The Top 10 Ways to Find Your Audience

 

Your Audience Is Out There Somewhere!

It doesn’t matter who you are, what your opinions might be or even whether you have anything to say worth listening to.

Someone is willing to listen to YOU right now.

In fact, they are listening to someone right now and they might as well be listening to you!

But, most likely they aren’t.

Even if you have thousands of fans, clients, customer and supporters for your ideas, products and services, you haven’t even touched the surface of the audience available to you right now.

As I write this there are 310,574,391 people in the United States alone and  the world has a few more … 6,877,731,978 at last count.

I’m pretty sure you aren’t reaching them all.

But, I’m also just as sure that there are THOUSANDS of people who agree with what you want to say — No matter what you think.

 

1. “Who IS your Target Audience”

• What type of audience do you want?
• Are you looking for a particular age, gender, location etc – or stage of life, political interests?
• What are the personality traits, emotions, needs, passions and frustrations of you audience?
• What value or benefit can you bring to the table?
• Who is your ideal customer?
• What kinds of groups or associations would they join?
• What do they dislike?

 

Try imagining a prototype person who is your main audience.

• Name the person.
• Give them an age.
• An outlook on life.
• A job.
• A family.
• A city to live in.
• Interests.
• An Education.

 

Do you have more than one audience?

Why not list them all out?

• What is cool to these people?
• What impresses them?
• How do they interact?
• Are they technical?
• Are they sophisticated?
• Are they conservative?
• Are they radical?

 

What is the tone of their language?

• Do they use slang?
• Do they want “Just the facts?”
• Are they emotional?
• Are they angry?
• Do they have a history together?

 

What do they want and need?

• What are they missing?
• What are their problems?
• What do they value?
• What is most important to them?
• What are they least likely to care about?

The best way to spread your message is to start by observing what is already being shared, discussed and admired by your audience.

 

 

2. “Identify where your audience is and what they do”

• Where do they hang out?
• What activities are they taking part in?
• Are they readers?
• Social animals?
• Do they have their own jargon or lingo?

 

Talk to your audience

• Do surveys.
• Ask your friends and relatives what things they would look for if they were your potential customers.
• Find online forums that appeal to your audience.
• Research what your competitors are doing.
• Keep on top of what your industry buzz is about for successful target marketing.
• Subscribe to relevant newsletters and publications.
• Use market research to find vendors and content providers.
• Search Google for blogs, profiles and groups.

 

Look for “Hot Spots”

Where does my target go to …

• Network
• Research
• Read the news
• Catch up with friends
• Be entertained

 

See who’s getting results  …

Which items are …

• Getting the most buzz
• Gathering responses
• Causing controversy
• Being the most useful

 

Check your competitors …

Be sure to locate your competitor’s online presence to make sure you’re heading the right direction.

• Focus on high-traffic sites, events and profiles …
• Find potential partners, what websites are they on.
• Don’t stop researching your target audience. Your marketing strategy must keep pace with change.

 

Check your own analytics.

Google Analytics is a great way to see who refers readers to your site. Check out where your audience comes from and visit those sites.  Then check and see where they are going when they LEAVE your site.

 

 

3. “Find the key influencers”

Who are the key  …

• Bloggers
• Marketers
• Experts
• Print Publications
• Media Outlets
• Mavens
• Reporters
• Social Media Addicts

Then figure out what motivates them to move your message out to the masses.

 

 

4.” Engage with Empathy”

You don’t stand out in a crowd, by standing there and yelling. Think about the boy who cried “Wolf.”  It works the first time, but after a while people tune you out.

Introduce  content or conversations your audience is interested in using a voice that commands respect or affection or they won’t listen to you.

Ask …

• What is my audience interested in?
• What would they want to read?
• What do they search for?
• How can I entertain?”

Definitely …

• Be personal
• Be helpful
• Be enjoyable
• Ask questions
• Be human
• Be nice
• Be interesting
• Use their language and jargon
• Share media (pictures, videos, reports) they will connect with

 

5. “Expand the edges”

Reach out to your audience and become part of communities.

• Subscribe to blogs
• Join networks
• Join groups
• Write articles
• Publish a book
• Attend live events
• Speak
• Create useful content
• Comment on blogs and forums
• Set up Google Alerts to track mentions.
• Use StumbleUpon – to discover and read new content
• Introduce yourself – Sending someone a personalized email shows them that you have noticed them and you care about them enough to personally contact them.
• Respond to posts
• Answer questions
• Solve problems
• Make them notice your presence.
• Share interesting content.
• Check out advertisements
• Use Google Trends and Trendrr to search for what is trending now.
• Use Quantcast to get data (size, age, income, education etc) on your audience.
• Use Technorati to search for hot blogs and posts.
• Use Dan Zarrella’s ReTweetability Index and Wefollow.com to find the most influential Twitter accounts by keyword and number of re-tweets.
• Use local geo-targeted directories such as Placeblogger
• Search Facebook fan pages

 

Find out who and what is popular

• What posts are drawing comments
• What is being retweeted
• What Fan pages have high followers
• What topics are hot today
• What is the news media covering right now
• Which headlines are drawing you in
• What videos are getting the most views

 

6. “Deliver quality solutions”

Think about who you are, what you stand for, and what valuable contributions you can make to your audience.

Be as specific as possible.

• What do you have to say that will surprise your audience?
• What do you want your audience to think, learn, or assume about?
• What impression do you want to convey to your audience?

Solve real problems!

Develop content and delivery platforms (blogs, social network profiles, article sites, forums, etc.) so you have a platform to can communicate your expertise on a consistent basis.

 

 

7.  “Determine your keywords and key phrases”

Develop a list of keywords and key phrases your audience is searching for.

For detailed help on keyword research, view the free video tutorials at http://newbiequickstart.com

Keyword research is a tactic marketers use to help increase search engine optimization (SEO) for bloggers and websites to improve their visibility in search engines.

After you have your keywords, here are a few ways to use them:

Use Twitter Advanced Search to search on your keywords and phrases and follow interesting people in the results.

Subscribe to the RSS Feed of the results.

Identify hashtags used in posts related to your terms.

Write tweets using your keywords as hashtags.

Use Twellow.com to search Business Categories.

Use Blastfollow.com to follow Twitter users in mass based on subject.

 

 

8. “Outsource your marketing to find your target audience.”

It’s easier than ever to find qualified and knowledgeable experts for reasonable rates to create marketing strategies for your company’s target audience.

Click here for free resources for List Building and Outsourcing.

 

 

9. “Advertise!”

Who says you have to jump through hoops to build an audience.

It is nice to know that there are targeted, reliable, effective options in paid media to reach consumers in their media of choice.   Check out the Tobri Business Premier Advertising Package and tap into the millions of page views being generated on Tobri every day.

 

 

10. ” Do good!”

All of the above methods really come down to one basic principle.  Do good things and you will have all the audience you ever need.

Hope this helps!

 

http://kenmcarthur.com/the-top-10-ways-to-find-your-audience/

10 Quick Ways To Increase Your Site’s Conversion Rate

Do some digging and you’ll find a lot out there on website tweaks to improve conversion rates. I chose these 10 because our clients have found success with them in the past. They’re also relatively quick and easy to implement, with high potential to drive an increase in revenue.

1. Create urgency
2. Highlight the benefits of your product in addition to its features
3. Add reviews or testimonials
4. Use free shipping
5. Use strikethrough pricing
6. Add a call to action on every page
7. Answer questions before they’re asked
8. Add related items to a product view
9. Show the product in action
10. Make it easy to read

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1. Create Urgency

It’s marketing 101. Offer limited time promotions to create a sense of urgency. This age old marketing tactic exists for a reason – because it works. Yet you’d be surprised at how many sites out there don’t give their visitors a sense of urgency! Use the following tactics to make sure that buying right now is a motivating factor:

• Give a clear deadline
• Use urgent copy, such as “Limited Time Offer”, “Offer ends soon”, etc.
• Use strikethough pricing
• Give users a clear next step, and funnel them towards making a purchase
• Sweeten the deal – give customers added incentives to purchase your already attractive offer, like free shipping

Here’s a great example from Holt’s Cigar Company:

During Holt’s Weekly Sale Special, there’s a clear deadline to create urgency, they explicitly list the savings by using strikethrough pricing, offer free shipping to sweeten the deal, and funnel customers directly towards making a purchase. Bravo Holt’s.

2. Highlight the benefits of your product instead of its features

A feature is a factual statement about a product or service being promoted. A benefit answers the question “What’s in it for me?”
Let’s pretend that I’m selling you air conditioners. Which AC unit would you rather purchase from me?
Air Conditioner 1
Description:

• Quiet condenser fan system
• Factory-installed liquid line filter dryer
• Contactor with lug connections
• Steel louver coil guard
• Heavy-gauge galvanized-steel cabinet

Air Conditioner 2
Description:

• The quietest air conditioning unit on the market – you won’t hear a thing.
• Cools a 50 square foot room from 90℉ to 71℉ in under 12 minutes.
• Built with your electricity bill in mind, this unit was rated the most energy efficient in its class.
• Extremely weather-resistant, built with industrial grade steel for long-lasting durability. Comes with a 10 year warranty.

If you’re not in the AC wholesale business like my friend John at BobsRedTrucks.com, you’d probably rather purchase Air Conditioner 2, even though Air Conditioner 1 and Air Conditioner 2 are the same product. Features aren’t what entice customers to buy, benefits are. Make sure that you’re describing the benefits in addition to your product’s features.

3. Add reviews or testimonials

Customers are listening to the word of advertisers less and less, and trusting the customers that purchased before them more and more. Think back to the last few purchases you made online. Did you read reviews before making your purchase decision? Most likely you did. This study published by Marketing Land revealed that 90% of customer buying decisions are influenced by online reviews. Adding reviews and testimonials builds trust, and adds credibility to your site.
Here’s how to use reviews to your advantage:

• Incorporate testimonials on pages throughout your sales funnel.
• Showcase positive customer tweets on your website. I worked for a company that embedded a live Twitter feed of the users Tweeting at them on their checkout page, which worked exceptionally well to increase conversions. It gave a face to the brand and built trust.
• Ask your customers to participate in case studies that you can then feature on your site.
• Create video testimonials that you can embed on your site and in a  YouTube channel for your brand.

 

4. Use free shipping

This is the number one promotion that drives online purchases. Make sure to watch your profit margins, but if you’re able to offer free shipping, it’s proven to entice customers to purchase more than any other tactic on this list.
Also, offering free or discounted shipping can curb shopping cart abandonment rates. According to kissmetrics, 28% of shoppers will abandon their shopping cart if presented with unexpected shipping costs. That’s the number one reason for shopping cart abandonment! It’s also important that if you offer free shipping, you advertise it loud and proud, and that you’re as clear as possible about your free shipping policy. Remember, no one likes unexpecting shipping costs.

5. Use strikethrough pricing

Everyone loves a deal. If customers perceive that they’re able to purchase a product for less than it’s worth (or less than they’re willing to pay for it) on your website, you’ve created demand for that product and proven the value of your site.
Use strikethrough pricing to show customers the value of your offer, and how much they’ll save by purchasing the product from you. Cross out the original price and highlight the sale price. Here’s another example from Holt’s Cigar Company:

Not only show how much customers will save by purchasing the product from your site with strikethrough pricing, but directly compare your cheaper prices to those of your competitors.

6. Add a call to action on every page

On every page of your site, you should be guiding visitors towards a desired action. Think of each page as an opportunity to funnel buyers towards a purchase, lead generation form, event promotion, social share, etc. in order to make more money and/or promote your brand. Persuading site visitors to do what you want is no easy task, but taking time to master the art of the call to action can dramatically improve your bottom line.
Here’s a few great examples of creative calls to action. A few best practices include:

• Less is more when it comes to choices. If you give multiple choices, give weight to one choice over another, so customers don’t have to think too hard.
• Give careful consideration to your call to action button colors. Different colors inspire different emotions, and some colors attract more attention than others.
• Large, visible text captures attention, but make it too big and you’ll offput potential customers. Here’s a nice balance from Coin:

• If you offer one main product, give customers a clear way to purchase it right away from the home page. Here’s a nice example from Tep Wireless:

• Keep call to action button text short.
• Movement attracts attention. Adding movement to your site in specific areas can draw visitors towards a call to action.
• Make it stand out. Your call to action button should have sufficient space around it so that it clearly stands out.
• Make your call to action contextually relevant to the content on that page. If you were shopping on BestBuy.com for a new TV and were scrolling through a TV category page, it would be weird if in the sidebar you were prompted to sign up for their camera lens newsletter.

 

7. Answer questions before they’re asked

People who visit your site have questions, and many want to know the answers before making a purchase. FAQ pages are great, but there’s more you can do to anticipate common questions, and provide contextually relevant information to answer them before they’re asked.

• Figure out what people want to know, and provide the answers within the content of relevant pages. Survey your customers after checkout, after they reach your customer service department, and a few weeks after purchase through email to collect this data.
• If there are too many questions, create multiple FAQ pages with a table of contents linking to each section.
• Don’t make customers click the Contact Us button. It’s frustrating, and will decrease your conversions.
• Continue to create interesting content around your most frequently asked questions. Consider leveraging your blog for this.

ProTip: Check out your top 5 landing pages on Google Analytics, and take an hour to brainstorm questions that customers could possibly ask about the content on those 5 pages. Filter out the questions that might not make sense after your brainstorm, and cross reference the remaining ones with your FAQ page to find gaps. Finally, create content around these questions on your blog or consider adding them to your FAQ page.
If you want to get even fancier, check out the channel breakdown for each of your top 5 landing pages. If most customers come directly to the page, then they’re most likely already aware of your brand/products, and might have less questions than if most of your customers are coming in via referral. If most customers are coming to one of your top landing pages via referral, you may want to spend more time brainstorming questions for that specific landing page.

8. Add related items to a product view

Adding related items to a product view allows customers who already have purchase intent to view products that they may not have considered (and may like more than the one they’re thinking about purchasing). It also allows you as the site owner to up-sell and cross-sell, which can have a dramatic impact on your average order value. If you use an ecommerce platform like Magento, this functionality is already built in.
Here’s an example from Urban Outfitters:

And an example from Fab.com:

9. Show the product in action

One of our clients, Revzilla, does an excellent job of showing their products in action. On their site, it all starts on their category pages, where they clearly label which products have video reviews.

On the individual product pages, Revzilla shows the product in action via these professional video reviews. In addition, they incentivize customers to leave a review, and allow them to upload their own personal photos with the product. It’s a genius way to show the product in action, while also creating added trust and proof of the product’s value.

To show your products in action:

• Leverage your customers for user generated content. Embed this user generated content on your product pages, category pages, and social media accounts.
• Create videos that showcase your products in action. Embed them into your product pages, and transcribe them so that Googlebot can index and crawl the content. Create a YouTube account for additional reach.
• If customers can post reviews on product pages, allow them to upload pictures as well.

 

10. Make it easy to read

The expression “less is more” should ring true when it comes to the design of your site, and the words that you use in your content. Sites that reduce clutter, have clear calls to action, and beautifully display information in a conversational tone set themselves up to convert visitors.
To make your site easy to read, use the below tactics:

• Use bullets
• Keep sentences and paragraphs short
• Use a conversational tone
• Don’t use too many font sizes
• Don’t use too many typefaces
• When emphasizing text (like, you know, a call to action) consider using a colored background as opposed to bolding, underlining, or italicizing the text

When you’re finished reading this post, play around with the rest of Seer’s site. I’m a little biased, but in my opinion this is something that we do very well.

Cool! Now What?

A/B test! You can test almost anything on your website that will affect the behavior of your visitors. Test variations of these 10 tactics to see what resonates best with your audience.

http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/quick-ways-to-increase-your-sites-conversion-rate/

7 Tips for Driving Targeted Traffic With Twitter

Social media has many uses—from making contacts to performing customer service—but driving quality traffic to your site is Twitter’s secret weapon.  The big question is this: How can we get more of that lovely attention we crave?

As my recent poll shows, generating incoming traffic is the number-one need that people have right now, and for good reason. Traffic translates into:

• Attention, engagement, conversation and recognition
• Spreading your message far and wide
• Prospects and subscriber opt-ins
• Customers, increased sales and leads
• Media and interviews, which lead to more attention

… and last but not least, an ego boost.

In a previous article here I mentioned the many benefits of Twitter for your business. Now here are seven key points you need to know if you want to get more targeted traffic from Twitter:

 

#1: Know your audience

Growing your traffic always starts with your audience if you want to do it right. Untargeted, uninterested “hits” are a waste of time and resources at worst, and at best just pure vanity.

• What does your audience want and need?
• How do they like it delivered?
• Which topics are on their minds right now?
• Are there trends that are growing in popularity?
• How do these folks speak? What words and phrases do they use?

This means that driving traffic starts with listening and observing. Get to know your target so you can most efficiently engage them.

Twitter has a tool for this. Use search.twitter.com to find what people in your niche are talking about and follow some of their conversations.

Once you get an idea of what people are interested in, join in those conversations and talk to people.

 

#2: Get the “right” followers

So much rubbish is thrown around about how to grow your follower count that it makes it seem that the number is all that matters. Wrong!

You need people to want to hear what you have to say. This means you do NOT want people who auto-follow because they are either:

1. Robots and not real human beings (e.g., spam software, people trying to inflate their follower count, scrapers)
2. Not actually reading your tweets and just following to allow you to DM them

The followers you most want are those who follow you because they are interested and think they will get value from your tweets. These people are most likely to find you via:

• People retweeting your stuff, either within Twitter or using a TweetMeme button
• Referrals from other Twitter users
• Your blog; for example, your articles that say “Follow me on Twitter at @chrisgarrett and tell me what you think,” or your sidebar Follow Me button
• Other people’s blogs, when you guest post or comment
• Clicking your forum signature when you participate in discussions, or your email signature

Unfortunately Twitter closed off a really nice way that people used to get targeted Twitter followers. It used to be that we could “listen in” to conversations that people we followed were having, but now you have to be following both parties. This means we can’t discover new people that way. If someone puts something before they mention your @name it can still work, and I still occasionally get followers through that.

Essentially the advice is, put your Twitter name where it will be seen and encourage people to share it!

 

#3: Build engagement

Talk to people.

Engage your followers. Don’t just see them as a passive list of eyeballs! Treat folks as human beings and you will do much better at this stuff. It is called social media for a reason.

• Ask questions
• Hold conversations
• Dip into others’ conversations
• Encourage feedback

 

#4: Get clicks

So now your followers are seeing you as an interesting person and not a robotic “feed,” which means they are more likely to take notice when you tweet out a link.

Tweet Valuable Links

Whatever you do, don’t just tweet your own stuff. That is both selfish and boring!

Get into the habit of sharing anything cool, regardless of who created it. Retweet good stuff and other people are going to be more willing to retweet yours. Tweet out fun and useful links your friends send you in email or from the news. Be known as a person who tweets good stuff.

 

Timing

Not everyone is online at the same time. There is a whole world outside of your timezone, plus people have a different schedule than you. You know the feeling of confusion when you land in a foreign country. Not only have you got to adjust to local time, but also people seem to have their meals at a different time of day, shops open and close at strange hours, and business meetings seem to be held randomly. Twitter is like that, you can’t just look at a time zone converter and think people will be at their desk at a certain time.

1. Tweet the same thing a few times, a few hours apart, to give your message several chances to be seen.
2. Vary the times of day you tweet and monitor response.
3. Watch for the peaks and troughs of activity in YOUR stream (not just what works for others).

I tend to aim to catch the peak times for Aussies, the EU/Brits, East Coast USA, and West Coast USA, but it is far from an exact science!

Headlines

There are two main driving factors that affect your chances of getting a click:

1. Your reputation
2. The headline

Hopefully at this point #1 is taken care of, but #2 takes some work.

First of all, use my free download 102 Proven Headline Formulas as a starting point. There are 102 fill-in-the-blank templates which ought to give you a head start on writing a compelling caption.

If you use an interesting title and it matches your audience’s wants and needs, then you are going to get clicks.

Split test

You might not get it right the first time, so try another variation:

• Phrase it as a question
• Make it into a “How To” headline
• Use curiosity versus just the facts

A lot of this is about learning what your audience reacts to best.

 

#5: Measure performance

When you use a link-shortener with a built-in click-tracker such as bit.ly, you can see how well any of your links perform. This is useful for improving over time and to see which links get picked up virally.  As they say, what you measure you get more of!

With Twitter it’s not just the link clicks that YOU get, but the retweets and shares that really drive the real traffic. TweetMeme and bit.ly can give you vital reporting about how well you do, as well as your Google Analytics.

 

#6: Do more of what works, but test, test, test

When you find what works for you, do more of that. Keep in mind though that if you only do the same things you will either get the same results and not improve, or you will wear out that technique. Experiment, learn and mix it up.

Trends change, techniques improve, fads go out of fashion. Do not get stuck on rails, move and flow with your audience.

 

#7: Encourage sharing

Once you have your initial click, your job is not done!

Make sure your article has a TweetMeme button so that anyone who likes what you shared can easily share it too.

If you want to get really fancy, give people an incentive to share, such as a random prize drawing for anyone who tweets your message. Of course, the message will contain a link back to you …

Once in a while it doesn’t hurt to actually ask for retweets. Just don’t overdo it, as you will only annoy your followers. This will make them less responsive, rather than more.

Does it really work?

Here is a case study for you. For the last Social Media Success Summit in 2009, Mike Stelzner and I ran a competition on chrisg.com using all the advice mentioned here in this article.

 

The competition post was retweeted over 1,000 times

Using TweetMeme we can see that the competition post was retweeted over 1,000 times before it stopped tracking.

 

Social Media Success Summit 2009 Competition Clicks

Just the cli.gs link alone was clicked 12,753 times.

So yes, it does work.

Bottom line:

• Gather the correct audience
• Be awesome
• Share cool stuff
• Encourage other people to share it too

Does Twitter work to generate traffic for your stuff? Got any tips to share? Anything people do that annoys you? Please share—go ahead and comment below right now!

 

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/driving-targetted-twitter-traffic/