Are you throwing your marketing budget into a black hole?

Where are you allocating your marketing Dollars? Are you paying and praying?

Today’s marketing and advertising world is noisier than it’s ever been.

So, are you just another voice at a raging party, or are you sitting around a table at a coffee shop having an intelligent conversation about your industry?

I’m not a big fan of mass media, unless you can seriously afford it or it extends a conversation. GoDaddy is one of the best at extending the conversation. Almost every commercial that I’ve ever seen them run on TV hooks you into going to their website to see what happens next. The best thing you can do with traditional media is get free exposure (earned media).

Traditional forms of advertising (TV, Radio, Print) are raging parties. Yes, they have huge audiences, but the music is on too loud, and everyone’s talking over each other.

Go niche or go home.

Niches online can be millions of people, and the beauty of niche marketing, is that you’re targeting your potential users directly. Best of all, the cost of accessing these users is low or free, depending on how much effort  you want to put in.

Here are a few suggestions to get started:

1. Know who you want as customers

The problem most people have with marketing is that they believe that everyone is their customer. While that may be theoretically true, it never works out. It’s best to narrow your focus down an inch wide, and drive your message and engagement a mile deep. Otherwise, you’re going to end up spreading yourself thin.

It’s extremely important to fabricate characters who fit the profiles of your customers and potential customers. Once you’ve got these characters created, start thinking about what their life is like, where they spend their time, what they want out of life, why they would interact with your brand, and what they are interested in. Once you’re figured that out, go find the communities where those people belong, and start interacting and engaging with them there.

If you already have a big list, use Survey Monkey to create a questionnaire to gather information and reward your users for filling it out.

2. Viewers and Users are different

This goes back to adding loads of value to your community, and why you need to have something that gets people coming back to your site. Viewers are passive, and while users are engaged. Gary Vaynerchuk explains it the difference in detail on the video below.

http://www.viddler.com/player/3464c6eb/

3. Own your niche

Become an authority within your community. Every site needs a blog to get people to come back to it over and over again. Make sure you provide loads of value to your users.

4. Make sure your site incorporates your marketing and sales strategy

If you’re going to pay for traffic, or work for it, make sure you have a way of capturing it when it comes back.

5. Sponsor a blog or a podcast

Once you’ve determined what your users like, advertise in the communities they belong to, or on social networks based on their interest. Try to use Pay Per Click advertising whenever possible. This way you’re paying for leads, not just impressions.