Guest Post By:
David Anderson
These days Internet users expect a certain level of service and high
standards when they deal with businesses and your company will be judged for
all to see whether it’s feedback from eBay, likes on Facebook, reviews on
Amazon, testimonials on websites or comments on your blog. There is no
getting away from this scrutiny and one or two thumbs down or a derogatory
comment from a dissatisfied customer can be bad news for your business, or
at the very least, prove challenging for your blog. It’s important to
address any bad reviews or comments but by following some basic principles
of running a successful business in the modern world, you can aim to please
your followers and customers and avoid any bad publicity.
Define Your Target Market
One of the best ways to make sure you are on the same page with your
audience is to define your target market very carefully. When you know what
they want and what makes them tick, you are far more likely to satisfy them
and keep them happy. Firstly it’s important to focus on your niche — so
many marketers are trying to reach a market that is simply too large. It
rarely works when you try to be all things to all people because your
marketing message gets diluted, so drill down until you find a highly
defined group of potential customers or followers for your blog or business.
Another reason to define your target market is that it is more efficient and
economical to target smaller groups of people than to use a scattergun
approach by trying to reach hundreds or thousands of people in an area where
there is enormous competition for their attention. It also allows you to
tailor your marketing message precisely so that you can communicate directly
with your potential customers, subscribers or followers.
Many Internet marketers worry that targeting smaller groups of people means
that they will lose potential customers, but don’t forget that you can have
several small niche markets that you target independently. This can be a
great way of creating multiple income streams, so embrace the power of
targeting a well-defined niche market.
Getting Traffic
Once you have defined your niche market, you need to let them know who you
are and what you have to offer them. Start by brainstorming all the possible
routes that could work for your business or blog. This may include Internet
marketing and SEO, e-mail marketing, social media marketing, marketing
through directories, posting on blogs and forums, videos on YouTube,
pay-per-click advertising, writing articles for article directories and
arranging joint ventures with other businesses. Off-line, you can try
traditional methods such as direct marketing with postcards, leaflets and
letters, telemarketing, press releases and advertorials, classified ads
article writing for magazines and using other media such as radio and
television.
To generate traffic and qualified prospects, you should be employing at
least three or four different media from this list — relying solely on
something like pay-per-click advertising just won’t bring in results. One of
the best ways to find out what works best for your business or blog is to do
a small test. For example, try a small direct marketing campaign pointing to
your website or blog with an inducement such as a freebie or money off
voucher. You could also try an e-mail marketing campaign to get quick
results. Once you find a few methods that work, focus on them for a while to
get the traffic flowing.
Get Qualified Prospects
Getting traffic to your site is challenging enough but maintaining the
interest of your visitors is even more difficult. You can never please all
of the people all of the time and it is inevitable that you will get
unsubscribes and people gradually losing interest in your business or blog.
However, try to see this as a positive thing.
There’s no point in getting thousands of visitors to your website or blog
and building a huge list of subscribers if nobody is interested in what you
have to offer. You need qualified prospects — enquiries from people who are
actively interested in what you have to say or in the products and services
that you have on offer. So don’t worry when your list seems to be dwindling
with a few unsubscribes, see it as a process of elimination of all those
disinterested people who would never buy from you anyway and congratulate
yourself on having a core of people on your list who are eager to stay in
touch and hear what you have to say.
Keep Them Interested
In order to keep that enthusiastic core of people coming back and wanting to
hear what you have to say, you have to give them something of interest,
whether it be new information on your blog or a really compelling offer.
Make sure you post on your blog regularly or send a newsletter out to your
subscribers or at the very least post regular tweets and comments on your
Facebook page as a way to remind people you are still around. The main thing
is that you stay in contact with your followers and subscribers and keep
giving them a reason to come back to you with quality material, great offers
and something unique.
Don’t Sell
If you are hoping to sell something, you will not appreciate the advice that
you should not try to sell — however, when you think about the typical
Internet user, surveys have shown that around 99 percent of people logging
on to the Internet are looking for information. They are not intending to
buy anything. This means that you have some resistance to overcome before
you are in a position to sell. You have to give people what they are looking
for — and that is information. Gently persuade your customer that you have
just what they need and steer them stealthily towards a buying decision. If
you go in ‘all guns blazing’ with a hefty sales pitch, you risk losing them
altogether.
Blogs are a great way to communicate and if you focus on giving lots of
genuinely useful information for free with a promise of even more of what
they want via a newsletter, reports, audio recordings, DVDs, digital books
and paid subscriptions, then you are on the right track. Just avoid pushing
too hard for a sale and gently lead them towards all the wonderful benefits
of your products and services.
About The Author
David Anderson is a business coach and expert in making money. Learn more
about his system for building wealth at www.davidandersonline.com.
