- A board member has a different view of the world than a junior manager (where seniority is the dimension of differentiation)
- A test engineer has a different set of challenges than a sales director (the target’s discipline is the dimension)
- A hospital administrator cares about different things than a high school administrator (market sector)
- An existing customer has a different view of you than a cold prospect (degree of familiarity with your company)
- A Chinese manufacturer has different concerns than a French one (region)
- Aim for the common ground– keeping your story in the lavender zone; this is good if that zone is still compelling enough to both A and B. The downside: you’re often forced to leave out really good parts of your A story or your B story.
- Try to tell the whole A + B story– signalling to the reader that ‘this bit applies to A’ and ‘this bit applies to B’. The downside: B people get bored during the A bits and vice gets bored during the versa.
- Do a piece of content for A and another for B– This lets you tell your best story to each audience. The downside: it costs more and takes more time.
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Comments
Bob Scheier December 12th, 2011
Amen, amen, amen. Why not create different content aimed not only at your various personas, but where each persona is in the buying cycle (just learning about XYZ, considering different XYZ products, figuring out how to cost-justify XYZ products, etc.) Using marketing automation software, their choice of content thus tells you who they are. In short: celebrate and exploit the difference, don’t try to paper over it. Two minute video explainer (from the last recession 🙁 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDc4a-xB7Yo
Doug Kessler December 13th, 2011
Thanks Bob — and thanks for the video link.
It’s a good point. You can get target audience clash by targeting prospects in two or three different parts of the buying cycle.
Often better to snap them off and address them one at a time.