Oops.

Today's Marketing Cookie is about the joy of a sweet reunion.

I remember when I was about four or five years old, and less than three feet tall, I was wandering my way through a maze of gabbing adults, trying to find my mother. The Sunday church service had just ended and all the grown-ups were packed into the foyer, milling around like cattle, greeting one another, talking, and laughing. The collective noise from so many conversations created a constant dull roar, which was quite intimidating for just a little guy trying to find his mother.

Being so short, it was too difficult to crane my neck and look up at faces while keeping my balance. So, I simply focused on people's legs and shoes. I remembered my mother was wearing a yellow dress with pink flowers and black shoes. I squeezed through the crowd, evaluating each pair of shoes and legs until I could locate my mother. Just before I lost hope of ever finding her, I saw her pretty dress right before me! I shouted, "My Mommy!" as I ran forward and hugged her leg as tight as I could. My heart burst with joy at such a sweet reunion! I looked up to gaze into the loving eyes of my mother, and discovered I was hugging a complete stranger.

Time and time again, we see companies who think they know their audience. They've been marketing to them in the same places, with the same messages, because that is how they've always done it. Then they wonder why their sales are shrinking, why they continue to lose market share, and realize it's time for a change. The first step we take in this situation is to question their assumptions regarding what they think they know about their customers. In many cases, some aspects of the profile they describe of their target prospect, and the way they have been trying to reach them are no longer relevant.

One such example is the work we had initially done for a life insurance company. Six years ago, the company was focused solely on direct mail and traditional advertising to generate leads. The company had an informational website, but it didn't ask for the business or offer any form of interaction. We convinced them to incorporate lead generation forms on their website, build landing pages to support every direct mail, and focus a portion of their budget on paid search advertising, mobile, and social media.

While a portion of their new business leads continued to come in through traditional channels such as business reply cards, the company was suddenly being found online by the same audience they've always served... only now, they looked a little different. With the affordable, super simple, and conservative life insurance products they offer, the company is truly a perfect match for a specific type of customer. For years, however, the customer wasn't finding them on Google and had been hugging the legs of the wrong company, only to be disappointed later by what they purchased. As a result of being found where the right customers were looking, sales grew to their highest levels in the company's one-hundred-year history, and our hearts burst with joy at such a sweet reunion.

If your company isn't being found where the perfect customer is looking, or if your customer doesn't look the same as they once did, it may be time to question your assumptions. Because, as today's fortune says, there's nothing worse than saying, "Oops... Wrong cookie."