While there are general rules and practices for digital marketing that many different brands follow, not every user of such tactics is going to find equal amounts of success. This is something that you might try and temper by focusing on your particular industry, target audience or niche. The end result might be marketing content that is absolutely, inarguably, your own, but that can come with another risk.
Strong branding is important, but if the audience of your marketing is too specific, it could be that you’re not doing enough to expand your outreach. Going back to the drawing board can help you remedy this without losing that strong sense of identity.
The Risk of Becoming Too General
Of course, once you recognize this as a potential issue, you don’t want to overcorrect into something that’s just as bad. Diluting your marketing in order to appeal to as broad an audience as possible might eliminate the problem that you had previously, but now you’re just another nameless brand that lacks a particular focus. In many ways, it’s better that you focus on being for someone in particular than for no one – being too general risks offering anything that another business can’t more effectively produce.
Many businesses might also find that they have the opposite problem. Instead of having to expand their reach outwards and include more people, they might find that they lack anything unique or special about their branding that makes them stick out in the minds of their audiences. This can lead to a more forced attempt at developing a tone of voice or personality that can risk coming across as insincere. A personality for your brand shouldn’t just be something that’s designed to gain attention off of its own merits; it should be something that complements the type of service you offer and the kind of audience you’re targeting.
Who Is It Aimed At?
If you’re in an industry such as construction or manufacturing, the kind of knowledge that your audience has might be more technical and suited to the field you’re operating in. If your marketing is making casual reference to industry tools with the expectation that audiences are going to know what you’re talking about, it’s worth doing some research to see if that’s really the case. You might find that there’s a significant degree of overlap between yourself and those who share business with suppliers of yours like Machinery Partner, in which case it might be that nothing needs to change.
However, if there are new audiences that are regularly coming to you with little knowledge of your field, this approach could signal to them that you’re not concerned with welcoming them or offering supportive customer service. Understanding whether or not your marketing is too niche means developing a thorough understanding of your audience, your demographics and whether that’s enough. While you might feel at first, for instance, that your marketing is too much focused on keeping a core target audience happy, it might be that this is all your business needs to do – allowing you to flourish within a niche that steadily draws like-minded people towards you. Your long-term business goals can help you dictate whether a change in approach is needed.
What Is Your Marketing Trying to Achieve?
To some, this might sound like a strange question because the ultimate goal of marketing is arguably the same not only across businesses but across all industries. You’re trying to increase awareness of your brand while also showcasing what you have to offer that no one else does. Whether this is by appealing to a particular niche or making use of a gap in the market, that’s really dependent on your situation, but it’s worth understanding the fundamental difference in those approaches.
If your marketing is more focused on showcasing what’s unique about your own brand, this is something that might be more ingrained into your branding across the board – something that comes to audiences with awareness of who you are at all. However, if the conversation that you’re starting is one that’s more dependent on current industry circumstances, you have to be considered in how you go about illustrating your point. If your product or service is making use of some sort of gap in the market or circumstance, do you expect that audiences already know what you’re referring to, or do you take the time to inform them? If it’s the latter, be careful not to take too much time, or audiences could lose interest and seek a solution elsewhere.
The Right Time to Focus on Outreach
It might be that you feel as though changing up your style of marketing risks alienating your current audience. If that’s the case, you might be concerned about how exactly you can expand your audience without stepping over that boundary. The answer might lie in a different type of marketing entirely.
Search engine optimization is something that’s gained a lot of popularity over the years, as it effectively makes use of the digital sphere to engage audience interest. SEO provides your business with a way of attaching your name to blog posts all over the internet, planting seeds of familiarity and acknowledgement everywhere that can help you get your foot in the door. Even if one person doesn’t end up visiting your website or social media channels right away, your name is now tucked away in their brain and might come to the forefront when they need a business in your industry. This is essentially a marketing tactic that’s designed for outreach – designed for you to expand your audience. It’s up to you how you balance this with the risk of feeling as though your central marketing is too limited in its view. If your name is at least out there and further audiences are aware of what you offer, they know what to expect, and it might be that this is exactly what they need. If the results are still lacking, you might decide to alter your personality somewhat.
