A mile further down the road, however, stood another boiled peanut stand, complete with its own "BOILED PEANUTS" sign and two customers parked in front.

Honestly, boiled peanuts don't intrigue me, and hand painted signs announcing boiled peanuts intrigue me even less. They do, though, illustrate an important point. How many marketing efforts fail by being too vague and general? How many customers are simply driving to the next peanut stand out of indifference?

Consider this fictional tagline.

That line is horrible - it could apply to just about anything, including boiled peanuts. It doesn't give the reader any useful information. Maybe we'll get peanuts here, or maybe we'll just stop at the next stand. It doesn't matter. It's a wide market.

Now consider something different:

Is it perfect? No - but it's specific. As the potential customer, we now have a grasp of the product. We know what it does, what it ships with and why we should care. There's not a single boiled peanut in that sentence, and if we happen to be in the market for a quality yet inexpensive desktop publishing program, we might just give WordMate 5.0 a look. By using concrete details, the makers of WordMate distinguish themselves from their competition. They create a market of one - themselves.

So take a look at your own marketing copy and ask: are you being specific and aggressive, playing up your strengths and educating your customers?

Or are you painting signs for boiled peanuts?