Important things in marketing||Reaching Your Target Audience

A big factor to successful online marketing is knowing who your target

audience is and how to reach them. To determine what types of

customers you are trying to reach you should be asking yourself the

following questions:

 What age group are you trying to sell to?

 Are you selling to a specific ethnic group or gender?

 Will most of your customers be married or single?

 How fast will most Internet connections be?

 Will you target customers who have children?

 What level of education will most of your customers have?

 Where will most of your customers live?

 Will your customers have any specific hobbies?

The more you know about your customers the easier it will be to come up

with a marketing plan. You’ll also be able to design a website that is the

most appealing to these customers. The biggest advantage of marketing

on the Internet is that it allows you to become very targeted towards your

desired customers.

Targeting Different Types of Customers

Marketing online is the same as marketing anywhere else. There are

certain products, colors, themes, and lingo that will appeal more to some

customers than to others. When you know what type of customers you’re

targeting you can meet their needs so that you grab their attention. When

you use certain features that pull customers to your website you have the ability to gain their attention, loyalty, and trust. For example, studies

show that most female shoppers like to save money and time. Over 80%

of purchases in the home are influenced in some way by women. As

well, these same studies show that women like to able to compare costs

fast and easily without getting any kind of sales pressure. If you’re

trying to target women customers some things that you should keep in

mind include
(1) giving them a feeling of comfort and communit
(2) let

your website deal with everyday problems, and (3) focus on education,

health, and family.

Get the Word Out

Doing something innovative and creative online, as well as using the

latest technology, will always get attention. For example, adding

animation, flash, or a photo can create a buzz about the product or service

that you’re selling. Just as e-mail, which contains jokes and strange

pictures, gets forwarded all around the planet so too can your marketing

message make the rounds. Come up with a marketing message and then

forward it to family, friends, and anyone else you know.

Any time that you can get someone else to forward your e-mail to others

you get the information out there about your website and the product or

service you’re selling. One key to great online marketing is

remembering that quality, not quantity, counts. Avoid buying e-mail lists

and focus instead on building your own with people who are actually

interested in what you’re selling. Today online marketing isn’t about

how many people you get to your website or how many people are on

your e-mail list. Today online marketing is all about how people react to

your website and what it is that you’re selling.

Personalizing Your Website

Even if you’re not selling a product or service that is for a specific target

audience you need to have a website that is personalized. For example,

even though Amazon sells products that appeal to all target audiences

they have still managed to create a personalized website that fits every

customer. This is the goal of personalization technology.

Try to limit the number of products or services that you’re offering to

your customers. “Information overload” is one of the biggest problems

on the Internet. If you give your customers too many choices they’ll

have a hard time making a decision. The key to avoiding information

overload is organization as well as making sure that products and

services are directed towards your customers.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that online marketing stop when you

generate a sale. Your current customers are the ideal way for you to reach

new customers. You want to get leads from your customers by using

marketing concepts such as “tell a friend” e-mails.

One mistake that many small online businesses make is to focus only on

self-promotion. The bottom line is that customers don’t care about you. 

They only care about what it is that you’re selling and what you can do

for them. When someone visits your website you have about ten seconds

to get their attention before they move on to the next website. That

means that you have ten seconds to tell this person why it is that they

need you. The home page of your website should tell people why your

service or product is just right for them. Your home page should include

information about your company and/or have a personal bio about who

you are.

If you’re not sure about whether your website is reaching the right

people, ask them

. If you provide something of value to people who visit

your website they’ll give you information. Things of value include

contests, coupons, and free products. Make sure that you let them know

they can trust you by including a privacy policy on your website that

states you won’t share any personal information they provide with

anyone else. Stick to your policy and never sell the information your

customers provide you with.

Otherwise you’ll lose and abuse their trust.

Once you know the demographics of your customers you’ll know how to

spend your marketing budget. You can focus your online promotions

using targeted marketing strategy. Even though you may end up with

fewer people visiting your website, targeted online marketing is the way

to go.

Using Banner Ads

One mistake that many online businesses make is using banner ads to

reach the greatest amount of people. Your focus when it comes to banner

ads is to reach the right type of people for the product or service that

you’re selling. One thing to keep in mind is that, if you have a limited

budget, you should avoid buying banner ads altogether.

 If you have a big

budget, banner ads can be great for branding your company. You’ll be

able to negotiate contracts that are long term with affiliated websites in

your area of business. However, the results of click-through marketing

are usually low and this makes banner ads the least cost effective of all

online marketing techniques.

If you decide that you want to purchase banner ads you should focus on

buying them on web pages that are very targeted. Ads are cheaper the

more targeted a web page is. And the cheaper the ad the more cost

effective your banner ads will be. 

Another way that you can target the placement of your banner ads is to

embed them in web page content. Before you purchase a banner ad find

out what content the website administrators will be including on their

web page that may be related to your online business. If the website uses

a keyword search tool ask that your banner ads appear when key words

that are linked to your product or service are typed into the search engine

by visitors to the website.

Try to place your banner ads on a web page that is as deep into the

website as possible. This way you’ll be reaching people who are truly

looking for information that relates to your business. This is a great

strategy to use if you want to get the most value for your online budget. 

Again, if your budget for marketing is quite high, you’ll want to buy

banner ads on the home pages of websites so that your brand reaches a

lot of people.

Keywords:

One of the most cost effective ways to use your online marketing budget

is to buy keywords. You can find out the price of keywords that are

specific to your industry at Google Adwords. You want your keywords to

be as targeted and specific as possible. Always remember the goal of

your business and buy keywords that encourage people to visit your

website. Keywords that are general will cost you more and at the same

time will attract fewer customers to your website. 

Before you start buying keywords you need to look at the content of your website. You

want to buy keywords that are effective for your business content and

that keep people coming back to your website.