The key to building a successful strategy is to consider women as having specific needs, and yourself as having something to offer that could possibly satisfy the needs of some of these women. If what you offer matches the needs of a woman, then, obviously, you will be appealing to her. The closer your offering matches her needs, the more valuable you are to her and the more desirable you are. Your success with women, therefore, depends on your ability to communicate what you can offer to the group of women who need it, or, in other words, who value your offering. Never try to appeal to everyone because you are likely to end up appealing to no one. If you have 2 groups, blue and red, you cannot appeal to both groups by being purple. You have to choose one of the colors and match it. You need to have a specific target. This is what Targeting is about.
However, before targeting a specific group, you need to know what the groups are. This, in marketing, is known as Segmentation. Segmentation is basically grouping people by distinct criteria. Each unique group is a segment. Targeting is identifying the specific segments (group of people) who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer. These are the target segments. Segmentation and targeting are two of the more important processes in marketing. Yet, most marketers get them wrong, and it is usually the fault of academic marketing textbooks that are based on old marketing principles. What they get wrong is the segmentation process. The traditional way is to segment people demographically and target them based on the best demographics. So, the marketer will usually end up with a target segment like: "white single women, aged 25-35, with an annual income of $75-$100k, and who live downtown."
If you've tried dating apps, then you've probably come across a similar segmentation. The app will encourage you to search by age, race, height, weight, education, salary, and other attributes. These are good for filtering based on physical and other shallow criteria. Then you try to match them or message them and they don't respond. Why? Because even though they match certain criteria that you are looking for, it does not mean that they are interested in what you have to offer. Remember that not all women evaluate men the same way. You really don't know what these women need. If, on the other hand, you managed to find a group of women who are very motivated by wealth, and you are a wealthy man, then automatically, most of these women would be interested in you. Then, you can select from them the ones who match your criteria, and you know that these women are interested in you.
Segments should be based on what people value and not on demographics. This is especially true for dating. Needs-based segments are more useful because they give you an idea of how you can attract the people in that segment. To understand this, consider the simple segmentation of possible female dates in these 2 ways:
| Demographic | Needs-Based | |
|---|---|---|
| Segment: | White, 25-30, Tall | Intellectual |
| Attracted To: | ? | Educated Men |
| Motivated By: | ? | Intellectual Challenge |
| Hangouts: | ? | Academic Clubs and Forums |
As you can see, you don't learn much from the traditional demographic segmentation. In this example, we created a segment of women, but we know nothing about them, so we didn't gain much. With the needs-based segmentation, we now have clear answers to many of the questions that help us reach, communicate with, and appeal to these women. As soon as you present yourself to them as an educated man, you are instantly interesting to them. And you can filter this segment based on the other criteria you had (white, 25-30, tall) to have a segment of women who are interested in you and who you are interested in.
So your first task in creating your strategy is to think of the women around you who interest you, and try to group them into unique segments based on what they need. To make it easier to think about it, for the purpose of dating, the needs they have tend to fit into one of 4 main categories
Always think outside the box and be creative (yet reasonable) when creating your segments. You don't need to go overboard with your segments. The idea is not to categorize all women, but rather only the women who are in your environment and who are interesting to you, and could be interested in you. The end goal is to have unique segments whose needs you can meet. Therefore, you can discard the ones whose needs you cannot possibly meet. A good number of segments to have is between 5 and 10 unique segments. These are your Target Segments, the segments that you will be focused on.
Now that you have identified your Target Segments, you need to research them and find out as much information as possible about them. This is a time consuming process but is extremely important. Without knowing your audience, how can you reach them? And how can you convince them? You can't. That is why research, investigation, and a thorough thought process are needed to get as much information as possible about the target segments. To help you with your research, I have listed the following questions that you should answer about each segment. I grouped them into 5 categories to make it easier:
Relevance: These questions help you determine if this target segment is really for you
Resistance: These questions help you identify the reasons they wouldn't want to date you
Competition: These questions help you find out who or what is competing for their attention
Needs: These questions help you understand what they really need and how to offer it
Communications: These questions give you an idea of how to reach them
Using the information you learn about these segments, you can start to formulate a strategy to win them over.
Think of 10 unique segments of women in your enviroment who fit your criteria of women you like to date. Clearly define the needs of each of those segments.