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You Can’t Target Everyone … And That’s OK

You Can’t Target Everyone … And That’s OK
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My clients who have the most success with their blogging and social media programs know what they’re good at, which means they know who to target, but more importantly, who not to target. Spreading your marketing efforts too thin to incorporate “everyone” will leave you without resources to focus on the target market that is most likely to come to you for staffing needs and jobs. This applies to all businesses and products, including the one in my example below.

When I was in grad school, my cohort had to create a comprehensive marketing program for a hypothetical $4.00 bottle of wine. Personally, I thought we did a great job, but after our presentation, a girl in our class raised her hand and said, “Your plan failed. My father owns a winery and I would NEVER pay $4 for a bottle of wine. That’s way too cheap to be good.”

The debate went as follows:

Us: Your response tells us that you’re not in our target market, but it does not mean our plan failed. We weren’t targeting you with this product.

Girl: Yes, you were – I’m a wine drinker.

Us: But you already said you would NEVER pay $4 for a bottle of wine, so no matter what our plan is, you won’t act on it. [To the class] Did anyone find our campaign appealing?

Woman in class: I’m a single mom. I don’t have extra money to spend on wine but I have $4. I would buy this.

I turned to the resident wine expert: One of our target customers is a wine drinker on a budget. Do you think we succeeded?

Girl: Whatever. I don’t buy wine anyways. My dad gives it to me for free.

The point of this story is to understand that it’s impossible to have “everyone” as your target audience because not everyone is interested in what you want to sell. I’ve heard this many times in the staffing industry when I talk to a new blogging client and ask them about their goals for their program. They’ll tell me their target market is “everyone looking for a job in the XX area.” That is not a goal that can work for you! How do you choose a goal for a blogging program?

Figure out what you’re good at

If your staffing agency excels at placing quality light industrial candidates, and you only have a few clerical job orders, focus your blogging program on the light industrial sector. Let’s assume you need to fill job orders and your program will be candidate-focused. If your ratio of job orders is 75/25 light industrial to clerical, my suggestion is to split up your blogging efforts in the same way – three posts a month to be focused on attracting light industrial candidates and one post a month with a clerical focus. This way, you’re not spending valuable time focusing on an industry that will not make as big of an impact as your core focus.

You’re not ignoring anyone

I’ve heard clients say “But we don’t want to ignore those other candidates.” Understood, but you’re not. It’s absolutely fine to fill the occasional IT job order when you’re mostly a light industrial firm; however, since that’s a once-in-a-while occurrence, you don’t want to focus your marketing efforts there because you won’t be maximizing your blogging budget.

Run with it

Focus your energy in the space where your target audience lives. We’ll focus our content and meta data on the subjects that your ideal clients and customers are most interested in.

Like the wine example, you’ll never win the business of people who aren’t interested in you in the first place. A mostly light industrial firm will probably not have the success of hiring IT pros as an IT-focused staffing firm. This is all ok!

For more information on how to get the most from your content marketing efforts, contact Haley Marketing.

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