Some would say, if my customers don’t use social networks, why should I? One response could be, ‘what about the potential for new customers?’ I tend to take a different path.
Everyone has the potential to be influenced. This post may influence you. When looking at social marketing we are often told to segment that market and to target those that fit our potential customer profiles. That is fine. What if my customers are children? I know they are not going to be using social sites and even if they were, targeting them could be difficult.
Marketers would argue that children are not your customers. The parents are the ones holding the purse strings and the ones doing the buying. The children maybe the influencer’s, but the parents are the customers. This scenario has been the cause of many arguments between marketing people for many years. Who do you target – the parent or the child?
In this case, our social marketing cannot target children, we have to target the parents and the aim now is to turn them into influencer’s. We need to ‘sell’ the product to the parent in the hope that they will in turn ‘sell’ the product to their children.
If your customers are not using social networks, rather than ignoring the process of social marketing, you need to find which group can be targeted to influence your potential customers. Target those influencer’s and the job is almost complete.
