For far too long marketing was product oriented.

By the 1960s consumer-oriented marketing begins to take shape. I was privileged to meet one of the first “mad women,” a real Madison Avenue Ad executive. She told me her favorite story was salvaging the message and marketing of the 747. The elements of early consumer marketing were taking hold.

As early as 2006, consumer-driven answers started to take shape with the advent of more advanced CMS and precision targeting. A big factor was media was still cheap, and the economy was great.

Today the consumer is in the driver seat. Social, ratings And a host of other democratized answers give us a flood of data about products and services. The downside is there’s far too much data, and it takes a great effort to learn the actual story. For example how many 4.0 or above restaurants have you been to lately but just don’t fit who you are?

It’s great that the customers in control and people are thinking customer centricity and personalization. As media costs keep rising, We need to bring CRM and look-alike CRM to the table.

While media companies need to make profits, overreaching 95% is not tolerable for many smaller businesses. Companies need to precisely create look-alike audiences based on CRM and theories of why people buy. It’s Jobs to be Done Theory, but the execution must be through media channels and creative for profits to be realized.

If you’re not creating a look-alike CRM, you’re in a fools game of overreaching people that will never buy. Never. If your conversion rate is not acceptable, you’re overreaching. If your cost per acquisition is not acceptable, you’re buying far too much media.

This is an in-between time. A lot of things have been done and done well, but it’s time to focus on who the customer is and their Job to be Done. It can be discovered by understanding their traits, not demographics. It can be realized through one-to-one media not based on the KPI’s of the past but based on theories of people, their traits and personalities.