- Via search engines
- When they click a link on another website that brings them to your site.
- When they see an ad for your site offline or hear about it from a friend and type in the URL.
Remembering URL's in the offline world is very hard for most people and that kind of brand marketing doesn't work very well for small businesses so I would strongly recommend that you focus your efforts on the online world.
Lets pretend you sell booties online for Huskies so that their feet don't get cold in the snow. You only ship to the USA and Canada. That's a fairly niche market. Start by defining who it is you're trying to attract:
- People who own Huskies
- People who live in the USA and Canada.
- People who live in areas that get snow each winter.
- People who spoil their dogs enough to buy something as specific as booties.
- People who buy online.
These bullets are criteria that define your target market. If any one of them is missing, it disqualifies the person as a buyer. If it doesn't snow where they live, they won't buy. If they're outside the USA and Canada, they won't buy. If they don't buy online, they're not your target market.
Print out the bullets that define your target market and as you go about your marketing efforts, test what you're doing against each one of them. Before approaching a blog to do a guest post or a website to get a link, test that site's audience against your bullets to see if the site's visitors are your target market.
Now that you've defined your target market, here are a few ideas to help you get your website link in front of them:
- Get links from websites where your target market hangs out. You'll benefit directly from a few clicks and indirectly via SEO. Google's blog search is a great way to find blogs that your target market reads.
- Do guest posts on blogs that your target market reads and be sure to include several links to your site.
- Write a feature article for an online magazine that your target market reads. Don't bother with offline magazines because few people will remember your website name.
- Find people on Twitter who have a lot of followers who are your target market and get them to tweet about your site. Use Twitter's own search engine to help.
- Network your way to people on Facebook who have friends who are your target market and get them to post a link on Facebook. Trade shows and other industry events are great places to make friends that might be able to help you later.
If you have a niche website, your marketing efforts will be similar to most website's with the difference that your efforts need to be laser focused. Defining your target market gives you a way to constantly evaluate if your efforts are focused correctly.
