How is it that some sales professionals hit the mark every time, while others can’t even find the target?

Advances in technology and social networking through the Internet groups, have made advertising an unprecedented and acceptable way to focus their pitch to a select few, namely your prospective clients.

Targeted advertising focuses on specific niches rather than a broad range of interests your potential customer might have. This way, if they know what they are looking for, they will surf right to your website or pick you right out of the phone book because you know your market and you are targeting these specific groups of people, your potential clients.

Say you apply for a credit card. All of a sudden, you get more and more offers for credit cards from advertisers you never even heard of. You’ve been placed on a mailing list or targeted as a ‘more likely purchaser’ of certain items using a credit card then others consumers who have not applied or received a credit card in the past few months.

Of course targeted advertising has been around for years; however, it usually targets small groups of people instead of individuals. If you take out a subscription to a car magazine or a home décor magazine, you will be inundated with offers from car dealerships or home furnishing stores. It’s not exactly “who you are” but rather, “what you are.” What you are is a consumer of home décor or automobiles because you showed interest in these items through your subscription to the magazines.

If there is a specialty magazine for your product or service, first of all, you should be reading it, secondly, you may be able to acquire a list of subscribers from the company. Although, some magazines have a strict policy against distribution of mailing lists, but the names are generated from somewhere, aren’t they?

Things may be changing as new technology in search engines and social networking sites become more sophisticated with information and the possibility of tracking people through purchases and zip codes or phone numbers given at the cash register. Tracking people through their purchases gives the sales professionals an insight into their individual tastes in products and services.

So if you don’t have a website, what would be the easiest way to reach your target potential client? Walk in their shoes, think like they think, do some research. Find out who they are currently doing business with and why. What is your competition doing for them that you can do or offer to do better? What solutions to their problems can you come up with that they haven’t even thought of yet? These are all great questions that will help you hit your target consumer with the right ammunition.
“My advice is to go into something and stay with it until you like it. You can’t like it until you obtain expertise in that work. And once you are an expert, it’s a pleasure.”         Milton Garland

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Filed under: Hitting Targets • KPI • Professional Sales Tips • Time Management

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