Here’s one piece of common marketing advice you should ignore

If you’ve been in the marketing and ad biz for any length of time you’ve no doubt heard it numerous times. You may have even said it to your protégées. It’s one of the most common pieces of advice in all of marketing. And you should ignore it.

Put yourself in the prospect’s shoes.

“What’s wrong with that?” you might ask. It sounds right. And its intention (identifying the emotions, pain points and attitudes of your target audience) is 100% correct. Knowing what moves your audience is essential to creating a powerful marketing message. But following this advice could lead to complete failure.

The problem is, when put yourself in someone else’s shoes, it’s still about you, not your target audience. You may understand their situation, but how you would react to that situation could be completely different than someone in your target audience.

Let’s say you’re selling a financial solution that promises extra savings each month. If you have school age children, you might use that money to save for college tuitions. But if your target audience is in an older demographic, they are more likely to be swayed by the ability to build their retirement savings. And a younger audience might care more about having extra discretionary funds than either of these options.

Instead of putting yourself in their shoes, try to get inside their heads. Learn what motivates them. Think about how they are likely to react to different situations. And make a conscious effort leave yourself out of the equation.

It sounds easy, but people are pretty self-centered by nature. So we default to our own preferences, personality traits and motivations. How often have you heard, “I wouldn’t respond to that,” or something similar when a decision maker requests changes to an ad campaign?

It doesn’t matter if they—or you for that matter—would respond to it, because it’s not about them or you. It’s about the prospect. I personally don’t care about status symbols. I’m not motivated by showing “I’ve made it.” But if I were writing or reviewing an ad for a Rolex, you can be sure it would appeal to people who are.

So as you work on your next campaign, don’t think about what would work on you. Think about what will work on your target audience—even if it’s not exactly what you would do.