A greeting card manufacturer once made a similar mistake when it launched a line of cards geared for aging Baby Boomers. Their promotional content played up the positive side of aging, which the manufacturer thought would appeal to the egos of these aging consumers. What the card maker didn't consider was that Baby Boomers don't like being perceived as old and definitely didn't want to be seen shopping in the "old people" section of the store. And as a result, none did. This serious misreading of their targeted audience ultimately led to the line being discontinued.

No one can create effective marketing content without a clear understanding of the target audience. This means that, before you type a single word, you have to do your homework.  You must discover the most effective way to directly connect to your audience, and the only way to do that is work with a team who can provide reliable, clear market research data.

Proven research methods make it much easier to pinpoint unique personalities of your target market.  With that information in hand, you'll be able to create marketing copy that appeals to a specific type of person instead of just making a general pitch to a faceless audience. This kind of personal connection with your target audience makes any marketing content, from an e-mail to a website, more in tune with the needs of your intended customers.  With a perfectly pitched message, here's what you're likely to see:

• You'll be able to make a product seem more relevant to the consumers.
• You'll be better able to illustrate how this product might address and even solve a particular problem this target group might have.
• You'll also be able to convey how the product provides value to their everyday lives.

The insight target market research provides also helps to create content with the right tone and voice.  You'll be able to speak the target group's language and engage in a personal conversation with them.  Your content won't seem distant or sterile, and this makes your target consumers more likely to respond.

Of course, it's completely possible to write creative and interesting copy without properly researching your target audience.  The major problem with this approach, however, is that you run the risk of creating a marketing message that might be interesting, but that ends up completely missing the mark.  With this method, you may end up doing your research by default, and wasting a lot of time, energy, and potential profit in the process.

[Post contributed by Emily Carroll]

Brands need buzz. It's a marketing necessity, especially for brands reaching out to consumers online. Generating this buzz, however, is the hard part.  If the online community isn't interested, it can be difficult to get them talking about a brand.  To clear this hurdle, some brands have taken the somewhat controversial step of reaching out to the shapers of online conversation themselves.  By tapping influential bloggers to create content about them, these brands are generating online buzz and increasing brand awareness from the inside out. There is a history of negative backlash, however, for bloggers who engage in this sort of practice. Critics have expressed concern that this apparent shilling for a brand is a conflict of interest for a blogger. If you want to do that, some have protested, why stop there and start selling your offline opinions as well?

These misgivings, however, do not mean the online community as a whole considers this practice an unforgivable sin. In fact, provided certain rules of conduct are followed, these arrangements will damage neither the blogger nor the brand's reputation. To avoid falling into the traps and pitfalls that are present for both bloggers and brands, however, there are some important steps each must take to make sure the pay-per-blog process doesn't come with a price tag of damaged credibility for blogger and brand alike.

• Full disclosure: Bloggers and brands need to be upfront about their relationship. Doing so adds credibility to a blogger's response and makes it clear the circumstances behind their posting.  Lack of full disclosure has a precedent of bloggers losing their page rankings as a consequence once the true motives behind a blog posting were discovered. That kind of online censure is the kiss of death to blogs and causes collateral damage to a brand as well. So make sure the readers know the opinion shared by the blogger was not inspired out of thin air but from an actual arrangement with the brand.
• Freedom of opinion: Brands need to let bloggers have their say.  There might be commentary that the brand does not want to hear but if the blogger wants to object, let them. Otherwise the blog suffers a degenerative transformation into ad copy, not a true expression of the blogger's opinions. The blogger shouldn't be expected to parrot the brand's current marketing message. The opinions need to be genuine. Brands need to keep their distance and let the bloggers do what they do best - blog.
• Reasonable compensation: Whatever is offered to the bloggers as an incentive to get them to write about the brand, it needs to be something whose value is at an amount that won't seem to be influencing the opinions the bloggers provide. Brands should let the bloggers test drive a product or to provide them with a gift card to use to explore their stores. Brands should not shower the bloggers with merchandise or gift cards that are so loaded they could use them to splurge on luxury items. An exorbitant pay-per-blog windfall might seem more bribery than legitimate compensation for the blogger, taint their opinions in the eyes of the blogosphere, and make the brand seem suspect in the eyes of consumers. After all, why would the brand need to buy opinions if what it has to offer was high quality in the first place?
• Address any concerns that arise: Brands should not let the conversation end with the eventual post written by the blogger.  If the blogger or someone who posts a comment to the blog finds something he or she objects to or points out as a shortcoming, the brand needs to provide a timely response. This follow-up needs to address the concern and even explain how the brand is remedying and has already remedied it. Doing so will provide dividends to a brand's reputation as online users appreciate and respond well to sincere concern demonstrated by a brand about customer needs.

There is a thin line between honest blogging and a paid endorsement. For the pay-per-blog process to maintain credibility, bloggers must maintain autonomy of opinion, opinions must maintain sincerity and validity, and brands must maintain honesty by being open about their arrangement with the blogger and the amount exchanged to solicit the blogger's opinions. The brand can then have a chance to generate the buzz it wants and not be swept under along with the blogger by an angry blogospheric backlash.