The one thing almost every business owner knows about online marketing, regardless of the success they have or haven’t had in the past, is that it’s huge. There are, quite literally, hundreds of millions of customers out there. And, if you’re just a little bit ambitious about it, you can probably reach all of them sooner or later.
That fact sometimes leads people to make very bad decisions. The very size of the online market makes the desire to reach huge numbers of customers a trap that’s hard to escape.
Let us explain
The more you try to market your products or services to everyone, the fewer people they are actually a perfect fit for. That might not be a big problem if you run a Fortune 500 cola company or sell shoes all over the world, but most of us make our profits off of a very defined set of customers. Even though we’ve reached a certain point of success by giving them what they want, it’s easy to start thinking about all of the others that could be buying from you, too.
Understand that we aren’t saying you shouldn’t use the Internet to broaden your reach, or that there’s something inherently wrong with trying to come up with new products and solutions that appeal to different customers than you had in the past. That’s certainly not the case.
What we are hinting at is that just because something is inexpensive doesn’t make it profitable. Knowing who your target market is, why they buy from you, and how you can reach more people who could also make the logical decision to buy from you is the name of the game; simply increasing your numbers or displaying your ads more often isn’t.
Online marketing is full of new opportunities
While this is true, it also carries some risks. Learn to think critically about any advertisement, expense, or idea the same way you would any other part of your business, and you’ll avoid one of the most common and expensive traps out there.
