An effective and efficient conversion starts by accurate prospecting. Indeed any good business plan starts with an accurate identification of its market. Likewise prospecting, which is a part of a websites marketing effort, has the onus of identifying effective demand in the market and thereafter wooing it.



Like the majority of web-marketing, prospecting occurs outside of your website. It involves getting the attention of the most likely customers and creating a rapport with the intent of introducing you business offer. The phrases "Targeted Visitor" or "Targeted Traffic" and "Qualified Leads" or "Qualified Visitors" so often used in internet marketing refer to such individuals. Unlike untargeted traffic, targeted traffic exhibits a propensity to buy. They show strong indicators of effective demand which is both the willingness and ability to buy. And though you cannot exactly qualify a lead in this early stage of a conversion process, they should show signs of both interest and ability to purchase.

Such interest is exhibited by a surfer searching for terms relevant to your offer in Search Engines or engaging content related to your offer. For example a surfer that searches for the term "Motorola C139" is a prospect to an internet mobile phone accessory business. Similarly a surfer that is reading content about weight loss is a prospect to a purveyor of dieting pills.

Due to the monstrous size of the internet, poor prospecting can result to unnecessary inclusion of ineffective demand in your flow of traffic. This will in turn place unnecessary stress to your conversion techniques and further result to poor conversion rates. Ineffective demand occurs often due to lack of ability to pay. And this is not always due to lack of financial ability. Rather, it is often because of placing the wrong offer to the market.

For example, a website whose offer is only good in a specific region in the world will tend by default attract ineffective demand from regions not included for the offer. This is simply because the website has a worldwide presence. Such a case is synonymous with crowding your supermarket aisles with people who will never buy. And though you cannot completely steer clear of ineffective demand prospecting should serve your sales process with the most likely customers.

Prospecting involves finding customers where they are and grabbing their attention. There are several techniques you can use to achieve this. Next week we will look at the major techniques and how to include them in your web marketing.