[typography font=”Myriad Pro” size=”24″ size_format=”px” color=”#a80f29″]How to Attract and Keep Your Targeted Customers[/typography]

Developing effective marketing strategies is the biggest challenge of all – at least as far as I am concerned. You can have a great product or service, a beautiful, perfectly functioning website, and you may have done your research and targeted your customers accurately, but if you can’t get your offerings in front of your audience, you will not make any sales.

You not only have to identify your market, you have to choose marketing strategies that will appeal to and attract the clients/customers that you want. One mistake that many people make, especially in the beginning is the shotgun approach, hoping that something will work.  I don’t want to discourage you from using multiple strategies that cross-link, but choose carefully.  Think about your audience and use tactics that will appeal to them specifically.

You have to get inside their heads – your marketing approach must answer the questions they are asking – your goal is to solve their problem(s). You want them to shake their heads in the affirmative as they read the copy in your ad, your sales page, your landing page, etc. Present a consistent message that makes them feel like you know exactly what they need.

This is the last section of this series of articles. The next few posts will take a look at marketing strategies that every business (regardless of the type) must employ – and marketing strategies that are specific to a business or types of customers.

First let’s look at the MUST DO strategies regardless of your business model:

• YouTube
• Google+
• Facebook
• Pinterest
• Social networking
• Affiliate marketing

Then we’ll look at the more specific marketing strategies, depending on your customers and/or business model. …

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Mobile marketing
• QR codes
• Promotions
• Article Marketing

The first goal is not sales – it is to build a subscriber database and to put yourself “out there” so they get to know you – and to trust you. People buy from people they feel like they know and people they trust. They always have and they always will.

The only way to turn prospects into customers is to sell to those who are already sold on you and have opted into your list. The next step is to keep them interested.

Way back in Section II, we explored Sales Funnels in some detail. We did that on purpose because those funnels are critical in keeping your customers happy, satisfied, and coming back for more. The funnels have to provide a steady, consistent flow of products and/or services and work in harmony so that there is always another path to follow when a customer needs it – yet there is room for them to breathe.

Never rush them with too many offers at once. If they feel overwhelmed or pushed to buy more before they have had a chance to absorb the first one they may get annoyed or frustrated and you risk their getting stuck and falling out of the funnel. The last thing you want to do is to stop their forward motion.

Which brings us to a very important point:  PACING.

You really do have to read their minds to a certain degree. You have to know them well enough to figure out approximately how much time it will take to digest the information, or to learn to use each product you are offering.

If it is a “hand-on” product such as software, plug-in, or an app, you need to test it well in order to be very clear on how long it will take the average person to master the basics and be ready for more advanced steps or challenges – or possibly another product to support or enhance the first one.

Research and planning together with testing and analyzing are all key. Not only for the business in general, but in order to make the most of every opportunity that presents itself for your sales funnel.

When a sales funnel is well-thought-out, you will be able to avoid large gaps between offerings, which creates the possibility of people forgetting you, as well as bottlenecks where people get stuck and fall away. You do not want either of those two things to happen.

Want all of the information? Begin at the beginning: Building an Online Business.

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”12″ size_format=”px”]Copyright © 2014 Blurtigo Holdings, LLC All Rights Reserved.
[/typography]

Related posts:

WIIFM Factor for Affiliates Split-test and Track Everything Building an Online Business – Action Steps Membership Sites