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Targetcasting: Make Your Site Their Target
Dear Friends,
Your target audience is looking for your site on the Web. Are
you looking for them? Can they find you and are they spreading
the word about your site? Maybe you've done the basic marketing to begin,
registering with search engines and building links. Everyone does this. To develop business
and traffic, your site must be different, unique, and give them what no one else is
giving an original approach.
You have to make your site their
target. We are stuck in the early era of generic
Web sites, all looking and sounding the same. This month we focus on how to turn
your Web site into more than just a content holding static page. People on the Web
want more than content; they want to be entertained. They are surfing for
a cyte that will make them stop, think, participate, and add it as a bookmark.
How can you get them involved? Design a site based on their feedback and what
they want. Your audience wants to explore their interest, what they have a passion for,
and what viewpoint and new twists you can provide for
them. The Web is built with content and communication, not image. A Web site works only on the direct
response of its audience, in the immediate sense by clicking on a link to explore your Web.
Direct response also means giving the audience control over content and
allowing them to direct your site. Would you rather create products and services (like a
supply-side Web design), then try to convince the audience to buy it? Or should you let
them tell you what they need, then provide it? The answer is simple, if you let
them build it on what they demand, not on what you hope they need. Targetcasting is the key....
Peace
MDD
Michael Declan Dunn
Thoughtscapes III:
Let Them Come and They Will Build It
In the movie Field of
Dreams, a man builds a baseball field and prays that people visit, because of
his love of baseball and a mystical connection. For those of you with mystical connections, there is no need to read further. For those
of you interested in building a business, the Web is no Field of Dreams! Why are so many Web sites following
the theme of this movie, build it and they will come?
The Web is a rare opportunity to be on the ground floor of a new, online marketplace. Why are we squandering
our efforts trying to do the same old thing? With thousands of sites being added each month, looking more and
more the same, we need a change. The change begins with you, by breaking the old mold and finding a new way to
forge an alliance with the most important key of a Web site...the audience.
Forget cyberspace, forget the information superhighway, forget all that jargon that impresses your friends at
parties (and means absolutely nothing, except that you don't know what you're talking about) and focus on making
the audience the center of your site. Not the content, not the technology, not even you! Make the audience the
focal point through feedback. Let them come and they will build
it.
The time is now to start Targetcasting
We have all been trained to be broadcasters, to create final products. In the old model of publishing such
as television, radio, and print we risk an enormous amount of money and time to create a final product. We
create the supply and hope to sell it to a mass audience. Betting on image to make ourselves stand out from the rest,
we pay our money so someone else can distribute the message; if this fails, we lose everything and start over.
This model leads to failure on the Web. The Web is about works in progress, built on what the audience wants.
In broadcasting we have focus groups; on the Web, we have people with a passion gathering because they are
looking for sites to fulfill their needs, not because someone impressed them with an image. You have to engage this
interest and bring it to life. You are the distributor, the one responsible for inviting and inciting the audience's interest.
Targetcasting means creating a site that is a target for the audience's passion. Don't sit alone in your room,
brainstorming and risking all your time and money on a single idea. Ask the audience for the products and services
they need, the content they want, ask them what they want to talk about, and create a site from their input. It will take
a few months longer, but an audience following will be built because you listen to them, grow with them, and
make your site their target. In the "real" world we call this market research; the Web is the real world.
A Web site develops around pre-sale and post-sales materials, as well as providing points of purchase. People
don't come to a site just because of the content or hot technology; take that approach in any other media and
immediate failure will follow. The Web is no different. Instead of trying to define their interest within your own narrow
scope, I want you to engage the audience and ask them to help build your business. A Web site is a storefront, one
that grows from input. Why not start simply and build your Web site with the audience's help? Let them talk, give
you feedback, and word of mouth will develop the foundation of a successful site.
That's what Targetcasting is about, trolling the Web for special interest groups that might be interested in what
you are doing and letting them know that you are trying something new and different, based on what they want.
You should create a simple site, maybe just a single home page that asks a few questions, takes an initial survey,
promises monthly updates, and fulfills those promises. This plan works and guess what? It makes your job easier.
I'm going to show you how to create a site based on how the Web works, by inciting direct response and using
image as a way to invite that response. When someone comes to your site, they have to click on a word or image, on
the links, to do anything. If you don't give them a reason beyond the flat ad you miss the whole point of the Web.
Links are the means to engage and excite the audience leading to the end result a fun and profitable Web site. The
Web is based entirely on the actions the audience takes.
Reliance on technology limits market share; sparking participation spells results.
Like anything new, the Web seems to have the promise of being an unknown and undefined opportunity housed
in phrases like "cyberspace" or "information superhighway". The Web is simply a means to contact millions of
people and distribute your message (along with products and services), if millions of people are interested in what you
are doing. You provide the definition by getting them involved in the whole process.
You have to make them interested...you have to become their target...they are the ones casting for you...targetcasting.
Are you ready to make it easy for them to find you and deliver what they need?
Develop Your Site Based on Direct Response, Not Image:
The 4 Most Common Mistakes
Image has been the driving force of design in every medium. Magazines compete based on their cover,
while movies and television must provide an excellent visual/audio mixture to supply the story line. The Web
depends on action, not image; we don't scan for a good looking site, but for one that engages our interest. The audience
has to click to explore, to take your blue words or images and find the meaning lying behind them. Images decorate,
but a reason to click is what motivates. How many sites have you seen that look beautiful but have nothing to them?
Like the old saying, there's no there, there. A great Web site creates actions, which build participation.
Give the audience incentive to explore, play on their interests, and take them through a site built on a
planned progression that allows for freedom. Let them surf around but keep them in your Web by giving a limited
number of links and excellent information, as well as a place for them to talk back to you, the Web site owner. Think of
the word "interactive", which literally describes an act between two people. Special effects and glossy covers are
often an excuse for something lacking within. With so many possibilities for innovation and profits, how can you
accept mediocrity? Talk to your audience, build on direct response, and don't make these mistakes:
Mistake 1: This site is enhanced for Netscape 2, blah, blah blah blah!
So many people on the Web are trying to sell their image, as if the special effects make them cool. I love
reading descriptions of sites that list the endless requirements needed to make it work: "You'll need Netscape 2
(download now), RealAudio, Shockwave, Java, and a Pentium with 16 MB RAM on at least a 28.8 modem and a 21" monitor."
Huh? First you are sending them away, second you are defining who can use your site, and third, Netscape
has enough advertising, so why limit your audience? I want them all, plain and simple. What really makes a Web
site is the way people respond. I'm not just talking about the clicking on words, but in the way you take them
through what is available.
Mistake 2: I put links everywhere, just because I can.
The most common mistake is placing links everywhere, with any word that sparks a reaction. Don't lead the
audience through a maze of your own disorganization. Throwing around links leads to confusion; confusion leads to
a quick exit. If you are sending a person to a new page, tell them so by setting it up so they can return where they
came from. You should also give them a way to progress, not only at the bottom of the screen, but at the top and bottom.
They should always have a link that returns them to the place of orientation, the home page.
Mistake 3: Putting too many graphics, or too few images, on a page.
You need to have a good looking Web site, but keep it simple. A computer screen is far wider than it is tall. So
many think in terms of the printed page, which is taller and thinner. Many use a big computer monitor and wonder
why the rest of the world on a 640 X 480 screen (the standard, usually referred to as about a 13" screen across) can't see
the world like they do. Combine this with large, tall images which make the audience wait and scroll, and the Web
page is slowed to a boring crawl.
The best rule is to keep your home page simple and straightforward with enough decoration but not too much.
A good rule is to limit your entire home page to 40K, meaning both graphics and text. I run into a problem with
such constraints, and limit my graphic file to 40K tops and keep the text brief. A 40-50K file will take about 10 seconds
to load on a 14.4 modem, all things being in order (often not the case on the Web).
Just like too many images ruin the usefulness of a page, too few make it seem generic. If everything is just text it
is boring, with no perceived difference between links that are all just words. A good rule is to use graphics for the
main navigation around your site; include 4-5 buttons (symbols, representing major categories) so people know where
to go, then use your text to move them around the page or to other sections as well. Mixing graphics with text this
way makes it appear that there is more to explore; let them choose between images and plain words.
Mistake 4: There's nothing to do!
I go to a site, ready to explore, and all I can do is read text or view pictures. Where do I, the audience, fit into
the picture? I'm here to respond to my interest; it's up to you, the Web site, to allow me this freedom. Trying to
preach to me, not letting me explore my own interests nor express my own viewpoint, are the sure signs of a dead site.
Would you go to a movie that has no plot? Organize your site so the audience can become curious and explore.
The Web Begins and Ends on the Wishes of "the" Human Resource: The Audience
Broadcasting has been based on selling the image. The Web and Targetcasting are based on becoming the
target, taking the shape the audience allows you to. Imagine your Web site as a piece of marble about to be sculpted by
the audience. If you don't give them the tools and incentives to discover the shape, they will leave. If you give them
a chisel and a reason to sculpt, you'll be amazed at how they show you what is needed. By creating your site as
a personal communication between you and the audience, something amazing forms; an "interactive"
relationship built on mutual interest and direct response. Some call this interactivity, multimedia, or choice-driven media; I
call it a common sense way to design that is based on the needs of the audience. I also call it "Personal Media." Let
the audience get to know you.
How To Get The Audience Involved:
Four Steps to Becoming "Interactive"
Many businesses and people jump on the Web with a traditional approach. Tradition tells us to work, sweat,
and slave to produce a final product, risking a huge investment on the chance that the audience will want it. If
they don't, you lose. Targetcasting mixes the marketing with the creation of the product. The audience is involved
in creating what they want. Remember it's not just the content, but the chance to discuss and learn about your
Web cyte that makes it interesting. Content is just the environment; dialogue and discussion feed the whole process
and keep them coming back because they are part of the Web cyte, not just outsiders watching.
If you want that kind of cyte, read on...if not, go back to your Java tricks and pray that all those "hip" people
buy your vision, because you're missing the most incredible technology available the imagination and
participation of your audience. You want to create a Web cyte that brings people back, driving traffic and recognition. It's easy
to get stuck in your own vision of what the Web will be and forget what we are all dealing with now, with reality.
When the Web breaks down, the message breaks down. The most important part of any Web site is the audience
and their ability to participate, remember, to be interactive? Here are four steps to help you become "interactive".
Step 1. Let the Audience Control Your Web Cyte by focusing on Feedback
Instead of spending your valuable time and money trying to convince the audience that your viewpoint is
worth exploring, why not gather market research and adapt your content to what they want? Targetcasting begins
by focusing on the imagination of your audience. You have to define just what the interest is, discover what others
are doing, and develop a unique vision that no one else is doing. You won't do this by sitting down alone in your
room, planning and flowcharting your own imagination into a Web site. Let the audience tell you what to develop.
What does this mean to you? Get your Web site up and work it into shape. Start slowly, don't use the
"Under Construction" con, and provide room for feedback with enough content to entertain and entice them to come
back for more. If you wait to create that one unique breakthrough off-line, your Web cyte will lose ground as
thousands and thousands of sites come on monthly. Get it online and get it working. The cyte will keep changing, be
dynamic, and show signs of life with this approach, generating traffic. Overnight success is rare anyway, so begin slowly.
Step 2. Use Forms to Keep Them Coming Back
If you want the audience to send you feedback use forms, not just a standard guestbook. Give them a reason
to share their ideas and provide a place for feedback loops to be listed. Moderate your feedback and you'll find
a wealth of information. Don't just use an email link, such as email me at
dunn@webletter.net. It's boring, brings up a Netscape box, and will severely limit your feedback. I've tested this on numerous sites on the Web and without
a doubt, my most popular sites use forms to dramatically increase feedback. If they see a form on the screen, they
will act on it. Be careful not to use too many forms. I've tried putting forms everywhere to encourage feedback,
which was too much noise on my part. I've found a good form encouraging feedback on the home page is the best path.
I've seen many people put a form on its own page, but I like to keep it part of the home page. The most responses
I get is to a form on the home page, summarizing feedback for the entire cyte, a one-stop place to respond. A form
is simply another email to you, but to the audience it looks like a special place to respond.
Step 3: Listen to the Audience, Use Email Wisely, and Create Requested Mailing Lists
Treat your email responses like you would any business correspondence. If you want to flame someone, think
about what you are doing. If they ask a "stupid" question (if you think it's "stupid", you should question your
approach anyway), create a standard response that doesn't intimidate or antagonize. Invite them in to participate and trust
in their brilliance; don't let your ego get in the way.
I've found that asking visitors to indicate whether they would like to receive monthly newsletters citing updates
at my cytes is an excellent way to encourage participation and keep people in touch. All this means to me is keeping
a list of email addresses in an email program like Eudora and writing up a page of text once a month to mail it.
I would avoid calling them mailing lists, since people assume this means a large volume of email. Make sure
you phrase it so they are excited about joining, keeping in touch with your site, and invite them to distribute it. I
have one visitor who distributes my newsletter on newsgroups and to friends; he once wrote and asked if it he
could forward it to 400 interested parties. Where else can you get this kind of support? Encourage people to
contribute articles, graphics, art, and ideas. Many of my most successful cytes are driven by content generated by the audience.
This makes my job easier (and my cytes more interesting), allowing me to focus on new angles for the business.
Step 4: The Power of Language
HTML, the language of the Web, is simply based on headlines, text, and graphics. Look around the Web and
see how few people use headlines. Think about your audience, madly surfing around the Web looking for signs
of intelligent life. All they run into are huge graphics, strangely organized sites, and attempts to force people to see
the world through an individual's eyes. Nice if you're an artist waiting to die to be understood, but sure death for
a business. Design your site simply, make it easy to get around, and use active verbs. Use the words "New",
"You", or "How" in your headline, make the headline a link, and explain the benefits of your site to the audience.
Many Web designers simply list the features of the site. Language is only powerful if you use it to your advantage.
Conclusion: Targetcasting and "Web Cytes"
Final products wear both you and the audience out. Why not be an innovator and save your energy for
marketing your Web cyte. Remember, the power is in the audience. Use it to your advantage by:
- Including forms for feedback, especially on the home page.
- Using graphics to decorate a page and headlines/text to get the audience interested.
- Developing products, services, and content based on what the audience wants or better yet, what
the audience provides. The best form of marketing and advertising on the Web is word of mouth.
Email as a Targetcasting Tool
How To Create Personal Media
What makes your Web site unique? You. Let me explain. I conduct national workshops on how to put
your business on the Web. Inevitably someone invites me to look in my crystal ball and predict the future. I dropped
my crystal ball a long time ago. I don't know what the Web will become, I just know that my site will be changing
with it. I also know that the key skill missing on the Web has nothing to do with the technology housed in a machine.
The missing key is the technology housed between your ears. The missing key is you. I build my Web sites on
writing and organization, spinning my audience through a subject by first building on a marketing strategy;
what is the audience interested in and how can I easily present it? The Web is personal media, not mass media. This
is your store, your place of business, and it demands a personality. That persona is best developed in direct
communication; if we had full audio capabilities, we could talk, but what we have now is email and writing.
Email is your most effective tool to Targetcast with. Over 50 million people have email addresses; not that many
can reach the Web. The audience comes to communicate with you about a particular subject. By taking time to
consider what they are saying and spreading the word you let them know who you are, what you have to say, and how
they can add to it by lending their voice.
Each Email is an Opportunity to Spread the Word
Every one of my sites includes a way to get in touch with me. Click on my email address or fill in a form and I'll
have the information for you. This puts me in direct contact with my audience. Email is an opportunity, not a chore.
Sure, you'll get some crazy emails that are so off the wall that you can't respond. But I find that over 90% of
my voluminous email is valuable, directed at what I'm doing and filled with suggestions of what is needed.
Create your own, simple, voluntary direct mail that people ask to subscribe to.
I tend to update my sites monthly, so that the changes are imminent but the work is not overwhelming. It
gives people a reason to return. One thing I include is a request for people to participate in my site. They can ask me
to include their email address when mailing a listing of updates. This approach has helped me generate so
much traffic that I'm creating an audio tape to teach the ins and outs of this tool.
Sounds like a mailing list, doesn't it? Never use those words. On the Web, we are all so information overloaded
that joining another mailing list is not inviting. I call my offer updates, a chance to keep in contact and to spread
the word. I use my email program to do all the work, keeping the addresses and deleting those who don't want it.
Once a month I write my message, copy and paste the addresses, and send it off. But wait, there's one more trick.
Use BCC, please!
Would you like it if someone sent a direct mail offer to you and attached one hundred addresses to the envelope?
How would you like it if you had to read through all the addresses just to get to the message? Makes you
feel special, doesn't it?
BCC stands for blind carbon copy and is included with practically every email program, like Eudora. Even AOL
lets you BCC people by housing all the addresses in your CC box within parentheses, like (joe@aol.com,
bob@aol.com, etc@aol.com).
What BCC allows you to do is to send out mass emails, such as my suggestion of a mailing list. If you want to
contact large groups of people, use BCC to personalize it. If you use a CC (Carbon copy), each name you send to is
included in the email. If you use BCC, the person only receives their name in the
To: line. This protects you from having
your lists of email addresses stolen, and the recipient from feeling like just a number whose email address is being
distributed all over the Web.
Writing is the Unspoken Tool of the Web
Wonder why seniors use the Internet so well? They were raised writing letters and adapt to this media quickly.
The rest of us weren't raised with writing; we use the telephone and television to communicate. A good writer is
as valuable as a good programmer, a good graphic artist, or a good techie. I doubt I can find as many good writers
as I can techies. So when creating your Web site, consider the text part of it as importantly as you do the graphics.
If you need help, hire a professional or at least someone who can write.
The difference is in communicating and using email as your Targetcasting tool. Email is how you talk back to
your audience so be professional, be succinct, and most of all, keep it fun. Don't take yourself so seriously.
Develop Works In Progress
Use Events, Surveys, Searches, and Provide Reasons to Keep Visiting Your Site
Let's say you go to a Web site, like mine, looking for advice and ideas about developing your Web site as a business.
Scenario 1. You come to my site and see the basic headings, the same old look to the page, and the flat
appearance of nothing.
Scenario 2. You see a headline: "Announcing the first annual search for signs of intelligent life on the Web!
Win $100 by explaining in 100 words or less why a certain Web site shows signs of intelligent life."
P.S. No ass-kissing allowed, we don't assume intelligence, only your intelligence.
Sound odd? Inviting? At least somewhat funny? Okay, okay, it needs some work (but look for it at my Web site
in March). What it does is present the Web site as an event, sponsoring a reason for you to visit. What do I get by
this approach? Your feedback, a chance to email you, your email address, and a way to generate traffic. What do
you get? Possibly $100, but at least the chance to consider what signs of intelligent life are out there. Once you do
that, I'm convinced that most of you will have found one sign of intelligent life, my site.
Web sites are based on works in progress, on change. So change your Web site at least once a month. And
invite your visitors in for something more than the usual scan through your materials. A good Web site is an
information rich marketplace of products, services, and ideas. Throw a monthly event, hold a survey, challenge people to
search for something (other signs of intelligent life? If they find them, you can get in touch with them as well. I'm
creating an Intelligent Life page strictly for that purpose).
Give the audience a reason to visit your site. Provide a place to communicate. To be a target, you have to
keep moving. Targetcasting requires a moving target; what fun is it to constantly aim at the same thing?
The challenge is in the hunt, the event, the survey, where the audience provides you with input and you
provide them with a reason to think. That technology between your ears grows cold if you don't.
An event driven site is based on change; you can create an event for seasons, a limited-time only offer, or a
special gathering based on a historical event. Use surveys to determine who your audience is and how their wishes
are changing. Challenge them to search through your Web site for information and reward them with a bonus,
creating value by giving them something for their efforts. Rewards help to build your Web and provide you the best
reward, a faithful and interested audience.
Web Business
The Secret To Increasing Traffic is in the Tradition of Print
I have sites that generate 3,000 visitors a month. My cyte is sponsored by Apple and Adobe, as well as
receiving excellent reviews from NetGuide, GNN's WebReview, Wired, McKinley's Directory, and having been selected
as one of the top 1001 sites on the Internet by PC Computing. Naturally people ask me for the secret to
generating traffic, since I'm not a technology driven cool site of the day and make my business by making my clients
(and myself) money.
What is the secret? Tradition. The secret of increasing traffic is to use the print media to your advantage. Right
now, February 1996, everyone is trying to figure out how to use the Web. Many are knee-jerk reacting against it,
but businesses know that they want to be part of what this online marketplace is becoming. All of the people
coming online are the ones I target; they aren't familiar with the Web and get buried in search engines that give
them thousands of responses in return to their inquiries. People learning about the Web get lost.
So where do they look? In magazines, professional journals, newsletters, and other traditional media aimed
at specific target groups. This is a window of opportunity for those wanting to publicize their business in print. I
can get printed by sharing information about the Internet, or how to put your business on the World Wide Web. I
share some tips and invite people to visit my site.
Each time I appear in print, whether in reviews or as the writer of an article, my traffic almost doubles and I
generate money. Without exception. And each time someone finds me in print, they ask why it is so hard to find me on
the Web. It isn't hard, if you know how to look. But with thousands and thousands of sites coming online each
month, the usefulness of search engines is limited. Word of mouth is the most important form of advertising.
I can tell a business that will fail by their continued focus on the search engines. I get dozens of emails each
week asking me the secret to fooling the search engines. People think that search engines are the only way to find
things, but the best way is to make it easy for people to find you. Find a magazine or trade journal that is in need of
your expertise to share with its audience; they want their people to know about the Web, and you want the audience
to know about you. Isn't that easier than a search engine?
A willing audience, free advertising, a how-to article, and increased traffic. Use print now before everyone
knows about the Web, before it becomes harder to get articles in print. Now is the time to act, while we are all
learning about the Web and getting online.
Web Letter Links
Get To Know Your Audience By Knowing the Demographics
If you are selling or creating Web sites, you need to know who is online, how the numbers are changing, and
what the audience is made up of.
These sites are available via my Web site at
http://webletter.net/links.html,
or use this as a guide to find out who is using the Internet and the Web.
Network Wizards: http://nw.com/zone/WWW/top.html
The Internet Domain Survey. Get an idea of the incredible growth ongoing with the Web; use this historical
knowledge to plant the seeds of your own business.
CyberAtlas: http://www.cyberatlas.com/
An excellent page to get all the statistics and demographics.
Second Mids Internet Demographic Survey:
http://www1.mids.org/ids2/index.html
GVU's WWW User Surveys: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/user_surveys/
An ongoing source of information.
iVALS: http://future.sri.com/
Research, results from the first psychographic analysis of Internet consumers, and more.
The Hermes Project: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sgupta/hermes/
A research project on the commercial uses of the World Wide Web.
Project 2000 Site Visit Statistics: http://www2000.ogsm.vanderbilt.edu/site.statistics.cgi
An important site, with numerous marketing and demographic articles.
A Good mailing list is the Internet Marketing Digest:
To switch back to digest or to subscribe, send mail to ( IM-SUB@I-M.COM )
Send posts to INTERNET-MARKETING@I-M.COM
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