In your marketing efforts, be they on or offline, it’s wise to consider psychology of consumer you are targeting. If you’ve done your homework you’ve developed a profile of your ideal customer and how your unique selling point speaks to them. Now, as you begin to develop a marketing strategy, writing ad copy, developing radio copy, and creating web copy, it is an understanding of consumer psychology that will help you speak to consumer.

What is true need your consumer is attempting to gratify? This is question you must answer before writing copy or launching advertising. Maslow, would tell us that there are five needs: 1) basic needs; 2) safety needs; 3) social needs; 4) self esteem needs; and 5) self-fulfillment needs.

Along with this information consider that in “The Ramsey Report” published recently by eMarketer.com, we are told that consumer “empowerment” is one of factors driving continuing boom of online commerce. Consumers perceive themselves to be in consumer driver’s seat when they are online. They can block popups, can spam, and surf away from site that they dislike. They feel as if they are no longer at whim of marketing magicians.

This does not surprise me given that recent research would also indicate that online users tend to suffer from depression, low self-esteem, and loneliness. The internet addresses these issue through empowering them and giving them a perception of control.

As you begin marketing and promoting your online business you are going to run into some unbelievable advertising opportunities. Generally speaking if ad offering sounds too good to be true--It is.

There are companies that will tell you they will get you listed in top 10 search engines or place your link on millions of sites or they will get you listed in top 10 returns of search engines. This last one sounds similar to first, but there is a big difference.

Google searches over 3 billion pages during their searches. The companies that tell you they will get you listed in top 10 of major search engines would have to defy all principles of math to do this. They could not work with more than a few companies in order to achieve this and honestly, there is no way they can get you listed in top 10 of search engines placements at all unless they make up their own search terms and people search on that specific term.

Stay away from companies that tell you they are going to place you in search engines for a fee, for most part they will do nothing more than use a site software submitter. You can get your own software for this or use an online service and submit your site yourself for a lot less than what most SEO companies charge for this service. Guaranteed traffic-- They work fine for free sites or if your goal is to build a database of names, but if you are selling a product or service, you will get hits, but not many sales.

Mass email -- Any company that tells you they will send your ad to millions of people for $20 or $30 is simply taking your money. This might sound inviting, but do not waste your money. They are either using site submit tools or sending your ad to millions of harvested email addresses. The companies who tell you they are going to submit your site to millions of pages will most likely do what they say, but you will not see any return and may even get you Spam complaints.

Mass emails are a complete waste of your money regardless of what product you are selling. There are many sites that will tell you they will send your ad to double opt-in lists of people. We have tried over a dozen of these services and have barely received a hit, much less sales. The problem is you lose control over your ad when you use mass email companies. There is no way to verify ad was sent and if you could verify it was sent, there is no way to tell it was sent to numbers they promise. Plus, you run risk of being accused of Spam.

Solo ads-- These are by far one of best methods of promoting your product and service. They are targeted, you can verify numbers and you can subscribe using a unique email and verify ad was sent on day and time it was supposed to be sent.