Precision Marketing is all about getting the right messages to the right people in the most effective way possible.
The ‘3Ms of Marketing’ technique helps to achieve that precision. The three Ms are: Market, Message, Medium – and it’s important to deal with them in that order. This technique invites us to think things through in a rational way, dealing with each market segment (or ‘customer type’) in turn.
Firstly, for each product or service, list the different types of customer that you are targeting. Secondly, for each customer type, list the marketing messages you need to convey. Then thirdly, for each message to a market segment, choose the most effective medium to convey the message to that type of customer. The right medium might be an email, an article in a newspaper, a text message, a poster in the right location, or a radio advert, for example.
This is why it is meaningless to evaluate different marketing media relative to each other unless you put them in context. In other words, the answer to the question “Is Instagram better than a local press campaign?” is “It depends…”. That is, it depends who you are addressing and what you need to say.
The beauty of this process is that it untangles a pile of bright ideas about media, messages and markets – and lays them all out in straight lines, aligning a market with a message and then a medium in a precise way.
When each ‘Market-Message-Medium’ communication is identified, the best ones can be prioritised (you won’t have the time or resources to do them all) and put together into a coherent precision marketing campaign.
In your marketing communications campaign there might be a place for Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and other platforms and networks. But before you become seduced by these exciting and powerful technologies, think about the two ‘Ms’ first: Market and Message.
In other words, be clear about who you are targeting and what you need to say to them. Then choose the most suitable medium or media that will help you deliver your key messages to your carefully selected customers.
