In this episode of Gnaw on This, Ben and Syya break down the essentials of marketing to the right audience. Learn how to identify your ideal customers, leverage data to inform strategies, and adapt your messaging across platforms for maximum impact. They discuss common pitfalls businesses face when targeting the wrong demographic and highlight the power of creating genuine emotional connections with your audience.

Key Takeaways:

• People constantly surprise us in amazing ways
• Understanding your audience is critical for effective marketing
• 90% of the world may never buy from you, and that’s okay
• Data analysis helps identify the right audience
• Targeting the wrong demographic can derail campaigns
• Marketing strategies must adapt to different platforms
• Emotional connections drive engagement
• Solving customer problems is essential for success
• Value exchange must resonate with your audience
• Recognizing biases leads to smarter marketing decisions

📌 Tune in, laugh a little, and #GnawOnThis every week with us!

#communication #marketing

Learn more about Ben Baker at IamBenBaker.com

Chat it up with Syya and the team at BrilliantBeamMedia.com

If there's one thing we've learned about business and life is that people are the X

factor.

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They constantly surprise us both in amazing ways and not so much.

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We're Ben and Sia and welcome to the Nod On This Business Bites podcast.

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This show is all about real life things we all deal with every day, how they relate to

business and how to make some sense out of our daily chaos.

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Welcome to the show.

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And welcome back to another episode of non this business bites.

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I'm Ben and this is Sia.

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So last week we dove into tribes and that was really interesting.

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You know, whether they're passion-based, whether they're goal-based, whatever, you know,

whether a personal tribe or a business tribe, whatever.

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But the question came to mind and see, and I were talking about this offline and we wanted

to bring this into the, into this realm and non this.

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How do you market to the right people in the right way?

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Because.

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There are people that will never buy from you.

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Probably 90 % of the world or 95 % of the world will never buy from you.

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And that's okay.

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If you sit there and say, okay, 1 10th of 1 % of the world might know that I exist and a

percentage of that is actually gonna want, have a need, want or desire and can afford what

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we want.

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That's a different story altogether.

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The question is how do we market these people?

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How do we define who these people are?

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So we can sit there and say, right, these are the people that actually have a need, a

problem that we can solve and the money that they want to give to us to fix it or somebody

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like us to fix this.

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How do we communicate with them?

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Nia, see ya, let's nod this.

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You know, I haven't called many things in life, Ben, so thank you.

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I'll take Neo.

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Yeah, I don't know where D.I.

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from, but whatever.

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why cuz you're saying no on this and it was like I said, I've been called many things in

life and I'm not gonna I ain't gonna sweat it so

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As long as you don't call me late for dinner, I'm good.

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Aren't straight darn to like, you know, literally the other day, I literally say this

almost once a week.

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If I, you know, when, when I inevitably this mortal coil that we call earth here, it will

because of food.

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So yes, I can be food motivated.

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So back to, you know, marketing to the tribe, right?

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The right tribe, right message, right time, et cetera.

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You know, this really ultimately goes to if you truly understand

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the problem you're solving and the value you're bringing, the identity of that audience

will come out a bit more clear.

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And it's shocking and I'm guilty of it every day, just as much as anyone else.

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It is shocking if you don't have the data in front of you to really analyze it.

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We can always go with our intuition and I'm intuitive.

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So I catch that, but you really sometimes need some cold hard little digital facts.

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You know, do some research, you 10, 15 minutes, at least you say you did research, right?

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To really understand and say, wait, am I really talking to the right people?

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Because I literally just went through this exercise for another client.

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And I was like, holy crap on crackers, you guys.

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What we targeted is not who is actually resonating with this message.

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It's so boring.

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How many people try to sell the 12 slice toaster to 25 year old single men?

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You know, it's just like you, have this great product that does amazing things, but you're

selling it to the absolutely the wrong audience.

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These people don't need it.

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Don't want it.

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I never going to spend the money for it.

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So why are you targeting these people long and hard saying, listen, you need to buy my

toaster when they never will.

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It just flabbergasts me how many companies do this.

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They sit there and say, we're going to, everybody's my customer.

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Everybody, everybody with a heartbeat and a Visa card is my customer.

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No, they're not.

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No, they are not.

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you reminded me of.

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I saw this and I probably should look for it.

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So I think it was Volvo.

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It was Volvo.

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And they had come out with, you know how they have like car shows where they always have

experimental cars?

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Like they're never gonna go into production, but it's kind of like a welcome to our pipe

dream group, right?

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And they actually let the female employees, they created a group to create the ideal car

for women.

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And they said, don't said, don't worry about being practical, just design what you guys

with all the features, conveniences and all that stuff.

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And the design came out extraordinarily interesting again.

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Because there was like extra cup holders, there was place for trash, there was a place to,

you know, you know, put your purse.

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There's tray tables for the kids section, all these little different accoutrements if you

want to think about it, but it's relevant to the female demographic.

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ah And of course, they're making fun, the techie heads are making fun of it, well it's

completely impractical because you're putting the component that's needed where the window

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washer would be.

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It's like, the instructions were if there was a dream, this is what it would look like.

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So wasn't a driveable car, okay?

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It kind of reminds me of, wait, and Volvo or whomever.

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shouldn't malign Volvo if it's not Volvo, whatever car company it was, they didn't

implement one of those ideas.

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Mike, are you, you literally had the perfect audience that would, if you just tweak it to

whatever made sense, those features should have been applied and thrown in.

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Yeah.

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Don't throw out the.

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Baby with the bath water, you know what I'm saying?

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There's some good, and that's what I find fascinating, right?

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So that's why you're going back to saying data gives you the opportunity to be looking at

them saying, okay, maybe I should throw a couple extra cup holders and a trash bin,

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whatever, right?

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And the question is, what was the demographic?

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Was it the soccer mom or was it the, you know, the, yuppie?

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Exactly.

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And each one is going to have different needs.

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Each one is going to look at a car very differently.

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Uh, you know, I mean, the beautiful thing about Volvo Volvo for years was known as the car

that you bought to keep your family safe.

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Yep.

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That was what it was.

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Yeah, I mean, it was definitely never sexy.

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drove Volvo's for almost 20 years.

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They were never a sexy car, but they were always known as the safe, reliable car.

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was they were almost bulletproof and you could drive.

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mean, I had a first Volvo I drove.

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I think I got 400,000 miles out of it before I ended up having to finally get rid of it to

a record.

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But, you know, it was one of those things where you sit there and say, OK,

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for the demographic that they were going after, had obviously got into people's minds that

if I'm buying a car for my girlfriend, if I'm buying a car for my wife who's gonna be

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driving my kids around, that's gonna be hauling hockey bags and this and that, everything,

the Volvo station wagon, this is pre-SUV, this is pre-minivan era.

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The Volvo was the car of choice.

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you know, and for years they were able to instill that idea says these, this is our

audience.

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These are the people that we're going after.

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This is why they're buying this car.

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Okay.

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Let's just market the snot out of this.

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And they did, and they did extremely well.

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And I think they went away from that.

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and tried to go for the more yuppie, the more upscale, the more, and they lost their

identity and all of sudden couldn't differentiate themselves in the market like everybody

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else.

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So it's funny, we talked about this at the beginning of the year.

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So those want to go back in time.

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We talked about uh missteps in brands and rebranding.

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And there was a conversation at Jaguar, I think it was that we picked on, where they went

with all some like these like Gen Z, pink and purple neon lights and all that stuff.

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And again, full disclosure, I have a Jaguar people and I was like, I liked it.

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I thought it was cool, but I also understand.

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The demographic of affording a Jaguar is not the demographic that can act like who they

marketed to is not exactly the crew that can buy a ton of those.

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Right.

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And so I get it.

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You're trying to look youthful, but again, you have to understand your market.

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You have to understand, you know, it's a luxury brand, right?

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So trying to part like to, to, to market towards like the party crew is not exactly the

right message.

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Right.

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But I mean, hey, look, you wanna look fancy in your 20s, go for it.

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But even I, when I finally got the car, was already in my 40s.

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I understood it to be like, hey, that's my, I have arrived, I've worked really darn hard

for this car.

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You know what I mean?

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But yeah, so I think if you are going to market to your target audience, you better know

all the details, the nuances.

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Again, as we keep harping on this,

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What is a value exchange of whatever you're marketing to that they're going to embrace

you?

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And why should they give a damn?

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What emotion are you evoking that is going to make them want to listen to you and get

excited to cheer you on and and root?

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Right.

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We talked about building that tribe.

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What's that emotional hook and connection that they can say, oh, me too.

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That's me.

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Right.

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So, yeah, that's kind of.

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Yeah.

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But you think you're going to market to.

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is not necessarily what the actual market is.

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And think that's the crazy part.

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knowing where you do your marketing, right?

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So especially in the context of social media, you better know each platform strengths and

how that message should look if you want to really evaluate the success of that campaign.

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Because to judge it, TikTok versus LinkedIn engagement, right?

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And to think they're equitable.

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is basically telling a goldfish to judge itself if it could climb a tree.

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Well, it's like, if you're going after people who read the New York Times and actually

read the New York Times or the HBR, you really shouldn't be advertising a TikTok, you

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know, because they're completely different crowds.

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And you look at it and sit there and say, unless I have an audience that actually sits

there and, and digest this type of information on TikTok and engages with it and embraces

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it.

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Why am I spending time, money and effort being there?

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So it's people, I love people who sit there and go, okay, I'm gonna create one social

media ad and I'm gonna put it across every single platform and they wonder why flops

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completely because people sit there going, okay, I see this on six different platforms.

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I'm not looking at Facebook for the same reason I'm looking at TikTok or Instagram or

LinkedIn or whatever.

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You look, you're going to different platforms for different reasons.

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You know, I do want to do asterisk with that statement you made.

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If you like to absorb that kind of content, right?

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Yes.

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Do not say I'm not trying to say that you cannot do.

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There are content creators who can articulate some business concepts, et cetera, in a way

that's in the vernacular of the target audience, which I'll take.

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I'm saying that I'm agreeing with it.

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I'm agreeing with that, it can't, it can't be the same ad.

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No, you can't use the same images, the same verbiage.

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Your brand should be your brand across platforms.

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Your value statement should be your value statement across platforms.

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How you communicate that value changes based on the platform and the audience that

responds to that thing.

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And whether that's TV, whether that's radio, whether that's blogs, whether that's

podcasts.

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whether it's social media, whether it's actual newspaper or radio, we need to sit there

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And is this a demographic that I care about?

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Do they care about me?

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And if I do that, how am I testing my engagement to understand whether those people who go

there are actually the ones coming to my website or to

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phoning me or doing whatever we want them to do.

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And I think there's a lot of power in that of understanding the data.

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mean, I think when you take a look at the two things you said was em the Jaguar ad and you

can also put Budweiser in that same category with their missteps, but you know, realize

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how quickly both of them ran away from those campaigns when they realized they were toxic.

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At least they were smart enough to run away from the different campaigns when they

realized how toxic they really were to their brand.

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And it's interesting how Bud has gone back to the good old boys, the Southern rock

concerts and that kind of stuff in their advertising because that was the demographic that

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was buying Budweiser beer.

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You know, so it's amazing how we take a look at our societies and go through this.

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you know, what we need to do, and I think we're getting ready to land this plane, um is

that we need to take a look at this and we need to sit there and go, okay, how do we first

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of all understand why and who cares about us?

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Like who actually can buy this?

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Who actually has a problem we can solve?

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who actually finds that problem significant enough that they're looking to have that

problem solved and who actually has the money in their back pocket that are willing to sit

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there and say, I'm willing to give you money if you can fix my problem.

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And those are the people we need to sit there and say, okay, wait a second, I built the

solution.

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I understand your problem.

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I understand who you are.

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I understand the challenges that you're facing.

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Come talk to me because guess what?

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We've already figured out how to fix that problem or a problem that's similar to yours.

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And we can customize it to fix, fix the problem that you currently have, depending on

whether it's a B2B or a B2C type issue.

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But we need to, we need to constantly be looking at the data and constantly understanding

what the data is telling us.

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And that sometimes means ignoring our own biases.

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And it's, man, like old things, easier said than done.

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Absolutely.

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Absolutely.

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So see, do have anything that you want to add to this before we land?

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No, we got a loudness thing because I do have a lot of thoughts to say on that because

that's the joy of our show we can keep going but no uh we must Take bring her in Ben.

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All right, we're in No, see ya

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and we'll see you soon.

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Hey hey hey, thanks for listening to another episode of Not On This Business Fights.

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If you liked what you heard, be most humbly asked that you like, share, and hit that

subscribe button.

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If you want to communicate more effectively within your organization, contact ben at

imbenbaker.com or me

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brilliantbeanmedia.com.

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can help you build your community, awareness, and personality through digital content and

podcasting.

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We cannot wait to hear from you.

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See you next week for another episode of Nom This Business Pites.