Here are some things you don’t know about me:

1. I am tired of being passed over for that promotion.

2. I am interested in OEM software from Microsoft.

3. I think getting a PhD online in 4 weeks would really spruce up my resume.

4. I like investing in penny stocks that are going to move!!!

5. I buy a lot of Viagra and C|ali$ online.

6. I am interested in singles in my area.

7. I would like to fire my boss.

8. I deserve a $777 bonus.

9. Zahlen Sie 100EUR/$ ein und spielen Sie mit 400 EUR/$!!!

10. I am looking for a mortgage loan for $437,000.

At least, according to the email I get on a regular basis this is apparently what many marketers assume about me. Here are a few more things they assume about me:

11. I am willing to enter into financial transactions based on emails from people I don’t know.

12. I do not have a problem submitting my credit card information through a website that does not have a secure certificate, has no contact information whatsoever, has no privacy policy, return policy, or anything remotely resembling legal language.

13. I am an idiot.

Have you ever read a few spam subject lines and thought “They wouldn’t keep sending this out if nobody was buying it, so who in the world is buying this stuff?” You might be surprised. Although I searched and searched for it in vain, an article I recently read told of a website selling a male-enhancement product marketed via spam that accidentally published its customer database online long enough for it to be copied and passed around the Internet. The database listed customer names, credit card information, purchase history, etc. From the database a few facts could be pieced together:

1. The website was generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue per month. A multi-milliion dollar business.

2. Some of the customers were people you wouldn’t expect to buy such things in response to a spam message (PhDs, politicians, and other publicly recognizable figures).

This was despite the website having no contact information, no secure certificate, and making no promises about whether the customers’ information would be protected. And yet people who should know better were making purchases on this site. That article also detailed how the people running the website only filled about half the orders and never sent out the other half. Why should they? They made it hard for anyone to figure out how to contact them and bug them about it, and who’s going to take the matter to court? You think a state senator is going to contact his local law enforcement officials about something like this?

But this isn’t a post about spam, it’s about marketing. The point is that while you and I would like to assume our customers have a certain level of intellectual ability, the fact of the matter is that some of them may be a few clowns short of a three-ring circus. You might assume that your messaging makes sense to anyone with a brain. You might think your website is easy to navigate. You might think your corporate brochure is designed in a way that does a good job of showing off your product. You might think your brand and your marketing is giving you the best ROI possible. But you might be wrong.

Granted, those who respond to spam are the exception, not the rule. Spam doesn’t work because it is carefully crafted by professionals, it works because of its volume. About 70% of all email is spam, and about 50 people per million respond to spam. Focusing on those 50 to the detriment of the million would be foolish at best. However, frequently companies create marketing pieces that make sense to them, but which not only fly over the head of the 50 but most of the million as well.

When crafting an idea for a billboard or a direct mail piece, designing the interface for your web-based software, or developing a TV spot, you don’t necessarily want to focus on the lowest-common denominator in society as a whole, but it does pay to at least consider focusing on the lowest-common denominator in your target audience. You might be surprised how simple you have to make something in order for it to be as successful as possible.

Having an outside perspective can often help, especially if your company is run by engineers. This might mean hiring a firm, a consultant, a focus group, or talking to a spouse. Although I say this with some reservation because getting an outside opinion can also hurt. Companies have sometimes engaged firms, consultants, and focus groups and spent millions or even billions to market a new product, only to have it fail miserably, despite professional recommendations and positive data. New Coke and some products from Levi’s come to mind. But generally speaking thinking about the issue is better than ignoring it entirely.

Often there’s no way to find out what your customer wants other than throwing a product/service out there and seeing if they buy. After all, that’s the ultimate test. Having a back-up plan in case of an initial failure might be helpful, but the ability to recover from a marketing mistake, learn from it, and then regroup, is what has turned many failures into successes. This capacity will enable you to not only protect yourself from overestimating the customer, but underestimating them as well.