Is Carpet Bombing a right strategy to win over battle of competition

Shot gun Versus Rifle Approach

There is always a mismatch between what the customer needs and what the marketer offers. While a marketer sells the drill, the customer needs a hole. But are all the customers happy getting a hole from the drill? To a common marketer the answer is yes but where would you keep the customers demanding  deeper hole, hole on different kind of surfaces, hole on different kinds of  material, smooth hole, hole with a profile, more holes per drill, deeper hole without cooling requirements, hole with a bigger diameter, hole with pneumatic drives and so on. It does not mean that the one requiring a hole may not be interested in others but it means that all the customers requiring a drill may not be buying it with one primary reason.

If the requirements of your customers for a mundane item like holes may be so different then you could understand that one USP or one approach may not be applicable to all the customers in the market. So here comes an important question on when you’re marketing your business, do you go at it with a shotgun approach or a rifle? A shotgun usually discharges shells over an area with the shooter hoping to at least hit some of the portions of his target. It is also often referred to as carpet bombing. According to the dictionary, shotgun means to cover a wide area in a haphazard manner.

Hence, a shotgun approach or carpet bombing to marketing is where you as the marketer scatter your marketing efforts over an area and hoping that you hit somebody along the way. Similarly, your marketing campaigns such as your e-mailers, catalogues and other promotional collaterals  can also do the shotgun approach by designing it and coming up with a message that can very well include everybody, while hoping and praying that someone might take you up on your offer.
Some of the usual shotgun marketing strategies are bulk mailings, putting an ad in newspapers and magazines, cold calling, and placing your product on practically all the free online trading portals. Radio and TV commercials can also be considered as shotgun approaches to promoting ones business and particularly in B2B or industrial marketing domain.

This kind of marketing approach is practically easy to put up as you don’t have to research much on your clients and prospects. The downside to this is, as the dictionary literally states, your marketing efforts would be haphazard and scattered, not to mention that you’re doing it now and again. Rifle marketing on the other hand, allows you to bring your marketing efforts into focus. You take careful aim that’s why you get to hit more of your target clients more times than you can count and even before pulling the trigger, you make sure that your prospect is right in the center of your target.

This type of approach is easier to do if you know and understand your target market very well. Hence, you need to research your target audience thoroughly. By getting to know your target audience better, you will be able to provide them with a marketing campaign that actually fits what they are looking for.

And because rifle marketing allows you to customize your marketing message to your target market, you get more personal and innovative with your ideas. Applying the same theory your promotional material for the same drill which you were offering as a commodity to all the customers may now be divided into variants like :

Deep Drill, Dura Drill (for durability),  Eco-Drill (more drills per drill), Hi Profile Drill (for multiple profiles), Cosmo Drill (for any material or any surface) etc.

Then you shoot these catalogues to respective segments with a bold title on what the customer     actually require. Your marketing collaterals are bound to be opened more often as they would look different and unique from the rest of the marketing tools out there. So which one is better?  If your purpose is to basically get people to know you, then a shotgun approach would do very well for creating awareness. But if you’re looking at getting results, then rifle marketing is what you need. You get to target more of your clients and prospects, and you are able to fit your marketing campaign to the needs and wants of your target audience.