You Might Hit Two

This post is briefer than my usual, with two quick topics vs. one longer theme.

1. Aim

“There’s this thing in quail hunting… if a dozen jump and you shoot at the flock, you don’t hit [diddly squat]."

“But if you pick a quail, you might hit two.”

Hunting expert Steven Rinella
Quoted in the Wall Street Journal, 11/28/20

It’s usually better to tailor your offering and marketing communications to a single segment you have reason to believe will love it, rather than trying to serve everybody.

Focus pays off, as long as the segment is big enough and can be reached. 

2. Sucking the Life Out of Marketing Communication

Abstract, buzzwordy language will hide what could be good stories. A few examples I found on the web:

• “We help companies accelerate their supply chain digital transformation through connective technology. Our mission is to help global manufacturers reshape supply chain management, driving true corporate innovation and bringing customer experience into a cycle.”
• “Preeminent impact partner and advisor on sustainability, climate, energy transition, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG)… a leading catalyst for global decarbonization… leveraging our thought leadership, innovative tools and solutions, top talent, and a vibrant ecosystem of industry associations and knowledge platforms.”
• Company A “operates a fully automated, cloud-based infrastructure monitoring platform that provides enterprise IT and managed service providers with full-stack visibility into networks, clouds, servers and more… the platform is designed to add next-to-no lift to existing IT infrastructure with third-party security protocols to support seamless scalability.”

Not so punchy!

A more effective approach would briefly state who the product/service solution is for, the problem it prevents or solves, and a grounded statement of the outcomes the customer can expect.

For Company A, the third example, think of how much more effective it’d be to communicate something like this:

“Company A serves large enterprise IT departments and managed service providers. Before working with us, IT managers can typically view the performance of only one IT system at a time. That inefficiency costs them six figures annually, and can lead to multi-million dollar losses because managers can’t get the information needed for better decisions. Our easy-to-adopt, expandable, highly secure Solution X solves that problem. It typically pays for itself in eighteen months or less.”