I heard a very interesting point yesterday about marketing and the distribution curve thing, which got me thinking about daring to choose a target audience.
The point being that in traditional terms, marketers try to target the ‘mass audience’ – i.e. that there is a large group of people who would want or need what you’re trying to sell and you make it as attractive as possible to that large group of people. On the left hand side of the mass audience would be the ‘early adopters’ who would buy what you’re selling anyway, and on the right hand side would be the ‘never evers’ who will never be interested in what you’re selling. The middle ground was the hallowed ground.
Not any more.
Gone are the days of 20 million people regularly tuning in to watch a soap – crikey, it’s national news when a programme gets 11m viewers now (and there are a lot more people and devices to watch on). The distribution curve is now much, much flatter as people can find exactly what they want – not what they’re given.
No longer will mediocrity do – one must dare to choose which arena in which to operate.
Think of the difference that something like Twitter has made in this arena. Someone once described Twitter to me as “imagine the perfect talk radio station made just for you, that only had conversations about things that you were interested in and left out anything else.” Before Twitter, if I wanted news I bought a paper or watched the TV and I had to endure (it certainly feels like a chore now with the curse of 24 hour news!) information that I wasn’t interested in to get to any stories that I was interested in. Now that I use Twitter to follow the conversations I am interested in, or an app like Flipboard on my iPad, I get exactly the news I want. It’s very niche, but it’s mine and I think this is the way that the ‘distribution curve’ is going. The middle is flattening out – more and more people at the edges getting the specific things that they want when they want them, not just getting the middle ground products and services.
Also consider the car market – they can be some of the best to understand this. Think about the Mini relaunch. It was a huge success because it created an excellent, desirable car and then gave the purchaser lots of niche opportunities to choose which colour car, roof, wing mirrors, wheels etc to have. The possibilities seemed endless – but I could have my Mini, not the mass market Mini. I think the problem here (although probably still very profitable) is when they go so far that they lose the essence of the vehicle for the sake of catering to too many audiences – the Fiat 500L is just stupid. It’s a cute, little Fiat 500 made for big families. Just buy a larger Fiat. Urgh.
Anyway, the point is this, there is a far larger audience base at each end of the market distribution curve – a viable audience too. They’ll seek out your products, services and content because it resonants specifically with them. This is great news if you dare to choose your audience. Because if you do dare, there will be an audience for you. The biggest mistake now is to hope that the mass audience still exists and try to be all things to all people. One of my favourite examples is on Bored Panda (http://www.boredpanda.com/sharp-suits-worst-client-comment-posters/) where a designer is given the following feedback from their client:
There is an audience of people who want your media-rich, specific and personalised content, products and services… and those are the people you should dare to talk to.
Do you know your audience?
Sam Grayston 
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