If you have an online business, prospecting is not only essential for your growth, it is also vital for your survival. Prospecting helps you find customers. And with customers come sales to fuel your cash flow and profits.
What Is Prospecting?
Prospecting is the act or actions you make to find a prospect to sell your products and services.
Here are strategies you can perform to prospect for new customers online. In essence they answer “who, what, where and when” for your marketing campaign.
#1 Focus On Your Target Audience
Find out the attributes of your target customer and focus your prospecting on this target audience. These attributes can involve certain types of demographics and psychographics.
It’s not enough to say your customer is a certain gender, age group and income bracket. You’ll be more successful when you also know the type of lifestyle and purchase decision making behaviors your customers have in common to identify prospects you should target.
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Create a target list of prospects that meet your customer attributes. The better the quality of this list as it relates to the attribute of your target audience, the more likely you can convert your prospects into customers.
Referrals. Ask your customers to refer prospects to you. Referrals are often the easiest prospects to convert into customers. You can build trust and credibility early on because your prospect knows your customer who referred you to them.
Network. Look for prospects among the people you connect with on LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Plus and other online networks.
Website Visitors. Website visitors can be a rich source of prospects for your business. If you have an email opt-in form on your website then you have a list of prospects who visited your website.
If you do not have an opt-in form then make this a priority.
Purchased Lists. Purchase a list of emails for online prospects. Buying a list of email addresses for prospects that fit your target audience attributes is a good way to fill your pipeline of prospective customers.
#2 Reach Your Target Audience with PPC, Retargeting Advertising and Email
Online advertising costs money. And your expense goes up by the type of ad you purchase and the audience you target with this ad. That’s why focusing on your target audience and creating a compelling message is so important.
One way to prospect for customers online is through Pay-per-click search engine ads. PPC is a type of search engine marketing in which you place your display ad or just a few words on search engine pages. You can set a defined budget and pay only when a visitor clicks on your ad which takes them to your website.
The key is to select the keyword(s) that will attract your target audience. To optimize your results you should also install a conversion tracking system on your landing pages.
You can maximize your return on advertising by investing in retargeting. This is a strategy that enables you to bring prospects that visit your website and learn about your products and services but do not buy to revisit your website to purchase from you.
Retargeting involves technology that allows you to keep track of people who visit your website and display your ad to them when they visit other websites. When they click on your ad they come back to your site.
Email is a another method to reach your target audience. Send your audience a series of emails that make them curious to read and respond. Make sure you include links in your email that take your prospect to your landing page and/or order page to close the sale.
Make it a champion day!
Brandon K. Hardison – Champion Strategies
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