A Messaging Strategy To Reach 3 Consumer States

Different messages should be directed at existing consumers as well as ex-consumers and not-year-consumers

In part one of this series I explained the three consumer states: current consumers, not-yet-consumers and ex-consumers. I further explained that there are nine marketing strategies involved in reaching these three types of consumers. But you may be wondering how this can be applied with a real-word example, which is the purpose of this article.

First of all, assume that all media will have a share of current, ex and not-yet consumers in the mix. So you are not so much creating a campaign as testing messages to see their effect to incorporate them in the media mix later.

Ultimately the messaging strategy is riskless – all of the messages directed toward ex-consumers and not-yet-consumers serve to reinforce current consumers as they give those consumers reasons to try and/or return to the brand.

For example, if I were to consider Raid Max. Efficacy – the ability to kill bug – is undoubtedly the main reason anyone buys Raid Max. However, it could be that some consumers abandon the brand because they think it is not green. Creating a message that tells these consumers that it’s green because the company uses special formulas to achieve the same efficacy without sacrificing the environment, might draw some back in and will surely reinforce the consumer’s perception that they made the right choice. In the same vein, perhaps some consumers think that, because Raid Max is so effective, it must be expensive. Creating a commercial that says Raid Max doesn’t cost any more than the competitors, but it is much more effective again might draw some new consumers into the product and reinforces the perception among current users that they made the right decision.

Is It Worth It?

This is where every marketing director must make his/her own calculations. Continuing with the Raid Max example:

Let’s take a country the size of Mexico, with about 100 million people:

If 90 percent of the purchasing is handled by women, 19+ in the ABC socio-economic levels, about 12 million women buy any insecticide and for convenience’s sake, 25 percent SOM translates into 3 million people.

If  – as is typical – 30 percent of buyers buy about 70 percent of the volume, we have less than a million women using 11 cans per year. Plug those numbers into non-buyers of any kind and we have 15.7 million cans being purchased by people who are light users and thus, hopefully, easily convertible. This is more than all of Raid Max combined.

It makes perfect sense, in this case, to dedicate some messaging to those consumers. Some might be ex-consumers who might come back; some might be never-users who might want to try Raid Max. In any case, even a small percentage gained from these non-Raid light buyers can bolster Raid Max’s share considerably. And the best part is that, today, this is not an expensive proposition.

The Bottom Line

There is a strong case to be made for creating three different creatives for almost every campaign: one to reinforce or increase current consumption; one to attract new consumers and another to bring back ex-consumers. So the next time you are considering a media buy, think about targeting your creative to these three groups.

There are plenty of new media vehicles and platforms that meet the four criteria: targetable, self contained, trackable and scalable and most of these media vehicles can be layered with tracking devices to measure response.