Knowing how to reach your target audience is essential if you want to succeed in your online marketing campaign. In order to identify what type of customers you are trying to reach, take some time to answer the following questions below.
* What age group is your product or service trying to sell to?
* What about the gender and ethnic group?
* Are most of your customers married or single?
* How about their Internet connection? Will it be fast or dial-up?
* Do you target customers with children?
* What about the level of education your customers will have?
* Are you targeting a specific area?
* Do you target specific hobbies as well?
Before making your marketing plan, it is important to know who your customers are. This will also make it easier for you to design your website so that it best suits your audience. Being able to target your desired customers precisely is one of the primary reasons behind getting involved in Internet marketing.
How to effectively target different types of customers
There has been little changes in marketing both online and offline channels. Certain products might appeal to some of your customers while others might not find them appealing at all. Knowing what type of customers you are going to target is already a big advantage, especially when it comes to grabbing their attention. You might also want to employ certain features onto your site to further gain their trust, attention, and loyalty.
A recent study has been conducted, showing that 80% of online shopping is influenced one way or another by the female market. Furthermore, it shows that female online shoppers don’t like to feel any kind of sales pressure and would want the ability to compare prices easily. Now, if you’re planning to target female customers, remember to include a feeling of comfort and camaraderie; provide a website that deals with everyday problems and focuse on family, education, and health.
Spreading the word.
If you’re the type of person who doesn’t want to exploit the latest buzz in technology, then your business is in the brink of extinction. The rule of thumb is simple here; being creative and innovative online will get your customers’ attention.
For instance, flash animation was nonexistent for the past 10 years. But today, almost all websites that we visit have some sort of animation. Have you noticed how jokes and strange or funny pictures are easily circulated around the globe? These things grabs people’s attention and this is what your marketing message should supposedly do. Come up with a creative marketing message and forward it to your family, friends, or anyone you know.
Sending your marketing message through email can get your website or product information to your targeted audience fast. Focus only on quality, not quantity. Avoid purchasing mailing lists; instead, build your own list of people who are interested in what you are selling. Online marketing is never measured on how many people will regularly visit your website. Instead, this will be based on how many of your visitors are successfully converted into buying customers of the products and services you are selling.
Having to personalize your website
The next thing you need to do is have a personalized website. This will enable you to post information about the products you are selling. For instance, Amazon sells a wide range of products but it still manages to create a personalized page for each customer.
Focus on just a few of your products and offer them to your customers. The next day, you should then focus on another group of products and services and offer them to your customers again. Information overload is the biggest problem on the Internet today. Bombarding your customers with choices will only give them a hard time deciding which one to buy. The secret to avoid information overload is to organize your products and services in such a way that they target specific customers.
Online marketing does not stop when you close the sale. Your current customers will still be able to help you reach new clients. This is sometimes referred to as the “tell a friend” concept.
Self-promotion has been identified as one of the mistakes that many small businesses commit. Point is, customers don’t really care about your company. They only care the stuff that you are selling and how these will solve their problems. Keeping them in your website is another tough job. You have basically ten seconds to grab their attention before they move on to the next site. The landing page of your site should tell them directly that your products or services are right for them. Include just a few simple details about your company and your business.
If you are in doubt as to whether or not you are reaching people, then ask them. If you provide the information they need they’ll give you the information you want. Things that most people value include coupons, contests, and free products. You might also want to include your private policy of not sharing any personal information they will provide you. Keep your promises and never sell their information. Otherwise, you will lose them forever.
Now, that you already know the statistics of your customers, you can now spend your marketing budget efficiently. This is sometimes referred to as the targeted marketing strategy. Don’t feel desperate if you end up with just a few people visiting your site once in a while for targeted online marketing is the only way to make money.
Incorporating banner ads
Another mistake that common online businesses commit is the use of banner ads to reach the greatest number of people. Banners ads should not be used if you have a limited budget. However, if there are no budgetary constraints, then banner ads are great tools when it comes to branding your company. You might want to pull off contracts from affiliate websites in your area for long term agreement.
When purchasing your banner ads, choose only those web pages that could bring very targeted traffic towards your site. The more targeted they are, the cheaper they get. And the cheaper the banner ads, the more cost effective they become.
The best performing banners ads are those that embed within web content. Ask the website administrators if they can provide this in consideration with what you are selling. If they have a keyword research tool, then by all means, you should use it to your advantage. Your banner ads should be displayed on your website whenever these keywords are typed into search engines.
Placing your banner ads in the deepest part of the website has been proven beneficial. This way, you’ll only be reaching people who are interested in your business. This is an awesome strategy if you want the most value from your ads. But then again, if your marketing budget is high, you would want your ads to appear in the homepages where most visitors will land.
Keywords
Another thing to consider is using targeted keywords in your product or service promotion. If you use the service provided by Overture, you will find out the prices of your keywords relating to your country. Always remember that your goal is to make people buy your products so you should buy only those keywords that encourage them to do so. SEO Specialist will encourage the business person to but the products that will increase the rankings at the search engines. Through the use of strategies, there will be searching with the help of search engines.
Try to avoid purchasing general type keywords, as they are priced higher than targeted ones. Before buying them, investigate your website content first . Again, buy only those keywords that will be effective against your content to keep people coming back.
