Many Internet marketers overlook Twitter as they see it as a waste of time. However, you ignore this platform at your own peril because not only can it generate a substantial profit for you in the long run, it will also help you understand your market more effectively than anything else. The more you understand your target market, the more you know about these people and what makes them tick, the more effectively you will be able to sell to them and the more money you will make.
The first thing you need to understand is that Twitter and, in fact, most social media sites have become important sources of information for people who are looking to make a purchase. A lot of people go on Twitter to ask the opinion of their friends and followers regarding various services and products. As you saw above, over 40 percent of social media users take these recommendations into consideration when choosing which product to purchase. It is basically electronic word-ofmouth advertising, which is by far the most effective form of advertising.
Now, just as with any marketing strategy you need to have a plan. Without a plan your chances of failure increase for the simple reason that you won’t know where you are going.
Twitter is a highly effective platform where you can begin to learn about your target market. You are no longer in the situation of other businesses that two decades ago had to pay market research companies a fortune to find out who their ideal customer is and they would receive a profile after the company had done extensive research. However, even this would still be a generalized profile, whereas Twitter allows you to come into contact directly with your prospects, not simply an ideal based on a generalized profile.
This allows you to learn about your prospects directly, without having the information filtered and categorized by someone else. Additionally, it is a much more affordable solution, since it’s practically free, and you can even design your own survey and ask your customers and prospects to offer you feedback on your service or product. This information will prove invaluable because you can basically ask your prospects what they want in a product and you can offer it to them. If you offer people what they want, then the product or service will sell itself and your customers will also sell it for you.
Never underestimate the power of understanding what your prospects and target market want. The more you know and the more you understand about them, the easier it will be to create a product they need and want which will lead to higher and easier sales. Not only will your revenues increase, but so too will your profit because you won’t be spending as much on new customer acquisition.
Your first order of business is to find highly targeted and qualified leads for your business. If you are selling baby strollers then tweeting to male golfers all day isn’t going to get you a single sale. However, tweeting to pregnant women and young mothers with newborns will be much more effective.
Finding your target market on Twitter is not quite as hard as you may think it is. As is to be expected with such a popular service, many third party applications and websites have popped up that make our lives easier when it comes to working with Twitter. One such site is Twellow.com, which is the Yellow Pages of Twitter.
The great thing about Twellow.com is that it allows you to search out Twitter users by categories which are split up by personal interests as well as professional ones. Therefore, if you are in the Internet marketing niche, you can choose the marketing category and then further narrow down your target audience by searching according to a specific keyword.
Other effective tools you can use include:· TwitterSearch.com– this is Twitter’s built in search engine which can be quite helpful in locating prospects;
· Twitterfall.com allows you to search by keywords and hash tags;
· SocialMention.com is especially useful since you can search a wide range of social media sites, regular websites, news and almost all the Internet for certain keywords. It is a system that can be used to identify prospective clients as well as to stay up-to-date with what people are saying about your products and business.
· Twitterment.com and TweepSearch.com are also two highly effective search tools that are slightly more useful than the Twitter search engine because they can also search the bios of people. Bios are effectively where people list their interests, hobbies, profession and so on and so forth. This is basically most of the demographic information on people which will help you find your target audience.
· NearbyTweets.com allows you to search for users according to location and you can then narrow down your results even further by searching according to keyword;
· Twellohood.com and Twwtmondo.com are similar services that allow you to identify prospects by location.
Understanding your audience is a key step in creating and guaranteeing the success of your marketing strategy. The more you know the people you are trying to sell to, the more you understand what they value, what they dream of and what their fears are, the easier it will be for you to find and create offers that appeal to them as well as products and content that will be useful and provide value.
Additionally, understanding your target market will allow you to stand out from the competition. Remember that people receive vast amounts of information on Twitter and if you want to succeed you need to make sure people notice what you are saying. The best way to do this is by tweeting about things that interest your audience and by learning about them, you will discover what will get their attention.
Finding your USP (unique selling position/proposition) is essential to building a successful business. No matter the niche you are in, you will have varying degrees of competition and to increase your chances of becoming successful you need to stand out so that prospects will buy from you rather than from competing businesses. Your USP will be the one thing that will set you apart.
You may be tempted to use a lower price point as a USP, however, this is the biggest mistake you can make. There are two reasons for this. First, you can find yourself in the unenviable position of not being able to sustain a low price point indefinitely and when you need to raise the price you will no longer have a USP. Second, a low price can sometimes backfire because many people associate a low price with low quality and you might find that your product simply doesn’t sell because people go by the adage “I’m too poor to buy something cheap.”
Your USP needs to be based on a unique benefit or service that your product provides to customers. So, if you are in the Internet marketing niche and are selling an ebook on CPA then you could provide a free version of your book in audio format so people can listen to it on their iPod while they are doing other things. This will cost you virtually nothing if you read the book yourself, but will increase the perceived value of your product significantly.
To be able to compete effectively, you also need to research your competition. The more you know about your competition, the easier you will find it to stand out. Finding competing companies in your niche is as easy as locating your prospects because you can use Twellow to do it. All you need to do is run a few searches by keyword in your industry category.
Once you have identified the companies you believe are your direct competition, you can use TwitterGrader.com to learn more about their Twitter marketing strategy. This service will allow you to see exactly how influential they are on Twitter and also to identify the keywords they use most in their tweets.
Simply enter the username of the competing company in the search box and then click Grade. The score that is returned is based on the number of followers, the power of their followers calculated according to the number of followers they each have in turn, how often they tweet, how often they are retweeted and more. You should also consider becoming a follower because this way you will know exactly what approach they are taking.
Likewise, becoming a follower is essential because you can also begin building a relationship with your competitors. Remember that the Internet is vast and there is room for everyone, which means that, often, you can become even more successful by partnering with your competitors in different areas. Most highly successful Internet marketers run joint ventures with their competitors because they understand the power of leveraging each other’s followers and lists.
Now that you have put together a general plan for your Twitter marketing strategy, it’s time to implement it and the first step is to craft your message. Since you have researched your market, you know exactly what their “pain” is and your goal is to take away that pain.
Thus, your message should clearly show how the benefits of your product or service will solve your prospects’ problems. However, you must keep in mind the golden rule in Twitter, which is that you should never bombard your prospects with commercial messages. In fact, less than 10 percent of your messages to your followers should be commercial in nature because otherwise you run the risk of alienating your followers. Your main goal should be to provide valuable content that is helpful which will establish you as an authority and someone people want to follow. Your messages should show that you know what you are talking about and this will ultimately lead your followers to believe that your product will provide an effective solution.
For example, if you are a real estate agent, you can share articles on how to locate a good property or how to negotiate a lower price. Clearly, a few articles will not replace your services but it will show that you are an authority in your field and your prospects will begin to trust you. Additionally, your prospects will begin to wonder how much better your service or product is if you are providing top notch information for free.
As Twitter is a social communication platform, your marketing will be even more effective if you build a relationship with your followers. To do this, you need to also add a few personal tweets among your business and commercial messages. This will show people that you are human and it will give them something to relate to. The more they can relate to you, the more comfortable they will feel buying from you.