Small Business Owners: Don’t send it out if it fails this test

by Mark Nagurski, March 1st, 2007

I’ve a simple little test I do with client and in-house marketing materials - it’s called the “meant for” test.

Take any letter, ad, logo, website, whatever and take a quick look - 5-10 seconds at most. Then ask the question, “Who’s it meant for?” Man or woman? Young or old? Rich or poor? Student or professional?

If the answer doesn’t match your target audience then you need to rethink it.

People are exposed to so many marketing messages every day that they’ve become extremely adept at filtering out what doesn’t concern them - and quickly. You can also use the test to improve and more clearly target your audience

Let’s take the headline to this post:

Small Business Owners: Don’t send it out if it fails this test

How can we improve it? If I’m a business owner I’d say it was meant for me but if you were sending it out just in your home town, you could easily change it to:

Small Business Owners in MyTown: Don’t send it out if it fails this test

And you can do the same with just about anything, from the look of your premises and the style of your business cards to the logo you use or the tone of your letters. If you can say who it’s “meant for” with just a glance or by reading one line, it stands a much better chance of appealing to that market.