10 Secrets of Demand Creation

10 EASY STRATEGIES FOR CREATING DEMAND
ON AND OFFLINE

7. Know your complementary demographic. If you sell bubble gum to 10-12 year-olds, (for example) look to their complementary demographic—corporate executives in their 40’s, possibly—for new markets to develop. Quite a few of the people in that demographic would be interested in YOUR research and statistics relevant to 10-12 year-olds who chew bubble gum.

6. Provide verifiable information for your customer. Stick to .edu, .gov or respected trade industry sites for your non-infringing information. Cite and quote accurately all sources you use, and be sure to create original content from the information that you cite, and you should be ok.

9. Restore the personal touch! An industry blog or online journal about your business is a great way to let your customers into your professional world. It may take a while to get used to the idea of putting yourself out there on the internet, but really, is it any different than walking into your office and working there every day?

8. Do a joint venture with a business in a complementary field. If you are an accounting firm, think about co-marketing a coupon for your services (included in the shipping package of specialty calculators sold online,) or getting a link on a popular local reseller’s site—try to think of businesspeople who shouldn’t mind sharing their pool of customers with you. If you sell boats, advertise on an online agricultural blog. They need the operating funds. You get a whole new pool of potential customers.

Provide ACCESS to further sources of information for your savvy customer.

4. Make it attractive. What are you going to DO for your customer or visitor? How is your product or service going to make him smarter, richer, sexier, more youthful—even if you sell toner cartridges?

10. Innovate! If you are reading this online, you know that the chance to enter YOUR unique viewpoint and knowledge set into a worldwide discussion is a chief seduction of the Internet Age. Give your customers and clients information, and give them the opportunity to express themselves on your blog or message board.

5. Provide current information (specific to your industry or profession) for your customer, especially online. The most comprehensive collection of information known to man now resides on the internet. There are as many discrete and differing requirements for specific information as there are people using the internet at any given moment. Don’t be afraid to provide some good, solid resources for your customers and clients on your sites. Somebody said niche marketing is dead. I think it’s only napping. Give your site visitors focused, current, hard-to-find information specific to your product, service or industry and they will hang around.

At each step in the above process, give your customers a chance to express themselves or respond to you (whichever is appropriate) on your site, whether by joining a discussion thread or submitting a comment or recommending your site to a friend. Instantly, you’ve created a targeted list! You can almost always stimulate demand among people who have already shown some interest in your product or service by giving them a chance to see their comments posted on a message board within minutes of registering to use your site.

1. Have a great product or service that you really believe in.

Research and package the MOST current information for your target demographic in new, creative and useful formats.

3. Make it current! If your product or service addresses an emerging issue, you can ride an awareness curve straight to prosperity!

If you have good, reputable, informative links, people will come back to your site to try them. They will remember that they got to some cool link they really found useful from YOUR SITE. They’ll visit your site AGAIN to see what’s new with you and try some more of your links. This is what you want.

Put a “reading room” on your website. Offer your customer a chance to obtain the most current information specific to your industry or profession while visiting your site.

Package it in creative formats.
Provide it for free.

The internet is a place so new it still needs middlemen! What can you do for your online customer that will save him or her the most time?

GATHER CURRENT INFORMATION.
Put it where he or she can get it.

2. Deal honestly.

Try to ensure that all links to your site open in a new browser window, so you’ll always be there for your visitor to return to. Remind visitors to bookmark your site often.

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