[2] It's Only Effective If It Reaches
Your Potential Target Market:
You may have read the following sentence near the end of the previous page, but the point it makes is SO IMPORTANT, we're going to repeat it again here:
With respect to advertising as a means to directly increasing your product sales in the immediate sense, advertising is ONLY effective if it reaches YOUR potential target market AND presents a compelling sales message to those people who are likely to become YOUR customers.
If you're hunting deer, and a thousand squirrels and mice scamper in front of your gunsights, the squirrels and mice don't make any difference. They just waste your time and get in the way of achieving your true objective.
If you're buying advertising to generate more business through any advertising medium, please understand the following point with crystal clarity:
What counts in your advertising
— and ONLY WHAT COUNTS —
is how many of those people
who saw your advertising
will actually BUY SOMETHING!
"Casual Viewers" and "Window Shoppers" are seldom likely to make you any money. No matter how great your advertising is, or how much time they might spend looking at it, most of them will probably NEVER become your customers.
Who's a "Casual Viewer"?
Here's an example: Suppose you sell ballet shoes, and a million double amputees happened to see the TV program or read the publication where your advertising appeared.
Even if they actually did pay some attention to your advertising message (which is unlikely), their exposure to your ad is utterly useless to you; this particular audience's exposure to advertising for a product they don't want or need won't make you a penny.
Most such "Casual Viewers" will NEVER become your customers. The relative cost-effectiveness of any particular advertising venue is determined by the percentage of those people reached by that venue whom you could reasonably expect to be within your target market.
Who's a "Window Shopper"?
The Wikipedia definition of "window shop" (as an activity) says:
"An American/English phrase meaning to look into glass windows of a shop for entertainment and imagine purchasing items without actually purchasing, possibly before some other event like going to a motion picture show or meeting someone for a dinner engagement. Window shopping can mean the act of passing time planning the purchase of items one can't get. It can also be done in the case where the store is closed and one is left only to imagine the purchase of items visible in a darkened window."
In other words, most "window shoppers" have only idle curiosity about what's in your window. Again, most of them are unlikely to be within your potential target market. A few of them may eventually come back and buy something ... someday ... but don't hold your breath.
So What Really DOES Count in Advertising?
From an immediate sales standpoint, what counts - and all that counts - is:
—1. How many people your advertising REACHES who fall within YOUR TARGET MARKET;
—2. Whether your advertising message is PERSUASIVE TO THOSE PEOPLE; and
—3. Most importantly, how many of those people actually BUY SOMETHING!
Those who don't buy are just squirrels and mice cluttering up your gunsights.
So how do you identify your prospective target market? MOM can help you. Read on.
