I grew up hunting rabbits with my dad. Those days seem so long ago. I would have never thought in my wildest dreams that I’d be relating our marketing strategies to a shotgun and a rifle. Let me explain.
The two most common ways to target an audience are like a shotgun and a rifle. The shotgun approach is more common in restaurant marketing. The Valpak, Money Mailer, or coupon clipper type magazines usually blanket an area. So in any given zip code they could reach say 10,000 homes. This is what I’m calling the shotgun approach – many targets are being hit.
The rifle approach is a little different. It is when you mail to a one specific target, or a single household. So in the shotgun example, we would be targeting 300 of the 10,000 in an area. Those 300 people have been chosen because of a specific demographic and possible a birthday in that month. All of our mailers go to birthdays.
Why does this matter? It all depends on your marketing strategy. If you’re looking to get your name and brand out there, then the shotgun approach may be better for you. But if you’re looking to grow your loyal customer base you should be touching emotions like birthdays and targeting them.
Either way can work. Ask your restaurant marketing partner which is best for your business.
