Who are your target markets?
One thing you need to consider is: who are you going to sell to? Remember that the web is just that www = World Wide Web. If your plan is to only sell in your region, then ensure that you say this up front. Or if your payment system will not work in other Countries then ensure that you invite international buyers to contact you direct to arrange payment and shipping fees.
There is nothing more frustrating than seeing something on the internet that is of interest to you, filling out an online form only to find out that you have to select your location in the form and you can only select a hand full of locations in that region and without one of these you can’t submit your details or request for the product the web site is offering!
Some interesting facts: There are more than 1 billion people surfing the net at any given time. In North America (used as a sample only as this is where the data used is from) approximately 210,000,000 people surf the net regularly. What does this mean to you? If you restrict your market to say: North America only, you are missing out on 790,000,000 potential clients and if you could attract 1000th of 1 percent of this potential international market how many more potential leads could you gain? I’ll let you do the maths but trust me it’s enough to get you to reconsider your target field of opportunities!
Imagine how much better your sales could be if you had a data base this size of potential clients that have given you their contact details? They are already interested in what you do and/or sell… how much selling power is that? Remember that it is 6 times easier to sell to someone who has given you their contact details than it is from someone who you are cold marketing to!
Please note: that from a marketing point of view we use the web to sell products but more importantly is we use the web to gather leads. We do this by offering something free like a white paper, eBook, eCourse, eNewsletter or even a free sample of your product/s. If you’re not doing this then you need to be considering this. I can almost guarantee you that your competition is doing this and if they aren’t they will be after reading this.
If you want to know more about web marketing (this is something I do) or offer your point of view on a similar experience then please fill out the comments box or send me an email at b.mccarthy@kaojai.net
Take care and remember to “pay it forward”
Brian
Thanks Brian, good topic. Tenny.
By: "icandolife" on January 30, 2010
at 10:02 am