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You Are Not Your Prospect: Why You Should Consider Ad Vehicles That You Never Use

Stacy Williams, SEO guru with Atlanta-based search firm Prominent Placement, included a great article in her newsletter last week entitled “But I Never Click on the Paid Listings.”

I’m not sure how many times each week I have to remind clients that they are not their best prospects and their own personal behavior — while it may seem completely “average” to them — is not indicative of the behavior of their best customer.  Let’s call it an even dozen.

Certainly men who sell products made for women may understand this concept and likely adults who market products for kids but for some reason most reasonable adults can’t get past the idea that they are NOT their prototypical customer and as a result they often make poor marketing decisions.

Remember, just because you don’t listen to drive-time radio on your way to work (either because you don’t commute or because you prefer the tunes on your ipod) doesn’t mean that your best prospects aren’t listening to that drive-time spot on NPR or WSB.

And just because you no longer bring the yellow pages into the house, instead round-filing them along with the recyclables, doesn’t mean that SOMEBODY isn’t reading them.

Finally, and to the point that Stacy made, just because you never click on the paid ads on Google or Yahoo doesn’t mean that your best prospects and customers aren’t doing it either. Stacy’s research shows that on an average search engine results page, about 20% of searchers will click on the paid listings. And that is how Google built a market capitalization in excess of $100 B. Do the math. Think your prospects might be clicking now?

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