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Customers, consumers, customers – whatever we call the people who buy your product or service, no company would survive long without them.

When it comes to identifying your customers, consumers, or customers (let’s call it your audience from now on) there are two schools of thought:

• Reach as many people as possible.
• Segment your audience and identify those who are most likely to turn into sales

I use both approaches, but each of them has problems. The argument against reaching as many people as possible is often that there is some “waste” involved in this approach. You spend money talking to some people who may have little or no chance of ever converting to a sale. On the flip side, the argument against segmentation can be that if you’re not careful, you will miss out on some people who might convert to a sale – you are making your audience too narrow. In this way the arguments are reversed against each other.

Reach too many people and you will waste money. Reach too few people and you waste opportunities.

But there is another way to think about how you are creating your audience and that is through the people you either don’t want to reach or who wouldn’t be interested in you. In his seven-part primal branding structure, Patrick Hanlon referred to these people as your “outsiders”. A brand is a vehicle through which you can align an organization and people, and those people would be the “inside” of the brand – so it follows that if you have insiders, you must have outsiders.

I was reminded of this approach recently when speaking with the excellent strategist JP Castlin. We discussed constraints – a topic he had covered in his brilliant newsletter – and how constraints, instead of being negative, can be extremely valuable and direct focus. Constraints can give us a framework in which to work and allow flexibility within that space. Strategists often try to define a predetermined path from which we should not deviate, but this is a very restrictive and actually impractical approach. Rather than rigidly defining what we must do, it is beneficial to define what we are definitely not allowed to do, and then anything within those restrictions is fair game.

This conversation brought my thinking back to the idea of ​​outsiders – for example, in my branding consultancy I helped customers define their target group (loaned with the kind permission of Patrick Hanlon). In the area of ​​your target audience, it can be helpful (and even easier) to define the people you definitely don’t want to reach. Your outsider. Depending on your industry or offering, these people may be outsiders because they simply cannot afford what you are offering, or have a preference opposite what you are offering (e.g. meat producers and vegetarians) or even be associated with your brand Would damage your brand (Burberry is actively trying to distance its products from British football hooligans is a good example). There are many valid reasons why people might be “outsiders” to your brand, both practical and emotional.

So, instead of targeting everyone or a potentially limiting segment, how about targeting an audience made up of everyone who is not an outsider?

By identifying those you want “outside” your brand, everyone else becomes your target audience.

The people who are your underdogs become your compulsions – they create the framework in which everyone else is your audience. As long as people aren’t underdogs, they are fair game and an audience worth your effort and money to speak to.

This approach may seem counter-intuitive, but it is currently used by businesses. Audi Denmark recently claimed a conversion rate of 70% by testing so-called “exclusion lists”. In cooperation with PHD Media Denmark and the ad tech company Semasio, Audi Denmark has developed a solution that uses a mixture of target group and context targeting. The campaign was limited to the most likely buyers and created an “exclusion list” of the least likely buyers based on media consumption habits and demographics. Frederik Meincke, Digital Innovation Director at PHD Media Denmark, said: “This came as a bit of a surprise to us and shows the power to take a different approach to targeting, specifying what you don’t want instead of specifying what you want want.”

Well, the apparent success of the Audi Denmark test and the writing of this article does not mean that this is the right way to define an audience and the other approaches are wrong. Not at all. I often use STP (segmentation, targeting, positioning) and sometimes I just advise clients that the best we can do is reach everyone.

The point is, sometimes it’s easier to see who you don’t want than who you want.

Contribution to Branding Strategy Insider by: Paul Bailey, Strategy Director at Halo

The Blake Project helps brands, at all stages of development, focus on those who matter most in the branding workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service from The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in brand research, brand strategy, brand growth and branding

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