How to find customers

This is the wrong question. Ask yourself, “How can customers find me?”

This sounds trite, but understanding this is a crucial first step in understanding online marketing.

Ask yourself, “How can customers find me?”

Let’s say you are offering an e-book that has tips on camping in New Zealand. You need to work out how people who want to go camping in New Zealand can find your e-book.

I think you already know how they’d do this.

Because you do it yourself many times a day. You do this almost anytime when you are trying to find information.

You type a question into Google. (Or another search engine, but most likely, just Google.)

What you need to do is to work out how to make sure Google shows you prominently in its results when people search for phrases like “camping in New Zealand”.

This changes the question from “How do I find customers” to “How do I get Google to show my website?” This is a question with a set of clear, practical answers. These answers include:

• Write content on your website that helps Google know what you are offering
• Use the tools supplied by Google to ensure it knows about site
• More broadly, learn about “search engine optimisation” (SEO)

Letting your customers find you is no new concept. Long before the web and online search engines, canny product owners learnt to make it easy for their customers to find them. The methods have changed but the strategy is the same.