Targeted Internet Marketing - The Real Truth About Why It Works... For You!
Targeted Internet marketing is the future. No longer is it enough (or even desirable) to bring a horde of visitors to your website. It matters a lot more that you attract the right kind of prospect to your Internet business - the kind who will buy from you, love your product or service, tell friends about you, and act as an evangelist for your brand.
The Evolution of Internet Marketing
There is a rather predictable evolution of marketing in any medium across time. At first, innovations in technology or concepts create certain opportunities that the early adopters exploit aggressively. While these can create a flurry of excitement in the initial phase, sooner or later their efficiency drops as consumers become smarter and attuned to what's happening.
Depending upon the way in which these innovations affect things like consumer privacy, user experience, and convenience or price advantage, there could be a massive outrage and uproar against the practice... leading to the government stepping in with legislation to control or prohibit it.
Let's consider an example.
Spam email was rampant in the early part of this century. It was profitable because it worked. Even sending out bulk email by the millions could be called targeted Internet marketing, because the promotional message got in front of a large audience of ideal prospects, at least a few of whom paid attention.
In a sense, this was porting practices from an industrial-advertising complex era to modern times of Web based ecommerce. And as long as technological advances permitted the marketing message to be delivered to consumer inboxes, the practice remained profitable.
But when the sheer volume of spam email soared, and average users of email found themselves inundated by offers to enlarge portions of their anatomy, bank millions stashed away by deposed African dictators, or buy shares in real estate on the moon, they protested in unison - and the government stepped in. The CAN-SPAM law made it illegal to run email spamming operations. Other forms of targeted Internet marketing became necessary.
It's Time To Rethink Your Marketing Strategy
Smart marketers realized that they needed to take a different approach. No longer could they target their audience based on impersonal factors like age, family income or marital status alone. They needed to get close and personal, engage their audience in dialog, and build a relationship before they could market more effectively. Targeted Internet marketing just became a whole lot more complicated - and difficult.
Before you think up a targeted Internet marketing strategy, there are 3 questions to focus on, and find answers to.
1. What makes your business unique in the marketplace? In other words, why would your ideal prospects consider you the person to help solve their problems? Knowing this will allow you to focus your marketing message more tightly and highlight your biggest competitive advantage to prospects.
2. How will your prospective customers find you? The medium is an important part of any targeted Internet marketing campaign, and knowing where your intended audience spends most of its time online can help you concentrate on those areas instead of wasting time and money spreading yourself too thin in other avenues.
3. Who is your prospect? This question becomes terribly important for any modern targeted Internet marketing campaign because the old way of segmenting an audience by demographic data is no longer as valuable as psychographic profiling.
Do You Have Permission?
The implicit question all modern prospects ask an advertiser or marketer who is trying to sell to them is this: "Have I granted you permission to talk to me?"
We live in an interesting period of regulatory oversight, where the most responsive media channels are intimately personal (like email and cell phone messaging), and the most trusted recommendations are from friends and one's social network. Where are yesterday's advertising giants in this mix? TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and other broadcast media still have a role, but they are rapidly losing ground as effective ways to promote or sell to prospects.
Permission marketing has almost become a way of life. It has become easier than ever before for prospects to tune out any unwanted advertising. Powerful tools, personalizing options in devices they use to consume media, and stringent regulations are shifting the balance in favor of customers. No longer do we need to suffer through enforced ads - we fast forward past them, or install pop-up blockers, or simply find the same (or equivalent) information or value somewhere else.
What's a hapless Internet marketer to do? Some are trying to blast their way past these obstacles, but only end up looking increasingly desperate. The smart ones are explicitly seeking permission from their target market. Not permission to sell, but permission to engage them in a conversation.
A conversation that happens across multiple platforms and services. A conversation that is distributed and personal. And most important, a conversation that is a two-way interaction between seller and buyer.
And that's where relationships become critical to an effective targeted Internet marketing strategy. People prefer to buy from other people they know, like and trust. Getting acquainted, working your way into a prospect's mind and then heart, and eventually gaining their trust is no walk in the park.
So Why Is Targeted Internet Marketing Desirable?
Simply because it works. Email blasts to a purchased mailing list is a low cost Internet marketing tactic. Sadly, it doesn't work - at all. Not any more. Bulk SMS marketing can thrust your marketing message in front of your prospect's nose - but the only thing that can guarantee that they will read it, consider it, and act upon it is the relationship between sender and recipient.
You can target your advertisement by device, by geography, by consumer preferences and other factors - but unless you practice targeted Internet marketing that's rooted in permission (think Facebook 'Likes' or Twitter 'Follows' or double-opt in email lists), the chances are that you're shooting your marketing missiles out into the vastness of empty space - where no one will see it, or take action.
The solution is targeted Internet marketing. A style and form of marketing that is based on explicit permission to engage prospects in a conversation. One which lets you be transparent and authentic with them. That allows you to acknowledge, recognize and respect them. Targeted Internet marketing is about becoming more people-centric than technology driven. That's the big secret to successful online marketing in the brave new world.
Get it - or get out!
About the author:
Dr.Mani, author of 'Think, Write & Retire', is
a heart surgeon, Internet infopreneur and social entrepreneur. Pick up his free 'Infopreneur HOTSHEET' and learn more about information marketing at http://www.EzineMarketingCenter.com
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