Beware The False Consensus Trap

You launch a campaign you love.
Your team loves it.
Your boss loves it.
Then it flops.

Welcome to false consensus land, where marketers believe their ideas resonate with everyone when they connect with no one because they assume their audience thinks like them. The act of projecting your preferences onto strangers allows you to mistake team enthusiasm for market validation. Essentially, this bias tricks you into believing your opinions represent the norm when they don't.

The good news is that both rookies and veterans fall into this trap daily. What are some of the costs of not learning to avoid the false consensus effect? No need to organize a groupthink to figure that out. Here are the most common consensus mistakes/costs:

1. Crafting messaging that assumes your audience shares your politics. Half your market disappears because you alienated customers who think differently.
2. Designing campaigns reflecting your background, assuming universal appeal. This "inclusive" message excludes entire demographics because of cultural blind spots.
3. Creating content based on your generation's preferences, causing younger and older consumers to scroll right on by.
4. Validating bad ideas because everyone shares similar backgrounds.
5. Missing warning signs because dissent feels uncomfortable.
6. Messaging becomes narrow as you increasingly speak to people like you while alienating broader segments.
7. Cherry-picking research confirming your assumptions and ignoring contradictory evidence because it challenges your worldview.

The better your message makes you feel about yourself, the less likely it is that you are convincing anyone else, so question your assumptions relentlessly and seek out voices that challenge the prevailing perspective.