Niche Markets and Targeted Traffic
By Kathy Jackson
Targeted traffic is what every affiliate marketer wants. But "targeted traffic" really means "visitors," real human beings who are looking for your products online. The really successful super affiliates know how to get inside the heads of the niche market they want to reach. They know the demographics of their target market so they can use PPC or SEO to capture the eyeballs of that market. They also know the psychological
triggers that get those visitors to buy.
Niches and Niche Markets
First, let’s talk about what a “niche market” really is. A niche market is basically a subset of a broad market. For example: “dogs” is a broad market, but the broad dog market breaks down into smaller niche markets; dog houses, dog food, dog training, specific dog breeds, etc.
The BNET Business Directory defines niche market as: “a very specific market segment within a broader segment. A niche market involves specialist goods or services with relatively few or no competitors. Niche consumers often look for exclusiveness or some other differentiating factor such as high status. Alternatively, they may have a specific requirement
not satisfied by standard products. Allergy sufferers, for example, may require specially formulated soaps and detergents. Niche markets are often targeted by small companies that produce specialized goods and services.”
And these niche markets can be broken down even further into “micro niche markets.” Staying with the dog market, doghouses can be broken down into large doghouses, or small doghouses, or wooden doghouses. Dog training can be broken down into clicker dog training, or training hunting dogs, or dog obedience training. You get the idea. Identifying
your niche market tells you what your potential customers want.
Targeted Traffic
The most desirable targeted traffic in your niche market or micro niche market consists of real people who have credit cards, who are interested specifically in the products that you are selling, and who are affluent enough to actually buy the products you are selling. These people make up the targeted traffic that you want to attract to your website, because these people are most likely to become paying customers.
So how can you determine what segment of the population you should target? Demographics! Example: you might be able to get a ton of traffic from advertisements aimed at 16-year-old boys, but how many of them have a credit card, or a PayPal account filled with cash? (I know, scary thought!) Targeting their parents (or their grandparents) might be better, since they will have the cash to buy gifts for those teen boys.
Helpful Demographic Tools: Microsoft’s adCenter Labs Demographics Prediction tool (free at http://adlab.microsoft.com/Demographics-Prediction/DPUI.aspx) can be helpful when you are determining demographics. This tool can be used to predict a user’s age, gender, and other information based on their online behavior for specific keywords or even for specific website addresses. The Microsoft adLab Keyword Forecast tool (free at http://adlab.microsoft.com/Keyword-Forecast/) is
also helpful.
Also the Detecting Online Commercial Intention tool (also free at http://adlab.microsoft.com/Online-Commercial-Intention/Default.aspx) can provide you with information about customer intent. Computer users search the Internet for one of two distinct purposes: they are looking for information, or they are looking for a specific product to buy.
Last, a site that is as good as all of those listed above is called Quantcast (free at http://www.quantcast.com/). Here you can type in the website address of your largest competitor and find out what specific demographics his site is attracting.
Turning Demographic Information into Targeted Traffic
Once you’ve determined the demographic you’ll be targeting by age, gender, race, level of education, income bracket, and/or other factors, you’ll need to use that information to get into the head of your typical paying customer and put your advertisements and promotions in front of them.
Speaking the Customer’s Language: I know, you’re thinking that all your customers speak English, so what’s the big deal about speaking their language? We all speak English, right?
Not exactly! People of specific age groups use words that people of other age groups don’t use. When you know the demographic of your most likely paying customer, you need to apply that information to the language that you use on your website and in your PPC advertising.
- The Age Factor: If you’re advertising to a teenager, you might use the term “off the chain” to describe a good product; but if you’re trying to sell that same product to the teen’s grandmother as a gift for that teen, “off the chain” will not compute. She’ll have no clue whether you’re telling her that the product is good, bad, or dangerous. And if you throw a few obscenities into your copy, she’ll want to wash your mouth out with soap, and she most certainly will NOT buy anything that you recommend.
- The Level of Education Factor: The same thing is true of people with differing levels of education. If your typical customer has only a high school education and you insist on using a lot of big words in your advertising or on your website, your typical customer won’t “get it,” and they’ll find somebody who speaks in terms that they understand. You won’t astound them with your extensive vocabulary; you’ll send them straight to your competitor’s website.
- The Gender Factor: Men and women don’t use the same terms to describe the same object. The same words don’t
cause them to buy products, either. If you’re selling a product to a woman, you must appeal to her sensibilities. If your copy talks “down” to her and assumes that she’s just not nearly as intelligent as a man, she won’t buy from you. Men respond better to “straight talk.” Stick to the facts.
- The Income Level Factor: People of different income levels view price in different ways. If you’re selling to an upper-income group, price shouldn’t be mentioned until the very end of your sales pitch. But if you’re selling to a lower income group, or to bargain hunters, it may be necessary to mention price sooner. In PPC advertising, you may need to mention discounts or prices in your ads to prequalify visitors, so you aren’t paying for clicks from people who can’t afford what you’re selling.
Advertisement Times and Locations: People of all ages, races, levels of education and income, and of both sexes use the Internet. They all use the search engines to find information that they want and need and to find products that they want to buy. But they don’t all search for the same information or the same products, and they don’t search at the same times of day.
Now you’re using the correct language in your advertisements according to the demographics that best describe your customer base. So your next step is to put those advertisements where they’ll do the most good — and run them during optimum hours according to the demographics that best describe your customer base.
PPC marketers have learned that demographic information can help you determine, even in the testing stage, the best times to run your ads. And demographics can also help you decide on what websites or in which ezines you place advertisements.
- The Time Factor: You should run your advertisements during the hours when your customers are most likely to be online. If you’re selling farm equipment, there’s not much point in running your advertisements after 9 PM. Farmers go to bed early. On the other hand, if you’re selling “off the chain” shoes, you might not want to start running your advertisements until kids get home from school.
- The Location Factor: Advertising on websites that attract your customer base is a good idea, but there’s no point in paying for advertisements on sites that your customer base would never intentionally visit. Choose wisely. The same thing is true of ezine advertisements. They can be very effective, but only if you choose ezines that your customer base is likely to subscribe to.
Use the demographic information you collect to determine when and where your advertisements should appear.
In affiliate marketing circles, driving traffic is one of the most often discussed topics. That’s because without traffic, an affiliate marketer doesn’t have a business.
But just any old traffic isn’t helpful. You might have 1,000 people visit your website, but if none of them buy anything, you’ve just wasted a lot of money on ineffective PPC advertising or SEO. On the other hand, if only 100 people visit your website and 20 of them make a purchase, you’ve spent very little on advertising but made a lot of sales.
That difference is achieved by understanding your typical paying customer. Once again, demographics! When you know the age, sex, race, income level, level of education, etc., of your average customer, you can then determine exactly how to attract him to your website and then how to convince him to make a purchase.
Follow the three steps outlined above — identifying your niche or micro niche market, identify the demographics of your customer base, and apply that demographic information to your copy and advertising — and you’ll be well on your way to increased sales.
About the Author
Kathy Jackson is a Texas rancher and a contributing author for several farm and ranch publications. She is also an experienced freelance writer of email newsletters, review copy, educational materials, and blog posts on a wide variety of topics, including many aspects of online business and affiliate marketing. Internet marketing is one of Kathy’s burning interests. You can read some of Kathy’s articles on the Affiliate Classroom Blog at http://blog.affiliateclassroom.com. She can be contacted via email at jacksokathy@gmail.com.
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Niche Markets and Targeted Traffic
Niche Markets and Targeted Traffic
By Kathy Jackson
Targeted traffic is what every affiliate marketer wants. But "targeted traffic" really means "visitors," real human beings who are looking for your products online. The really successful super affiliates know how to get inside the heads of the niche market they want to reach. They know the demographics of their target market so they can use PPC or SEO to capture the eyeballs of that market. They also know the psychological
triggers that get those visitors to buy.
Niches and Niche Markets
First, let’s talk about what a “niche market” really is. A niche market is basically a subset of a broad market. For example: “dogs” is a broad market, but the broad dog market breaks down into smaller niche markets; dog houses, dog food, dog training, specific dog breeds, etc.
The BNET Business Directory defines niche market as: “a very specific market segment within a broader segment. A niche market involves specialist goods or services with relatively few or no competitors. Niche consumers often look for exclusiveness or some other differentiating factor such as high status. Alternatively, they may have a specific requirement
not satisfied by standard products. Allergy sufferers, for example, may require specially formulated soaps and detergents. Niche markets are often targeted by small companies that produce specialized goods and services.”
And these niche markets can be broken down even further into “micro niche markets.” Staying with the dog market, doghouses can be broken down into large doghouses, or small doghouses, or wooden doghouses. Dog training can be broken down into clicker dog training, or training hunting dogs, or dog obedience training. You get the idea. Identifying
your niche market tells you what your potential customers want.
Targeted Traffic
The most desirable targeted traffic in your niche market or micro niche market consists of real people who have credit cards, who are interested specifically in the products that you are selling, and who are affluent enough to actually buy the products you are selling. These people make up the targeted traffic that you want to attract to your website, because these people are most likely to become paying customers.
So how can you determine what segment of the population you should target? Demographics! Example: you might be able to get a ton of traffic from advertisements aimed at 16-year-old boys, but how many of them have a credit card, or a PayPal account filled with cash? (I know, scary thought!) Targeting their parents (or their grandparents) might be better, since they will have the cash to buy gifts for those teen boys.
Helpful Demographic Tools: Microsoft’s adCenter Labs Demographics Prediction tool (free at http://adlab.microsoft.com/Demographics-Prediction/DPUI.aspx) can be helpful when you are determining demographics. This tool can be used to predict a user’s age, gender, and other information based on their online behavior for specific keywords or even for specific website addresses. The Microsoft adLab Keyword Forecast tool (free at http://adlab.microsoft.com/Keyword-Forecast/) is
also helpful.
Also the Detecting Online Commercial Intention tool (also free at http://adlab.microsoft.com/Online-Commercial-Intention/Default.aspx) can provide you with information about customer intent. Computer users search the Internet for one of two distinct purposes: they are looking for information, or they are looking for a specific product to buy.
Last, a site that is as good as all of those listed above is called Quantcast (free at http://www.quantcast.com/). Here you can type in the website address of your largest competitor and find out what specific demographics his site is attracting.
Turning Demographic Information into Targeted Traffic
Once you’ve determined the demographic you’ll be targeting by age, gender, race, level of education, income bracket, and/or other factors, you’ll need to use that information to get into the head of your typical paying customer and put your advertisements and promotions in front of them.
Speaking the Customer’s Language: I know, you’re thinking that all your customers speak English, so what’s the big deal about speaking their language? We all speak English, right?
Not exactly! People of specific age groups use words that people of other age groups don’t use. When you know the demographic of your most likely paying customer, you need to apply that information to the language that you use on your website and in your PPC advertising.
cause them to buy products, either. If you’re selling a product to a woman, you must appeal to her sensibilities. If your copy talks “down” to her and assumes that she’s just not nearly as intelligent as a man, she won’t buy from you. Men respond better to “straight talk.” Stick to the facts.
Advertisement Times and Locations: People of all ages, races, levels of education and income, and of both sexes use the Internet. They all use the search engines to find information that they want and need and to find products that they want to buy. But they don’t all search for the same information or the same products, and they don’t search at the same times of day.
Now you’re using the correct language in your advertisements according to the demographics that best describe your customer base. So your next step is to put those advertisements where they’ll do the most good — and run them during optimum hours according to the demographics that best describe your customer base.
PPC marketers have learned that demographic information can help you determine, even in the testing stage, the best times to run your ads. And demographics can also help you decide on what websites or in which ezines you place advertisements.
Use the demographic information you collect to determine when and where your advertisements should appear.
In affiliate marketing circles, driving traffic is one of the most often discussed topics. That’s because without traffic, an affiliate marketer doesn’t have a business.
But just any old traffic isn’t helpful. You might have 1,000 people visit your website, but if none of them buy anything, you’ve just wasted a lot of money on ineffective PPC advertising or SEO. On the other hand, if only 100 people visit your website and 20 of them make a purchase, you’ve spent very little on advertising but made a lot of sales.
That difference is achieved by understanding your typical paying customer. Once again, demographics! When you know the age, sex, race, income level, level of education, etc., of your average customer, you can then determine exactly how to attract him to your website and then how to convince him to make a purchase.
Follow the three steps outlined above — identifying your niche or micro niche market, identify the demographics of your customer base, and apply that demographic information to your copy and advertising — and you’ll be well on your way to increased sales.
About the Author
Kathy Jackson is a Texas rancher and a contributing author for several farm and ranch publications. She is also an experienced freelance writer of email newsletters, review copy, educational materials, and blog posts on a wide variety of topics, including many aspects of online business and affiliate marketing. Internet marketing is one of Kathy’s burning interests. You can read some of Kathy’s articles on the Affiliate Classroom Blog at http://blog.affiliateclassroom.com. She can be contacted via email at jacksokathy@gmail.com.
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