However…

Most of the people who’ve been through a Target Profile exercise will willingly debate this issue with you. And we spend over five days at a workshop, working on this singular point of ‘Target Profile.’

After five days, you’re in one camp or the other. You either believe it’s hogwash. Or you’re convinced that it’s not. The point is: So far we’ve got no takers in the hogwash category.

And as I said, it’s impossible to prove a point in fifty words what literally takes five days to learn.

We’re not talking about segment at all. We are indeed talking about ONE person. ONE, singular person on the planet. Not a persona, not a segment, but one person.

The analogy with ‘eating a meal’ doesn’t come into play at all, because as far as the person is concerned, it’s a ‘one-dish’ restaurant. That restaurant was built around this one person and one dish.

I think this logic is flawed and really has nothing to do with writing headlines. All you are really doing is substituting the term “target audience” for “segment”. In effect, you are doing nothing different. While yes, when deciding who you are talking to, you should consider the target/segment from a personal point of view, but don’t fool yourself into thinking this is something new. This process is still attempting to develop a message that will be relevant to a larger group. Even when you know what that message is, you still have to craft a good way to communicate that message. Thats why you might write many headlines. It’s the same reason you don’t order the first thing you see on the menu when you go out to eat. You look at your options and choose the one that sounds the best.