Forget "Target Group Thinking"

Why the traditional "target group thinking" is pretty off the mark and has had its day in Corporate Communication. And why we should much more think about building communities than struggling about which target group should be addressed or - in worst case - whether we should talk about "target groups" or "dialogue groups".

Wasn’t it like that? We communicators were told during our school and university: The target group is the receiver of each communication, be it Marketing or Corporate Communication! To be more specific, the target group became quickly target groups. And to be more precise they were characterized more closely, for example with socioeconomic or geographical characteristics, such as “Generation Y”, “men between 30 and 40” or “the residents of Vienna”. Another possibility was to simply use stakeholder categories of the organization for the segmentation: “the customers”, “the suppliers”, “the media”. However, at a closer look this all somehow doesn’t really sound like wisdom for communication purposes, does it?

Many PR people were never happy with the term “target groups” and always preferred to speak of “dialogue groups” instead. Some do this to differentiate themselves from Marketing. I have already discussed the rather meaningless wrangling between Marketing and Corporate Communication, whether the one is more original and important than the other (blog article in DE): https://bit.ly/2P2UWKW

Others, in turn, assume, that the term “dialogue group” implies, that the sender is always in dialogue with the recipient or wants to get into dialogue. But is this really the case?

Do you really want an immediate response as an organization? Isn't it often more about behavioral disposition than of a desired behavior? Or is it simply about a not-behavior? In any case it’s not an interaction in the form of a dialogue. The dialogue group as a unit of communication control? There’s room for improvement…absolutely!

Regardless of whether one speaks of

“target groups” or “dialogue groups”: Both constructs have significant weaknesses.

Above all, that of a call it oversegmentation. And the lack of profile. The ratio of oversegmentation is already in our (educational) cradle. No, children still understand the world holistically - until they come to school. From this point on, our education system will do everything to take away the holistic view of children. There the world is divided into subjects - and delimited beyond recognition. What is your impression of the term "interdisciplinary teaching"? Most of the time it still creates a feeling of " school experiment" and "time-limited project". (Wow, we have quite big troubles as a society…)

“Back into wild”, after years of fragmentation, we are suddenly astonished that our world is a holistic, fragile system: if you symbolically turn one screw, three more turns at the same time. Of course, this also applies to communication as the cross-sectional subject par excellence! To solve this problem, everyone calls for competent generalists, lateral thinkers and outside the box visionaries...

The other decisive weakness of the constructs “target group” and “dialogue group” is the lack of profile. This particular weakness makes me think of a former manager of mine who always stated with full conviction: "The goal of our communication is the good image of our company."

Of course, the good image. I literally hear my sociology university professor at the JKU in Linz say: "I am requesting operationalization!" So what exactly means "good image"? In Employer Branding discussions, I like to ask my interlocutors what a “good employer” is - from the perspective of an apprentice, a university graduate, an employee just before retirement or from the point of view of a returner. The meaning of "good" shimmers quite intense - and at the same time it has common roots for everyone.

It's all about

building and shaping a community!

So what do I think we have to do in communication? First of all, we have to drop the corset of “target group and dialogue group thinking”! And:

• We have to think and act in terms of communities of an organization. These are all those people whose behavior can be or is critical to our organization's success. And who feel a subjective consternation because of our organization. So there is a correlation, but it can not necessarily be found in direct interaction and behavior. This correlation has to be shaped positively for both sides through communication.

Let's stop fragmenting our worldview!

• We have to stop fragmenting our worldview. Yes, of course we need specialist disciplines, expert knowledge and in-depth know-how - more than ever. But at the same time, people are needed, who know where to access this knowledge, who have the foresight, apply it, relate it. The optimal composition of a team, the implementation of optimal tools, processes and interfaces as well as the optimal design of know-how retrieval have never been more important than today - not only, but above all in communication.
• This applies as well to data - and here the cards of competitiveness and success are being reshuffled violently. Déjà vu: We have to stop fragmenting our data world. Of course, in-depth specialist data is needed - more than ever. But at the same time, people are needed who know where to access this data, who can see, apply and relate it with foresight. The optimal compilation of data, the implementation of optimal tools, processes and interfaces as well as the optimal design of data retrieval have never been more important - not only, but above all in communication.

It's about combining individualism with the mutual roots of collectivism!

• We need the highest level of individualism whilst taking collective roots into account. We need this 24/7, across all channels and tools. Proactive, not reactive. We can no longer beg the recipient for relevance, we have to create consternation and thus move on from reaction to proactivity. That’s the fuel for successful communication 2020ff!

Does everything sound like a big change and a lot of work? Absolutely! This paradigm shift will not leave any stone unturned and will enormously challenge and keep the communication divisions of organizations over the next few years extremely busy. Many will wait until the air becomes so thin to barely survive. And that will happen faster than they think. Whoever starts with the change now, is already no longer a first mover, but still has the strength of proactivity at his side. So: let’s move!