Bad Marketing Ideas from History
The idea that there is a magical, silver bullet "audience" out there for your product is complete and utter horseshit and anyone trying to sell it to you is the modern day snake oil peddler. Google, MSN, Yahoo! I'm looking at you.
I just finished reading a white paper which "reveals" that internet advertising numbers are padded and that you may be only reaching 20-percent of the amount of people that Google, Yahoo, or whoever, is selling.
If only 50% of your target audience is identifiable by a cookie because the rest are being blocked or the cookie expires - and only one out of every three of those cookies you serve to is actually a unique user – then less than 20% of your audience is actually being reached.
Of course, the white paper from which I cut and pasted this quote does the typical assward thinking that all internet marketers fall for: It assumes that such an audience ever existed.
Of course, that's because the both the authors and the audience of this white paper are both desperate for the same thing: A magic formula that makes it easy for them to sell their shitty products to fat and stupid people.
There is no "market segment" that you can magically buy that will make your shitty product a good one. Please stop trying. You are wrecking it for everyone.