To whom does your target audience think you're speaking?
Last night, as I was about to fall asleep, I had a great idea for evaluating the effectiveness of marketing materials. I'm not sure if this is a known technique or not but I thought I'd describe it just in case it isn't.
The idea is remarkably simple. Find a representative sample of your target audience, let them (individually) study your marketing materials, then get them to try and describe the audience to whom they think the materials are targeted. For this to work effectively, the subjects will need to believe that they are a random sample of the population at large or were somehow selected for their particular expertise but they shouldn't be aware that they are actually members of the target audience. And to encourage thoughtful responses, provide an incentive to them based on the accuracy of their guesses.
My hunch is that this will reveal an enormous deal about how the target market perceives the brand based on its marketing materials. This information is most likely to be useful in markets where customers are particularly image-conscious but the truth is that practically everybody is subconsciously influenced by image.
The idea is remarkably simple. Find a representative sample of your target audience, let them (individually) study your marketing materials, then get them to try and describe the audience to whom they think the materials are targeted. For this to work effectively, the subjects will need to believe that they are a random sample of the population at large or were somehow selected for their particular expertise but they shouldn't be aware that they are actually members of the target audience. And to encourage thoughtful responses, provide an incentive to them based on the accuracy of their guesses.
My hunch is that this will reveal an enormous deal about how the target market perceives the brand based on its marketing materials. This information is most likely to be useful in markets where customers are particularly image-conscious but the truth is that practically everybody is subconsciously influenced by image.