Do you want your brand to appeal to everyone?

One of the first questions I always ask my new prospects or new clients is 'Tell me about your target audience?' The answer is usually illuminating. More often than not, companies (big and small) want to appeal to everyone. 

A typical answer is 'Everyone has a sofa / fridge / mobile phone / needs a car loan / watches TV / buys CDs (or add your own product or service to the list) therefore my target audience is everyone. Although everyone may have a sofa at home, for some people, Argos will be there 1st choice retailer. For some others it will be John Lewis. There are very few people who will equally consider shopping for a sofa at John Lewis and Argos for the same product. Each person's preference will be based on a range of criteria including quality, range, price, location, experience and crucially, their mindset. 

It's understandable why companies think this way but it's based on the mistaken belief that appealing to more people will naturally grow your market size and increase sales.  In my experience, brands that try to appeal to everyone usually end up appealing to no-one. 

Here are some of the UK's biggest brands. Even they do not have universal appeal:-

• ITV (the UK's largest commercial channel) has an audience share of less than 18%
• HP (global number 1) has a 18% share of the global PC market
• 38% of adults shop at Tesco

The above brands have been around a long time, they have huge resources and huge marketing budgets, yet still do not appeal to everyone. What chance is there that your brand will appeal to everyone? 

So don't make the mistake of trying to appeal to everyone. It can't be done. Instead, identify a valuable target audience with a common problem that you can solve profitably. Then develop a compelling brand thought that communicates your solution more powerfully than your competitors. 

If you have a clear idea of who is your valuable target audience, you will know which target prospects that you want to attract to your website. 

If you have clearly identified your target prospects problem, it should be possible to develop a strong solution and a compelling, distinctive brand thought that is likely to have the greatest appeal to your target prospects.

By communicating this brand thought effectively across your website and web marketing you will have significantly increased the probability that you will convert web visitors to valuable customers. It will also help when developing strategies designed to grow customer lifetime value. 

For me it is a no brainer: it is always better to strongly appeal to a segment of valuable prospects / customers than have low appeal to a much larger audience.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.