We’re bombarded with dozens, if not hundreds of messages every single day. Yet many of my clients and students still want to try to deliver a single message aimed at multiple targets. Entrepreneurs, especially, are not comfortable narrowing their target because they worry that’s akin to leaving money on the table.

But here’s the thing about our brains: making decisions requires energy. We go through life trying to conserve our brain energy and one of the easiest ways to do so is by ignoring things that are not relevant to us. The more energy we waste on paying attention to irrelevant communications, the less energy we have for big things like deciding how to go to market, making good hiring decisions and solving business problems. Brain researchers call this Decision Fatigue. 

Here is a great New York Times article by John Tierny that explains, in language we can all understand, how Decision Fatigue works.

Decision Fatigue happens every time we’re overwhelmed with choices. Because of this, marketing messages must be crafted with Decision Fatigue in mind. You need to take extra special care to identify and speak to a specific, focused target in order to avoid triggering a “not for me” response.

The best way to do this is to develop a message that is clearly speaking to one target. Remember, a generic message has ZERO stopping power. Why would you want to spend your money or time developing and disseminating a broad messages that makes it too easy for someone to respond: “Not for me.”