You know in your gut that you have a great product and that
market for that product is far larger than few thousand searches it gets in engines each month. You suspect, rightly, that many potential customers simply don’t know this product is available online.This holds true especially in case of e-books. You would be amazed by number of people out there (and I’m not talking about Internet newbies, either) who have no clue what an e-book is!
These are customers with cash to spend. These are customers who would love information you have to offer. However, these customers are also people who half-glance at your Ad Words advertisement thinking “Well, I don’t know why all those little boxes are over there….” – and they eventually log off and start reading a magazine.
Tragic, isn’t it?
Slip Into Their Network.
Here’s where things get really exciting. You do not have to lose that sale! You do, however, need to slip into their network, their preferred media, and educate them.
You begin by taking a second look at your product and at your target market. You know where they surf online, but do you know where they’re hiding everywhere else?
Each market circulates within its own “secret” communications network. Further, each market displays a preferred (often historical) means of information consumption. What does this mean for you and how do you put it into action?
Consider case of Arts and Crafts industry. There are millions of potential customers in this industry, and it contains a mind boggling array of niche categories. Professional and amateur artists alike look to Internet to order supplies and books, and find tutorials. However, a significant portion of this market continues to rely on print magazines and mail order catalogs for simple fact that they offer more content, more variety, better graphics and easy to follow lessons.
Expressions Art Magazine illustrates this point quite well - (see: http://expressionartmagazine.com ).
According to their reader demographics survey: • 78% of their readers purchase art supplies through mail • 81% purchase their art supplies over Internet
This is just tip of iceberg. But notice how, for art supplies alone, your average Expressions reader is just as likely to purchase offline as they are online. Obviously, market is comfortable buying their art supplies from an online vendor. Your next question should be: “How likely are they to purchase an art related information product online?”
