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Lights, Camera, Action...Who did You Invite to Your Web Site's Debut?
Posted by David Schroeder on Jul 28, 2003, 18:31
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Lights, Camera, Action...Who did You Invite to Your Web Site's Debut?
Your Web site is finally ready to be published. You have reworked the design, the content, the colors, the navigation, the keywords, the title, and the description until you were satisfied you have an award winning web site to showcase your product or service offerings.
Now it's time to prepare the invitations, or rather the AD Copy.
The next step is without a doubt the most critical in your entire marketing plan.... who will you send the invitations to? In other words who are you addressing your Ad copy to?
Is your invitation list made up of a carefully selected well thought out targeted niche audience? If not, scrap the web site and all the work you have done up to this point and go back to the drawing board. Begin again this time by defining....
* Who Your Customer Is?
* Who has a need or desire to buy your product or service?
* Who can afford to buy what you are selling?
If you do not do this step, you will be fighting an uphill battle. Everything you do in your marketing plan must flow from the definition of who your customer is, whether it is your sales letter, your web site design, your ad copy, which ezines you advertise in, what classifieds you place you ads in, how often you advertise, what time of the year you advertise, what color you use on you web site... EVERYTHING!
* How do you get to know who your customer is?
* Where will you find them hanging out?
* What type of advertising will you use to attract them?
* How much are they willing to pay for your product or service?
The best way we know to accomplish this market research is....
to simply become your own customer.
Do you own, use, and endorse what you are offering for sale to your customer? If not, buy it, use it, evaluate it and decide if you think it is a quality product that you would feel good about recommending. If you can't do this, then dump the product or service and find one you can feel good about and go sell it.
Now that you know what you are going to offer for sale on your web site, put yourself in your customers shoes and go surfing for your product or service offering on the Internet.
What keywords are you going to enter in the search criteria for the Search engines? What ezines and newsletters will you subscribe to and read to find what you are looking for. What discussion groups and forums do you like to hang out in?
How many web sites are offering the product you are looking for? Is their a large swing in the price range? Who is offering a guarantee? Who is offering a bonus? Which web master makes it easier to purchase the product? Which web master will deliver it sooner?
Do you see how getting to know who your customer is will help you design your marketing with them in mind. Using this tactic will deliver to your web site the customers who want, need, and are willing to pay the price you are asking for what you are selling.
Your customers will come to your web site and buy from you when you begin addressing all of your advertising to meet their needs, not yours. You may attract less visitors, but you will have more visitors who will buy from you.
Why do you need visitors at your web site who are not interested in your product? The visitors that come to your web site to collect the freebies you advertised can only distort your traffic statistics, and lead you to believe that your product is more appealing than it actually is.
Stay grounded in your target audience and you will be profitable.
Aim everything you create to market your product or service to meet your customer's needs. If you do this right your web site will have Standing Room Only.
Now go out there and "bring down the house"
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