Know Your Target

Mar 26, 2012  |  By Civilian  |  

I went to visit my family recently and my father regaled me with the latest lawyer joke spinning across the web.   While not the biggest fan of lawyer jokes, this one resonated and I thought I would share it.

A lawyer and a senior citizen are sitting next to each other on a long flight.  The lawyer is thinking that seniors are so antiquated that he could get one over on them easy.  So, the lawyer asks if the senior would like to play a fun game.  The senior is tired and just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and tries to catch a few winks.

The lawyer persists, saying that the game is a lot of fun… “I ask you a question, and if you don’t know the answer, you pay me only $5.00.  Then you ask me one, and if I don’t know the answer, I will pay you $500.00,” he says.  This catches the senior’s attention and, to keep the lawyer quiet, he agrees to play the game.

The lawyer asks the first question.  “What’s the distance from the Earth to the Moon?”  The senior doesn’t say a word, but reaches into his pocket, pulls out a five-dollar bill, and hands it to the lawyer.

Now, it’s the senior’s turn.  He asks the lawyer, “What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down with four?”

The lawyer marshals all the social media technology at his fingertips on his iPhone – wikis, blogs, podcasts and any other references he can find on the Net.  He posts the question and texts to all his friends/network contacts on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn; all to no avail.  After an hour of searching, he finally gives up.  He wakes the senior up and asks, “Well, so what goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?”

The senior reaches into his pocket, hands the lawyer $5.00, and goes back to sleep.

The joke itself is universal with the characters being interchangeable with any demographic, but the moral of the story remains constant.  Essentially, to get the desired result, you need to know your audience otherwise it will not matter the amount of resources you pour into your marketing and advertising, your message will be lost.  Not all ads work across the board, rather than rush in to make sure you just have a message, it is wiser to take the time to learn how to appeal to your target and gear your ad content with the appropriate search engine optimization so that when people are looking for the answers, your company and its products are at the top of the list.

For those who want to know the answer to the other question: What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down with four?  According to Ask.com – it is a three-legged race, with two people’s legs tied together, it goes up a hill with three legs and comes back down with four.

Melanie Simpson
Bookkeeper/Office Manager
Mood: ROTFL

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