If you don’t have an existing business book and don’t want to buy a list, what’s the fastest way to reach new customers? Target your marketing to specific personas.
Social media makes marketing accessible to almost everyone. But without a target, marketing can feel like an ineffective way to throw spaghetti at the proverbial wall and see what randomly sticks. This often happens when you create a ton of engaging social media content but don’t see tangible business results.
Therefore, there are many articles and videos on how to develop and target specific marketing personas (also known as buyer personas or target users). So that’s not the point of this article.
Targeted marketing works, but only if your persona strategy is legally sound. Here’s how to attract new clients without buying lists, excluding protected classes, or walking into compliance traps.
Target definition
Developing a compelling marketing persona in a highly regulated industry has a sophistication and critical tension that is missing from most MBA degree curricula. I intentionally teach that in my MBA classes. How to define target audiences in a way that is effective for marketing, legally and ethically responsible, and promotes fair housing and lending.
Travel back in time with the DeLorean Time Machine.
First, let’s look back at the beginning of the millennium with the DeLorean. When you arrive at your local shopping mall, you notice music blaring and a strong cologne emanating from a dark, club-like area with long lines. As you approach, you can see a number of shirtless men greeting patrons and adjusting their clothes. Eventually, you’ll see the words “Abercrombie & Fitch.”
In the 2000s, there were long lines to get into A&F.
Fast forward to today, and the once popular Abercrombie & Fitch clothing store, which has been impersonated multiple times on MADtv (the skit show that spawned Key & Peele), agreed to pay a landmark $50 million settlement with the EEOC (2004) for discriminatory employment practices.
How did they go from standing in long lines to being laughed at with $50 million bills? The EEOC’s key finding was that a company’s “restrictive marketing image” (also known as marketing persona) is a tool of exclusion.
Whether you knew about this clothing store’s millennial heyday or were around it (it’s had a bit of a resurgence lately thanks to TikTok), Abercrombie & Fitch’s cautionary tale shows what happens when marketing persona strategies exclude protected classes (read: it can backfire catastrophically and extend beyond customer strategy to employee policies).
Ultimately, the Abercrombie & Fitch IRL case provides a compelling lesson: marketing images/personas are strategic tools, not licenses to be eliminated.
For example, when a persona like “Persona Pat, working executive, single mother, 28-39 years old” becomes the anchor of the entire strategy, it introduces significant constraints that can create negative ripple effects.
The simplest digital ads that reach “persona pats” based on age, gender, location, and even maternal status can create compliance issues under a variety of laws.
Frankly, this is a real-world dilemma. Because when you market, you can’t create something in a bubble with no rules or consequences.
Is there a framework to easily identify “marketing mistakes”?
It may seem incredible that someone who is not a lawyer is tasked with advocating for fair housing/financing in a litigious society and developing legally sound marketing strategies.
Don’t get me wrong. This tension doesn’t mean you need to get into law school (unless you just want to). So what’s a marketing team to do, especially one that doesn’t have a legal advisor present at every meeting?
Going forward, you should move from demographic targeting, especially when legally protected classes are involved, to psychological and behavioral targeting (which is accurate and usually compliant, but still check!).
In other words, there is a risk in targeting Persona Pat to “active executives and single mothers between the ages of 28 and 39.”
On the other hand, “home and garden enthusiasts who subscribe to home and garden newsletters and print magazines, save open house events on TikTok, Discord, Facebook, and Instagram, ask questions about how to juggle buying and selling a home on Reddit, and have attended an open house event in the past two months.” Persona Pat’s approach is more strategic in avoiding legal landmines.
Please note that “Pat” is a unisex name, so it is not gender specific. The second persona is built solely on documented interests and behaviors related to homeownership, suggesting that fair housing and lending are less likely to be violated.
How to deepen your strategy with two popular MBA tools
To help further your strategic diagnosis, consider how proven MBA tools like SWOT and PESTLE analysis can help you analyze whether your marketing persona could land you in legal trouble.
To break out of your creative but risky marketing bubble with SWOT, think about what your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are. PESTLE allows you to explore the political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors that influence your marketing strategy.
Pay special attention to the “L” (Legal) and “T” (Threat) sections, which proactively identify various landmines before building your marketing campaign or strategy, as shown in the image below.
According to Miro (n.d.), some examples of questions to ask when evaluating a marketing strategy are:
When tasked with reviewing the shortcomings of a strategy, SWOT and PESTLE analyzes ideally come to mind (Jones, 2022).
So, don’t be shy to encourage your team, “We need to do a SWOT analysis and a PESTLE analysis!” Frankly, for the past 20 years, I’ve kept the various organizations I’ve consulted out of trouble simply by facilitating their teams through what they call “my fancy business school learning.” This was a simple SWOT/PESTLE analysis exercise involving everyone (with distinctly different perspectives).
It’s not random. it’s a strategy
In other words, tools like PESTLE and SWOT are not just random academic exercises for MBA students only. Everyone in business (with or without a degree) should apply these frameworks on a regular basis.
SWOT and PESTLE analyzes can help surface legal and reputational risks before a campaign launch Demographic-based personas can unintentionally violate fair housing and lending laws
Although these tools are not required when marketing, using such tools whenever you work on strategy will ideally save you time and allow you to take advantage of the tools of an advanced MBA degree, regardless of whether you have an MBA degree or not. These simple tools alone can help your team avoid potential pitfalls when creating expensive marketing campaigns.
Lee Davenport is a licensed real estate broker, trainer, and coach. Follow her on YouTube or visit her website.
