An amazing product, a phenomenal business model and a great team may put you on the right path, but ultimately, they mean little to your chances for success as a business owner if you don’t get in front of your target market.

Fully understanding your target audience and developing the right methods to reach those consumers can take time, but you can get a head start by following the lead of fellow business owners like entrepreneur Russell Brunson, who started his first online company while he was still in college.

Today, he is the co-founder of ClickFunnels, a successful software company that helps entrepreneurs get their message out to the marketplace quickly and efficiently. Brunson is also the author of a series of books, including “Traffic Secrets,” which is filled with tips for using classic and foundational direct marketing techniques to help drive traffic to business owners' products or services, and drive demand.

Build a strategy that helps you reach your target market with Brunson’s advice, adapted from “Traffic Secrets,” the third installment in his bestselling trilogy. Brunson believes in his methods so much that he’s providing the book for free to business owners who visit grabtrafficsecrets.com while supplies last.

Make customers your main focus. After putting so much time and energy into developing your product or service, it can be hard to shift your attention elsewhere. However, switching your focus to your customers and finding ways to meet them where they already are can pay bigger dividends in the long run. That doesn’t mean you should stop thinking about new features and improving what you offer but attempt it with customers’ needs in mind.

Drive your business from the vantage point of knowing who your dream customers are by understanding what they want and care about. The better you understand who your customers are, the easier it may be to get in front of them.

Pinpoint where they spend time. Once you have a solid definition of who your customers are, learn where they hang out, especially online. Make a list of the YouTube channels they watch, the blogs they read and the podcasts they listen to. Try to write down at least 100 that you can use to get in front of target consumers.

Make connections with the gatekeepers. Seek out the people behind those channels and contact as many of them as you can. Build relationships, ask what their advertising options are and explore collaborative opportunities such as guest posting, being a podcast guest or forming an affiliate relationship.

Let your affiliates promote your business. Even in this digital age, personal relationships count. That’s why Brunson recommends building relationships with the people who manage the places your target customers spend time. Through ClickFunnels, he asked those channel leaders to become affiliates; now they make money while promoting the company’s products.

 

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