How to do Online Marketing

This is the first, yet the most important, question you have to ask yourself. Although it seems to be easy, many business owners fail to give a detailed answer.

STOP: you will waste any penny spent on online marketing if you can't answer exactly this question.

Answering this question means that you must know: age, gender, interests, what they read, what music they listen to, their habits, the preferred watch brand, if they are single or married, if they prefer to pay by cash or credit card, how many languages they speak, how often they travel, what instructions they have, their slang (yes! you have to speak the way they speak to be effective) and so on.

This seems obvious too. But, do you really know them well? Maybe they are selling a worse product than yours at an higher price and you can't understand how it's possible. 

Are your competitor's customers the same customers you expect? Are your competitors advertising in the same media as you do? to the same target? How can you find it out? Hint: see what they write and listen to what they say to find out their target customers.

If you don't have as much budget to spend on advertising as your competitors, don't give up, there are medias where you can advertise and where maybe you are the first one in your business and hence it will be cheaper. Who, at the market, wouldn't notice a pear standing on the TV corner?

Sometimes it also happens that you are so excited about your plan that you didn't take a look at the situation out there. Maybe your competitors have already found a solution that you can improve, so, be open, always keep an eye on the market and see what they are doing.

If you really are, you might be at risk. Why? 

Unless you are a financially strong company or your product is water in the desert, you will need long time and a lot of money to create the need in your customers' mind.

Whenever you want to sell something you need to be aware of similar products, how they are doing, if the market you want to target accepts your product. Check if your product is conflicting with your customers' beliefs, religion, habits and so forth.

Sometimes customers are not responding to your ads because they simply don't use it or they don't make a purchasing decision while using such a media.

An example is that one dating company sky-roketed the moment it started to advertise on the billboards along the highways, in fact it turned out that most of the customers are truck drivers.

Have you ever heard IT people speaking to each other?

If you want to sell them something, you need to know their terms, their problems and their slang.

The same applies if you want to sell any other product. You need to know exactly the vocabulary of your potential customers so that they can say: "oh, these guys speak our language, let's hear to what they have to say".

If you are like the majority of the people, you might want to increase the number of likes of your Facebook page.

Well, do it, but does it really benefit your business? Can you deposit Facebook Likes at your bank?

If not, you have to ask yourself if the number of likes is proportional to the profit. Short answer: no, it's not.

If your company is new or your facing financial difficulties, you have to focus on selling, not on the number of likes.

Do you know how how people behave when they are on your website? Are web-pages loading too slowly? Are the easy to use? Not beautiful, use to use!

Furthermore, do you know how much it costed you to bring one potential customer to your website? What was the exact return of your last campaign?

Many business owners can't answer this question. This is a vital information because many times campaigns are not profitable, that is, the advertising to get one customer costed more than the profit generated by that customer. You must avoid this!

Have you ever noticed that when you are looking for a something online it shows up everywhere else you go?

Your visits are being tracked, are you doing the same with your potential customers?

You have put so much effort to get your customers, so don't let them go.

You have to create a relationship with your customers, get back to them with news and updates, ask them how you can improve your products or services, let them know that you care about them and they will reward you.

Last, but maybe the most important, what are you selling to your customers?

If you are selling just a product, you'll probably end up in a price-battle with your competitors where you are the first to lose.

So what should you sell? Value. Most of the times people buy the emotion to own a certain product. Think about that time you bought an expensive pair of shoes. Did you need something to cover your feet or you were buying an emotion?

Your customers are no different. They buy emotions, they buy your story, the experience that comes with your products.