I was out shopping the other day and I came across this car in the parking lot. A Hummer Hybrid in it’s full ecologically conscious glory. As a marketer, I think there is no greater crime than marketing your products to an audience who doesn’t want them.

In this case, Hummer built their product for the wrong group and failed to understand their brand. The Hummer brand is built on gas guzzling excess. Trying to suddenly change directions and market to energy conserving, environmentally conscious groups was bound to fail.

This is an extreme example, but could you be doing the same thing? See if any of this sounds familiar:

• Do you send emails to your sales database without segmentation?
• Do build features to meet new market needs instead of prioritizing the needs of your true fans?
• Do you build a generic website that doesn’t speak to the specific needs of your primary audience?

Take the time to understand your value and your audience. Lots of companies say they are applicable to a broad horizontal market, but often this is evidence of the company not wanting to take the time and make the hard choices to decide who they really are selling to.

It’s better to delight a smaller group and grow from there then try to please everyone. That is a sure path to failure.