The Power of Targeted Advertising: Reaching Your Ideal Audience

Understanding Your Product and Audience

Before you can effectively target your advertising, you need to understand your product and who it appeals to. Consider the following:

• Is your product gender-specific? Does it appeal to males, females, or both?
• Is your product age-specific? Does it cater to toddlers, children, teenagers, young adults, middle-aged individuals, or seniors?
• Which interest group is most likely to be attracted to your product? This could range from home and entertainment to education, personal health, small businesses, corporations, and more.
• Who is most likely to purchase your product? This could be school children, parents, stay-at-home moms, nurses, and so on.

For example, if you're selling toddler toys, advertising in business magazines would be a waste of resources. While you might make some sales with persistent advertising, the ROI would be low.

Implementing Targeted Advertising: Effective Online Techniques

Once you've identified your target audience, you can implement targeted advertising strategies. Here are some online techniques that could significantly boost your sales if executed correctly:

• List your site in search engines using relevant keywords.
• Use your keywords on search engines to find similar sites and exchange links with them.
• Participate in keyword bidding. You can achieve optimal results at GoTo and FindWhat.
• Engage in pay-per-click search engines. A great resource for this is PayPerClickSearchEngines.
• Get listed in directories related to your specific interest. You can find these directories using various search engines.
• Advertise in ezines that cater to your target audience. You can find relevant ezines at EzineSearch, Liszt, EzineSeek, PennMedia, and Ejournal.
• Participate in relevant discussion forums. This can be time-consuming, but you can find appropriate forums at ForumOne, Liszt, and DejaNews.
• Advertise in related classified sections of Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and Lycos.

By understanding your product and audience and implementing these targeted advertising techniques, you can maximize your advertising ROI and significantly boost your sales.