If you ask people the question "What is Marketing?" you most often get the answer "It's advertising and selling."

Well, it is those things, but it is much, much more.

The first thing you need to do in Marketing is find out who your real buyers are. And once you have them in your sights, start to get really interested in them - the more you know about your buyers the better your bottom line will be. So let's do a little target practice.

'Everyone' is not your buying public - or your website visitng public. That's like shooting a double barrel shotgun into the sky and hoping you hit something.

Every business has a defined audience and every business owner instinctively knows things about his best prospects.. What group of people is most likely to buy your product or service? Who is most likely to be visitng a website like yours?

Take an obvious example: If you sell baby clothes and toys then pregnant women, new mums, their families, friends and co-workers will be your public.

To really pull the buyers in, you have to find other pieces of information about them. Keep working at who these people are and what their interests and "hot buttons" are until you have a very clear picture of who would buy your product or service.

You should know at least 20 attributes of your target audience. There is nothing more important than knowing your target public intimately. What do you know about them right now - write that down and then start to do your research.

No - don't run for the hills at themeniton of oding alittle research!  It's not 'too hard' or 'too expensive', it is essential and you have to 'know before you go'.

The first rule of research is "be nosy and be interested" Here are some questions you should be asking:

Is your buyer likely to be male or female?
What age?
Are they the person in the family likely to make a buying decision on this product or service?
If not, who is?
What kind of job do they have?
How much are they paid?
Are the happy at their jobs?
What do they do after work?
What do they wish for?
What religion are they?
Do they have children?
What kind of home, apartment or condo do they live in?
Where do they live?
What do they primarily spend their extra money on?
What forms of entertainment do they indulge in?
Where do they vacation?
What types of transportation do they use?
What kinds of magazines do they buy?
What paper do they subscribe to?
Which parts of the paper do they read?
What kind of car do they drive?
What kind of car do they wish they drove?
What television shows do they watch?
What restaurants do they eat in?
What nationality are they?

Get the idea? Take this list and make it into a polite survey. As long as you have a genuine interest, people love to talk about themselves.

Once you have a good idea of who your buying pubic is, go to the Internet.  Look for a newsgroup, mailing list, newsletter or blog that best describes this group of people.  

Locate a good match and ask people in these chat rooms or user groups if they would be willing to help you and participate in your survey. Make sure that you tell them upfront why you are surveying and that all their details will be completely confidential and you should get a good supply of data.

What do you do with all this information? It tells you where the target is and how to hit the bulls-eye. This data shows how you can reach them - both physically and emotionally. It tells you how to meet their needs. And it tells you how to improve what you are doing, how to price your product or service and where to advertise.

And it's vital data you need for the content strategy for your website.

The Content Strategy Workbook will walk you through this step by step

Happy hunting!

Sally Falkow