Targeted Traffic

What is it? How do you get it? How to convert it to sales?

[paynt]

I read a post recently about converting mass traffic. Maybe I’m a wimp and that’s why I focus on targeted traffic. Mass traffic is like the shopping mall where people come and go with no specific focus in mind. What I like about targeted traffic is that the field is at least narrowed in determining how to convert. With targeted traffic you have something tangible to work with. I’m curious though on what all of you feel about the subject.

What is it? I mean, how do you determine what your targeted traffic is?

How do you get it? What are you doing to get targeted traffic to your site?

How to convert it to sales? Once you have those targeted or shall I say pre-qualified visitors, what methods are you using to convert them to buy?

[txbakers]

Good topic.

I only use targeted traffic since my product is targeted.

For marketing I attend the trade shows for that market and rent the mailing list (email included) for that market.

I prefer e-mail since regular mail is so expensive these days.

Once they take the demo - you must offer a free demo - I transfer their names to a separate mailing list for leads.

Then I work the leads carefully. Not just with a sales pitch over and over again, but with information about the product. How another customer is using it, new features since they last looked, etc.

Since my market is targeted, I'm not worried about my search engine position. In fact, it's better if I'm not in every search engine to keep out the mall traffic. I don't want the mass public to find my site, and I certainly don't want the hackers discovering that it is a popular site.

Since my product is subscription based, if I sense that a sale is near but not ready to close, I will sweeten the deal by offering a free trial period. Their own account for 30 days. I'll mail a "quote" which has the billing information. 40% of the time a sale is made.

Like any other field, salesmanship is important too. In some respects the web makes it more difficult. You still need to "sell". After all, it's just another widget.