American Idol teaches an interesting marketing concept. The audience is really only interested in the very best or the very worst (think Kelly Clarkson vs William Hung). Nobody is interested in those singers who are just average.

It use to be taught that the middle 67% of consumers (the mass market) was where marketers should focus their efforts. Create and price a product for the masses. However, in today’s marketplace it appears that people want really exclusive or really cheap.

Walmart classifies as really cheap. People line up for their ridiculously cheap jar of pickles. Old ladies push each other out of the way for socks priced under a dollar.

Conversely, try buying a Bugatti Veyron. At a cool 1.8 million you wonder which fool would buy one? Yet, luxury cars are still in high demand.

Choosing which strategy to use is up to you. However, I would suggest that it’s extremely hard to ‘out cheap’ Walmart.

If you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t matter how you get there.

All of the ads, blogging, and social networking won’t do you one iota of good if you don’t understand what your objective is. And, yet, even though this seems intuitive, it’s shocking how many marketing plans start with the tactic (‘I need an ad’) instead of the objective.

If you need some help deciding what the objective should be, start by asking yourself what action you want your audience to take – then work backwards. 9/10 there is a faster, smarter, cheaper way to achieve your objective than where you started.