Hi Fernando -

It depends what you are marketing, also 18-28 is a big age gap.

What appeals to me now, did not appeal to me when i was 18! So the marketing strategy may have to be spilt - 18 - 24 24 - 28 or something like that.

But if you could give more clues as to what it is you're marketing, then i may have some suggestions.

No my friend i think you may have it wrong. Sure theremay be things that should obviously be aimed at certain age groups - toys for example, but for most other things,I get mad when i seemanufactures et al, aim certain stuff at certainage groups. Usually anything from 18 but the highest is usually 35 - 40. What do they thinkhappens to people past this age? Die??? They obviously do not, and i am positive that that quite a high percentage of them docarry onreading books, etc.

The usual reason i can see why they aim at certain age groups is potential future markets in other words - money!

Now of course i do not know what your book is about - but how can you be SOOOOO sure that no-one past 28 would not be interested!!!??? If someone was what 28 one day, 29 the next - what suddenly they are not interested???

this seems like a catch 22 though because if i said the ages of 16 -45, i'd get picked on for being ageist. although we dont like to think it, companies chose age ranges becasue they know their core audeince, as do i.

Your damn right it would be ageist, in my eyes any way, so why pick on an age group at all? You said it yourself that you would be laughing ifpeople outside your 'age range' purchased your product so why put an age range?

Sorry but if i really like somethng but found out that it was 'marketed' for either above or below my 'age range', and i genuinely culd not see why,then i would have the tendency to put it back/not buy at all,out of sheer annoyance!

Are you saying that you HAVE to have an age range, otherwise your 'product' won't get promotion?

@Fernando - in answer to your question should you split the marketing.



I think so. But i am no expert on marketing. The way i see it is like this, the only way people will know its for them and that it crosses the age gap, is if they read it. But you have to attract people to read it, and it may be a bit hard to market something to 18 - 28 year olds as a complete group. Because people heading to their 30's may be turned of something that looks like it is marketed for people just coming into their 20's! But thats not a hard and fast rule of course. But if you split it, you may be able to target your marketing a bit more, and thus maximise your chances of getting people interested.

@athaba i do know what you mean. But usually the only people who know what age group a product is marketed at are the people that market them, because they know that that's where the sales will be. If it crosses over then they are happy, if it doesn't then at least they have targetted their core group successfully, and have some guarenteed returns.

fernando i do love marketing..............you dont neccessarily have to split the group, you just have to think like the yanks and find the middle way. think about what appeals to 18 yr olds and what apeals to 28yr olds. what is similar.

if you did split the group you would need link the campaigns together

i may get back to you

BB

not necessarily

@ Athaba Its not discrimination, because although there are somethings that most people like, like lets say sunshine! There are some very real differences between ages and what interests them.

For instance if i wanted to market something to 14 year old black girls i might use Lil Bow Wow to promote it. But lets say i wanted to market the same thing to women in their 40's, i would use a different strategy.

Finding a middle ground only works sometimes, sometimes the differences and the objectives of the marketing makes this difficult

"Underground buzz" would be great since its free or atleast very cheap compared to other methods and can have great returns but its obviously not an easy thing to pull off. I think youmay bespot on at aiming at a particular age, though there may be people who do not fit within that group that are still interested in your product, is it worth spending time and money targeting them? Will the returns be high enough to make it worth your while? Probably not and even if theywere it would not be anywhere near as efficient as simply targetting the group you expect to be most interested in your product. (assuming your expectations are correct)
Having said that it may well be that you could be more successful targetting your market from a different angle. Rather than focussing on a certain age perhaps focus on particular interests, lifestyles etc etc.

Once you have decided exactly who you are going to targetits all about how to hit that market. There are countless ways of doing this from magazines to web sites to radio the list goes on and on.

No expert on this but though id offer my opinion.

I don't get why you want to market your book specifically to those between 18 and 28. Athaba is correct would a person who turned 29 today be excluded from your marketing strategy just because of their age? I understand that a person's maturity has alot to do with the tastes but surely in targeting your book specifically at those between this 10 year age range will omit a large proportion of the population. Couldn't you just market the book, full stop and see what comes back. I have to admit I haveno knowledge on this subject, I am over 28 and I agree with Athaba, if I knew that this book was targeted at those between 18 and 28, I would certainly not be reading it. I understand you saying over 18 (knowing your style Fernando, lol) but why have a ceiling? To my mind as long as a book is well written it should appeal to all audiences, a good example of this is 'Harry Potter' aimed at kids, but enjoyed by people of all ages.