If a group of golf instructors sat around discussing golf swing techniques and equipment with each other, instead of going out and teaching people how to master golf, how long do you think they would stay in business?
Exactly.
Let me tell you a short little story. Freelance Folder is one of the sites I subscribe to for two reasons: First, I am a freelance blog coach/consultant, so the content is relevant to me personally. Second, other freelancers and consultants are my client base, and you want to be where your customers are, in order to place yourself in front of them so they are aware of you and what you can do for them.
Here’s the story: I was looking over Freelance Folder’s blogroll and followed a link to the site Business Idea of the Day, which does exactly what it sounds like. In the recent comments, I saw that Loic Lemeur had commented about an idea involving video conversations. I know Loic has just started up a new company that deals in video messaging (somewhat like Twitter for video). That I see his name involved in this conversation means one of two things: Loic is already a subscriber and commenter on Business Idea of the Day, or, Loic has something like Google Alerts set up so that when anyone has a conversation about video messaging, Loic can place himself (and therefore his company, brand, and services) in the middle of that conversation.
Loic is going where his customers are.
Be where your customers are:
- Find out where they hang out online, and you hang out there, too.
- Learn what their desires are, what their pain points are.
- When you engage with them or blog, entice their desires, and poke at their pain points.
- Don’t oversell yourself.
- In fact, you likely won’t have to sell yourself at all. If you are truly engaged in the conversation and are contributing strong value to it, that is all the “selling” you need do.
All this begins with you being where your customers are, so get out there.
A huge mistake that I see hundreds of bloggers make is that they’ve descided to go into the “make money online” niche. They check out other “make money online” blogs and they write about the same topics. The problem is that their audience, by default, are the same bloggers in that niche. Their readers have already drank the kool-aid, so to speak.
To make a breakout, they need to expand their audience into other’s niches to show those other bloggers how they too can make money online.
Desty, you’re right, and you can take what I’m talking about in this post and apply it to that instead of to customers as in ecommerce or consulting. When you are authoring that kind of blog, you want as many visitors from outside the “make money echo chamber” as possible. There is a good reason for hanging out at similar blogs: people who like those blogs will probably like yours, too.
Michael I have been saying this to other agents for years now. No reason to spend all your online time networking with other agents unless you are a coach! I’m not sure how to apply this online as an agent as in I’m not sure where my customers are. But once I figure it out I will be there! – Ashley
Ashley, real estate agents can learn a lot from each other and I think the internet is probably the greatest way to do that effectively. But you’re right in that you can’t let that time cut into time spent on client prospecting and acquisition.
As far as where your customers hang out, I’m thinking that in your case, search engine traffic is where you get most of your vistors. I don’t know this for sure (backed up with facts and data), but my guess is that people go to Google and type in “homes for sale in XXXXX” or “XXXXX real estate agent” where XXXXX is a location they’re either moving to or selling in. One reason real estate agents should blog is for the SEO, but even better if you have real SEO work done for you on your site and blog.
If you’re not sure where your visitors are coming from, use a tracking service like SiteMeter or Google Analytics.
Nice addition to the feed with the audio Michael, thanks.
Great point,I have said something similar when explaining my perspective on advertising with coaching clients – you need to get your message in front of your customers, so where are your customers?
Of course, with Internet marketing and blogs in particular that is on a web site, forum, or blog. Perhaps all three, maybe more.
I have always thought that real estate agents could make good use of zip/postal codes on their listing sheets online. If I was looking for a home in 77380 I might search for “3 bedroom ranch bungalow 77380″ and in this case I got 77380 pages indexed in Google.
I LOVE this. I wrote about this once in a post titled “are you popular with the right people?” after reading SEO bloggers whose blog posts would only be beneficial for other SEOs. It’s important connect with the people that actually need you rather than trying to become a rockstar among your peers. Great point as usual Michael!
[...] writing, readers will follow. They will subscribe to your blog and spread the word about it. If you get to know your readers, get them interested and serve their interests, they will reward you: they will make you money by [...]
Thanks, Christine! Although, being a rock star among your peers isn’t a bad thing (I’m afraid I have quite a ways to go).
Greg, some great points. I’ve noticed that not all real estate listings provide addresses and postal codes.
Guess someone should educate those realtors?!
Greg, in some cases, I don’t believe it’s an oversight — I think it’s deliberate. The general area is described, but if you want an address, you have to contact the agent. This helps prevent theft, vandalism, and unwanted visits to the property without the supervision of an agent (any of you agents out there, please correct me if I’m wrong). Most people don’t include the postal code in a search for homes for sale.
Michael, I guess I can see your point, still kind of strange world we live in. The majority of people can be trusted but we react and adjust our ways of doing things out of fear.
Great post. I just experienced this first hand when I finally started posting and getting links regularly in some of the online beer forums (I have a blog on cellaring and aging beers). My traffic is rising daily now just from this exposure.
I think I need to put myself out there even more now, certainly I must have customers in even more places!
Jason, thanks very much. As a fellow beer appreciator, I know you’re doing the right thing by being in forums. Homebrewers and all other manner of food enthusiasts are cross-over “customers” for you, as well. After all, you have to have something wonderful to pair up with that cellared ale. I just bought a magnum of Sierra Nevada’s holiday offering, but I don’t think it’s going to be sitting around for very long. I’ll be lucky if it lasts until Christmas!