Who Are You Marketing To On the Internet?

By Susan Dunn
Posted Thursday, September 2, 2004

"Dear Friend,

My name is JANG DOO-HWAN, The brother of Mr. Chun DOO-HWAN, former President of South Korea who seized power ..."

Have you been on the Internet for a while? Likely three years ago you might been a bit excited to see "president of South Korea" for the subject line." You opened it eagerly and read every word, unable to believe your good fortune. Then you forwarded it to your brother-in-law to check it out.

Likely two years ago you would still open them, but would skim quickly to see if it wasn't what you thought it was. Ah well, the "something for nothing" appeal dies hard and the countries keep changing.

Likely today you recognize those things from a mile away, deleting them without taking a look.

Which is fine, but did you ever ask yourself this? They wouldn't still be appearing if they weren't working, so who in the world is answering them? Somebody out there is - and that's who you're marketing to on the Internet. The hundreds of thousands who are entering for the first time every day!

Every day there might be many new people who want to buy your product or services who weren't there yesterday.

It's a marketing challenge if you have a campaign that hasn't worked, or a product or service that "hasn't taken off yet," to figure out whether more time and new people would make a difference.

But this you can count on: Every day someone toddles onto your website who's never heard of PayPal, who doesn't know to scroll down or how to reset the text size for their browser, who's afraid to put their credit card on the Internet, and who wonders why that print is blue.

We can also count on the fact that every day there will be more non-US individuals surfing the web. Keep this in mind as you write copy, talk about holidays, and make references to statistics. We are used to saying "the divorce rate is 50%." We mean "in the US," and it's generally understood to mean "in the US," but those days are disappearing fast.

Thanksgiving Day in Canada is October 13th.
Labor Day in Mexico is May 1.
New Year's in China is lunar - late-January to mid-February.

As you forge ahead with your own knowledge of the Internet, remember your audience is at all stages, and while we are hunkering down for winter in the US, it's spring in New Zealand, and that teleclass you schedule at 8 pm CST, US, won't be attended by a lot of folks in the UK because it's the middle of the night over there.

So, whether you're anticipating Thanksgiving Day or Eid al Fitr this month, or both, qué le vaya bien. That diacritical mark is under "insert" and then "symbols" on your menu (top of your screen), and click here for a translation:
(http://dictionaries.travlang.com/SpanishEnglish) . That means place your cursor on the blue print until you see a hand and then ...)

About the Author
©Susan Dunn, MA, Internet Marketing Coach, (http://www.webstrategies.cc) . Web strategies, web design, article-writing, eBook writing, marketing plans and consultation, multicultural. We offer the services you need to succeed. Mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc for FREE eZine; put "Checklist" for the subject line.