How To Start and Market a Profitable Online Business (Part 5)

Have you ever seen or heard those commercials from BMO Harris bank? The ones where they say “verb: great customer care…….” or whatever it is that they’re saying. I HATE those commercials, I hear them and think “who would do business with them based off of these commercials?”

Here’s the thing that took me a while to realize: those commercials aren’t meant for me. BMO and other large companies as well as a lot of other people have figured out one of the most important parts of marketing: you’re not trying to get everyone, you’re trying to get the right someone. 

Find your target audience

When my first book came out I thought about marketing it and I thought I had a one up on a lot of other books. My book was about work and most (if not all) people have to work, so my target audience was pretty much everyone, right? WRONG! So instead of focusing on the people who were most likely to buy the book, I tried to get everyone. What do I mean?

When I was building my audience I would guest post everywhere that I could and I would interview with everyone that I could. I definitely got the traffic and exposure but it wasn’t the right kind of exposure. So as a result those people would come to my website and look around but they wouldn’t stay very long, they didn’t subscribe to my email list and they didn’t come back.

Why would they? They probably just clicked through because I was guest posting on a blog they liked and they were curious. I wasn’t talking to my target audience. Have you done this?

Do the research

When you start to market your online business the first thing you have to do is figure out who your target audience is and it’s NOT everyone. We have some amazing tools that we can install on our blogs to help us figure this out, the best being Google Analytics. There is so much information to help you figure out where your audience is, and what they like.

Once you start looking into things you’ll be surprised who your target audience is and what they want and how they want it.

The other way that Ramit Sethi recommends is to simple ask your audience through surveys. There are amazing survey services you can use, one of the best being Survey Monkey. They have many great FREE options. I heard an interview with Ramit where he says he sends out 4,000 surveys a month, crazy! He also makes an excellent point: If you can’t get someone to do something as small as filling out a survey, how are you going to get them to buy from you? Click to Tweet (thank you). 

Once you know who you’re talking to, create things just for them

The research and knowing your target audience are the most important components in your marketing. Once you know information about them, you can figure out the best products and services to create that would help them and that they would spend money on. Plus you can figure out how they best and most likely will consume the content. Do they like video versus audio? Would they be more likely to buy your webinar than your ebook? This is why knowing is so important.

You can create all sorts of products and services but if it’s not created for your target audience, no one will buy it. This is the reason so many authors have a hard time selling their books, they haven’t figured out who they’re talking to.

Get traffic and exposure

After you figure out who your target audience is, go after them! Guest post on the blogs they read, blogs that are larger than yours and can bring you traffic and exposure. Big bloggers have to produce a lot of content, so when they get good content that will benefit their audience, they will use it.

Before you send out guest posts, make sure you know the style of the blog. Don’t send out a generic post. Also guest post on blogs that fit your brand, my friend Jared talks about this.

Do interviews either through print, podcast and radio shows (TV if you can get them). Spread the message about your online business and how you want to help people ……… Once people see that you’re genuine, they will respond.

This is a great time to make this happen!

2013 is here and this is the best time to start an online business or any business. A lot of people will believe the news they hear and see about how bad things are, that’s ok. This means less competition for you, this means they will learn and be inspired by what you do and how well you succeed!

If you are on the fence, get off and take action today. In the next part we will wrap this series up talking about some final marketing things. I hope this has been helpful and helps you start something amazing this year!

Have you found your target audience? Are you reaching them?