Internet Marketing - Are You Reaching Your Target Audience?

To be sure you're reaching your target audience with any marekting effort and internet marketing in particular. It is important to have certain elements in place. First and foremost is to know who your public is.
Second is to know what they want from your product or service.
Third is to deliver what they want from your advertising all the way through your product or service itself.

How do you know who your public is and what they want from your product or service?
The answer is survey. Ask your public (customers and prospects) what they want with properly conducted market research in the form of surveys.

While there are many firms that perform market research and customer surveys it is important that the survey you conduct accomplish certain key objectives in order for the information to be practically useful when creating your marketing campaigns and collateral.

1. The survey must acertain what type of people are most likely to want and buy your product. If your product has a dual public, such as with children's products, you must survey both publics (e.g. children and parents).

2. The survey must find out what these people would expect your product to do for them - benefits they expect.

3. The survey must get them to tell you how best to present your product to them. This is a tricky one because your questions have to cut through a person's social acceptance mechanisms to get to what really makes them want a product. This is accomplished through careful question construction and is best done by marketers experienced in writing questions that cut through an individual's social veneer.

4. The survey should also ask questions about such things as pricing, packaging, color and name.

5. And finally, the survey should ask questions that tell you how to position your product so that consumers will find it appealing.

Even if you conduct focus groups and product testing, doing these types of surveys early on in the product development and marketing development stages can save a great deal of time and money. At the very least it will give you a direction to go in which will save many hit and miss attempts at getting your marketing right.

---- Toli Cefail

Toli Cefail is a veteran marketing executive and entrepreneur with more than 20 years experience in marketing both online and off. She is currently the Chief Operating Officer at the leading online marketing firm In Touch Media Group (ITOU.OB) - www.InTouchMediaGroup.com.

Marketing & Everything Else: You Get What You Pay For by Toli Cefail

So often prospective clients come to me and expect me to perform online marketing services for them for free. If they don't want it for free, they want it for some rediculously low price like $99 or something.

I don't understand it. I'm still trying to guess what the thought process is.

I mean you wouldn't expect another professional such as an attorney, doctor or accountant to deliver services to you for free right? You wouldn't expect to put ads in a newspaper for free right? Investment bankers, ad agencies (when the buy rate is low) all get retainers right? So why not an internet marketing professional?

I have a few theories:

1. There is a glut of apparently "cheap" internet marketing information and tools on the web. So people expect professional internet marketers to fall in to that same category.

You've seen them. The web pages that go on for days talking about the "MIRACLES OF THEIR SYSTEM" and how you can "Get RICH Instantly" for "NO MONEY" and "NO WORK" are everywhere. YAY!!

These programs, tapes and e-books, etc. usually sell for under $300.

Well, if you have the time to invest in learning from them and implementing their suggestions, great. Go for it. But if you want professional help ...

2. The internet being apparently entirely technology driven has the feel of software. So people treat it like a piece of software and think it's effortless.

Yes. It's effortless like a gymnasts routine. If you've been doing it for 20 years you can make it look easy. But if you want that expertise on your side...

3. Some small business people who are not used to working with real professionals don't understand the etiquette of working with professional marketers and consultants and other types of experts in various fields. So, like children, they have to learn the hard way that if you want real professional results, you have to behave like a company that gets those kind of results (and budget accordingly).
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Well those are my theories on why some companies don't want to pay properly for professional marketing services.

This is not to say that no companies realize the value of professional marketing done right. My clients do and they are plenty. But it's fascinating to me how many small businesses there are that DON'T recognize the value. Perhaps this is why they stay small.

In any case, if you are trying to market a product on the internet or otherwise, do not underestimate the value of professional internet marketing consulting and services. The old adage "you get what you pay for" is still true today.

Toli Cefail Is...

Toli Cefail has been a marketing professional for more than 20 years in addition to having a strong administrative and regulatory background. She has overseen the marketing, legal and regulatory affairs for what became a top provider of specialized telecommunications services against competitors such as AT&T, MCI, Sprint and the Baby Bells.

This involved establishing, coordinating and managing regulatory affairs and marketing efforts in 600 counties spanning 41 states. Ms. Cefail was also responsible for obtaining favorable groundbreaking legislation for this company in a number of states as well as creating the firm’s administrative structure and procedures from the ground up.

Ms. Cefail has also assisted in the marketing & web development for the boutique investment banking firm The RC&A Group as well as performed marketing consulting for such prominent entertainers as Doug E. Fresh.

Currently she is a principle of the major online marketing firm In Touch Media Group providing internet marketing consulting services to small & medium sized businesses.