Most of the customer across different marketplaces believe “good products come in small packages”. It is true because companies promote these packages as best products designed to reach masses. Usually, companies offer low-end products created for the unsegmented audience instead of any specific class of customers.
Companies adopt Mass Marketing strategy to target brand awareness instead of Return on Investment (ROI).
So what exactly is Mass Marketing?
Mass Marketing is a business strategy designed to promote products to a wide range of audiences intending to meet brand awareness objectives.
This form of marketing mostly promote products which fall under the “Need” bucket instead of “Want” bucket.
To explain further, let us consider a product category such as Watches. Usually, a watch brand would promote its high-end watch, created for the affluent class audience. Example, Rolex and Graff Diamonds. But there are many watch brands which do not get advertised or promoted via ads.
Many FMCG companies usually adopt Mass Marketing strategy to push products in the market such as detergents, toothpaste, hand washes, soaps, etc. To check yourself, visit a Hypermarket store where multiple brands are selling soaps in the same price range. Their objective is to build brand value and create brand awareness. Many Clothing and Automobile companies apply this marketing method.
Mass marketing is just opposite to the Targeted marketing where a product is created only for a segment of customers meeting all criteria to purchase the product. In a targeted marketing strategy, companies usually give priority to ‘attract’ a customer towards the product instead of ‘interrupting’ in the customer buying process.
There are two types of marketing to explain Mass and Targeted marketing.
Inbound Marketing: In recent times, companies follow Inbound Marketing, where the objective is to attract a defined and targeted audience. It is followed by engaging with this target audience and then converting them as customers. Once the prospect has been successfully converted into a customer, delighting the customer process starts to provide a better service and keep frequently updating the customers with offers. Hence, Target marketing is a part of Inbound Marketing.
Outbound Marketing: It is a traditional method of marketing and advertising products through mediums like television ads, billboards and radio announcements. It becomes very challenging to measure customer engagement in such a marketing method because options to record customer data are not available. That’s why Mass Marketing always applies the concept of Outbound Marketing strategy.
To summarize the advantages of marketing strategies created for masses:
- Companies mostly implement it to increase brand presence and visibility in the market. The Objective is to make customers aware of the products launched by the brand.
- Since the price of products is too low and very similar to the price range of other brand products, customers do not hesitate to try products from different brands. For example, customers buying Colgate toothpaste could also decide to try Pepsodent toothpaste because the price range of both the products would be more or less the same.
- In this marketing strategy, ROI is never the objective. Instead, companies give priority to brand awareness.
- Companies adopt the Shotgun approach in this marketing style to hit the audience randomly who need their product and don’t mind trying products from different brands. It is never a targeted marketing strategy for any particular segment of the audience.
Now let us discuss the significant disadvantages of Mass Marketing:
- There are multiple brands launched every year with similar products, leading to fierce competition in the market. Hence, chances of brands losing the game are high while using mass marketing strategy.
- In this competitive market, targeting a particular section of the audience is the need for all companies. In the digital world, targeting someone or a group for brand awareness is very easy. Thanks to the social media platforms which have a vast database of the potential customers.
- Targeting a particular class of audience could be expensive than appealing the entire crowd. But the ROI is very high in differentiated marketing method, and it is a proved profitable approach in the current marketing industry.
- Adopting Shotgun approach also leads to many potential customers getting left out. These prospects might not even know your brand exists since they are comfortable using brands that they already know.
To conclude, in the current marketing world, going for mass marketing is not what we would recommend. Always use online platforms and other survey methods to identify and classify your target audience. A defined target still shows better engagement and loyalty towards the brands than the randomly approached audience. Differentiated marketing ensures higher ROI and reduces advertising expenses. However, mass marketing can prove to be an essential tool for the product or service category, which is new in the market, and the audience is not aware of the brand.
