Different Folks Need Different Strokes

You simply can not talk same way to Xers and Senior Citizens. It won't work because value structures differ between these groups. And so do their attitudes. More important, they respond differently to a given stimulus.

For most part, buy decisions are made emotionally, then justified later with "reason." On a website emotional response that triggers buy decision comes from what is said in sales presentation.

This means you must know precisely who you are talking to. It means understanding their values, attitudes, and goals. And it means understanding what motivates them to buy.

Voice Matters

Grab a Western novel, a thriller, a mystery, and maybe a tale of romance. Read a bit in each. Writers speak about voice, and struggle to get it right in all of their work.

Voice is a casual term that includes style, imagery, and emotional triggers effective with reader. It also includes selection of vocabulary, and such simple things as sentence length. In short, anything that helps project a specific tone or feeling is part of voice that produced it.

As suggested above, voice appropriate for Xers is inappropriate for Seniors. And conversely.

Off-Target Input Can Mislead

Input from off-target visitors may distract you. It's possible given sufficient input of this sort, you may be persuaded to introduce a new product to take advantage of apparent interest. In doing so, however, you have broadened your focus, rather than narrowing it. This is always wrong thing to do.

What's more, off-target product will strike targeted visitors as being off key in some way, if not in fact negatively. In end, you are likely to drive away more targeted traffic, than you are able to generate with off-target product.

An Aside: If you stumble across something that seems of interest to a significant off-target group, rather than weakening an existing site, consider building another which can be totally targeted to this newly defined group.

A Target Within A Target

Suppose you have decided to target Seniors. And you know enough of their convictions and motivations to be effective in talking with them. That is, you can relate to them in an appropriate voice. An additional step can be helpful.

Define a subset of this group and thus narrow your target even further. Then adjust your manner of speaking accordingly. While you don't mind if others listen in, you write to and for only those within your target. You use a voice specific to this narrowly targeted subset.

For example, among seniors there are those who graduated from college. Others have educated themselves. Many have been locked into business world as owners, managers, or employees. And still others, never held a high paying job. Further, to many women, family is all that ever mattered.

If you can define a subset of Seniors, proper voice may be quite different from what is needed for a different set. Adjust accordingly.

Xers Versus Seniors

The more profitable market may be Seniors. However, if you are an Xer, it may be best to ignore this group and target a subset of Xers. Why? Because you hold their values and attitudes. It will be much easier for you to find right voice with which to relate to your target. Seniors, on other hand, are likely to ignore you, unless you can adapt their values and attitudes, and thus a voice appropriate to them.

There are several things to think about when developing your online image. But it's no different from preparing a resume or a personal history. You'll want to look at your education or training, work experience, and your life experiences, and how all of this defines you as an individual in such a large marketplace.

We start with education, because that's point where our lives began to take a definite shape. Think about what part of your education relates to who you are. Is it favorite grade school teacher who unlocked your ambition to learn? Or is it special talents your high school studies or extra curricular activities revealed?

Remember, your personal level of education not so important. It's how your educational background helps define who you are and how well you can help others online.

Next, start thinking about your life experiences. What large events in your life like being married or single, raising children, and maintaining long-time friendships helped shape you? What would you change or keep same assuming you'd have control over such matters? What have you gained from your experiences in life?

Then examine your work history. What occupation did you start out in? (This includes what has been traditionally known as "home maker", or household manager, if you will.) What various skills did you obtain? What other occupations have you had? What things about traditional employment brought you to Internet looking for income?