Marketers: put away the shotgun. (shotgun approach to marketing) (Focus: Advertising & The Media) (Industry Overview)

The shotgun approach to marketing is over. The key to marketing in the Nineties is to be very specific with your message, your product and your customer.

"When business has to run leaner, as they are, then business pays more attention to every phase, from product development through sales," said Newt Hamlin, senior vice president at Fellers & Co. in Austin.

Not much is new in the marketing profession, Hamlin said, but doing market research is a necessity today compared to a few years ago when it was a luxury. Today, a business must be absolutely certain its product or service is necessary and that there is a public out there ready to buy it.

Jim Bearden of …