Truth Buried In Internet Marketing Lies
Every day I get at least one email where someone is telling me a lie about Internet marketing and how to get traffic to my web site.
I know that it’s a lie because as soon as I open it I always see some proclamation that reads something like this:
“Email marketing is DEAD”, or “Banner Ads are Dead”, or “FFA Sites are Dead” and even “Safelists are Dead”
I call these “Internet Obituaries” and, once you understand what’s behind them, you can pull out the nugget of truth and use it to drive more traffic to your web site. Let me explain what I mean.
First of all, let’s jump right to the obvious question: If e-mail is “dead” then why in the heck are you sending me an email that’s promoting your solution to this obvious crisis? Yep, email isn’t dead. Now you can see the lie and the truth. You’re all set to take the next step.
I’ve got news for you. NOTHING is dead. Everything that used to work still works DEPENDING upon how you use it.
All of the marketing gurus, who incidentally are usually the same ones who are sending the “Internet Obituaries”, love to throw around the phrase “targeted traffic”. It’s their holy mantra. Well, truthfully, targeted traffic is a very good idea. It means that you are going to get your offer in front of the people who are most likely to need whatever it is you’re selling.
I just had a thought. When I’m done writing this article I’m going to go out to the lake behind my house and catch a sailfish! I’ve never caught one before and I’d love to have one mounted on the wall in my den. Sure, it’s an old-fashioned and anti-PETA thing to do, but I’ve always wanted one on my wall. Anyway, I digress…
Acquiring targeted traffic is the best way to pull in prospects that are most likely to buy, right? That means that you have to use the best advertising medium for THAT PARTICULAR GROUP and waive your offer in front of them. But, in order to do that, you have to know where people who need it hang out every day.
Ok. I get the feeling that you’re not concentrating on what I’m trying to tell you because you’re still wondering why I’m dumb enough to think that I’m going to catch a saltwater sailfish in the lake behind my house. I can’t. I know that.
If I want to catch a saltwater sailfish then the very first thing I have to do is get my hook into a large body of saltwater. But, even before I do that, I have to know where in that large body of saltwater sailfish hang out and what they eat. If I don’t dangle something that looks like food in front of an actual sailfish then the chances of me catching one, even in the ocean, are about as good as catching one in the lake behind my house.
And THAT’S what “targeted traffic is all about”. It’s simply dangling something that looks tasty in front of the prospect and doing it somewhere that has a lot of the type of prospect that you’re looking for. can be found.
Now, all you have to do is this:
1. Make sure that you know the demographics of your market.
2. Find out where people who are in that demographic market hang out on the Internet. What do they read? What sites do they visit?
3. Prepare the bait, I mean the “offer”.
4. Use the right medium to set that offer in front of the prospects and get ready to reel them in!