What’s Your “Consumer Mix?”

Every product or brand strives to appeal to a consumer who seems most likely to embrace the brand, because of the consumer’s demographic or the product’s unique selling features, to embrace the brand.

There are customer relationship management (CRM) software systems available that can sift through thousands of characteristics to paint a portrait of what the ideal customer for the product looks like, demographically speaking. Industries routinely talk about their “sweet spot,” the crosspoint of consumer demographics and product features that make it most likely a given person will buy a product.

But what then? After the product is marketed to the most likely customers–the “low hanging fruit”–the product then must be marketed to those outside the sweet spot.  They too must be given reasons to buy, and more importantly, objections must be answered.

Who Wouldn’t Want One?

Therefore, some marketers, flipping over the “low hanging fruit” theory, will ask, “Who’s the person least likely to buy my product and how do I market to them?” There is a kind of perverse logic to this, because if I can convince the person who’s least likely to buy my product, I have what has come to be known as a green field, or blue ocean, in front of me. The marketer must ask inquire of his own product, “Why wouldn’t someone want one of these?”

In politics, this involves going before potentially hostile crowds and winning them over to one’s side with often nothing more than words, but in the commercial world, it may involve inventing a new formulation of the product so that soda pop appeals to overweight people because it has zero calories.

It’s almost as if one could draw a diagram, with the person most likely to buy as the bullseye and concentric rings around the bullseye, describing the next ring of consumers likely to buy and so on, till the last ring were consumers least likely to buy. The marketer would then know what each of these groups looks like, and the factors of each that would cause them not to buy. Then, the marketer has a handy list of objections to be overcome.

Remove the Objection

In some cases, removing the objection demands a reconfiguration of the product. If vegetarians refuse to eat meat hot dogs, the hot dog manufacturer is going to have to come up with a credible, meatless substitute.

In some cases, however, the objection may be more about how the product is marketed. That’s why the more marketing department knows about its consumer mix, the better it will be able to broaden its products’ appeal and increase sales.