Staying relevant is Useful in the Online Traffic Formula
Marketers seem to be attempting to gain control of an audience by thinking that he who yells the loudest will get heard. This philosophy can get misconstrued easily because people seem to feel manipulated by shocking ads or obvious messages to buy buy buy! What people really want is related to. Consumers want common life ads not outlandish claims.
What catches modern consumer's eye is an ever moving target, as the escalation and arms race between ways to insert ads, and the ways to avoid them continues. Television commercials are omnipresent - they used to be zipped past by viewers watching on their VCRs. Now, they're edited out completely by TiVo and DVRs. On the Internet, pop up ads can be easily blocked; more customers are abandoning hitting web sites because they can get the content delivered by RSS feeds without having to shut down pop over and pop under ads.
Like all things related to Web 2.0, the key is to trust your readers. Put in comments in forums, and let your readers review your products for you. Amazon broke new ground with this, and was quickly followed by eBay - and it's now a virtual requirement for any online vendor. Customers will trust the relevance of a review from another customer over any slick marketing pitch; slick marketing pitches, they've heard for years on end someone who's actually used the product and read the book? There's someone to listen to.
The downside of trusting your readers is negative reviews. Amazon almost lost two publishing houses over negative reviews, but eventually got them back. Ultimately, a negative review doesn't hurt you; it's simply telling the customers what didn't work about the product for that person. It's difficult, when you've put your heart and soul into a product, to look at a negative review with calm and poise, but the rewards for doing so are very high.
That isn't to say that you shouldn't read negative posts. Negative posts are a filter. They're being put up by someone who cares enough about your message to tell you what didn't work about it for them. If you make or design a product, this is the most valuable feedback you can get. Remember not to attack back - just thank them for their input, and if you can, offer a few suggestions, in the form of "In the interests of making this work for you, how do you feel about options A or B?"
Second, look at their review as an avenue on how to improve your product. This person cared enough about your message, what you were saying, to try your product. It didn't work for them, and they cared enough to tell you why. Use that information to make your product better! Just remember, you'll win more arguments with reasonableness than you will with defensive temper tantrums.
Always try to connect with your audience, acknowledge that a negative reviewer has a valid point, and then try to solve their objection. Your online traffic formula aim is to provide a benefit for your regular readers to come back to your site repeatedly, and the way to do that is to rise above the fray.
Google takes this one step further with Gmail, which scans your email for keywords and places ads in ignorable places. Privacy advocates worry that Google's email filters could be used to track down deeply personal information, but the general attitude is that anything you send by Email, you might as well be shouting at the top of your lungs. In both cases, Amazon and Google offer a service in return for providing relevant information, and you should strive to do the same with your web site.
Article Source: http://www.search-raven.com
About the Author
Trisha Frauenhofer is an online marketing expert who loves sharing her most potent online secrets including the Online Traffic Formula
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by: TrishaFrauenhofer
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