Tailor Your Internet Marketing Strategy to the Audience
I recently read a great blog by Seth Godin “One, few, most or all”, that discussed the different marketing approaches companies should take depending on the size of the audience they are trying to market to: one person, a select few, most or all. The article points out that you should take use alternative atrategies to marketing to each and the same applies if you are marketing or selling anything on the Internet.
If you’re selling to one person, you need to hone in on that one individual. You don’t necessarily need to have a website (especially if it’s a one time transaction) but you should take advantage of the services out there such as eBay and Craigslist that allow you to advertise and sell items easily. Once contact is made a personalised approach is the best way to go to complete the deal.
If you’re selling to a select few you should use the tools available that allow you to hone in on that small target audience. Google AdWords is a great way to do this. Simply define the geography of the particular segment and the key words your audience associates with your offering and off you go. As Seth mentioned, blogging is another great way to attract the “few” it keeps your web site fresh and it enhances your appeal by adding value.
Its gets a bit more complicated for the next two audiences; especially if you’re working on a shoestring budget but the good news is Internet marketing is always less costly than traditional means so use it to the max where applicable. If you plan to sell to a mass audience, invest in full blown e-commerce applications to sell to both most and all: by fully automating the cycle you can deal with the sheer bulk of transactions likely to take place more easily than you would by taking a one by one approach. You should invest in web analytics like ClickTracks and datawarehousing solutions such as those offered by Microstrategy and Business Objects to fully understand the buying patterns of your audience so that you can market to them intuitively and increase your likelihood of success.
And finally, if your planning to sell to absolutely everyone on the planet: Seth’s all, you’ll have to consider using a mix of traditional marketing and distribution alongside mass Internet marketing. Take Amazon for example: in the markets where people have access to the Internet Amazon has used the technology available to grow to behemoth proportions but where they don’t have distribution arms or in countries where Internet access not ubiquitous, Amazon is barely known.
Understanding your customer/s is marketing 101 and Seth’s article helped re-entrench this for me - hopefully it will do the same for you.