This post is all about how you can increase your sales and enquiries, by using a targeted approach to your marketing.
A great product or service, with an excellent marketing message, will still fail to generate sales – unless that message is reaching a targeted group of prospective customers. That’s why it’s so important for you to target the marketing of your services, to the right people.
Targeted marketing
If Bob gets a well-written marketing message in front of 10,000 people, who have no need for his services and no ability to pay or obtain credit – he’s unlikely to make a single sale. However, if Bob gets that same great message in front of just 10 people; each with a real need for his services and the ability to pay – he’s likely to make a number of sales!
Blogging and targeted marketing
Fortunately, one of the best ways to get an extremely valuable, targeted audience for your business, is either free or very inexpensive. I’m talking about blogging!
Whilst it takes time to set up a blog and add regular, interesting content – the financial cost of blogging is extremely low. Great news for any small businesses who are struggling financially right now, yet still have time available for marketing.
So, how do blogs attract targeted prospects?
There are two main reasons why blogs attract such targeted prospective customers / clients.
Firstly, there’s SEO
A nicely designed blog, with good SEO, (search engine optimisation) and interesting content relating to your profession, will attract people who are interested in your area of expertise. Although the numbers will be low to begin with, you can develop a great audience or marketplace for your services over time.
Secondly, blogs are read by bloggers
I read stacks of blogs each day and it seems I am not alone! I’ve been running a Reader Poll on jimsmarketingblog.com for the past 2 weeks; asking my readers if they own a blog. Interestingly, around 90% of the 300 or so people who voted, said “YES!”
So, someone reads something of interest on your blog, which they then mention on their blog. Suddenly, their readership is alerted to your work and you get a stack of new, targeted readers! Many of these new readers will be bloggers too – helping you reach more and more people.
This kind of targeted readership is ‘marketing gold dust’ for you and your business. These people are reading your blog because they already have an interest in, or need for, your subject. So, if they see you as someone with the answers they need in your area of expertise, who better for them to call / email when they want to hire someone?
Targeted readers come from focused content
In my experience, the blogs that attract the most targeted readers, are the blogs that offer the most focused content. Some blogs suffer from diversifying too much. As a result, they attract a fractured readership.
Conversely, by blogging about subjects directly relevant to your services / products, you get to attract not only a readership, but a community! Jimsmarketingblog.com is an example of a community blog. That’s because the blog’s readers, commentor’s and myself all share a common interest in sales, marketing and business development.
How well do you target your marketing?
If you want to improve your sales figures, a great place to start is by looking at how well you target your prospective customers / clients. If you are a commercial blogger, (blog as part of your business), and you want to attract a more targeted readership, ensure your posts are ‘on topic.’
If you are not already blogging, this might be a great time for you to start! Just make sure you are committed to investing the time required.
Definitely a very important point you make regarding targeting your audience. Too many people (I used to think this way too) think that they need to shove their message in as front of as many faces as possible.
Speaking of SEO, I noticed you changed your titles in the title bar to be keyword heavy (or some might say friendly). For someone that comes across as not caring very much at all about SEO, pumping your titles full of keywords is a pretty bold move.
Tim,
I’ve ALWAYS used title tags! Check and you will see that title tag’s have been optimized on almost every post on the blog.
By the way, when I post an image, I also use optimised alt tags.
The only point I make regarding SEO, is that I believe you should ALWAYS write for people and not to score SEO points.
Ironically, as you can see from the link below, this has not stopped me attracting a lot of targeted search enquiries:
http://jimsmarketingblog.com/2009/01/05/google-and-me/
well that’s a nice post, and so informative for existing bloggers and those who are willing to start a blog.
thx for the sharing Jim, and might feature it on my blog as well.
cheers!
Jean
http://jean.ghalo.com
This is so right on! Targetted marketing is the best way to use your time effectively.
That’s why I established a niche blog (web software) and not a general one.
Thanks for the post,Jim.I am a new blogger and trying to focus on the products we offer,but I still don’t know much knowledge about SEO.Again,thanks for the sharing.
thanks for the information. its true its much better to hit ten people with money than ten people without. unless the people without have internet access and read websites than you still want to attract them too. right?
Matt,
Why would a business want to attract people with no need for or interest in their product and no access to finances?
Jim
great advice, clearly explained – thanks.
We have a number (small) of people on our forum who are interested in developing blogs as part of their marketing. I’ll post a link to your site on the forum so they know where to come for guidance.
Guess that proves your point exactly
Steve
This was an excellent post about blogging. I just set one up, and I find that keeping it up is rather difficult. I wrote a book called “Soaring & Crashing: My Bipolar Adventures” (www.holly-holy.com) and, due to being a bit in the depressed phase of this adventure, my inclination to write in the blog is greatly impaired. Your article has inspired me to get the show on the road and try to write another article.
Thanks for your valid points.
Warm regards,
Holly
Great point about the trickle down effect of having bloggers as readers spreading your content on their blogs, I never thought of that. I appreciate the great content you are providing here.
You’re absolutely right Jim. I’ve been blogging for over 3 years and your visibility just keeps growing over time. Blogs are a great way to get known and build a presence. You attract clients to you day by day!
Proud to be part of the “Jim’s Marking Blog” community.
Nice post Jim,
I’ve been banging on about taregting for ages now when discussing social media. I feel this is where twitter has a huge advantage over (say) facebook for networking, or Digg & Stumble for traffic.
I can generate hundreds of website hits quickly and simply with stumbleupon – but because the categories are so broad, the chances of a hit from anyone who will actually need my services are super-slim. With twitter, followers find you and stay with you if your content is relevant to them – so by tweeting interesting and useful material in your chosen field, potential customers will “self-target” themselves.
Ian
Jim, I’m fairly new to the blogosphere and before deciding to blog, I sat down and created a game plan so that I would be certain about the audience I wanted to attract. Still learning about trackbacks, pinging and the whole lingo but glad that veterans like you are willing to share. Thanks so much for the great post.
Very Interesting to know that at least there are some who go for target market. Other wise I have seen that people just prefer marketing, its tactics should be good and the strategy should be easy and likable.
There are very few who check which is the rite place to hit. Who are the customers and which is the way to rich them.
Good one..
I enjoyed this post and the emphasis it placed on blogging to target your prospective customers. The first question that came to mind was what about print media targeted marketing? Not advertisements but actual postcards and things of this nature that go to those most likely or able to purchase your products or services. For a company to truly target their market wouldn’t you agree they would need to a) have a website with content targeted to their market b) do email marketing to subscribers that want their info and content c) blog d) have consistent branding e) do targeted mailings to existing customers that contains premium content (such as a newsletter) f) mailings to prospective customers or clients most qualified or interested in their product or service.
I notice that many marketers hobby horse on the one medium they know most about, one business owner I met, who focused on email marketing, talked about nothing else to the prospective clients they had in front of them. Instead of finding out what the goals of the client are and then assisting them through targeted marketing to reach those goals through a widespread campaign across many mediums, this business owner was convinced that email marketing is the single most effective marketing tool that exists.
I for one believe that absolutes are unobtainable. This is not a black and white world, and marketing is never black and white.
Now, Jim, I know that the purpose of this article was not to do what the business owner above mentioned, and state that only one medium is the right one (because you didn’t do that). I am curious as to your opinion of using a campaign method to targeted marketing.
Tell me your thoughts on this.