TROY – The most effective Internet marketing methods in use today focus on attracting the ?Narrowcast Visitor? to your website – the person who uses the Internet to proactively seek out providers of a specific product or service to satisfy their needs.
Essentially these visitors represent people who are raising their hands and saying, ?I want to buy what you have!? This is considered to be the holy grail of marketing because the likelihood of a revenue-generating action from a Narrowcast Visitor is an order of magnitude higher than a visitor that is that is not actively in pursuit of your product or service (i.e. one that has been redirected to your website via an email blast, banner ad, sweepstakes).
Examples of web-based narrowcast marketing methods used to attract Narrowcast Visitors include:
Search engine optimization
Search engine advertising (sponsored placement / CPC)
Affiliates
Link partners
Auctions
More importantly, if your website has not been developed from the start to really consider the needs of a Narrowcast Visitor, no matter how many visitors reach your site, you will never realize any real revenue generating opportunities! Even more interesting is the fact that many of the best designed websites ? with their fancy graphics, streaming Flash videos, and cool look ? will never be successful in achieving high search engine rankings to attract Narrowcast Visitors or getting these visitors to take action that generates revenues for your organization because of their ineffective architecture, complex user interaction, and incomplete content.
There are generally three steps that need to happen to capture a Narrowcast Visitor:
Search ? the number of people who are seeking out your product or service using the Internet as their research medium
Find ? the ability for the Narrowcast Visitor to be directed to your website via one of the many narrowcast Internet marketing methods
Convert ? the execution of a desired call-to-action by the Narrowcast Visitor once they have reached your website.
Note that you will only be able to influence two of the three steps: Find and Convert. You cannot control the number of users looking for your product or service, as this is a dynamic of the marketplace that you have chosen to participate in. Even though you can invest in significantly influencing the Find step – generating dramatic increases in visitor traffic to your website, the visitors to your website will not convert unless the website has been designed for the Convert step.
Peak Placement recommends an approach centered on these logical steps to maximize your success with the Narrowcast Visitors:
Start with your business model and customer profile
Create your website user experience that answers every visitor?s question about your products / services and maximizes the probability of a ?call-to-action? being executed. As it turns out, this will also result in long-term search engine ranking success if done properly!
Generate dramatic traffic volume (the easy part!)
Benefit from real revenue increase results!
Following this approach will make your website a true revenue-generating business asset ? not an online sales brochure liability.
Jonathan Smith is the Founder of Peak Placement, LLC. Based in Troy, Peak Placement is considered to be one of the nation’s most respected Internet marketing strategists. Smith can be contacted at [email protected]
