Know your Online Audience

• Oct. 13, 2005

In an article published by our Head Sponsored Search Strategist there is a great point made on the importance of targeting your audience if you are trying B2B marketing online.  I highly recommend reading it even if you aren’t a B2B marketer.

 

That is because even though it talks about marketing in a B2B fashion, the message applies to any form of online marketing.

 

In today’s online marketing field, too many agencies create optimization aimed at increasing search engine rankings with little or no regard for the end user when what they should be doing is writing for the user who they wish to sell their product or service to.

 

This is a common misconception with many website owners and even search engine marketers: That they need to write to target the search engines.  In reality they are missing the point altogether.

 

The most effective way to position your website is to create it for an audience.  That means you need to know who you are marketing to. 

 

For example, if you are marketing to women you need to know that women search differently then men and look for different things on a website.  They are more methodical and will tend to view more of the SERPs than a man.  Therefore you don’t need to be #1 or #2 in the results.  You may actually receive more clicks from a #5 listing if it is more compelling to that female browser.

 

Sometimes marketing online even means not focusing your efforts on search engines, but looking elsewhere.

 

For example, if you are marketing a technology product to an “early adopter” or one who gets into the latest trends before they are trends, then you need to know where to find them.  Some early adopters won’t look at paid ads, therefore a PPC campaign aimed at them might not do you much good.

 

Sometimes the best way to get noticed by an early adopter is to get reviewed by a site that isn’t a search engine yet is a site they may visit frequently.

 

For example, if you are flogging the latest and greatest plasma TV, chances are that you’d get a better response from a review done on Gizmodo.com than any money spent on a directory listing.  This is because many early adopters in the technology field visit blogs and websites like Gizmodo.com.

 

I’ll give you another example.  If you are a technology firm marketing a product or service B2B then perhaps a few well timed press releases will work better for you.  This is because in some cases providing quick concise information about your product or service this way can actually attract the right person (the one who has been tasked with finding a product or service like yours) at the right time.  They may not want to (or know how to) use a search engine so you are giving them a quick way out by providing this information in their email inbox.

 

So you see that targeting your audience is more than just finding the words they may search for, it is also about finding out where they “hang.”  By applying some more traditional marketing knowledge and experience one can better reach their audience.

 

This is why vendors like Budweiser sponsor sporting events.  Because they know their target audience is either in attendance or watching on TV.  They also know that sponsoring an opera isn’t likely a good use of their marketing budget.

 

So we as online marketers can learn from more traditional marketers in that sense.  By focusing on not only the search engines but ANY form of online communication we can better reach our goal of attracting the target to the website.

 

And isn’t that was online marketing is:  Reaching more people online and not just with search engines or PPC campaigns?

 

Rob Sullivan

Head Organic Search Strategist

Search Engine Positioning by Searchengineposition

Enquiro Full Service Search Engine Marketing