I was hired
as a consultant
by a small company.
They wanted to know
why they were struggling
to reach their female target market.
There were no women
on their product development team,
in their marketing or sales departments,
on their senior management team.
They held focus groups
with women
but, by that stage,
there was often too many things wrong
with the product
to fix.
The focus group focused
on the large issues.
They didn’t have the time
or energy
to list the thousand little things
that were wrong.
For best chances
of success,
the target market
should be deeply involved
during each step of product development.
The easiest way to do this
is to ensure the target market
is represented
in our employees.
If we want the software we’re developing
to be accessible for the blind,
for example,
we might wish to have someone
on our development team
who is seeing impaired.
Is your target market
represented by your employees?
(And for those who say,
“The best qualified employee
should get the job.”,
knowledge of the target market
IS a qualification.
There are also 7.6 billion people
on this planet.
We can find people who are ‘qualified’
within the target market.)