 |
Make More Money By Marketing To Fewer People | ||
|
| ||
|
By now you probably know what “Target Marketing” is. It’s the process of designing your marketing for a specific group of people that would be most likely to buy what you sell. As a simple example, if you sell products for men then you don’t need to include things that would appeal to women. But it’s much more complex than that. The WORST thing you can do with your marketing is try to “be all things to all people.” This is what many refer to as the SHOTGUN APPROACH — you advertise and promote your business to anyone and everyone with the thinking that you’ll sell more by reaching more people. Massive mistake. If you truly focus your efforts (the way you communicate, your marketing style, the benefits that you stress, the stories you tell, the keywords you bid on, the places you choose to advertise, etc. etc.) towards your most ideal prospect then you stand to make the most money. The closer you ’speak someone’s language’ (i.e. to a person’s feelings, problems, situations, etc.) the higher your conversions will be. i.e. the more sales you’ll make. Because the problem with the shotgun approach is that your marketing becomes TOO BROAD and doesn’t ’speak’ directly to anyone (or group) in particular. There are MANY marketers making the shotgun approach mistake. But there are probably MORE marketers (especially those marketing via the Internet) that ARE properly using target marketing as the foundation for their business BUT they are using some shotgun-type mistakes because of HOW they market online. Here’s a great example… How many companies online are trying to structure their web sites, content, and marketing to appeal to ALL INTERNET USERS within their target market? (Probably 95% of them.) But here’s why this is, in my opinion, BAD MARKETING… Internet users have different connection speeds… different screen resolutions… different computing power. Trying to structure your online marketing to appeal to ALL of these things is, ultimately, a way to LOSE MONEY. Why? Because in an effort to appeal to ‘everyone’ you sacrifice the ability to do a better job to a subset of those users. The best example is broadband users. Income.com, for example, is going to be doing A TON of video. And guess what? We’re NOT going to have ‘alternate versions’ of our videos for dial-up and lower bandwidth users. In fact, we’re going in the opposite direction — our primary content is going to be aimed at users with fast connections. (Which is the majority now anyway.) By creating our content and producing it to have the best experience for the majority of users that DO have fast connections we can do a BETTER JOB with our marketing. On the other hand, if we tried to create our content so it could still be experienced by everyone, we’d be ‘robbing’ our broadband users of a better experience — which can, ultimately, lead to higher conversions or higher revenue. Some web designers are STILL designing web sites for 800×600 resolutions. This is silly. 75%+ have 1024 or greater screen resolutions now. Marketers can create better experiences by designing for the majority of their target audience — and in doing so make more money. Far more than the money they think they’d ‘lose’ by not catering to those users that are going to NOT get the ideal experience due to their computer and connection limitations. In any business you’re going to have to do things that might “leave people out.” It’s just part of the process. If you want to maximize the amount of money you make in your business you’re going to HAVE TO make some tough decisions. Whether that’s not marketing to 18-24 year olds because most of your sales are coming from older folks, or with the dial-up vs. broadband example I’ve given you. In fact, I would like to make you a CHALLENGE. I’d be willing to bet that RIGHT NOW in your business you could fine-tune your marketing to more directly target FEWER PEOPLE than you currently are. And in doing so, I’d almost guarantee that you make more money. Always keep in mind… it’s not about the size of the audience, it’s about the rate at which people buy. Sometimes you have to focus on a smaller audience to produce more money. Another great example of this is are companies that sell with premium prices. They are willing to ‘give up’ all of their potential buyers that won’t be able to afford (or justify) paying extremely high prices for their products. But they end up making more money because they tailor their marketing to do a better job of ’speaking’ to their target audience that WILL be most likely to buy their stuff. So start thinking how you can at least start doing some test marketing to a smaller targeted audience. Set up a separate web site and special offers if you have to. BONUS TIP: If you’re selling a bunch of products right now with an online store examine what products are selling the most. You’ll most likely find that 2 or 3 products account for 90% of your sales. If so, target your efforts to ONLY sell more of those 2-3 products and you’ll most likely make a lot more money than trying to appeal to people that ‘might’ want your 20-30 different products.
|
|
« IZEAFest! Where All The Cool Kids Will Be | Income.com News Update » |
May 16th, 2008 at 2:43 am
OFF:
Did you mean to release TS 2 in May 2008 or 2009?
May 16th, 2008 at 3:13 am
Good Share:) I found something valueable when I visit your site every time.
May 16th, 2008 at 6:48 am
It was stated Traffic Secrets 2.0 will be launched in May.
no pre-launch emails yet…No YouTube videos…hmmm……
I guess we already had the shot across the bow….
Just kidding John, waiting for further info on its release and some of the details of the actual launch date.
May 16th, 2008 at 7:03 am
well explained and really simple and cool stuff john, thanks a lot,
and we still CANNOT — SHARE YOUR KNOWLEDGE and these cool tips.
where is the http://www.sharethis.com button dear john,
lots of people are missing your valuable tips.
thanks and a cool entrepreneur you are… take care
sumit
May 16th, 2008 at 7:17 am
About your example with broadband! I think that is a very bad example!
You are talking about marketing to a specific group!? This is not a group!
Everyone has broadband nowadays, and the ppl with 56k ain’t taking internet serious so are not buying anything of the net anyway!
There are emo’s, gothics, jews, christians, terrorists, all with broadband!
May 16th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Awesome, Awesome, Awesome stuff…. the good ol’ “Pareto Principle”
Thanks for the great info!
-Ryan
May 17th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Hi John,
Thanks for your valuable informations.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
@Monitizepro Methinks you underestimate dialup. Yes, most have broadband and yes dialup users are left out of video streaming. But, their money spends quite well at 56K without a video stream.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
I agree that most people are running at 1024+ screen resolutions, but it’s still a lot easier to read a 700-800 pixel wide page. My monitors are set at 1680, but I use that real estate for a number of apps, so I keep my browser minimized to around 800.
A wider web page is great if you’re running multiple columns, have a catalogue page with many items, portals, etc. But, for a sales page or blog, we have to keep people’s reading habits in mind. Take a look at a newspaper. The minute the page gets wide, the text is broken into columns. There’s a good reason for that.
Kevin
May 18th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
John knows where its at, hes gotter going on!
May 18th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Hopefully I’m doing the right thing by targeting entertainment professionals with my site network.mydvt.tv. It’s a network site for entertainment professionals only.
I have TV Shows, Films, Music and Internet Radio online at http://www.mydvt.tv
mydvt.tv targets (25-40) year old adults from multicultural backgrounds.
I’m using mostly Google Adsense to generate revenue but my Click Through Rate is not where I want it.
Still working things out. Looking for ways to improve revenue. Maybe I should narrow my target audience on mydvtv.tv.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:18 am
I think you make some good points regarding catering to an audience that is more likely to spend money with you.
Not having broadband by today is silly. If someone isn’t going to spend the money to at least have broadband, what makes you think they are going to spend their money on a course.
I take up one issue though, and that is even in well-developed countries overseas such as Australia, most broadband users have bandwith restrictions unless they buy $100 a month (or more) packages. For instance, for $30-40 a month, you might get 10 gigs for a download limit.
Therefore, it’s important to make sure that you’re still wary of having videos that aren’t too long if they are very high quality videos.
As far as resolution goes, all new computers (for at least a few years now) come with at least 1024 set as the default. What person who is serious about using their computer for more than just email and I/M, hasn’t bought a new computer in the past few years?
May 19th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Wow, what an informative post!
You’re the man, John!
May 19th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
@ Rob Bancroft: Your points might make sense if you were only talking about selling to Internet marketers.
Not having broadband today may be “silly” in your opinion, but many people get by just fine on dial-up. What about retired couples who just want to do occasional browsing and emailing? They may be great customers in many markets, and just because they can’t justify spending on a broadband connection doesn’t mean they won’t spend on something they’re passionate about.
And as for your points about resolution…I’d rather not eliminate a considerable chunk of my market because they haven’t upgraded their PC recently. Again, maybe if you’re selling to Internet marketers you can make this kind of sweeping decision, but with most other markets it would be a big mistake.
There are lots of viable ways to hone your sales process for your target market, but these are not necessarily the best ones.
I’ll certainly not have a sales page designed for anything beyond 800 X 600 for quite some time. It still works perfectly for every market. And 95% of successful sales pages I’ve seen recently stick to 800 X 600.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
More pearls of wisdom from the brilliant Mr Reese. Thanks for always keeping us a step ahead!
~Lisa
May 19th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Kris - I think you’re missing the point…
What if a design created for 1000 x ? produces an increase in conversion that far outweighs any sales that might be lost for those that can’t optimally view the 1,000 width design?
Same goes for offering a better experience for broadband users as the target market instead of creating it for the “lowest common denominator” dial-up connection.
It’s all something that has to be concerned. It’s not about what reaches the most people (whether they ‘could’ be customers or not) it’s about MAXIMIZING SALES.
May 20th, 2008 at 3:54 am
Make More Money Doing What?…
…The logic behind what he says is inescapable, really. And it’s ancient wisdom, but something that a lot of us forget, with the consequence we may not make as much money as we could - and should…
……
May 20th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
[…] won’t repeat his full post here because you can read it at his blog. But I will mention one small part of what he says that is very valuable. So start thinking how you […]
May 20th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I’m seeing your point, but I really don’t think you can apply this rule to everything. Testing’s the key, as always. It’s just as possible that sales and profits will go up if you create the best experience for the most people.
Almost all great Internet marketers will use plain text email, even though HTML would give a better experience. Most people could probably receive HTML email no problem, but to avoid losing potential buyers, most marketers use plain text.
And they have narrow margins with that text too, to ensure that people with older mail clients don’t get their text lopped off and have to scroll to read the email.
Again, this would only happen with the minority of people, but still we all limit our lines of text to 65 characters or less so no one suffers.
I think it’s no different to, say, create a video that’s somewhere in the middle so that it looks decent for everyone, but is not beyond slower connections.
Or better yet, have one optimized for high speed connections, and have a link beneath the video (to a smaller video) for people on dila-up.
I think there are ways to optimize for more than just the high-end PC users.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Hi John,
Thanks for the advice. If I may the summation of your blog entry was simply for us to narrow our marketing and sales effort to things that are doing very well. I was extremely skeptical about narrowing my efforts down to one particular item.
I have about 70 different ads on Google Adwords.
With all 70 ads running I make about $.50 a day with Adsense. Which is bad, but I’m still trying to figure somethings out.
So I said well what if I take John’s advice, I should put my daily budget into the ad that has the highest number of clicks on Adwords. I did this as a test.
I look at the numbers today 5/20. I actually generated more money with fewer ads and fewer overall clicks. Adsense from 5/20 $2.91.
I hope I understood your logic. It seems to have work for me.
Thanks again,
Tony J.
http://www.mydvt.tv
network.mydvt.tv
May 20th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Awesome, Tony!
May 21st, 2008 at 7:01 am
John,
Thanks for the reminder. Power of focus!
May 21st, 2008 at 10:21 pm
[…] I recommend you read it at his blog. […]
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:02 am
[…] I recommend you read it at his blog. […]
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Hey John,
you promised Traffic Secrets 2.0 in this May. Only 9 days left in May, so I am afraid that you will not launch it in May, and there will be a delay again! As I saw, the course is a physical course, and it is already done. So it keeps getting out-dated every day.
Why not release it as online course, and update it often? I heard from YOU, that one tactic can work today, but not tomorrow! If we get this course with 3 months delay, how long can we use it’s tactics?
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:24 pm
[…] I recommend you read it at his blog. […]
May 25th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
John has a reputation for putting out very high quality products, so I don’t think he will have spent months and months putting together something that would be out of date 3 months later. So a delay of a few weeks won’t make a bit of difference.
May 26th, 2008 at 1:24 am
[…] There is simply no escaping what John Reese has to say. Go NOW and read his post. […]
May 26th, 2008 at 2:11 am
As usual John, you have inspired me more than you know. I just had a BIG fight with someone about this exact same thing on a very popular forum and now you speak to me directly.
You are the MAN! I don’t care what they say
May 27th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Some times we can get so busy and looking all around that we loose our focus on the task at hand right in front of us, its good to have some one like you John as a friend
to get back on track and focus on my target.
thanks John
May 27th, 2008 at 12:56 am
Focusing narrow to target groups is very important to gain Success with you website.
There are many sources to learn from, one of the greatest to be found at this site:
http://MoneyToRetire.net
Thanks for great advices John!
May 29th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
hi john ,
i will update version web 2.0 video…
see that think
http://www.pemasaranvideo.com
May 29th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
john,
last time for january , i am do that http://www.shilafc.com
that website am doing by concept website and youtube,
that give me more traffic,
see that and pls give that comment
May 30th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
[…] I recommend you read it at his blog. […]
June 17th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Thank you for the great info! Now I know why you have such a great reputation and are very admired! I look forward to learning more.
Thanks again
Serena Carcasole
http://www.vbsondemand.com
June 27th, 2008 at 11:00 am
[…] I recommend you read it at his blog. […]
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Thank you for the information! Now I know why you are a known figure like MuVar and are admired! Its a boosting foe me.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
What would we do without tips like these?!
July 13th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Hello Jhon,
Great post, you really stated the purpose of internet marketing which is understanding a very specific audience by their problems,issues,needs,what jargon or language they use.I am quite new in this excited career for about 6 months and by reading some books recently regarding the new rules of marketing on the web I truly understand the principles and concepts before get started to create any kind of website and most marketers lose focus on content which is the core of this bussines they focus most of the time in their products than their users.As someone said content is king,pope, or president.
All the best.
July 14th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Hello John
Great videos. Thanks for making it so simple. I will be recommending it to my clients who want to have more success on the internet, and taking a peak myself! To your and your clients continued Success!
kind regards Amanda
http://www.wealthbabes.com
July 17th, 2008 at 5:19 am
John,
Thanks for the videos I think I learn’t more from your videos then from many of the paid products I bought when I was first online.
Your products truely do rock and I will keep recommending them to my list.
Kind Regards
Paul
http://www.trafficsecrets.com/adwordblog
August 4th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Agreed 100%.