Remember all of those discussions we’ve had about figuring out who your target audience is and figuring out where they spend their time? Well, it’s time to talk about the fact that target audiences also tend to have shared personality traits that affect what types of marketing strategies will work best for them.
So far on Substack, I’ve received nothing but support and positivity on my notes and posts. It’s been extremely encouraging honestly. But last week, it finally happened, as I knew it inevitably would—someone disagreed with me (the horror!). In all actuality though, they didn’t disagree with me so much as they disagreed with the marketing strategy that I had mentioned as a whole. Specifically, they didn’t agree with using lead magnets to grow an email list. They felt that giving away freebies didn’t bring in buyers, it only brought in people who expected more things for free.
Now, while they may have disagreed with me and that strategy, I’m here to say today, that I don’t completely disagree with them.
Your target audience shares personality traits. Not every personality trait they have, mind you, but they do share some. The ones that draw them towards you. The ones that make what you do appeal to them. These traits are probably related to the pain points that they have. In a lot of cases (though not always all), they will share these traits with you. I mean, there’s a reason you identified these pain points as pain points, and one of the most common ways to do that is to have gone through it yourself.
So essentially, like attracts like in this scenario. And your marketing should reflect that. So if you’ve never felt like lead magnets were an effective way to gain worthwhile buyers, because you didn’t feel like the idea of slowly nurturing an uncertain prospective buyer was necessary, that might be because your prospective buyers think like you and they know what they want without needing to have their hand held. Marketing in this case would need to be straightforward without any fluff or pomp or any of that extra stuff that doesn’t appeal to you. This kind of marketing does work! And it will work really well for the right people.
This doesn’t mean that other forms of marketing are completely ineffective though. They just may be ineffective for the audience that you’ve built. Other audiences though can be slow to trust. Slow to act. Slow to buy. They like getting freebies so that they can see if you really know your stuff. So they can learn that what they really need isn’t in your lead magnet, but rather in your best seller. So they can trust that buying your best seller will actually solve their pain point and not just waste their time and money.
There are a billion and one different marketing strategies out there. And I actually believe that when implemented for the right audience each and every one of those strategies will work. I don’t think there are wrong marketing strategies out there. I think there are wrong-for-you strategies out there. (As an aside, I want to be clear that I’m only talking about ethical and legal marketing strategies. Anything that is unethical or illegal can soundly be qualified as wrong. I’m not a monster or anything.) So go out there and figure out the strategies that your target audience responds to the most! They’ll likely be the ones that you feel the most comfortable doing.
All the best,
Ryanne Zender
Disclaimer: While marketing is based in part on statistics and psychology, it is not an exact science. Every business and market are unique. What may work for one business, will not necessarily work for another. There are no guarantees in marketing, and this post is for informational and educational purposes only and does not replace professional advice. You can check out the full list of disclaimers and disclosures here.
