The perils of trying to be everything to everyone

I was facilitating a coalition meeting recently and the conversation ended up going in circles for a bit - someone would propose an idea for a message or an activity and someone else would respond explaining why that wouldn’t resonate with or convince members of their community.

After a few rounds of this, someone interjected with a powerful idea - it’s one I’d heard before and you likely have too, but it bears repeating: Let’s say 20% of the community are strongly with us and 20% of the community will always be against us, no matter what we do. That leaves 60% - maybe we can focus on them instead of the 20% we’ll never be able to sway.

The percentages may change based on the issue, but the underlying concept does not: we can’t be everything to everyone. If we try to get to that 20% who will always be against us, we’ll either get stuck or put out a diluted message/program/policy in an attempt to appeal to everyone - but end up appealing to no one at all (including the 20% that was originally with us!).

Now, Reader, I know you might be thinking, “But it’s not just 20% at the far end of the spectrum!” Especially on politically charged topics, it might seem like almost everyone has a strong opinion, leaving hardly anyone “in the middle”. But what do we actually mean by people "in the middle”? One of my favorite thinkers/authors, Anand Giridharadas, has suggested that “moderates don’t exist”.

Moderation, he says, is about someone having a “less baked” or less certain viewpoint . It does not mean their view is exactly in the middle of the two extremes (I love Anand’s analogy for this – if I am undecided about whether I want a pizza or a burger, that doesn’t generally mean I want a pizzaburger.). Which is not to say that no one has a view exactly in the middle, some people do. But many others have “strong opinions, lightly held” – i.e., approached in the right ways, they can be persuaded.

So who is your 60%? Do they have “strong opinions, lightly held”? Can they be persuaded?

Of course, even within that 60%, not everyone is the same.

I studied health communications in grad school and taught an intro health communications course for several years - one of the key topics we covered was audience segmentation. This is something that commercial marketers (think cars and shoes and soda) do really well. They’re not trying to appeal to everyone with a particular message - their message is targeted and tailored to the particular values and perspectives of a narrow segment of the audience they’ve identified and spent a lot of time understanding. And if they want to appeal to a different segment of the audience, they’ll have a different message in a different channel.

Of course, the coalitions we work with and most public health organizations don’t have the resources that commercial marketers do.

But we can still think critically about who exactly our audience is and what segment of that audience we are trying to reach with a particular message or intervention.

As we often hear in the consulting world, there are “riches in the niches.” When you “niche down” and narrow your audience and services, you can speak to that very specific audience in a way that resonates deeply and makes people recognize that you understand and can address their specific needs.

It’s the same for any work or communication we undertake, whether as a coalition or an organization - we can’t be everything to everyone, but if we “niche down,” we might be surprised at just how effective we can be.

What is your favorite example of the power of “niching down” (or the perils of being everything to everyone)? Let me know!

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