Reaching the target group

 Arguing about the link between theory and praxis is a tricky issue, but nevertheless one could gather pretty good ideas when taking a look in the good old textbook. Yep, even when it comes to modernizing an ad strategy.

In the spirit of learning for the finals you sometimes ask yourself: “When I´m going to use this? How come I have to learn all these things?”. And then you realise why you should know the conclusion Paul Lazarsfeld came to in 1940.

With the idea that the average person is more or less always trying to skip the ads on TV, magazines and newspapers (of course when using the media consciously and actively), the question of how to generally do advertising arises. Mass media is here the wrong answer.

What Paul Lazarsfeld realises in his study on the presidential election in 1940 in Ohio is that communication isn´t an information transaction from the communicator to the audience, but something way more complex: a flow, a two-step or a multistep one. Broadly speaking, it means that recipients don´t receive information directly from media but from (fictional) opinion leaders who know the ropes of the certain topic. These are people who are highly interested in knowing every detail of the issue and are able to give a broad outline to the various aspects and opinions of it by (mostly) bringing up good arguments. Depending on the topic, an opinion leader may be a friend of yours or a professional toward whom you´re turning when needing an advice or help (this includes doctors, engineers, consultants etc.).  So, what should a target group look like?

Underlining the influence of interpersonal communication, I believe that focusing on the opinion leaders concerning a particular topic is an alternative way to promote a product or service. The advantages of this idea are not to underestimate.

First of all, when concentrating on a smaller recipient group, the communication towards it or between the group and the communicator is way more flexible and efficient. Thus asking and answering question, gathering ideas for updates and receiving feedback takes less time and effort.

Another aspect is the definition of a target group itself: even if knowing exactly what big audience you want to reach, you can never know you´re reaching it in reality (before taking a look at the statistics, of course). Concentrating on the opinion leaders as a first-order target group may help you enhance the actual target group by letting the opinion leaders inform and convince the people in their own social environment of the advantages of your product or service.

And if these arguments aren´t strong enough, comparing the human and finance resources needed for the classic and for this alternative ad strategy, should help you take the decision if and how to promote.