Finding Your Customers Online

Today's Truth: You CAN Find Your Customers Online!

So, you have a hunch that your customers might be making purchases online (YOU'RE RIGHT! FOLLOW THIS HUNCH!). But you don't know where they are clicking?

Well, if a person is in the market for whatever you are selling, the name of that product or service is where you start.

For instance, if you sell soap on a rope, you might try Googling "soap on a rope" and see what results are given. Where is your company listed in the search results? High? (GOOD JOB!) Low? (Hey, no problem, add a little more content to your site and maybe play around with Pay Per Click or Adword campaigns.) Nowhere? Boo. Do you have a website? Has your website been spidered by Google? Talk to your IT team about doing this if you're not sure if it's been done or not. The key is to submit your sitemap to Google so it recognizes your site and will then spider it during searches. This practice use to be frowned upon, but now there are ways to do it that won't get you in trouble and are easy to do as well. More info on this here.

Another way to find your customers is to poll them. TIP: It doesn't matter what channel you use to poll them, just ask! If you have a postcard or a telesales operation, simply ask, "If you're shopping online for X product, what sites do you visit most often?" If they don't mention yours, ask for feedback on why not. Also, run surveys on your website quarterly. This will give you plenty of feedback on what you should be working on to make your site better. And please, offer some incentives for this! People do like to give their opinion, but show them how much you VALUE it by throwing in a little something (a white paper, a coupon, a knick-knack, etc.)

Tomorrow's Truth: How do I start to represent my company on social networking sites?

Keep Clicking,

Michelle