As I explained in my article here, one of the most important differences between businesses (or articles) that succeed and those that fail is the ability to understand what their audience wants, and give it to them the way they want it.

Accurate market research is the foundation of a successful business. Any search marketer worth their salt knows that market research is the basis of a good search marketing strategy. The Digital Point keyword suggestion tool is one of my favourite tools for conducting quick market research and creating lists of keywords to target.

It’s also recommended by Wendy Boswell, About.com’s guide on Web Search, who puts the reasons for conducting market research in simple, succinct terms here:

In order to create a searchable site, you must know who you are writing for. Your target audience knows what they want and what they are searching for, and you must know what that is before you can deliver what they want.

For researching and writing articles, simple tools should suffice. But when you’ve put advertising dollars on the line, the quality of your research becomes paramount to your success.

Customer profiles, surveys and focus groups are essential tools in the marketer’s store, but asking the right questions of your audience, and making sense of the data gathered, is an art by itself.

It was only after I listened to some audios by a guy called Glenn Livingston, that I began to gain an understanding of the nuances of conducting good market research. Glenn was recommended to me by Perry Marshall, who states that he’s “reduced marketing to a nearly exact science.”

He’s developed a system that shows you how to use market research to dramatically multiply existing profits, and how to save ridiculous amounts of time and money entering new markets by finding out exactly where the “bulls eye” is before you invest your marketing dollars, and even before you ever develop a product. This is seriously good stuff, and I urge you to check out his ideas here.

But market research is just the start of a good marketing strategy. It takes more than that to attract the kind of audience you need on the internet. Wendy recommends you remember these three things when developing your target audience internet marketing strategy:

Do your research. Don’t automatically assume that what you search for is what your audience searches for.

Get involved. Man is not an island. Network with people in your field or industry to truly understand what might be in demand, and then you can target your audience accordingly.

Write good content. Easier said than done, but I guarantee that the more time you spend researching key phrases and writing thoughtful content, the more people will be able to find your content.

Read more about market research strategies here

How to Research Your Business Idea (Entrepreneur.com)

Market Research for Small Business on a Shoestring: Surveys and Focus Groups (StartUpNation.com)

Market Research Basics and Terminology (Elance.com)

Writing articles for the internet is not the same as writing for print media. There are some common mistakes that writers make online that are likely to lose them potential readers and traffic.

Writers need to understand that people have very short attention spans while reading online. If your article doesn’t address their immediate concerns or is difficult to read, all they have to do is click away - and you end up losing a reader.

If you’re a writer who wants to leverage your articles to get maximum traffic and ensure that your readers enjoy reading it online, here are some guidelines you should follow.

1. Find Out What Your Readers Want

The best way to boost your visibility online is to provide specific information that people are searching for. While researching topics for your article, input your root keyword into the keyword research tool here to find out what keywords people enter into search engines while researching your topic. Keep a list of these keywords handy when writing your article and use them in creative ways.

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

Search for information using keywords related to the topic you plan to write about on the sites below, and see what other people are writing about it.

http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.technorati.com

Get familiar with these resources. They will help you focus your writing around the needs and interests of potential readers. Write articles that address those specific needs and your traffic and visibility will skyrocket.

2. Give Your Keywords Prominence

I recommend that you never stuff your article with keywords. It doesn’t work anyway, and it will make your article unreadable and useless. Always write your articles with the reader in mind.

However, do remember that search engines give more weight to keywords that are included in specific locations in your article (a concept known as keyword prominence). So while writing your article, it’s good practice to include your keywords in the following locations in order to leverage them for maximum visibility.

Article Title: Try to include your primary keywords in the first half of your title.

Article Sub-head: Use a catchy subheading for your article and try to include synonyms for your keywords.

Paragraph titles: Include specific keywords related to your topic in your paragraph titles

3. Get More Readers With A Catchy Title

A catchy, topical or provocative title will always attract more attention and get you more click-throughs and readers, but always en sure that it corresponds with the theme of your article. Titles that are catchy but misleading are not appreciated by either publishers or readers.

4. Boost Readability For All Your Readers

There are two kinds of readers online those who read an article in detail, and those who scan through it. For the sake of the latter, break up your articles into paragraphs, each of which makes a point, and use a title for the paragraph that effectively sums up the points you made in the text.

Write a catchy title for each paragraph. Keep your paragraphs short. Long riffs are difficult to read online. I usually prefer a maximum of 2 to 3 sentences per paragraph, but longer is acceptable. The use of bulleted points and numbered lists also boosts readability.

5. Follow Good Language Guidelines

Unless your audience comprises other writers and poets, few readers appreciate long-winded and pretentious prose online. Remember that the average visitor online reads at the level of a sixth-grader. So keep your sentences short. Use words that are simple and easy to comprehend.

Write complete sentences, but keep your tone conversational. Write as though you were talking to a friend. Avoid the use of slang, colloquialisms (unless necessary to make a point) and swear words.

Always check for blatant grammar and spelling errors using a spellchecker. If possible, get a second and third opinion on your article before sending it out to publishers and article directories.

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Copyright © Priya Shah

Priya Shah is a partner in the blog publishing company, Connect10 and writes an internet marketing blog. Visit Article Writing Tips for more article marketing tips and tools.

This article may be reprinted as long as the resource box is left intact and all links are hyperlinked.

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According to the April 2006 issue of the New Scientist, research has proven that subliminal advertising messages work… and that if conditions are right, subliminal advertising to promote a brand can be made to work. Previous experiments claiming this were debunked.

But in a recent experiment, scientists found that eighty per cent of volunteers who had been exposed to the subliminal advertising message chose that product, compared to only 20 per cent of the controls. Those are scary stats indeed.

The term subliminal message was popularized in 1917 (World War I), when the US army would sneak messages into songs and put subliminal messages in posters trying to get people to join the army.

A subliminal message is defined as a signal or message designed to pass below the normal limits of perception. Subliminal messages target the subconscious mind and may be generated in the form of an image transmitted briefly and not percieved consciously and yet perceived unconsciously.

While the conscious, rational mind acts as a filter and screens out messages not consistent with our beliefs, the subconscious mind accepts messages without filtering them - rather like the mind of a child.

The effects of subliminal television advertising could be even more powerful on children. It’s been found that for each additional hour per day that a child watched television an average of one additional request was made for an advertised product.

But then it doesn’t take a scientist to tell us what most parents know anyway. Most of us have experienced pester-power first-hand.

The researchers also found that priming only works when the prime is goal-relevant. In plain English, this means you’re likely to buy a product that quenches your thirst only if you were already thirsty anyway.

So, subliminal messages could be more useful in priming a target audience to choose one brand over another, rather than in creating an actual need for the product.

What if politicians started using it to influence our choices? Well, the fact is they probably do already.

Do subliminal messages violate the code of advertising? Will this change the way advertising is regulated? How could we detect subliminal messages inserted into creatives?

And, in our opinion, what is “wrong” - the fact that they actually work, or that advertisers would be sneaky enough to use them? I mean, if they were found not to work, we wouldn’t care either way, right?

The fact is, they do work. And that far better uses have been found for subliminal messages than advertising. In personal transformation, for instance.

As we learn more about the way our mind works, it will become clearer how subliminal messages really affect our decisions and whether they should or should not be allowed in advertising.

More claims of subliminal messages in advertising

The Fallacies Underlying “Subliminal Persuasion”

Subliminal CDs for Personal Transformation

This post is not about Joe Vitale’s Hypnotic Writing package. I think we’ve all heard enough about that already.

No, this is something even more powerful. It’s an event that can help you become a true Master of Persuasion.

On May 19 st, 20 th and 21 st, 2006,The Ultimate Persuasion Seminar event will be held in glitzy Las Vegas.

It’s led by three world-class persuasion experts who will share with you the most advanced, most powerful, scientifically proven influence tactics to let you talk anyone into anything, anytime.

• If you’re a salesperson or a copywriter, you should attend because you’ll sell better.
• If you’re a hypnotist, you should attend because you’ll do better therapy.
• If you’re a life coach, you should attend because you’ll get more clients and get them to follow you easier.
• If you’re a self-help junkie, you should attend because you’ll make faster, easier changes in your life.
• If you’re an NLP/Hypnosis fan, you should attend because you’ll discover how to put this magic in action to get your outcome.

I’m a loyal subscriber and customer of both David Barron and Kent Sayre. I’ve bought and used a few of their self-help products, and I understand the power of persuasion in self-help as well as selling.

Hell, I wish I could make it to this event!! Next year, perhaps

What you might not know that makes the Ultimate Persuasion Seminar totally different, is that these three instructors are rebel outsiders.

They defy the traditional by-the-book, boring, old outdated ideas and instead employ cutting-edge influence tactics that are sleek, covert, and so powerful¦ some of them almost illegal!

During the seminar event, they’ll explain to you every nook and cranny of all their outlaw street-smart, influence strategies. And you’ll walk out the door¦ as a master persuader.

So -

• If you want to be able to talk anyone into anything, anytime¦
• If you want people to follow you¦
• If you want to become a master of influence¦
• If you want more money in life¦
• If you want to more people to say yes to you easily and naturally¦

Register here.

But if you go, just remember that I’m going to be Jealous as Hell.

If you’re a business person, going to Vegas for this training, you should know that its a tax write-off… and it’s Vegas so a lot of things can happen. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

Register for the Ultimate Persuasion Seminar here.

I’ve just been informed told that Dina’s Web Content Awareness Day is on the 9th of February, not the 6th, as I reported earlier.

Sorry about that, Dina. I guess my eyesight hasn’t returned to normal after my accident…

Go here to Expand Your “Content Consciousness” as Dina so aptly puts it.

Dina Giolitto, one of my favourite writers and the moderator of the ABC Network: Articles, Blogs, Content network on Ryze, is in the process of rounding up gurus and web marketing experts to join her for the First Annual Web Content Awareness Day.

The “virtual holiday” is scheduled to take place on February 6, 2006 - a day to “pay homage to expectional content providers on the World Wide Web” with a plethora of free information, limited time only offers from some of the web’s most prominent gurus and independent consultants, and a healthy dose of lighthearted fun.

The web-wide celebration will be housed on Giolitto’s website, http://WebContentAwarenessDay.com. Topics covered by various contributing marketers will include copywriting, search engine optimization, design, tech tools, article marketing, blogging and networking. Every marketer who contributes to the project has been offered free exposure by way of feature articles and ad exposure on the Content Awareness Day website.

As Dina tells it, “I’ve always felt adamantly about upholding the quality and integrity of content on the web while providing practical solutions and useful information to my readers. I’m hoping the site will help promote this agenda while drumming up business leads for every single marketer who devotes their time and energy to the cause.”

All I have to say to this amazing woman is - You go, girl! I’ll be supporting you all the way.

Why do many businesses fail to make money online? Is it because they have bad products or services? Not always.

Marketers usually go wrong at the product creation stage. They create a product or service and marketing plan based on what THEY THINK the market wants. Before you get traffic to your site, before you even create your product or offering, you need to find out what your market wants.

All good copywriters know that to sell effectively, you have to know exactly who your customer is and what they want. You have to get inside their minds, feel what they feel, understand what motivates them, what “triggers” or “hot buttons” they react to, learn how to empathize with them.

You need to intuitively tap into the minds of your target market. When you can grasp this simple concept, you can pretty much write your own check. Marketing is about understanding people. If you have properly researched your market, then you know¦

- Where to FIND them
- How to ATTRACT them
- How to RELATE to them
- How to MOTIVATE them
- How to RETAIN them

All you need to create a market driven business is to do a little bit of market research. But how do you do that?

Well, if you went about it the traditional way, you’d have to:

- Create a survey with the right questions
- Incorporate your survey information into your website copy
- Do split-testing to see which copy converts best
- Repeat the steps above for each of your websites or sales letters

If this sounds time-consuming, you’re right, it is! Or was, until now…

I just received a message from my friend, Tim Erway, about an easy to use market research tool designed to help you create a market driven business. Its called Gateway Magic, and it helps you build a business around what your customers want (not what you THINK they want).

There are other programs being sold on the internet that create personalized sales letters, but none of them can do what Gateway Magic can do for your websites. I’ve only just started using it, but from what I’ve seen of it, Gateway Magic takes personalization to the next level.

It’s about more than just personalization of sales letters. It’s about creating a *sales system* for promoting any product, service or affiliate program. With Gateway Magic, you can collect the data from your website visitors for follow up and then, get this, you can merge that data into the sales letter your visitor reads when they hit the submit button on your site. How neat is that!

This script has two features - the first, Gateway Magic Surveys,, helps you first create the survey, and is a simple yet effective way to gather information that can help you¦

- Write more effective ads
- Drive more visitors to your site
- Get more subscribers to your newsletter
- Increase sales for your product or service
- Keep your customers loyal
- Open up new revenue streams

The second features is like the Ultimate Sales Letter Personalization & Customization tool, with the ability to merge your survey data into the sales letter, essentially customizing your sales letter for each prospect.

The uses of this software are only limited by your imagination. You can use Gateway Magic technology to¦

- Market your own products and services
- Market affiliate products
- Build highly targeted opt-in lists
- Increase your Google Adsense income

GM is also a way to easily get around the new Google Adwords policy, which does not allow promotion of affiliate links. Simply create a GM site and use it for all your pay per click campaigns. This will not only get you around the Google policy, but it will help you build targeted opt-in lists as well.

I see myself using this new tool a LOT, for myself as well as my client’s sites. Check out Gateway Magic here.

Fact: Trouble is Looming For MOST Copywriters

The world of copywriting is saturated with “copywriting know-how.” If you’re one of the truly good, hot-shot copywriters you’re probably facing a lot of competition from the egotists who thing they’re *instant* copywriters and stink at what they do.

Are selling yourself short as a copywriter to compete with the $5 sales letter variety?

Well then you really need to attend this breakthrough copywriting masterclass designed to help copywriters build a business based on prove tested methods.

You get to spend over 30 hours one-on-one, face-to-face with mega-copywriting experts Brian Keith Voiles & Alan Forrest Smith.

Their crack unit claims that

ANYONE with half a brain that attends the Copywriters Masterclass CAN at least double their business if THEY APPLY what they learn from us.

Here are some of the things you will learn:

• Why killer technique is essential but not enough to create a mega-copywriter
• Why you should NOT be working from Elance.com
• Why the best mentors are those that are already doing "the mega-copywriting" gig for real.
• How to explode your own copywriting business over 48 hours and join the ranks of the Mega-Copywriter

There are only 24 seats up for grabs at this masterclass. You get access to over 74 years cutting-edge experience copywriting, marketing and building business.

The location is JUST awesome. I wish I was going!

Check out the Copywriting Masterclass.

Jason DeVelvis has some excellent tips on how to write good articles in his new article: Writing Articles, But Still Not Getting Traffic? That’s Because Your Articles Suck But I Can Help! (Part 1).

He advises writers to follow the basic rules of online copywriting when writing articles, especially the headline, and that your article must not be a blatant sales pitch.

I agree, as does Chris Knight who also writes the following on his blog:

Article marketing is a qualified lead generation system, a targeted web traffic creator, it’s a public relations tool to help you build credibility in the marketplace and an SEO tool to help you build credibilty and trust with the major search engines.

Those who screw this up, pitch and sell themselves hard in the title, body and then they bore us to tears with huge resource boxes filled with every sales pitch they can think of, will find themselves banging their heads on the wall wondering why it’s not producing the results that are possible if they would shift their thinking to “lead generate” instead of “sales pitch.”

More Article Marketing Tips
Article Marketing Tutorial

In the international bestseller “Blink,” Malcolm Gladwell explains why our decisions to choose brands, select a mate, sue our doctor or make choices that decide Presidential elections, aren’t as simple as they seem.

Why we often let unconscious biases affect our opinions about people who are taller or have a different skin colour. And why we find it even harder to explain them when asked.

I consider “Blink” essential reading for all marketers. I mean, which blue-blooded marketer wouldn’t love to know how the workings of their customer’s brain will affect whether their new packaging is going to work or fail?

Or why their new website is converting far fewer visitors than the old one? Of course we would.

But is it really possible to understand why people choose Budweiser over Coors? George W. over John Kerry? Coke over Pepsi?

No one knows for sure. And asking people why they took those decisions doesn’t necessarily give the right answers.

Why? Because most of us really haven’t a clue as to why we make those choices.

95% of consumer decision-making occurs subconsciously, according to research from Harvard University, cited in an article in Time. That’s a hell of a lot of decisions we have little or no conscious control over.

In Blink, Gladwell also shows how sometimes the sort of data that marketers rely on, - such as market research and focus groups - can fail miserably because they don’t always predict actual consumer behaviour, as Coca-Cola discovered during the New Coke fiasco.

But new research is beginning to shine a light on the mysterious workings of the neural processes behind those snap decisions.

Known as “neuromarketing,” this controversial science could one day lead to advertising strategies that directly stimulate hard-wired mental reflexes rather than appealing to fuzzy consumer attitudes, according to an article in Wired News.

The Time article also cited research that seems to have solved that eternal mystery why people prefer Coke over Pepsi. The answer lies in how people identify with brands. Although consumers preferred Pepsi’s taste they choose Coke because they identified with its brand better.

A branch of cognitive neuroscience, neuromarketing relies heavily on the ability to visualise how the brain sees choices and takes decisions, using brain scans and a process called functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI. fMRI measures the level of oxygen in the blood and tells scientists which parts of the brain are most active.

According to the Wired article, this research even recently revealed the differences in the brains of Democrats and Republicans.

Consumer groups worry that the research could lead to companies using more effective “mind control” to brainwash buyers’ into decisions that the companies desire, and have issued calls to ban the technology.

Imagine if the tobacco, alcohol, and gambling industries (or even worse, politicians) should start exploiting such information to manipulate the weak minds of their zombified consumers.

But the experts insist we are light years away from such an Orwellian scenario, and believe that the work will help businesses better understand the needs of their consumer and show them how to make life better for their consumers.

Whatever the outcome, neuromarketing is certainly going to be a bone of contention between marketers hoping to get a better grip on their consumer’s decision making processes, and consumer activists seeking to help consumers retain control over their minds.

Copyright © 2005 Priya Shah
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Priya Shah is the CEO of eBrand360. She writes the Marketing Slave blog and publishes an internet marketing newsletter . Subscribe to her free Marketing With Blogs eCourse.

This article may be reprinted as long as the resource box is left intact and all links are hyperlinked.
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