A key component of Internet marketing is to know who your customer really is. It is impossible to market a product to people if you do not know who the people are. When there was only brick and mortar stores, you knew who your customer was.
If you do not have a brick and mortar store and do business exclusively over the Internet, then you need to find out as much information as possible about your customers.
I made a big mistake when I first began in Internet marketing back in the early 90s. I figured that most of my customers were like me, a white male who speaks English. I would get frustrated with emails I thought were stupid. I mean really dumb questions like how do I order and are you going to ship your software to me by mail?
After months and months of putting up with frustrating emails I discovered that most of my prospects and customers were Asian females! I never would have guessed that in a million years. It now made sense why I was getting those frustrating emails. I had used the "kings english" on my website, real big words and impressive language. This was a big mistake because it confused my biggest customer base, Asian females.
I had to re-write the sales copy on my website. I dropped all the big words. I started using smaller words and shorter sentences. For my blog, I started buying articles that were written by females or Asian females.
As soon as I made the changes, I stopped getting all those stupid emails. I had spent hundreds if not thousands of hours of my life replying to these stupid emails. They were not stupid emails. I was the only one who was stupid. I did not know who my customers and prospects were and so my sales copy was targeting the wrong segment of the population.
You need to find out who your prospects and customers are. To do this, you can use an awesome free tool called Quantcast.
Quantcast has a free signup form on their website. They provide Internet marketers with free visitor profiles for millions of websites.
This is what Quantcast told me about my website.
My website caters to a younger, more Asian, heavily female, more educated audience. The majority of my visitors are between 12 and 17. The majority of my visitors live in a home where the household income is less than $30,000 per year. Most of my customers are Asian. Next, they are Hispanic. Next, they are African American. Finally, there are the Caucasians. Remember, I thought that beyond any doubt, most of my customers were Caucasian males just like me. Caucasians turned out to be the smallest percentage of my sales.
I also learned that most of my visitors come from the Los Angeles area.
When I learned who my prospects and customers really were, it changed everything. My whole view of what problem I was solving for whom changed. It still is a hard thing for me to discuss. It was a crushing bit of marketing information to suddenly learn after so many years. My own thinking of who I thought I was selling to hurt my sales for years and cost me thousands of hours of my life replying to emails. I can never get that time of my life back.
Do not make the same mistake I did. Do not assume that you already know who your prospects and customers are. - 22871
If you do not have a brick and mortar store and do business exclusively over the Internet, then you need to find out as much information as possible about your customers.
I made a big mistake when I first began in Internet marketing back in the early 90s. I figured that most of my customers were like me, a white male who speaks English. I would get frustrated with emails I thought were stupid. I mean really dumb questions like how do I order and are you going to ship your software to me by mail?
After months and months of putting up with frustrating emails I discovered that most of my prospects and customers were Asian females! I never would have guessed that in a million years. It now made sense why I was getting those frustrating emails. I had used the "kings english" on my website, real big words and impressive language. This was a big mistake because it confused my biggest customer base, Asian females.
I had to re-write the sales copy on my website. I dropped all the big words. I started using smaller words and shorter sentences. For my blog, I started buying articles that were written by females or Asian females.
As soon as I made the changes, I stopped getting all those stupid emails. I had spent hundreds if not thousands of hours of my life replying to these stupid emails. They were not stupid emails. I was the only one who was stupid. I did not know who my customers and prospects were and so my sales copy was targeting the wrong segment of the population.
You need to find out who your prospects and customers are. To do this, you can use an awesome free tool called Quantcast.
Quantcast has a free signup form on their website. They provide Internet marketers with free visitor profiles for millions of websites.
This is what Quantcast told me about my website.
My website caters to a younger, more Asian, heavily female, more educated audience. The majority of my visitors are between 12 and 17. The majority of my visitors live in a home where the household income is less than $30,000 per year. Most of my customers are Asian. Next, they are Hispanic. Next, they are African American. Finally, there are the Caucasians. Remember, I thought that beyond any doubt, most of my customers were Caucasian males just like me. Caucasians turned out to be the smallest percentage of my sales.
I also learned that most of my visitors come from the Los Angeles area.
When I learned who my prospects and customers really were, it changed everything. My whole view of what problem I was solving for whom changed. It still is a hard thing for me to discuss. It was a crushing bit of marketing information to suddenly learn after so many years. My own thinking of who I thought I was selling to hurt my sales for years and cost me thousands of hours of my life replying to emails. I can never get that time of my life back.
Do not make the same mistake I did. Do not assume that you already know who your prospects and customers are. - 22871
About the Author:
By Lance Jepsen. Discover a step by step approach to squeezing out the profits that lie hidden in your website. This step by step approach will increase the profits of your website. For more information see internet marketing book
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