Internet Marketing – Hit Your Target Customer

0 comments

Posted on 14th April 2008 by admin in Internet Marketing

, ,



Let’s clear the air right up front…how many of you are guilty of marketing to the herd vs. a target customer? Fess up, come on…we have all done it in a moment of haste or naivety. In fact, the majority do this more often than they care to realize, hence their lack luster results. If you target everyone you will hit no one. No matter what leave the shot gun approach for duck season. When marketing on the internet you must have a consistent sharp shooter vision. So let’s get straight down to internet marketing – hit your target customer.

Face to face is the best selling method so think as though you are speaking to this one person with all material you present. Begin by naming your target customer after all they are a real person, right? So for this example I will call him Joe. Create in your mind’s eye one person that is the classic example of the target Joe in your market – what is a typical day in the life of Joe? Further questions about Joe and his life are…Is he married, age, kids, job, income, home, hobbies? Is the spouse supportive or not of this foolish internet marketing idea? What are they wearing? Does he ever get to take vacation? Where would he go? What are his biggest frustrations and surface desires, dreams or experiences he wants to have?

Example: Joe is 45 years old, happily married going on 18 years, has a son & daughter, works as a construction project manager, earns 60k per year, lives in a 3 bed 2 bath 2 car garage home in the suburbs, enjoys squeezing in a game of golf once a month if he is lucky in between all the kids activities, rarely gets time off to relax or vacation, his wife works full-time as well yet they never seem to stay ahead of the bills and it doesn’t look like retirement will be coming when planned (age 62) as their portfolio took a 50% loss since the recession hit. Joe and his wife always dreamed of enjoying second honeymoon in Hawaii, sending their kids to the best university, retiring debt free, with the freedom to travel as they saw fit. Go as far as it takes to get the mental image clear.

Now become Joe…step into his shoes and relate to his wants of Lifestyle, Respect, Credibility, Contribution, & Success. By communicating as Joe to Joe, a common connection and relatability develops quickly providing the opening for commerce to occur with an exchange of valued solution via a product or service. Just by doing this simple exercise prior to starting your online marketing you will eliminate 95% of the competition attempting to sell to Joe. Now you won’t be exactly 100% correct on your interpretation of Joe, but you will be surprisingly and effectively close.

I know you will find positive results in this exercise even if it seems simplistic…I feel the KISS principle most often applies quite nicely with internet marketing – hit your target customer. Thanks for your attention and interest…I’m Karl Keller taking leverage to main-street with home business online.

By: Karl Keller

About the Author:
Karl Keller, professional career sales/marketing, first love baseball, taking leverage to main-street, family man, online entrepreneur & coach, global home business owner, outdoorsman, problem solver Website/Blog: http://KarlsBlog.info
Email: karlkellerltm@gmail.com
Phone: 1-775-309-7157



Kansieo.com

Maximize Social Reach – Save Time by Integrating Social Networks

0 comments

Posted on 11th April 2008 by admin in social networks

, ,



The last few years have seen a social media revolution. Smart businesses jumped on the bandwagon and businesses that were slow to react got left in the collective dust of tweets, feeds, posts, and status updates. Now, with so many social networks available, the hardest decision for businesses to make is not whether to create a profile on a social network, but which one to spend time developing? The answer becomes a lot simpler with the use of some helpful plug-ins and add-on’s that let businesses update multiple social networks at the same time.

As we speak, companies like Status.net are working on new platforms that will enable users to blast information across all social networks from the service of their choice. This is the natural next step for the social web 3.0. Right now, if marketers want to create a business presence on Twitter, but feel silly visiting a new site just to “tweet” in 140 characters or less, they can link up their businesses Facebook fan page to Twitter and perform two updates in half the time. Visit Facebook.com/Twitter for instructions on how to do this.

This is jus the tip of the integration iceberg. Free software such as Yoono, PingFm, Hellotxt and AOL’s Lifestream (formerly Socialthing), allow users to update many of their social networks: MySpace, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and more, all at one time, from one simple desktop platform or sidebar. Before deciding which service to register with, users should check to see which social media sites each feature is compatible with. Yoono’s collapsible sidebar feature (available as a Firefox add-on) conveniently makes it possible to view status feeds and update one or multiple social networks while the user is viewing something completely different on their browser’s page. Switching between multiple profile options in the browser’s search bar takes some getting used to, but using an add-on like this is far superior to bookmarking social sites. Aggregation is probably the more accurate term for these services, since consolidation of all social tasks is the ultimate goal, rather than just the connection of two or more sites.

Gone are the days of opening up multiple tabs, then copying and pasting information from one status field to the next. Social networking aggregation allows businesses to work smarter and actually post more information across more channels than ever before. However, this means more responsibility and thought should go into each post since the damage of an unprofessional post will be multiplied numerous times over. With real-time search set to become a major player in the areas of customer service, SEO, and corporate reputation, these types of social aggregators are great news for businesses. Not only will it make it simpler to broadcast news across the social web, but it will challenge the social networks to offer more services and further integration to improve user experience.

Many of these services are also available for smart phones. For the best Blackberry and Android aggregation apps, Google “Seesmic” the company that developed some of the best third-party Twitter applications ever made. They just acquired the aforementioned PingFm, so stay tuned for further social connectivity for mobile in the very near future. Businesses should research what each service has to offer, take a few programs for a test drive and find the software that suits their social media needs. Here are two places to start: Yoono, PingFm. The best part is, right now, since social aggregation is still in the development stages, every service mentioned in this article is free.

Businesses cannot afford to stay out of the social game any longer. Once a social networking presence is established, connectivity and aggregation are the keys to managing social reach and staying ahead of the competition.

By: Brendan Blowers

About the Author:
Brendan Blowers is the marketing director for http://www.stadriemblems.com, a company with over 30 yrs of experience in the custom embroidery industry.



Create a video blog…instantly.