There are many ways to succeed in this business. However, when you dont know what youre doing, chances are youll fail. If you are new to this business, the first principal you must learn, is know your market. Thats right. When you dont know your market, youll never make any money, and be out of business rather quickly. Too many people fall in love with what theyre selling. Thats the first mistake. And what happens when no one buys your product or service Do you continue investing huge amounts of money, in something you cant sell No, you find another product to sell. You must learn to become a student of markets.
How do you become a student of markets On the Internet, you must find out what people are interested in. For example, what are the most popular web sites What are the words are used most in search engines This is easy to discover, it takes a little research. You can also visit the large online book stores. Enter a subject, and search. When you see a large number of books on that subject, youll know thats a hot topic of interest to people. Its very important to know what people want, and give it to them. If you want to do offline research. Go to your public library. Search the SRDS book for direct marketing. Make sure you search the consumer list book.
Youll find around 30,000 mailing lists. There youll find what people are buying. So now youll know what products to sell. If theres a market for the product, people will buy it. Listen, if theres no market for what you are selling online, you can spend thousands of dollars and get no where. Youll have a bad taste in your mouth, and youre opinion will be, making money on the Internet is one big myth. No so. The next principle you need to learn is testing. You should test everything, to see what works for your website. Does you website have a benefit headline You should test different headlines. Do you give away free bonuses Testing is critical to your success. If you have a website do you change the content often. Or do you leave it as is It takes work, but it pays off in money. Do you constantly market your website If not, how do you expect to make any money Also do you market your website to your target market You should run small ads in target publications.
If you sell golf clubs, why would you run an ad in a magazine for runners Of course you would run the ad in a golf magazine. Look, you can make money on the Internet. And you can do it from your home. It takes a lot of work but you can do it successfully, by following principles, and techniques that work. Going into it blind, with an attitude youll be rich overnight, its not gonna happen. You can make a lot of money by knowing what works, and what doesnt.
Steven Gower is a direct response and web copywriter.
Its time to design your web site. I want everyone to be my customer, you say. I want to be all things to all people, you say. Sound familiar Hopefully not, because to be all things to all people means to be an indistinguishable pile of mush that will find its way to the bottom of the search engine results, and be confusing and uninspiring to users.
Okay, so to counteract the mush and make magic, youve got to put a stake in the ground. Period. Youve got to figure out for whom youre designing your web site. This is called Defining Your Target Audience, and it is an essential part of good search engine optimization. Why Because good SEO is all about putting the focus on your site visitors. In order to do so, you need to give them good, quality content, which in turn will attract good, quality, relevant sites to link to yours, therefore ushering in a new group of potential customers. And provide good content and attract quality links, you need to know who your customers are and what they want.
Any English teacher worth her salt will tell you that when writing anything, there are two key concerns. First is purpose: what do I want my audience to think, do or believe. Second is audience: who, exactly, is it that I want to think, do, and believe these things.
It comes down to this: lets say you have a website where you sell upscale items such as Godiva Chocolates and fancy fountain pens. To market such products to teeny-boppers and teenagers is probably not going to be real effective, so therefore, a hip approach for your web strategy is not what you need. A little research shows you that your typical customer has an annual income of over $100,000, has a graduate degree, owns 2 or more homes, and is over 45 years old. So there you go, now you have enough information to design a strategy and a website to target that market segment.
How do you go about defining your target audience
You gather data. If you already have a web site, invite visitors to fill out a form in exchange for a free gift. The gift could be a downloadable, e-book, or a gift certificate for your products. If you have a database of email addresses, send out a survey, and again offer the free gift as an incentive for them to complete and send it back.
What data should you gather Get as much of the following information as you can:
What do I do with this data Now that you have this information, you are prepared to design and produce an effective, targeted website and accompanying marketing program, be it email, telephone, or direct mail. First, write down your goal: What do I want my audience to think, do or believe after or while visiting my website. Second, write down your objective: Why do I want them to think, do or believe it Third, look at your demographic data and place it alongside your goal and objective. The ideas for your web site marketing plan should start flowing.
Mary Anne Donovan is both a scholar and a practitioner, a balance that gives her the best of both worlds: the theory behind digital communications and the hands-on experience to know what really works and what doesnt.
She is in her tenth year as a professor of technical writing and business communications at St. John Fisher College while at the same time serves as Vice President and Director of U.S. Operations for .
Mary Anne has worked with computers since they first came out of the closet and into more general application, starting with computerized quality control systems for Kodak photographic and printing processes and now with the fine points of SEO theory and application.