Matthew Toren | Young Entrepreneur
There’s a big difference between visitors and customers.
The logic is simple: Would you rather your startup have 10,000 monthly visitors to its site with a 10 percent sales conversion or attract the attention of 100,000 visitors with only a few finally deciding to buy from you?
This question, as simplistic as it is, remains a big source of frustration for many online entrepreneurs. They often invest a lot of time, energy and finances to drive traffic to their sites, only to find out these people are not even the ones they want to fish out in the first place.
So how can you steer clear from the many traps of aimless traffic generation? Here are five tips:
1. Be a problem solver. You have to admit that at least part of business success has to do with the timeliness of your products or services. You must answer people’s needs. The key is settling into a business that has problems you really love to solve, with customers whose pressing needs you are very good at addressing. When you’re able to identify your niche, you don’t only go out there to earn, you have a unique passion and an offering that suits the needs of those people.
2. Get into your customers’ psyche. People buy not only because they need things, they often buy to satisfy something deeper in them. It’s often the feeling they associate with a product that they finally make the decision to buy. Everybody needs a pair of shoes, but not just any shoes can satisfy that need. This is when branding, reputation and customer service come into play. In fact, this is why there is marketing in the first place. Get into what excites and interests your target market. This is the only way you can tailor-fit your campaign to the people who would not think twice of paying for what you have to offer.
3. Where are your customers? In online marketing, determining how your market interacts with the Internet is very important. It gives you leads to “where” they are online. Online behavior can point you to what sites they frequent, the social-media networks they prefer, the news they’re more likely to read and so on. If you know where they are, you can be sure to focus on places you need to have a commanding presence. This assures you of a steady stream of traffic of ready-to-pay customers, and it prevents you from effectively barking up the wrong tree. We all know how costly and time consuming that can be.
