It’s hard to underestimate how hard the correct targeting can be. Some products are intended for the mass market, so targeting isn’t such an issue, but the small the niche you operate in, the more important targeting can be. For example, if you sell trade show exhibits, then it’s useless advertising them on TV, and your market is quite small; and you can get a better response if you can attract the attention of your prospective customers, maybe by advertising in trade journals. Let’s take another example, the main buyers of bathroom safety products would tend to be elderly people, or people who buy things for them (retirement homes maybe); so once again, broad spectrum advertising will not be as effective as establishing criteria for targeting your advertising and pushing that ahead.

Targeting can be more expensive than blanket advertising, but the response rate is going to be much higher. And new technologies like the Web, have introduced a new ways of identifying and selecting recipients for your campaigns. So think and target before firing out your message.