Friday, March 6, 2009

Who is Your Target Market? Tips to Locate Your Perfect Customer

By Alice Seba

If you don't know the type of customer you are selling to with your online business, the chances of success are very slim. How can you sell to someone you don't know or understand?

Unfortunately, that's pretty darned difficult until you have determined who your target market is and what they want and need from you. So, how do you find out what type of person readily buys your products or services? Keep reading for tips to aid in growing your online business by getting to know your target customer.

Communicate With Your Current Clients

As a first step, if you have previous paying customers, find out what it is that makes them tick. Learn exactly what it is that they need from you. Many methods exist to do this. Here's a couple of tried and tested techniques:

Creating surveys and asking for their thoughts and opinions on your product or service after they make a purchase.

Another way is to utilize your mailing list and ask them what they would like to see more of from you in an email.

If you haven't sold any products, and you need to do some more research - how is it done? One good way to find out who your target market is, is to list down every benefit of your product you can think of. Come up with some ideas as to what your product or service does to help people. As an example, a couple of benefits may include losing weight or saving them time. Especially concentrate on benefits that help fix their particular problems. What does your product or service offer that enables your buyers life to become better or easier?

What research process do you use, if you have never sold a product before, and you have no list to speak of? In order to discover who exactly your target clients is, jot down all of your products benefits (not features). Brainstorm a list of things that your service or product does for people. Examples of this would be "makes them more money", "gives them more spent time" etc. etc. Also focus on how your product will fix any problems your client may be facing. What is it that you can do to help your buyer, that would help their lives become easier or higher quality?

When your list is complete, evaluate it. Let's say for instance you sold beauty products that reduced wrinkles and made your customer look younger. Your target market would probably be women in their 40s or older. By listing even more benefits you can go even more specific with your market and really zone in on the perfect customer for your beauty products. You might even realize you can have more than one target market and that's ok, especially since you are doing business online. This makes advertising and creating more than one site for each of your markets easy and inexpensive.

Discovering Information That's Already Out There

Using keyword research is a very effective technique to study your market place. Other methods include looking at material dedicated to your niche, including magazines, discussion groups, social network sites and clubs with common interests. Visit other websites that are at the top of their game, and find out what they are selling the most of. Your competitors can help you too, by showing you their most popular items.

No matter how you come up with your target market, remember to take the time to put yourself in your potential customer's shoes. Whether you're just starting out with a new product or are making changes to your existing service, don't be afraid to talk to people out there to find out just exactly who the target market for your online business really is.

Need to Build Your Website? - 15790

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Work At Home Freelancer

By Leven Breath

Independent writing offers all the possibilities of the Internet and they are offered by many companies. Almost everyone can take advantage of this home-based business.

If you are even somewhat of a skilled writer you can learn about the industry and soon you will have expertise in the area and will find all kinds of writing leads.

To do this, you do not have to have experience or be a professional, but you must have the right kind of writing. Look online for writing jobs and first you will find simple projects.

Build a portfolio so that when a client asks to see some of your past work you can provide samples. It won't take long and you will find that this type of work can be very profitable.

Freelance writing is high paced teleworking in the sector and web pages are literally havoc on the Internet. People need articles and Internet content like never before.

Office workers can accept work from worldwide writers which reduces their operational costs like never before. The past few years have shown great progress for freelance writers and those who show diligence can make an easy $500-600 weekly.

If you think you might be interested in writing independently be sure that you are motivated and make sure you have a quiet area to work in. This can often be a little tougher than it might appear.

When you time your jobs, always allow for the unexpected and remember that distractions are so very common in a home environment. When you can least afford it someone will come over without calling.

Use time management wisely. After writing basic articles for some people, you may want to expand writing to electronic book. They take a little more time to write, but money is a lot better. Learn to judge your assignments so that you don't stop working.

Freelance portals are very popular. They allow an intermediary to contact between a supplier and a buyer. For example, someone needs a job if they determine what they need in detail. Writers then see the job description and the authorized budget and, hence, a written work develops.

If it is accepted, you will be informed by the buyer and when you finish your job the money is in escrow waiting for you to be paid. - 15790

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Make Money Fast

By Jenny Smithson

There are literally hundreds of different ways that you can really make money fast as long as you do your part. You notice that plenty of people are constantly complaining about needing a few extra dollars, but when it comes down to it, they don't do anything about it. You don't have to be like them, because there are really lots of ways for you to do it.

Depending on how aggresive you really want to be, how you are going to earn some extra cash is all up to you. The great part about starting up a side job, or a weekend way to earn money is that you really have all the freedom in the world to decide what you want to do. Adapt it to meet your needs but to also be fun at the same time.

The best part of this is that you really can market just about anything that you can think of on the internet. This is great for you because no matter where you are located, you will be able to make money. Maybe you have some great ideas of items that you could sell but they aren't very marketable where you live; those are the ones you want to sell online.

Maybe selling online or starting up an online business isn't what you had in mind. An example for you to think about is that of my neighbor who decided to learn to build his own fence around his yard and because of the many compliments and requests he received, he started building fence for others. This turned into a great side job for him and started out as a hobby.

Whatever your side business becomes, don't forget that you are in control and can let it be as relaxed as you would like. You can do almost anything to make money fast like selling your hobbies, crafts or even your expertise on different topics online. There really are so many options out there.

Also keep in mind that there are a lot of different and free ways that you can advertise your new business. It can be anywhere from free websites to word of mouth, but it can help you make money and not spend it. - 15790

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7 Ways To Get Started With Google Adwords

By Joseph R. Miller

When running a campaign to generate increased revenues for your website, Google Adwords proves to be among the best options. However, for most beginners, this can be quite a terrifying experience especially if you lack the essential skills in properly setting your campaign. Given the right knowledge, you can bring more people to your site and have them buy your offered products or services.

The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords' author, Perry Marshall, presents some useful pointers for beginners. Your online marketing's success is highly probable if you exactly know the means to fine-tuning your keyword lists, carefully planning your campaign by doing test ads, and familiarizing on your target market or audience.

Are you currently in the process of getting started with your first campaign? Then you must remember these seven significant techniques in the utilization of Google Adwords:

1. Be location-specific. With Google Adwords, targeting various search networks as well as geographic locations is manageable. This means that you must accurately figure out or narrow down the areas where you want your traffic to originate as these will be the same destinations your ad will be running. Decide whether you want your campaign to run locally or internationally.

2. Start with a low budget. You don't have to spend too much money on Adwords when you first start out, and you always have the freedom to increase your daily ad spending if you need to. Start small and then slowly increase your spending when you begin to get a high CTR on your ads.

3. Use the right URL. Make sure you are using a landing page or other destination URL as the link for your ad, and not only linking to your home page. This makes tracking the effectiveness of your ad much easier, and also gives you a chance to promote a particular section of your site.

4. Use action keywords in the body of your ad. Encourage ad viewers to take action immediately with words such as 'sign up now!' or 'contact us today!'. These can encourage click-throughs to your site and put the viewer in the mindset of taking action in a few short clicks.

5. Keep an eye on the competition. Keep track of your competitors by running simple Google searches on your own keywords and seeing which ads come up first in the search results. What are your competitors doing that you aren't? Have you missed other keyword or keyphrase opportunities? Take notes as you conduct each search so you can monitor your competitors regularly and implement similar strategies for your campaign.

6. Set up separate campaigns for each keyword. Avoid lumping all of your targeted keywords into one campaign so you can track exactly how each word is performing as you run the ads. Setting up separate campaigns helps you determine your return on investment instantly, so you can eliminate what may not be working with ease.

7. Be proficient in the Google Analytics application. Adwords, when incorporated with Google Analytics helps you discover what viewers actually visit in your site. Moreover, this application helps you achieve your targets in your market research as well as comprehend your viewers' needs. - 15790

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Internet Faxing Software

By Brian Stratmore

Faxing has advanced since it appeared back in the 70s. Back then and in the 80's it was a very convenient to send a document, you just invested on a machine and you could be sending and receiving documents with some effort.

Now we live in a digital era, and fax has evolved thanks in great part to the development of Internet faxing software.

Internet faxing software is much easier to use than traditional faxing, it is cheaper and it is also more reliable. Then why are people still stuck with old fax machines?

Some people and businesses have accustomed so much to old technology that they are afraid to make the jump to internet faxing. What they don't know is that it is hundreds of time easier to fax this way!

To use fax Internet fax software with success, you need access to the Internet, the program itself and an email address/account. You will also need a scanner if you plan to send hard copies of documents.

Once you have these, you only need to rely on the program as it takes care of all. Fax machines manage faxes with the TIFF file format. A fax program converts the TIFF file to a file readable through your email and the same happens the other way.

This way, you will also be able to send a fax directly from your mostly used applications, knowing that the program will convert it. This feature allows you to send a fax with the push of a button for example right after typing your document in Word.

Faxing software is one of the most valuable tools for businesses, big and small. And each model of business can find options that will fit best. For example a heavy use of faxing is needed by big companies and features such as fax servers and fax broadcasting will be needed.

Is there a point against fax software? Not really, for some, it may be the learning curve, but that's just a small investment to improve our fax communications, save time, money and increase productivity. - 15790

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