One very difficult question that brand managers have to answer often is, “If your target market is so specifically defined, then how can you actually make profit by selling to a few people?”.

The obvious wayout for most business owners is the ancient formula – appeal to mass people, use mass media and sell to whoever you can.

But one big problem – a brand that appeals to everybody does not really appeal to anybody. Therefore in the long run the brand customer will never be a brand champion or a brand loyal.

Then again the questions haunts back – if my brand appeals to a limited niche, wouldnt it hurt my bottomline? Why cant i sell to everybody, even if he is not in my target audience?

The simple formula to follow is – who you target and who you really sell are two different things. Lets explain it through a very simple example.

1. Nike will always target the young sports enthusiast with a tendency for rebellion. Thats Nike’s target audience.

2. But Nike will not only sell to “young sports enthusiast with a tendency for rebellion”. He will sell to just about anybody who wants to be a “young sports enthusiast with a tendency for rebellion”. That person can be 55 or 80, doesnt matter. So no matter how narrowly you define your TA, you can always sell more. In fact you will always sell outside your TA. But your brand should not try to appeal to everybody.

So the role of a brand is to ALWAYS appeal and be relevant to the target audience only. And that audience needs to be as specifically defined as possible. But that does not mean sales will not come from outside that audience.