We get asked all the time…
“Should I set up a Facebook Page for my business?”
“Do I need a blog?”
“Should I start a podcast to engage my target market?”
“Do I really need to produce videos?”
“Have I really got to be active on Twitter, Instagram, etc…?”
The entrepreneurs and marketers asking these questions don’t realize it at the time, but what they are really asking is… “How do I market my business, get visitors, leads and customers who will buy my products”
Yes, You Need To Know How To Market Online
The first thing to realize is that you absolutely MUST:
- Find and then reach your market where they hang out
- Get their attention and create enough interest in you and your business that they will buy from you
The question really then becomes…
How Can I Best Reach & Then Interest My Target Market At Massive Scale
Let’s start with where do you reach them…
- Are they currently searching for information and products you provide? If so, then SEO is one factor to being found as your audience reaches out to find products like yours
- Are they on YouTube?
- Are they on Facebook? If so, can you reach them organically (with posts and fan pages?) or do you have advertise?
- Are they on Instagram?
- Will you find them on Pintrest?
- Do they read blogs in your area of interest?
- Are they on Twitter?
- Can you reach them on Streaming (either linked to Facebook, YouTube Or Twitter (Periscope) – today?
- Can you reach them locally via local search or offline seminars or advertising?
- Can you get to them through other authority website owners (as affiliates or joint venture partners?)
That may *seem* like a lot of choices to you, but really there are a handful of places that any given target market hangs out the most at any given time.
That’s where you start, keeping in mind that platforms change as do online habits so you will need to pivot over time in where and how you reach your market – but that’s ok, when you reach them you pull them into your content program and into your sales funnels so they will follow you around in the future and bring others to you.
Now, Match Your Communication Modality To Engage and Interest Them
Remember, it’s not enough to just REACH your audience, you have to engage and interest them enough to get them to take action.
Many online marketers don’t understand this — so they spend thousands of dollars and months of effort advertising or developing content but like a tree that falls in the forest, does anybody hear?
No!
That’s because they haven’t matched their strength in terms of communication to fully engage and interest their niche market.
Start with answering this…are you a more effective communicator via:
- Written word
- Verbally (audio) through telling stories or interviewing people?
- Video – teaching, telling tales, influencing people?
Everyone has one of these areas that is stronger than the other…the crux of your marketing campaign must rest on your strength.
That’s not to say you can’t take a brilliant piece of written content and re-produce that as a video or part of an audio podcast…absolutely you SHOULD do that…but what is your dominant communication modality, start there and work outward.
You will not only have a bigger impact on your niche target market in terms of reaching them, engagement and response, but you will find the entire exercise of marketing much easier and more fulfilling.
Outside of finding the best place to reach your niche target audience, the second big mistake many online marketers make is choosing their primary communication method without aligning it to your dominant/most effective technique.
I know many people that felt they HAD to start by making videos when their most effective way to developing their content was either written or audio.
They are far more effective when they produce content in written form and then have it (as a secondary method) converted to video — it hits the mark far more effectively.
Others I work with are best off-the-cuff with video and then translate the content they generate via video to written form.
Marketing needn’t be complicated.
By making sure you define your target market, know where to reach them and lead your marketing using the modality that best suits you and your business you can become highly effective at reaching your market, turning them into leads and buyers.
