Greg Stielstra of Pyromarketing fame recently wrote:
“People are sometimes reluctant to try PyroMarketing because the first step–gathering the driest tinder–seems limiting. They are afraid to focus all of their efforts on the people most likely to buy because they imagine that a narrowly defined niche is too small to meet their sales goals. In response people often make foolish mistakes [such as] diluting their product or service. They mistakenly believe that a product with a less specific appeal will attract more general interest. “If we can make that women’s book less feminine,” they reason, “then it will appeal to men.” But people are attracted by the presence of specific characteristics and traits not by their absence. This approach does not broaden a product’s appeal to a larger audience. Instead it reduces its appeal to the one audience that might have bought in the first place.”
I often find this to be the case in designing book covers. I recently developed a powerful, emotive cover that was aimed straight at women (the primary target), but the author insisted on a more unisex (and much less interesting) design.