Give Me Quality Over Quantity Every Time

In the early days of developing my home business, I went for the numbers instead of focusing on targeting prospects. It took me a while to appreciate the importance of targeting (quality) instead of just going for the big numbers (quantity).

For online marketing, it helps greatly to get your website in front of people who are actually looking for the product, service, or opportunity that you are offering. This refers to the concept of marketing your sites to your target audience, rather than wasting your time, effort, and money on people who are not already interested in what you have to offer.

Be wary of "massive action" techniques in this era when many ISPs feel their hottest marketing theme is the blocking of incoming emails, which they decide their customers do not want to receive (they are the self appointed "information police").

Many of the sources of cheap, high volume leads supply you with leads that have absolutely no interest in your particular business (or product or service) and furthermore, have been put into the list in such a manner that can get you into trouble with your ISP because you are unwittingly spamming (many of these bulk lead lists are created by robots that crawl the Internet and harvest email addresses) the recipients.

In order to be effective in the promotion your particular proposition, whatever it is, you have to seek out your target market. This is as true online as it is offline. Just because you are able to reach huge numbers of people with your message on the Internet far more cheaply and quickly than you can offline, does this necessarily mean you should?

What's the point of devoting your time and energies to marketing to a massive group of people without first knowing whether they, as a group, have a general interest in what you are offering?

It is much more efficient and effective to first find out where your prospective customers congregate, and then target that congregation, than it is to use a shotgun approach and hope that one of your pellets will somehow find its target (you know... throw enough up against the wall and something is bound to stick). You will find that by selectively targeting your prospects before marketing to them, your conversion ratio (the proportion of your target market that takes positive action and actually purchases your product or service) will be much higher than the results you would otherwise achieve without first taking the time to target your prospects. Once again, quality wins out over quantity.

It seems that a great many webmasters have not stopped to ask themselves the all-important question...What is the purpose of my web site? For some reason, many of them seem to think that the purpose of their web site is to give away freebies. Or it could be to be a "showcase" for their products. Or it could be to create links to all kinds of resources. Or it could be to have fancy flash graphics and build a brand name.

One of the biggest mistakes people new to web design make is going for more "flash" than substance. They bog down their site with a bunch of fancy colored backgrounds, 3-D text, flash presentations, etc. If a visitor to your site is using a 56K connection and has wait to more than 8 seconds for it to load (which can easily happen on sites heavy with graphics), you can expect to lose about 1/3 of your visitors.

If you're a business, the purpose of your web site is to sell a product or service. Your web site should have one main focus. It should not be selling a dozen products, a dozen opportunities, or linking to a bunch of different affiliate programs. Presenting too many options has a tendency to confuse your visitor. When someone visits your site, it should be clearly obvious what one action you want him or her to take.

----------------------------------------------------------------
This article is freely available for reprint provided that the resource box at the end of the article is left intact and the article is published complete and unaltered. If you are using this article on a website or e-book, please make sure that the link in the resource box is live or clickable.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and coaches others seeking to start their own home based business.

Visit his website at Legitimate Home Based Business for more details.

---

Internet Directories to Improve Link Popularity

Description: one way of jumpstarting you link campaign is to... Read More

Why Running Contests Can Help You Attract and Retain Quality Community Members

Assuming that it is legal to do so in your... Read More

How to Advertise on the Internet

Do you want to reach millions of potential customers for... Read More

Developing a Profitable Web Business Concept

The first step to starting a profitable online business of... Read More

Google Gives Web Page History More Importance

The Google patent application submitted in March, 2005 has generated... Read More

Reciprocal Link versus Value Exchange

Most webmasters are familiar with the concept of reciprocal linking.... Read More

How To Stop Your Site Disappearing Into The Void

Repetition is the key to getting your adverts and promotion... Read More

The Top 10 Most Ludicrous Things You Can Do on Your Web Site

We have a running joke in our office that one... Read More

What Can You Do To Beat Your Competition?

In many cases when you start a new website you... Read More

Criteria For Selecting Good Directories!

Directories are the best means for getting related links and... Read More

Website Promotion: 10 Volcanic Tactics To Ignite Your Profits

If your website sales are down and you desire to... Read More

Internet Freebies and Cheapies to Help You Grow Your Business

Do you dream of running your own business? Well, get... Read More

Web Site Promotion: Use Web Site Awards To Increase Your Credibility

Web Site Awards are given from other sites to reward... Read More

The ON World of OFFline marketing

Ok, now if you've started reading this article thinking that... Read More

Seecrets on Website Promotion: Results of Open Source Marketing Plan after 2 Months

This author's open-source marketing plan, as announced on June 29,... Read More

Free Advertising the Smart Way

Your biggest asset when becoming an internet marketer is to... Read More

How To Acquire One Way Inbound Links

How can one get a good ranking in the major... Read More

Website Promotion: 10 Sure-Fire Tactics To Sell Your Back-End Products

A back-end product is a product that you attempt to... Read More

How to Increase Your Website Traffic in 3 Easy Steps

Promoting your website might seem like an enormous task that... Read More

How To Promote Your Online Store

OK. So you took the leap and started your online... Read More

Hunting For Online Directories - The In depth Strategy

Directory marketing can help boost your companies performance a great... Read More

Promote Your Website Using Newsgroups

At present there are over 3.3 billion pages indexed by... Read More

Driving Traffic to a Crafters Web Site

Ok. So you've got your website done and stocked with... Read More

Hit the Target with Bullseye Marketing

Let's see here... as of today Google states it has... Read More

The 4 Keys to Great Website Promotion ? Helping Others with Friendly & Useful Services

With all the "How To" articles, and great advice available... Read More

Web Site Marketing Techniques Rated

There are many ways to market your web site, both... Read More

Website Marketing Mistakes Smart People Make

You have invested your time and money into putting up... Read More

How To Turn Visitors Into Posters

So your having a hard time turning your visitors into... Read More

Ten Heavy Duty Online Sales Grabbers

How to improve conversion rate for your website? How to... Read More

Submitting Your Website With Web Promotion Services

Once you have built and uploaded your home business website... Read More

Competition Freebies and Sponsorship For Free Advertising and Link Popularity

How many competitions are there running on the net at... Read More

4 Simple Tips for Targeted Traffic

Here are 4 of the most easiest and... Read More

How to Promote Websites Popularity?

Once your site is launched, half your battle is won.... Read More