Tribes instead of target groups
Posted by Steffen Stäuber
The brief is the beginning of every campaign. It contains facts, inspiration and necessary insights as well as a defined target group including all the information about their purchasing habits and how they are related to their media exposure etc.
The problem is, that most of the time the definition of the target group is something like this:
We want to reach all male between 31 and 42, with high incomes living in major cities etc. (bla bla bla)
Ähm…what…I mean how can we create an idea that reaches those people when we have no clue to whom we´re really talking to.
This demographic description fits Michael Balack as well as Dennis Rodman. And I´m pretty sure that those guys don´t share the same lifestyle, drive the same car or buy the same products.
So let´s think about a new way to describe the people we want to reach with our ideas:
Think of each one of your customers as a member of a tribe, the tribe you lead.
Seth Godin
I love this idea of thinking of a brand or product as a vital part of a tribe. A tribe consists of a social group, and members of this group express themselves with the brands and products they use, wear and buy.
So if we would try to define the particular tribe instead of a target group, we could talk directly to the people that buy our stuff and won´t waste our money to convince Michael Ballack to buy an Hummer in place of his Audi. (Because he never will!)
Let´s think of marketing as tribe management and that every brand is able to build and lead a tribe. Imagine that people are joining it and want to hear from your company because it helps them connect, it helps them find each other, it gives them a story to tell and something to talk about.
Apple for example does a great job on that and there are many more company’s out there.
Seth Godins new book “Tribes” is about how to manage, lead an market to a tribe.
And if you want to know more about it, watch his presentation on Mixergy.com or download the audio book for free.
Tribe management is a totally new way to see the world. And if we are using our marketing budget to be relevant to our tribe instead of bombarding them with ads they don´t wanna see, if we help them to connect to each other and if we give them something to talk about, we will reach and involve them and they will love to buy our products. And thats what good marketing is all about.
Tags: Apple, dennis rodman, download, free audio book, hummer, INSPIRATION, lifestyle, Marketing, media exposure, michael ballack, mixergy.com, necessary insights, seth godin, seth godin on tribes, SlideShare, steffen stäuber, target group, Tribe management, tribes, tribes instead target groups