Targeting Guide #9

Focus only on your current customers, and as your customers die so will your brand.

Even if you execute your marketing mix tactics perfectly so that all of your current customers are target end-users, it’s a mistake to focus only upon your current customers.  With the popularity of Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) programs, this is an easy thinking trap to fall into.  Your current customers are going to age.  These changes don’t occur rapidly; it’s a slow evolution.  If you don’t continuously attract younger target end-users into your customer base, your customer base is going to grow older and die.  Your brand will die when its target customers die.

Some of the American automobile manufacturers’ more expensive brands were at one time aspirational brands.  A young Ford owner aspired to own a Mercury or a Lincoln.  As consumers aged and as their income increased with age, Mercury and Lincoln had no trouble replacing their dead customers.  The original General Motors family of brands – Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac – was assembled to cover every price point in the automobile market.  General Motors owners aspired to move up this ladder of brands.  However, when the aspirations of younger consumers shifted to Mercedes Benz, BMW, Lexus, Infiniti, etc., the Mercury, Lincoln, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac brands found themselves with aging and dying customer bases. 

There’s nothing wrong with having either an older target market or an older customer base.  One would naturally expect higher price point brands, such as Mercedes and Rolex, to have older customer bases as discretionary income tends to increase with age.  Marketers who are targeting older consumers need to ensure, however, that as consumers age, they age into prospects for the marketers’ brand.