable qualities, you naturally want to bring your goods or services to as many people as possible. This is the passion that fuels your business. It’s wonderful. It’s irreplaceable. Your business needs a visionary at the helm.

But at the same time, you wouldn’t take a fisherman seriously whose goal is to catch every fish in the sea. Everyone needs to choose a place to start but, as the saying goes, if you don’t know where you are going then any road will get you there. For marketers this usually means either getting extremely lucky or wasting resources towards unmeasurable progress.

If you’re struggling in this spot, consider this: There’s a difference between your product’s appeal and your brand’s appeal.

A product can have broad appeal. Think of people who buy t-shirts or smartphones or tortilla chips. Doesn’t that include almost everyone? Clearly, they’re examples of products that snag a lot of diverse customers.

But now think of specific brands within those categories. Everybody buys t-shirts at one point or another. What causes them to choose, say, Madewell over American Apparel? Or H&M over Ann Taylor? It’s the brand’s messaging. The brand communicates if they’re budget vs. luxury, or for teens vs. working professionals. 

These are limitations, yes, but they are also reasons people pick one product out from among swarms of others.

If you market a product to “everyone,” you get vanilla. A lot of people may try your product, but not enough to be enthusiastic, rally around you, or become a return customer.

Worse than that, if your marketing is too broad, you might lose the customers who like you. For example, you’ll alienate teens if you start marketing to them and their moms. If you’re marketing to single urbanites who go clubbing on the weekends and to retirees, don’t expect them to like your brand for long. Both groups will understand that you don’t get them, and you’ll end up alienating both.

Products may have inherent appeal; but the brand that you create around your product will determine who chooses to pay you, love you, and stick with you.

And if your brand can help your customer envision the life that they want, or the person they want to become — it can become very powerful. It can transform your product from something merely used, to a meaningful decision that reflects who they are.

That’s the beginning of brand loyalty.