Technology has changed the culture of marketing drastically.
Marketers have realized that “pushing” your product is longer the best way to convert individuals to buyers. We’ve adopted new strategies such as content marketing, social media marketing, and video marketing to first gain the users trust prior to asking for anything.
As marketers, we stopped talking and began listening.
Technology has made listening to our customers extremely easy. Below are a few ways that you can find highly targeted customers, listen to what they’re saying, and join the conversation.
Forums
The real life equivalent of a cocktail party, forums are great for listening to what your customers are talking about and learning how to better please them.
Need help finding a forum around your industry?
Go to Google and type in forum:[keyword related to your industry]. This will bring us a list of forums of people talking about your industry.
Hop into one of the higher-rated posts and see what people are talking about.
Don’t try to sell anything. Use this as a resource to learn more about your customers and better your business.
Twitter is another amazing resource for finding people with comments or questions regarding your niche. If you’re a local “brick and mortar” business, you’ll find Twitter even more beneficial than using forums.
Here are the steps you should use to find hyper-targeted, interested individuals talking about your industry…
- Go to twitter.com/search-advanced.
- Input keywords that describe your business (keep it short).
- Select your language.
- Select your city or state.
- Click “Search”
Viola! You now have a list of targeted individuals talking about your industry.
Go ahead and join the conversation. If they’re asking a question, offer a solution. If they need help, offer your assistance. Again, try to build a reputation and gain their trust before selling anything.
Learning From Your Competition
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a website that allowed you to see how much your competition was making, how much their business is worth, and learn more about what they’re doing that’s making them successful.
There is!
Check it out, there’s a site called Filippa that is basically an online marketplace for websites. But we don’t want to buy any of these sites, we want to take a look at what makes them successful.
Go in and search for keywords surrounding your business. Take notes on what these websites are doing that’s driving their success. Are they promoting certain products? Do they have a great brand? How many visitors are they getting to their site?
If you found any of this information useful, leave a comment below!
