But what is “One Size Fits All Marketing”? It is simply generic information on how to do marketing and, in particular, how to use the channels involved.
The problem is what works well on what target group may perform poorly with another and vice-versa; even when the markets and groups seem to be similar.
This is particularly true for different regions, especially the U.S. compared to the U.K. market. Some of the marketing and copywriting tactics that work well in the U.S. won’t perform well over here (though often a “toned down” version of them will produce good results).
This includes such things as excessively long or inappropriately offensive (so called “outrageous”) headlines. It even comes down to colour, i.e. the U.S. market goes for very bright or fluorescent colours in its packaging whereas the same brands, when promoted in the UK have a darker and more muted colour palette (Wrigley’s Extra chewing gun is a great example of this).
Less obvious is the UK regional variations. I’ve touched on these in an earlier post.
Your prospects will be a certain “size” and your marketing needs to fit them like a glove. It is simply a matter of tailoring your marketing to your prospect.
So how do you tailor your marketing? Well, like any good tailor, you start by finding out about the prospect and what they like and want. A tailor for instance would take your measurements and ask what colour and style of suit you wanted. A business would determine the “measurements” of their carefully targeted prospects e.g age range, income, education level, where they live and where they work and then go on to find out what their tastes were in regard to what their business is delivering and how they prefer to have it presented to them.
These are all important points but it is surprising how few businesses actually consider them. Many businesses invent markets for their products and services without asking anyone in that market segment if they’re interested in buying it from them at a certain price (see Dragon’s Den for numerous examples).
They further compound this error by selecting the marketing channels and approaches that they like or that are in vogue rather than finding out what approaches that market sgement responds to. Not everything has gone on-line. One of my clients was surprised to find out that a significant number of their bookings came in through fax!
Any business that wants to grow, or even just stay afloat in the current climate needs to tailor their product or service and the way it is marketed to suit their prospects perfectly.
