How in touch are you with the real expectations of your target audiences? Before you can cash in on a growing amount of web traffic, you have to understand why your website appeals to your target demographic and what you can do to enhance that appeal and generate more revenue.

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Look At The Marketplace From Your Customer’s Point Of View

When it comes to understanding what your customers want, Inc. Magazine suggests looking at what they are already getting and compare your offering. You need to look at all of the options your customers have and decide why some customers are choosing the competition over your websites. For example, is the competition offering different types of sports information than your site? If so, you need to determine what is different and how you can adapt your sites to compete.

Most people spend their time doing market research from their own point of view. They will ask customers what they do or don’t like about an offering and try to adapt based on that information. But when you see your customer’s options in action, it becomes easier to understand what you need to change to bring in more traffic.

Have Your Analytics Serve Your Goals

One of the analytics you follow religiously is the fluctuation in website revenue. Why? What are you looking for in that information that is going to help you improve your offering? If your revenue goes up, then what does that mean for your website?

When you set analytics, you need to have that data represent real information you can use to achieve your goals. For example, if you set up your analytics to tell you how much revenue went up after you launched a specific advertising campaign, then you can gauge the success of that campaign and use that data to create more effective campaigns in the future.

Never Assume That You Know The Answers

Christopher Hann of Entrepreneur.com tells a story about a steel company that was running its marketing programs based on what it thought its customers were expecting. When an independent market research firm actually asked customers what they wanted, the steel company found out that it was way off on what it thought its customers had wanted and expected.

The point is that if you want to know what your customers want, you have to ask. You can collect all the data you want and think that you know what is going on, but until you ask your customers, you really have no idea.

The MarketingProfs website recommends utilizing keyword trends and interactive forums to gather real information about what your customers want from your company. If you want to expand your customer base, then you need to find out what your current customers find so attractive about your company and use that to bring in more customers.

If you want to create effective marketing programs, then you have to use images and text that your customers want to see and read. Until you know exactly what your customers want, you will never be able to truly create an effective website or marketing plan.

Once you have found out what your customers want, the next step is effective targeting. To that point, what advertising strategies would your company utilize to accomplish this? Could programmatic be a potential option, given that it serves ads in an efficient and cost effective way?