I am a strong proponent of defining your target audience. If you don't know who you are communicating with, how will you be able to do it effectively? Jupiter Communications' (www.jup.com) survey backs up my claims.

What Difference Does Behaviorism Make? I'm sure almost everyone has heard phrase features vs. benefits. The entire premise behind this statement is that you must tell audience what's in it for them. How, if you don't know their concerns, their hopes and their needs, are you going to define benefits that will make a difference to your target customer?

The difference between demographics and behaviorism is that one tells you basics and other tells you details. Demographics let you know that your customer is a man employed in upper management who is 45 years old, has 2 children and makes approximately $50,000 per year.

Behaviorism tells you that, because he's a man, he is compelled by information-type ads. (If he were a she, she would most likely respond to animation or sound.) It also tells you that he's burned out on corporate politics, having a mid-life crisis, can't being to think of how he's going to pay for college for 2 kids and is in bad need of a raise! Now… which profile do you think you could communicate more effectively with? The demographic or behavior? (It's a rhetorical question!)

Target Everything About Your Advertising People hear phrase "target marketing" and "target audience" all time. But do you understand how extremely important those phrases are to success of your marketing campaign? You simply must, MUST know your target audience.

When you communicate with them through advertising, you absolutely have to be able to address their fears, their problems and their concerns with a solution. They want to know what's in it for them. If you don't understand what they need, you simply can't answer that question.

The second of three discoveries in Jupiter Communications (www.jup.com) survey that I will comment on is discovery that some online advertising is seen as an extreme annoyance. Let's be sure your ads aren't included in that group.

What They Hate No one likes to be bombarded with advertising. We all see it everywhere we go. It's on television, radio, billboards, and even grocery story carts for goodness sake. However, online advertising is viewed as most aggressive.

Jupiter found that 49% of those surveyed said online advertising was most intrusive of all. Many were willing to tolerate ads in broadcast or print media, probably due to fact that they could leave room, change station or turn page. However, online ads hold an extremely negative reputation.

From my experience, this is most likely due to fact that online ads often have a "used car dealer" air to them. I have seen many that look like they're all produced from same template.

These ads promise sun, moon and stars. They scream about why you simply must buy product or service. Then, to make it worse, site captures your email address and you receive hundreds of email advertisements via an autoresponder that apparently has no end.