Who is Your Target Audience?

The first step in beginning to build traffic for your online
business is to identify who your target audience will be.
This may sound rather simplistic, but it’s surprising how many
first time internet marketers blindly go about trying to attract
every member of the population to their website or ezine.

This is a bit like having a tobacco shop on a busy street and then
putting up a wall on the sidewalk forcing every individual who
passes by to enter your shop. Right away you should
be able to see the problem here. Your shop will be crammed with
people, but a large majority of them will be non smokers.

This will tend to anger them and they will begin to grumble and mill
about, causing great confusion and noise. This in turn will tick
off even the smokers in the crowd. They won’t be able to see the
products for sale, or even get near the checkout to make a purchase.
In fact the smokers may get so annoyed they will purposely avoid
your shop and even your street in future.

Most folks who have been forced into your shop in this way will
leave as quickly as they can. On top of that they will go to great
lengths to warn others to stay away from your street.

Now imagine that wall on the sidewalk again with two doors in it.
One door is marked “smokers” and the other marked “non smokers”.
The “non smoker” door would pass people through and allow them
to continue along the sidewalk. The “smokers” then would be
funneled into your shop where a calm friendly staff greets them
and shows them the bargains to be had within. Soothing music
and pleasant lighting would make their visit a pleasant one.

Now, making your website or ezine a pleasant experience for your
visitors is a topic for a future article, but getting the right
visitors through the door in the first place is of paramount
importance. With a little planning you can find ways to bring in
just the right sort of visitors to make your online efforts a
success.