My great aunt loves Mountain Dew. Let me clarify: my soon-to-be 100-year-old great aunt LOVES Mountain Dew. Do you remember that one commercial Mountain Dew had that really zeroed in on the 90+ crowd? Nope. You don’t. Why not? Because it never happened. Mountain Dew has their target demographic and they don’t chase the extremes.
Is Mountain Dew upset that Auntie Stella drinks their soda? Not likely. Their target demographic is likely males ages 34 and under. A 99 year old drinking their soda would be considered an extreme, far removed from their target demographic. Every now and then I’ll see a local company we work with that is chasing after those extremes. They’ll rationalize it by saying, “You know that one time we had this one person who was well outside our target demographic buy our product – let’s go after more of them!” If it was more than a one-off purchase from non-targeted demographic and had some regularity to it, then maybe we could justify marketing to that extreme. But for a one-off purchase, or even just a few of them, it’s not wise to take your focus off your target demographic.
Think of it in another way: when you go to a concert, you might love that one rare, unreleased song off of an earlier album. You might be just one of three people in the crowd who loves that song. Chances are slim that the band will play that song for three people and jeopardize losing the rest of the masses. (I’m still hoping that one of these times I see Def Leppard I’ll get to hear, ‘When the Walls Came Tumbling Down’ from their first album, but being as I’m one of probably 2 people in a crowd of 10,000 that wants to hear that song, I’m not holding my breath.)
Your target demographic, your core group of consumers and purchasers, are the ones who helped build your company up to what it is and will help you build it into everything it can be. Focus on that core group; send them well-crafted messages and promotions tailored to their desires, and specific to their needs. Market to that group; don’t chase the extremes.
