How to Use Pay-Per-Click to Define Your Target Market
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is the best way to send immediate, targeted
traffic to your website.
Ahhhh, but do you know who your target is? Without a defined
market you are doomed to failure.
How can you define your market? How do you figure out what
questions they are asking and what their problems are?
There are actually several ways of beginning research into a
niche market. Today I'm going to discuss just one - using PPC
advertising and a flycatcher page.
We will assume two things. One - you have a topic but not a
product. Two - you have an advertising budget between $50.00 and
$100.00.
You have decided on a topic. First head over to Clickbank (a
digital affiliate program). You can search through over 10,000
different products there and become an affiliate for any of them.
Check out a product that is similar to one you'd like to
produce. Clickbank has only digital products, which are
immediately downloadable. They have a tutorial program that will
walk you through their site so you can use it to your advantage.
Second, if you can purchase the product for which you will
become an affiliate, do it! It gives you the distinct advantage
of knowing your competitor and knowing the product you are
promoting.
Let me pause here to say that if there are no products in the
market you target, there very well may not be a profitable
market. You may have a great idea but the majority of people in
that market may be looking for freebies. Stay away! Find another
niche and move on. If there is no competition there isn't a
market.
Third, set up accounts with Google and Yahoo!/Overture for their
PPC programs. Google and Overture/Yahoo have tutorials to help
you with the process. You can begin using Google Adwords
immediately but have a waiting period to be approved with
Overture. With Google you pay as you go and with Overture there
is a significant upfront cost depending upon your monthly budget.
Fourth, set up a landing page for a Google Adwords and Overture
PPC campaign. You'll need a landing page because of some new
rules Google wrote this past year. Basically, each advertiser
must have a unique website so that the customer doesn't end up
at the same page after clicking on three different ads.
Your objective is to figure out if selling this product to this
market is profitable. If it is then you can move on to the next
step, which is a flycatcher page.
Fifth, using the same domain and hosting as your landing page
you can develop a flycatcher page to figure out what questions
this target market has and how you can answer them.
A flycatcher page is nothing more than a questionnaire or a way
of asking people their most burning questions about a topic. You
can do this using PPC and using forums and groups. The concept
is the same although the quality of the traffic will be
different.
Using the PPC, and writing an ad that leads people to believe
there is a product on the other end, you have people who are
ready to purchase. Going through forums and groups will get you
questions from people who may be interested in the topic but may
not be ready to purchase.
Use both techniques to get a balanced list of questions on which
to build your product.
Sixth, set up the flycatcher page and PPC campaign. As I implied
in the paragraphs above you should write your PPC ad as if the
people will be sent to a page where they can purchase something.
You are getting traffic who is interested in buying.
On the webpage ask for a name, e-mail and their most burning
question about your target. For instance, you might be
interested in producing an e-book about scrap booking for
profit. The flycatcher page would tell people you are developing
a book about this topic. You want their most burning question
about how to make a profit from scrap booking. You will also
give the people who leave their name, address and question a
fr.ee copy of the e-book.
Seventh, stop the PPC campaign when you have gotten the number
and quality of questions you want. Use that information to write
your e-book and answer their questions.
You have now used a PPC campaign to define your target market
and start your client list!