by G.B. Oliver

Do you ever see marketing promises that say, “We’ll get you tons of traffic”. Well, that’s very nice but traffic is not a guarantee of sales.

For example, say you sell jock straps. If one day, all of a sudden, 500,000 women visited your site, how many jock straps do you think you would sell as opposed to if 500 men visited your site? Exactly, if they have no need for your product, they’re not going to buy it.

Large Twitter followers doesn’t always translate into sales

Another offer you’ll see is, “I will tweet you out to my 200,000 Twitter followers”. Well who are these followers? Are they just other companies who wanted a follow back, so the person reading your tweet is their Web marketing person (who is probably not reading tweets, just sending them). How many of their followers are actually still active on Twitter (people do get bored with social media and take a break). Don’t be lured in by high numbers. Again, if they are not who you are selling to, it is not going to make a difference.

What you want is traffic that is your target market. So if you sell wedding products, for example, and someone says they will get you in front of 200,000 brides, that is reliable traffic…maybe. How long have these “brides” been on their blog, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.? A woman plans her wedding in 12 to 18 months so if she first joined their blog 2 years ago, she is married now and not interested in wedding products. She just hasn’t taken the time to unfollow. So, it could be only 60% of these 200,000 brides are still potential customers. Which is still good, but remember numbers can be overestimated.

Same thing if you are selling maternity clothes, for example. Women are only pregnant 9 months, so if they’ve had the baby, they may still be on that person’s email list but have no need to buy your products.

So go find where your potential customers are really hanging out online, at this moment in time, and that is where you will find the traffic that will buy from you. Now, how do you find this out? Simple, ask them. If you are selling to 13-year old girls, you must know a few – family, neighbors, friends’ kids. Ask them where they go online and that is where you’ll find your traffic that will lead to sales.

Once you find this traffic, how do you get it to your site? Well I can’t give away everything on my blog, I have to sell too! But you can find these answers, as well as other ways to get attention, in my marketing Ebooks, available here.