A lot of marketing advisors will tell you to cast a wide net and see which fish you catch.
This is the “you like heavy metal, you’ll love Celine Dion” approach to marketing.
Our email inboxes are full of this wide net approach. There’s almost no company I want to hear from more than once a week, but signup for any subscription and you might receive deals a few times a day. Professional sports teams and movie studios send emails from every corner of their businesses, hoping you’ll get caught up in some offer.
Despite its frequent use, however, a big net is likely to turn fans off rather than keep them engaged. You would be annoyed if your favorite restaurant just randomly delivered food at odd hours. However, when you’re hungry, it’s great to have that food available. A good marketing strategy makes the product or service available exactly when a person wants it.
Unfortunately, we’ve been trained by social media and phone alerts to think the net casting approach is fine.
Sure, targeting ads at least makes the net smaller, but “men in Denver” is still a large messy net.
The marketing nets are hard to escape and leave customers frustrated. Marketing is part of customer service. A net tells your customers that they are just another fish in the sea.
Using a fishing line is an individualized approach. These products catch you.
A great product is available exactly when I need it—that’s also the best story. I know where to go for last-minute deals on sports tickets. I have the podcast episode ready for an afternoon walk. I get excited about the once-a-month reading list.
These are all fishing line approaches. Someone casts a single hook from the pole. It can only catch one fish at a time. The bait on the hook, “would you be interested in what I’m serving?”