The Year I Fell in Love… Repeatedly
Market Research 3 Comments »But first: Last chance to register for either of two live web clinics today.
Spend an hour on the phone and the computer with me, learning about "How to Create a Surge of Traffic to Your Site."
One clinic at 1pm EDT (10am Pacific), the other at 8pm EDT (5pm Pacific). Sign up for whichever is more convenient.
http://askhowie.com/traffic-surge-web-clinic
When I started marketing online, I saw myself as a "creative" type who looked at numbers, charts, and graphs the way Queen Elizabeth might view a mouse in her Yorkshire pudding.
"Ugh," I would think. "I can’t fill my sensitive and sparkly marketing brain with a bunch of data. How unromantic!"
After a while, it became clear that I needed to learn how to respect the numbers. Generate them. Look at them. Learn from them. And I discovered something amazing: those numbers actually allowed me to become more empathetic, more sensitive, and more creative. And then I remembered…
1980: The Year I Fell In Love… Repeatedly
I was 15, and I began falling in love as a habit.
Melissa, Gabi, Erica, and at least a dozen more.
The fact that my affection was generally unrequited (and in all probability, completely unnoticed) just made the experience all the more intense.
Here’s what I remember most: the single-minded attention I paid to the current girl of my dreams.
In gym class, I would track The One no matter what I was doing, my team was doing, or she was doing.
I’m up at bat during springtime softball, the score is tied with 5 minutes left until the period is over, two runners on base.
Am I sizing up the pitcher? No.
Taking in the outfield alignment? Hardly.
I’m checking to see if She’s watching me.
Is she at the water fountain?
Talking with friends?
Resting with her eyes closed?
Huh? Strike three? What the… ?
I could have told you everything about The One at the end of the day. What she smiled and laughed at. Which of my jokes met with annoyed eye-rolling.
What she doodled in the margins of her social studies notebook. What she ate for lunch. And so much more…
Are You in Love with Your Market?
If you really want to run a successful online business, you have two choices. You can be truly, madly, deeply in love with your market, or you can fake it.
I’m not here to lecture you about business ethics, so all I’ll say here is, it’s a heck of a lot harder to fake it.
If you’re in love with your market, you’ll pay close attention to what they want. What they say. How they act on your site.
You’ll track them as they encounter your various ads, sign up or not for your free reports or e-courses, and convert or not to paying clients and customers.
Love turns out to be the mediating force between the opposite poles of bean counting and creative promoting.
When you’re in love with someone, you’re hungry to know everything about them. "Market research" changes from tedious chore to pleasurable obsession.
Split testing goes from technical gymnastics to fascinating questions and answers.
"Customer service" goes from necessary evil to delightful opportunity.
The Secret to a Surge of Leads and Sales to Your Site
The secret isn’t some fancy SEO technique.
It isn’t a stealth AdWords network nobody else has heard about.
It’s knowing as much as you can about your market.
- How many of them are there?
- What do they want so badly they’ll spend time searching for it?
- How do they currently satisfy that desire?
- What actual words do they use when they search?
- Who is currently serving them well right now?
- What are the economics of reaching that market predictably and consistently?
And the secret of staying on top of all this data is to combine the passion of a young lover with the analytical bent of an accountant.
And there’s no better medium to start combining the two mindsets than AdWords:
Virtually instant data, simple testing, clear reporting.
Short, haiku-like advertisements.
So whether you’re by nature a poet or an accountant, you can use AdWords as the crucible to strengthen your non-dominant side.
Just imagine the love songs this could inspire:
"Oh, baby, won’t you raise my CTR?"
"Since I been lovin’ you right, I haven’t got any wrong impressions."
"I’ll have to say I love you in an ad."
No-cost Web Clinic today (Wed May 6): Traffic Surge
- Do you have a web site and not enough visitors and sales?
- Have you been "noodling around" online but haven’t found a market or a business model to commit to?
- Are you running a successful business and just know there’s a way to use the web to take it to the next level?
- Are you just getting started with AdWords and hitting the brick wall of Google Confusion?
- Are you overwhelmed by all the different techniques and tactics and programs and courses, but don’t feel like you’ve found a solid foundation yet?
If you’re nodding your head in self-recognition at any of this, join me for the zero-cost Traffic Surge web clinic:
http://askhowie.com/traffic-surge-web-clinic
Wishing you health, happiness, prosperity, the soul of Rumi and the brain of Einstein,
Howie
