Great post on the new tactics required to consider your marketing audience from Tara.  (emphasis added)

Of all of the ‘traditional’ marketing practices I choose to ignore, targeting is not one of them…but I do approach it in a bit of a different fashion: instead of the ‘Males, aged 18-34, from urban areas, with some college education’ etc. I like to think in terms of ‘behaviour’ or specific ‘characteristics’. Like, Technorati serves Bloggers first and Blog Readers second and targets their development goals to suit those people. [Now note that when they began that was a very narrow market…not so much now…so they have had to develop out specific products to suit micro-markets within the larger market]

Source: ::HorsePigCow:: marketing uncommon: Target practice

The post goes on to use Walmart as an example of niche marketing.  They are building for those who live pay cheque to pay cheque.  Its ok for others to come and shop, but they never lose sight of their target audience.  And no-one can argue with their success.

Tara finishes goes on with discussion on five things to consider:

1. Look at your current customers
2. Remember why you created your product/service in the first place
3. Look at who is talking about you and what they are saying
4. If you have competitors (which you usually do), see who they are designing for
5. Research, research, research…but focus on the qualitative

Relevance to Bankwatch:

Just because we (Banks) are large, does not mean we can’t regain focus.  Internet has provided the ability for our customers to work around us, and we have to have products and services that naturally attract people, and differentiate from the competition.

tags: marketing, targetting, customer+trends