Target Market the Key to Your Online Success

By Jeremy Gossman
Posted Monday, July 5, 2004

If you are an Internet marketer or want to be there are 3 issues to be concerned with. Target market, traffic generation, and traffic converstion.

Which is most important?

Well, I would have to say that selecting your target market is. I am not saying that traffic generation and traffic conversion are not important, though.

Its just that if you have a target market that does not have credit cards or the ability to spend money, then you are doomed no matter how much traffic you throw at a highly primed sales page.

A poor target market with no money will not produce you any profit no matter how hard you try. It doesn't even matter if you are the greatest copywriter in the world!

Your process for marketing online must always start with the target market. Then, work on the traffic and sales process to increase your profits. A bad site with minimal traffic will make money on a good target
market.

Keys to determining a Good Target Market

1. Your target market should be big enough for your primary keyword to have several thousand searches or more a month on (www.Overture.com). Check your key word at: (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/)

If there are only a few hundred searches for your primary keyword you should probably stop right there. Make sure you are using a key word that someone would type in the search engine. If they were looking for your particular product idea.

2. Does the average person in your target market have a credit card and money to spend?

3. You should be able to find other marketers in the search engines selling similar products to what you are thinking about selling. Some competition tells you that marketers are making money on that target market with a particular product.

Check on:
(http://www.google.com)
(http://www.msn.com)
(http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace)

4. Identify what advertisers are paying for advertising on your primary key word. Check the pay per click search engine (http://www.overture.com) type your primary key word in to the search field. Then when the listings comes up, look to the right side of the screen for the words "View Advertisers' Max Bids" Click on that and follow the instructions. If the top 3 listings are for products related to your idea, then there is a good chance that money is to be made. You will also need to make sure they are spending more than 25 cents per click for the top three spots. Advertisers spending only 10 cents per click for your primary key word is an indication of a poor market. Remember, that I am speaking about your primary key word that has several thousand searches per month.

If there are 50 products already out there almost exactly like what you wanted to bring to market, develop a new twist. Find a way to bring another spin to the products that are already out there. Provide a solution for a missing need that the already popular product dosen't.

This can provide you with joint ventures with all of the would be competitors.

Start today and put your best ideas to the test and select the one that rise to the top.

About the Author
Jeremy Gossman is an internet marketer and consultant that has several ventures online. You can learn more about Jeremy's latest project and subscribe to a free mini-course by visiting: (http://www.acceleratedinternetprofits.com)