When you start to write copy - any type of copy - you have to know your target market. It would be extremely difficult to persuade someone you know nothing about to do what you want them to do.

But, most people only think of one aspect of their target market. Are their segments you're missing that you could be writing to/marketing to?

For example, if you sell lapel pins, you may think your target market consists of marketing pros who will buy thousands of the pins for tradeshows, etc. But what about those who buy lapel pins for employee awards or retirement gifts or customer appreciation? All of those would have special needs different from the person buy for tradeshows.

What segments of your target market have you left out, if any? How can you reach them?

What segments of your target market have you left out, if any? How can you reach them?

Wow, they sound like such easy questions to answer... but they aren't. For example, at our sister site (Search Engine Guide) our audience is small business people. As such, we need advertisers that want to reach small business people.

Ok, where do we find them? Well, one thing I do is read the ad section in the back of magazines like Entrepreneur, Revenue, etc. to look for advertisers wanting to reach the small business market. It's a great way to find ideas for companies that aren't in our industry directly.

Now that I've found them... how do I best reach them? Advertise where they advertise? Email? (don't want to be considered a spammer) Direct mail? Pick up the phone and call? (wait, strike that, I'd rather eat glass)

For someone that is NOT a salesperson, hates sales, etc, this is tough.

See? There are several segments to your audience right there, Robert.

Small business people.
Small business people interested in SEO.
Advertisers wanting to reach small business people in general.
Advertisers wanting to reach small business people who want good rankings.

Part of your audience is your subscribers and another segment is advertisers.

Could it be that many of your subscribers could also become advertisers? <snicker>

Part of your audience is your subscribers and another segment is advertisers.
Yep and all of our advertising to date has targeted potential subscribers/site visitors. Ad copy for subscribers/visitors is easy enough. (can always be improved though)

But, ad copy targeting advertisers is a bit trickier.

The first thing I have to overcome is the temptation to talk to both audiences at once. "Hey, if we don't get an advertiser out of this we'd at least get some more visitors."

But, that just muddies the waters and makes the ad that much less compelling for each audience.

Could it be that many of your subscribers could also become advertisers? <snicker>LOL, that's our saving grace. If it was all dependant on my sales ability... we'd be in trouble. :o