Target Marketing or Exclusion?

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 My thirst for knowledge and growth, find me listening to a lot of podcasts, webinars, lives on Facebook etc.  Being a woman, new to business, I stumbled across a live targeted towards empowering women to be successful in business, and I noticed a comments from a male, apologizing for watching the live and “intruding”.

That one comment got my little keyboard warrior mind into overdrive. 

By targeting content to specific customers, demographics and/or psychographics (see, told ya I was learning a lot these days)  are we excluding people who don’t fit those moulds from the conversation?

I don’t see why it should.  It certainly doesn’t have to.  Most beer ads target their advertising towards men, but I still enjoy a nice cold stubbie after a hard days work.  When I try to picture TV advertising for beer, I generally picture a group of “blokes” with glistening pots of amber nectar in front of them.  Have you ever seen a commercial with a group of girls hugging their pots of beer and chatting about their day? I’d love you to share it here if you have, as I for one want to celebrate that wonderful brand, however I’m pretty sure they are usually sitting in front of a glass of chardonnay.

Marketing is specifically designed to attract your target audience.  You are trying the find the people who are most likely to buy from you.  So if you are targeting specific demographics are you going to be upset or refuse to sell to someone who is outside that demographic? Probably not. 

So why did that person think they were excluded to enjoy content that was targeted towards a different demographic?  Why is it that I don’t feel like I am excluded from drinking beer, because it’s not targeted to me?

I guess it comes down to social conditioning.  Somewhere along the line, that person has been told that girls business is not for them. He’s therefore used to “staying in his lane”.  It’s probably a little more “socially acceptable” to be a girl and drink beer, than to be a guy and join a women’s group.

Is that how it should be? Or do you think it should be more acceptable to be inclusive to all?  Would love to hear your thoughts.


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