Back in the old days, the key to a successful small business was to know your target demographic, cater to them and form a positive family friendly image around your brand. Truth be told, achieving success in business still depends on these three things. However, things have changed a lot since the good old days, and today’s technology makes it both easy and difficult to succeed in a business. How? Well, with today’s modern electronic media, it is quite easy for a business to expand its visibility to an audience of more than a million people. But with that, news of failure or any controversial incidents also goes pretty viral, potentially leading a business to failure.

Pepsi’s Failure

Just take the example of one of the world’s leading controversy generators, Pepsi, who tried to generate publicity by posting a picture of one of the most beloved footballers in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo, in the form of a voodoo doll getting crushed by an oncoming train.

Needless to say, the picture did generate publicity; negative publicity. Not only did an anti-Pepsi page generate more than 100,00 followers in a day, Pepsi also had to publicly apologize to the footballer. As expected, sales also dwindled in Portugal, the native country of the footballer.

Chick-Fill-A’s Success

The above example may have seemed like a total failure, but what if I told you that Pepsi could have just as easily turned its fortunes around by simply knowing its target audiences. Sounds pretty preposterous, doesn’t it? Let’s have a look at a similar incident that took place about two years back. Yes, I am talking about the Chick-Fill-A same sex marriage controversy.

As soon as word got out about the restaurant’s negative stance against same sex marriage, the fast food chain’s Facebook page was bombarded with same-sex marriage supporters, who protested against the restaurant’s funding of anti-gay groups. On the other hand, anti-gay marriage supporters overwhelmingly supported the restaurant chain, exclusively eating there while asking others to do so. Chick-Fill-A knew that the majority of its consumer base was comprised of Arkansas, Alabama and southern state residents, and kept firm with its statements instead of apologizing for them.

While I won’t get into the anti-gay marriage debate, the result of all this was a Chick-Fill-A appreciation day, record breaking sales following the controversy and a 12% increase in sales.

Know Your Target Demographic

Have a look at both the examples above and check out the uncanny similarities between the two. So what went different for the latter? The answer is simple; they knew their target demographics. If Chick-Fill-A had taken back or apologized for its anti-gay marriage stance, it could have gotten an overwhelming negative response from its predominantly Southern consumer base.

So what’s the point of all this? Simple; you need to know the audience you are catering to, and build a niche market centered on that!

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