Marketing Fairy #21: Stop Chasing Reach (Or Why I Don't Like Billboards)
A small exception inside.
Hi there.
Every time creativity hits me, I know it’s a school holiday. That means fewer lunches, fewer kids training and sports, less homework and more space for my soul and brain to work, relief from everyday chores, and more time to snuggle and enjoy with my kids.
So if you ever feel stuck in your life, just let it go, and no matter how busy you are, stop and rest. That’s the only way to unstuck. To learn more about some unusual ways to unstuck your life, read this article: Eight unique ways to unstuck your life.
I’m not sure why you follow Marketing Fairy, but I hope you have your business, are solopreneurs or manage marketing in your company.
I also hope you’re not a KPI chaser - a person who tries to prove their marketing works by measuring too many KPIs.
Why?
Take a reach, for example. I like to call it one of the “vanity metrics”. Reach without targeted reach is worth nothing. That reach won’t convert into the most important KPI - sales.
When I worked in a marketing agency, reach was often in a presentation to prove to clients their campaign was successful, even when the campaign’s goal wasn’t brand awareness (the only case when overall reach can have some impact.) Arianna Rene couldn’t sell more than 36 t-shirts despite having 2.6 million followers. Wasted reach, I’d add.
It’s not about reaching the most people but getting the right people. The ones who are:
Your target market
Close to your ideal customer
Reach doesn’t matter because your job isn’t to interrupt people on other planets with other interests. Your job is to interact with people who care.
Set Godin
Why I Hate Billboards
On the other hand, digital marketing provides an opportunity to measure things correctly. When you have a FB ad or publish a blog post, you’ll precisely know how many people saw your content, their demographics, preferences, and the sources of that traffic. When you plant a giant billboard on a busy road, what does the number of people seeing your content mean? Nothing.
There are some exceptions, like outstanding Koala mattress campaigns if you’ve never heard of them, Australian- made brands with fantastic marketing and authors of famous Wine test viral ads.
Their marketing strategy is impressive but well-thought and based on their ideal customer persona - Millennials who want to spend money on a good mattress but hate assembling Ikea furniture :)
However, Koala’s billboard campaigns often overcame physical space and became viral online because of a combination of brave approach and fun.
But what to measure instead of reach?
Hang in there, and I’ll talk more about it in the following Marketing Fairy NL.
Until the next time,
Angelina.
Interesting things I found last week
How to batch-create if you are a content marketing creator - Steal
’s proven system.How to use a free Newsletter Discovery tool to get more email subscribers. Sign up here.
If you didn’t join Threads, you would feel platform fatigue. I did, but I don’t see much point in Twitter instead of Twitter.
Every time before I press send, I’m asking the same questions:
“Is this valuable to anyone? Is it helpful to my ideal audience? I hope it is. Let me know your thoughts!
Quote that matters
"It's hard to target a message to a generic 35-year-old middle-class working mother of two. It's much easier to target a message to Jennifer, who has two children under four, works as a paralegal, and is always looking for quick but healthy dinners and ways to spend more time with her kids and less time on housework."
— Elizabeth Gardner