I have learned over the years that when it comes to online marketing as I know it, its not about what I want in my business. Its really about what people who visit my website want. For awhile I didnt understand that philosophy. How do I find out what people want
Finding out what people want is not something you, I or anyone else for that matter can pull out of thin air. If we are going to be successful online, even offline in the brick and mortar world, we have to take our eyes off of ourselves and put them onto our potential customers.So how do we do this
The answer is quite simple yet complex.That is to conduct a survey or surveys.Conducting surveys is simple. On your website you can create forms for people to fill out. If you are going to put a form on your website, I would limit only one form. You do not want to bombard people with forms.Keep it simple as the saying goes.
Do not get too personal in your form. In other words only ask for first name and email. That is it when it comes to their personal information.
Now, from their you can use your own imagination on the rest of the form makeup. Whatever it is you want to sell, make your survey easily accessible on your website. The number of visitors visiting your site will determine the number of surveys filled out and sent to your emails inbox. Its all numbers anyway....whether its marketing a product or service and conducting surveys. This is an excellent way of building lists specific to what people want to buy.
Notice how I said whatever it is you want to sell. What that means is, you dont know yet if you have what people really want. That is the purpose of the survey. To find out if they want what you have. Once you collect the data and you are ready to sell, you have in your hand a ready made list of names specific for that product or service you are offering.
Not too long ago, this year as a matter of fact (2004 currently), I learned what not to do in a survey. I will give you my experience of what not to do and how to remedy this situation.
I recently got married and five of my family and friends took me to dinner two days prior to the wedding. As we were finishing our meal, the manager came to our table and told us that we have been selected to participate in a survey. She told us that if we participated, we would receive $3 off of our next meal. Come to find out, our bill which totaled over $120 collectively, the $3 off was for the entire group at the table. Ok, I think its nice that they offered this, but lets look at the reality of this situation. First of all, $3 off of over $120 does not get anyone too excited nor does it want to make anyone go through the hassle, yes hassle of filling out a survey when they are enjoying a night out with family and friends.
Secondly, the odds of us getting together again and eating at this particular restaraunt are slim to none. So what does that tell me That tells me one of two things. Either someone did not take their eyes off of themselves and put them onto their customers or, they knew the odds of us coming back as a group were slim and it works completely in their favor.That is disturbing to me. Now for my input on a remedy.
What would I do in this situation Well first of all, everything I stated in the above paragraph, all of my family and friends after we were selected kind of looked at each other in amazement and disbelief. We all knew that it was a silly thing to do to come up to us and play us like we were born a few days ago. First, If I am going to get a group to fill out a survey, especially if I have been selected, and I am going to give them something in return to do so, I would offer the table, say, free desert now. Why do I say this remember, you are marketing your business....make it work.Make people who just enjoyed the meal and the service go out and tell someone else.
Stand up and believe that the way you are conducting your survey is for your customers, not just you alone. Dont try and fool people, were not fooled.If you are going to have a couple fill out a survey, how about buy one meal get the second meal half off. After all, it appears this is a random selection. Not everyoneis doing this. Now, I am not looking for free handouts. As a matter of fact, I would have rather given the manager (and no disrespect to her) $5 to leave. Its obvious to me in this circumstance that this particular establishment does not want to give away anything. They want it to only benefit themselves.But if you are a business and you want true success in surveys, do it right.
The final approach Instead of offering anything, put surveys out on the table and let people make up their own minds. People like to be left alone and not annoyed. Its ok to ask for the sale, but no means no. If you continue to push someone, they wont come back. After all, would you
About The Author
Visit Dave Weeks website at http://www.etypewriter.com or write to info@etypewriter.com for any comments you may have.
If you have zero budget then this is the article for you. In this article I will discuss the best ways to market your website for free.
#1. Articles:
An example of using articles to promote your website is this article. At the bottom of it should be my author bylines. If you are a good writer and know were to submit your articles then this can be possible they best traffic generator ever. By submitting articles to ezine editors, website owners, and publishers, you can generate traffic through your bylines. If you even get 1 ezine editor to publish your article in a popular ezine you can generate 50 visitors for free. The best way to get targeted visitors is to write something that people who buy your product would be interested in. For example I wrote this article because I know that webmasters are always looking for marketing techniques and my website is for webmasters.
#2. Ebooks:
People love free information and ebooks are one of the main sources for this. Ebooks have the potential to keep on growing if they provide important and unique information. Though the only way they can grow rapidly is if they have distribution and resell rights. Ebooks like articles are viral because they provide free information and information is shared quickly if it is quality. If they have distribution and resell rights then people will customize the ebook with there links but as long as you have your links scattered in the ebook then you will generate many visitors. The best technique is to email all your affiliates and tell them they can customize the ebook with there affiliate links making them some money and you to in the process. This gives them incentive to distribute them.
#3. Search Engines:
This one doesnt seem to go with the first 2 but it is the 3rd best free traffic driver. The reason this is third and not first though it brings more traffic than ebooks and articles is because it is an art to getting top search engine ranking for your keywords. Search engines drive approximately 40% of my traffic, I would rather this number be closer to 20% because it is not good depending on one source of traffic especially one as unstable as search engines. For example goggles Florida update.
About The Author
Written By: Michael McLaughlin @ - Custom web design, scripts, and freelance programming are just some of the services our freelance programmers provide for webmasters here at Programmers Freelance.