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By Barry Welford
Increasingly, purchasers are using the Internet to search
for suppliers. You may be unaware of the total number of
people who are doing this in your market sector. Many of
them may be ending up with the competition. You may be
concerned that fewer people seem to be out looking for your
products. Your competition may be quietly laughing all the
way to the bank, as they find the market is wide open to
them.
How do you identify the size of this hidden potential
demand? How do you make sure that it is your company and not
the competition that is communicating with the customer and
making the sale? Potential clients may take a variety of
routes to find suppliers. Make sure that all roads lead
preferentially to your website and to your company.
Who Is This Best Potential Customer?
A customer who is looking for a supplier is like gold.
They're in the mood to buy. Such a person wants to purchase
and wants help to make an informed and "right" choice. So
the issue isn't how you can sell to that prospect. The issue
is how that prospect can purchase from the best supplier. In
other words, this is not about marketing and selling: it's
all about purchasing.
Compare this with the typical selling situation. You try to
persuade the potential lead to buy now. They may not be sure
they want to buy. Or they may not want to buy this week. Or
they may not want to buy from you. This is what happens in a
selling situation.
Now consider a purchasing situation. This is not just
Permission Marketing versus old-style (sometimes strong-arm)
selling tactics. Even Permission Marketing only means that
the potential customer accepts your selling approach. The
Potential Customer on the Internet is at the other end of
the scale completely. They want to purchase and they want to
do it when they're ready. They want to be in control of the
purchasing process. The Internet gives them that control.
How Many Potential Customers Are Out There?
So how do we find out how many potential customers there may
be? It's not easy but there are probably many more than you
guess. Let's try to pin it down.
Some potential customers will look at directories of
suppliers or industry related "portals". Such websites list
all suppliers they are aware of. In some cases, suppliers
can register on these for free and in other cases a fee must
be paid. It is difficult to get an estimate of how many
potential purchasers use such directories but it is likely
to be substantial.
An even more substantial proportion of potential customers
will find your website by using search engines. A rough
estimate of the numbers of visitors using search engines for
relevant keywords can be derived in the following way.
Services are available to determine how many people searched
for certain keywords for particular search engines for
particular periods of time. One of the most well-known is a
free service offered by Overture. Here you can check the
number of searches for given keyword phrases during a recent
month. For example suppose you were a manufacturer of hot
tubs. In December 2003, Overture recorded the following
numbers of searches for the following keyword phrases:
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