Few Examples of Targeted Marketing in Action

Example #1

A fellow in the carpet-cleaning business told me that direct mail never paid off for him. When we investigated the area he had mailed to, we found a very high percentage of renters. Over 70 percent were tenants, not homeowners.

"How'd you pick this area anyway?" "It was the same zip code as my office," he answered. "Ever drive it, like you were shopping for a home?" "Nope," he admitted.

"Let's go," I said, and off we went, driving up and down about thirty streets in the area for a couple of hours. We saw many homes in desperate need of repair or paint, poorly maintained lawns, and cars in the driveways and carports five years old or older, some up on jacks being fixed.

"Based on what we've seen outside, who would you expect to see inside these houses?" I asked. 'Nuff said.

The antidote to this direct mail failure was not fixing the literature; it was simply selecting a better target. The carpet-cleaning guy spent the new few days driving the neighborhoods in various zip codes surrounding his office until he found one where the homes shouted: pride of ownership.

In the first area, his mailing had pulled less than one-fourth of one percent in response. Mailing to residents in the new area, the same mailing pulled over 2 Vi percent

Example #2

Several years ago, a Sansabelt clothing store opened in a major mall here in Phoenix. Sansabelt features pants with the tab front—no belt— and a hidden elastic waistband that us chubby guys find helpful

Most Sansabelt merchandise is sold in department stores and, as a customer, I've always found the selection poor and usually had to trek through several stores to find what I wanted. Sol was thrilled at the prospect of a whole store filled with everything Sansabelt makes in every imaginable size and color.

After my first visit, though, I knew the store was doomed. I bet the manager he'd close within six months. He didn't hang around to pay off the bet.

Here's what went wrong.

The mall they chose was the biggest center-of-the-city mall. Most of its shoppers are young to the young side of middle age. Yuppies. And businesspeople.

The majority of Sansabelt customers are middle-aged and up, at least slightly overweight. Many are retired. Many others are businessmen.

Now there is a mall right smack in the middle of the middle-aged, moneyed folks, near Sun City—the retirement capital—and there's one in Mormon-dominated Mesa, Arizona, where there are probably more well-fed, happily overweight guys than anywhere in the world. They could have put a store in each of these malls for what it cost to be in the one they chose, and they'd have been much better located for their target markets.

Then they compounded the problem.

Again, a great many loyal Sansabelt customers are overweight businessmen nearing middle age. I went in as they would to buy a couple of Sansabelt suits, prepared to drop about $700. "We don't stock the suits," I was told, "just the sportswear." Like bright red or yellow golf slacks, at least twenty miles away from the nearest golf course.

If for some reason I wasn't going to stock all the Sansabelt stuff in a Sansabelt store, and I were in that location, if anything I'd stock the suits and forego the golf slacks.

Example #3

Where did Tom Monaghan open up his early Domino's Pizza locations? In college towns, near college campuses. Why? Who do you know who eats more pizza, more often than college kids? Also, at the time, smoking the funny weed was still immensely popular among college kids and, in case you don't know it, "Mary Jane" makes people very, very, very hungry. I have no idea whether or not Tom thought through that, and if he did, I doubt he'd admit it, but he's a bright guy, so you decide for yourself. The point is that, quite literally, he found a starving crowd.

Continue reading here: The Three Best Ways to Target Market

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