How to get in-depth attitudinal information about your target market totally free of charge

Target marketing is the critical success factor in any promotion. Your ability to get attitudinal information about your desired audience greatly improves your odds of running a successful campaign.

It's now possible to get hold of such information free of charge. What's more, you can go as deep as you like (the deeper you go, the more powerful your promotion will be).

This article explains how to get attitudinal market research data on your desired audience.

Target Marketing - The Critical Success Factor

Every now and then I'll meet somebody with a fairly low opinion of marketing. Such people seem to love nothing more than sharing their cock-eyed view of the world.

Recently I had the 'good' fortune to be trapped with just such a person. He proceeded to tell me that targeting was a load of rubbish. His particular approach to marketing is as follows...

• My product is marketed at everybody
• I don't want to risk losing a sale by excluding someone
• If they're alive and have money in their pocket, they're in my target market

This person is certain he's never made a profit on any advertising he's ever bought. Naturally, he blames the advertising rather than himself. Naturally, he has no data to back up his claims. And naturally he thinks marketing is a scam.

What's interesting to me about this person is how his comments about target marketing illustrate why his advertising efforts have failed.

His unwillingness to consider the purpose of a target market is the very thing that makes his advertising ineffective. The plain fact is, ad copy can't be powerful if it isn't written with its intended audience in mind.

The things you need to say to get a 50 year old excited about your product are different to those needed when talking to teens.

Knowing who your target market is makes life much easier. Here's a list of everything it can tell you...

• Where to advertise:
  If your target market consists of single parents, you can use Google to find the sites they already visit
• How to write copy:
  If your market is young urban teens in the UK, it's useful to write the way they speak
• What to offer:
  Once you know where they hang out online, you can observe what they're interested in. This research will help you construct a powerful offer
• How to set the price:
  Find out what they're already buying, and price accordingly
• Affiliate opportunities:
  In your online travels you'll come across plenty of sites that market complimentary products. Touch base, and discuss joint-marketing opportunities. Twitter can help you find and build these types of relationship
• Social media:
  Some target markets are very active in certain social media. This can help put you in touch with your market, and is an excellent way to observe your market and gain a deep understand of what motivates them
• Lead generation:
  Lead generation only works when you have powerful copy and a compelling offer. Without a clearly defined target market, lead generation will fail (as will direct sales)

The importance of target marketing can't be overstated. Every marketing activity ought to flow from target market. When the audience is well defined, and properly understood, everything seems obvious and simply falls into place.

Twitter owns Internet marketing - here's how to get your slice of the pie...

There's no doubt about it - Twitter is an excellent way to generate leads. My own testing has found that a single Tweet is good for an average of 3 visitors per 100 followers (varies with content, time of day, day of week). That's an interesting statistic, isn't it?

What it tells me is I need to get as many people following me on Twitter as I can. The question is, do I want quantity over quality? If I pick up 1,000 highly targeted and responsive followers, am I better off than somebody with 10,000 followers of assorted quality and responsiveness?

I think I am, which is why I don't automatically follow people who start following me. This costs me followers, and slows down the speed at which I pick up new ones. It's very much a 'slow and steady wins the race' approach to Twitter - and I'm satisfied it's working for me.

My Twitter page has one objective - to be the Internet's best index of links to information, tools, video, resources and news on these topics...

• Internet marketing
• Lead generation
• SEO (search engine optimisation)
• SEM (search engine marketing)
• Ad copy writing
• Web promotion
• Article marketing
  
• Market research
• Social media marketing
• Social media optimisation

I post a new Tweet every 50 minutes (often even more frequently), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Follow my Twitter page, and you'll have access to the best of this material from right across the web. It's an excellent way to find this stuff.

Do you want to get your piece of Twitter's Internet marketing success? You might consider copying my strategy in your own area. For example, a singer might post Tweets of interest to the people in his/her target market (i.e. those interested in the style of music s/he produces).

As the number of followers grows, so does the potential audience for the singer's own product.

It's a simple strategy, but one that's not so easily copied. There's a lot of work involved in tracking down 28-29 pieces of content, and then scheduling it to be posted. If you're like me, then you're asking yourself whether or not it's worth it. Yes it is, and I've posted my own economic justification in this article (long story short - I save £400 - see the article to find out why).

I use TweetLater to help with this task, as it allows me to set up tweets in advance so they go out every 50 minutes - whether I'm online or not.

Shock! Horror! People go online to socialise...not shop

A survey of Internet usage by Rudder Finn has found that only 1/3rd of people go online to shop, and even fewer to compare prices. So why do people go online?

• 92% say they're there to socialise
• 86% to share
• 76% to have discussions

Commenting on the results of the survey, Michael Schubert (Chief Innovation Officer at Ruder Finn) said "...for many years the Web was characterized as a 'task-oriented' medium whose most direct appeal...was accelerating the purchase process. But [the] path to purchase is a lot more complicated..."

Based on my experience with Internet lead generation, I have to agree. Simply asking somebody for their email address, and promising to send them a free report no longer works. Lead generation requires a much greater degree of sophistication than it once did.

Find out more about my approach to Internet lead generation and online marketing strategy here.

One of my servers is down - Twitter to the rescue

The company that provides 5 of my servers had a massive power failure recently. Not only did it take out 2 of my servers, it also took the company's own site offline. They got an emergency page up, directing me to their Twitter page.

They used Twitter to keep me (and all their other clients) up-to-speed with their progress getting things back up and running.

This is an excellent use of Twitter. It takes an engineer mere seconds to post a 'tweet', and impatient clients such as myself feel like we're in the loop. It's amazing how much more reassured I felt knowing they were working on it, and seeing updates come through in real time.

This is one more reason (as if one were needed) to get your business on Twitter as soon as possible. Join here, and/or follow my Internet marketing updates on Twitter.

Are you using social media for online marketing yet?

Online marketing research company Knowledge Networks has found that 83% of the web surfers aged 13-54 participate in social media. A full 47% of those do so every week.

That's an interesting statistic, and implies every company seeking to use the Internet to win more business ought to be using social media. But in what capacity? Can you actually use social media to win business directly?

Knowledge Network's reports that a mere 16% of social media users said they were likely to buy from companies advertising in social media. Of course, this tells us nothing. What people say they'll do when isn't the same as what they actually do - especially when they encounter something they want.

There's no reason to believe social media sites are different to any other kind of site. If an ad offers something a person wants, they'll click on it.

Make it easy for others to share your content

Now you can make it easy for people to share content on your site by adding a single button to any page you want people to share. This single button is added via a simple copy and paste, and means your site's visitors can share your content via Facebook, Delicious, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networking sites with a single click.

Take a look at the bottom of this post, and you'll see it can even be added to third party blogging tools like this one. How simple and brilliant is that?

This fabulous tool was passed on to me by Ronny Ager-Wick, easily the most talented IT project manager I've ever met. No matter how complex your project, Ronny is the guy you want running it.