The Death of Mass Marketing

Mass Marketing Is Dead

At least that's what many Internet marketing agencies would have you believe today. I wouldn't say mass marketing is dead, just evolved.

As marketers we use blanket statements like "mass marketing is dead" to evoke emotions and get people to stand up and say, "uh uh, we use mass marketing all the time to sell toothpaste and automobiles." While toothpaste and automobiles definitely have mass appeal at their base, there's a reason Colgate has over 35 types of toothpaste and General Motors has 11 auto makes in its portfolio. I'm not really sure why I might want mini-breath strips over mini-bright strips in my toothpaste (seems you would probably want both but Colgate didn't have this combo), but it's easy to see the marketing differences between Chevrolet and Cadillac. Plus, consider all the people who don't have teeth or don't have a reason to drive. There's arguably no reason to market to them since they won't be buying the product anyway. In reality, there are probably only two items that truly have mass appeal--air and water.

Mass Marketing Is Not The Opposite of Target or Niche Marketing

Uh oh, I'm probably going to raise eyebrows with that statement and I'm sure I missed that question on a test at some point. All marketing is targeted, and who is to say at what point the target is so narrowly focused that mass is no longer achieved? As long as anyone who can benefit from your product knows about it, you've reached critical mass. TV and radio are probably the two media most closely associated with mass marketing, but savvy advertisers know which shows and stations to target--Cadillac when watching golf, Chevy when watching NASCAR.

So how about this for the new definitions of mass marketing and niche marketing...

Mass Marketing for Brand Awareness, Niche Marketing for Immediate Conversion

In today's world, this means we would consider mass marketing to include not only most traditional forms of advertising, but also interactive TV, in-game placements, banners, etc. where the goal should be views by a targeted demo/geo/psychographic rather than conversions. The objective for a mass market tactic would be something like generating 200,000 impressions to people living in Pawtucket. It's difficult, if not impossible, in most cases to assign a value to an impression so ROI is not really a consideration. Clicks/visits are expected to be low since the prospect is actively engaged in something other than looking for your product, and measuring campaign success falls back on more subjective metrics like estimated impressions per viewer and brand awareness survey results (if any).

Niche market tactics would include anything that responds to a prospect's initiated intent. This would include search engine advertising and sometimes social engagement. It's very easy to measure ROI since the prospect basically said, "I'm interested in your product, where do I find it?" Help them find it, make it easy to acquire, and a sale is made. The objective for a niche market tactic might be to maintain a 5:1 return on investment.

Big problems start when you try to use mass market goals and objectives for niche market tactics and vice versa. Using my proposed definitions, niche tactics don't generate demand and mass tactics don't directly convert. This means you can't say a search engine PPC tactic is going to generate $20,000 in sales at a 5:1 ROI in 2 months. While that objective may be fine for the overall campaign, search engine PPC responds to demand rather than creating it so you have no control over either how much or how long. The only control point on the search engine PPC is the ROI. If everyone stops looking for what you have to offer it will take longer to generate the $20,000 in sales and there is little you can do with only the search engine PPC tactic (assuming an optimum PPC setup).

This is important because sometimes people will ask us to eliminate certain tactics thinking it will save money. If a tactic is dropped, it has an adverse effect on the overall campaign. The banner ads or TV spots may be used to help generate demand while the search engine PPC is used to close the deal. Ideally, the two work together to not only increase brand/product awareness, but also respond to the prospect once they have decided they are ready to make the purchase. The best way to stay within a budget is to scale back both tactics as necessary rather than eliminating one, ensuring that the overall campaign remains in synch.

What if there is already ample demand? Then it is probably enough to focus on niche marketing until you have established 100% impression share. (This means everyone who was interested in what you have to offer was marketed to and your ad is in front of as many people as possible.) In this case, focus on driving conversion rates as high as you can before branching out into mass market tactics to try to increase overall demand.

So why title this entry "Mass Marketing Is Dead?" Well, there were about 17,500 pages on the Internet that declared the death of mass marketing and only 2 that said "mass marketing lives." I figured it was more of a challenge to go after the 17,500. Thanks for reading!