Capture your target market with a "magnet" website

12 June 2007 - By Sean Fishlock

If you are looking for a new way to attract customers in an industry where people like to shop around first, then deploying a “Magnet” website could be a key strategy with a high return on investment.

It is easier to get new business from existing customers than new business. Without a strong brand, it is often tough for your own company site to get its message into the marketplace or act attract prospects en masse. With so many companies jostling for attention, keyword and cost-per-click (CPC) is losing its effectiveness these days, at least for small commercial sites.

That's where a magnet website can come in. I call a magnet site any website with a business model aimed solely at attracting a target market, just like the Pied Piper of Hamelin or bees to honey.

Making Customer Decisions Easier

An effective Magnet website can be a powerful marketing or public relations tool that works because they focus on the proven psychology of instant gratification.

Most websites are nothing more than a brochure for a particular company or brand. On their own, very few websites of this type are capable of getting a response from users that don’t have a real detailed knowledge of the market.

A Magnet website on the other hand can help make up their mind about your product or service before they reach your website, so that when they do get there, they are ready to act.

This type of website doesn't cost a lot to build, due to their nature, the focus is purely on being informative and functional rather than graphical glitz. Magnet websites often have a neutral brand which trust in consumers.

Let's look at some of the types of magnet sites which might just do the trick for your industry.

Product Magnets

It is natural for undecided people to look around for sites that provide comparisons on similar products while they “shop around”.

By providing favourable feature or price comparisons, rankings and statistics, you can use the powers of persuasion whilst still appearing to remain objective.

People always want to hear about the experiences of others. eBay is a powerful example of word-of-mouth in action. That is also why testimonials are so important to marketers. By encouraging users of products to review or comment on the site, it adds further weight – of course, you may wish to moderate the comments before they are posted to the site.

Service Magnets

Unlike product magnets, which have some quantitative measures, it is always easy to make direct comparisons to services. Nevertheless, there are ways you can achieve a similar effect (getting users to contact you), via qualitative methods.

Provide a general market profile that points out where the key players (including your own company) stand. Showcase (good or bad) publicity or reports. You could even expore the possibility of creating a website award for companies that perform to your own criteria.

Just being informative (without giving too much away) can add enormous weight to promoting your company’s consulting service – for example.

Qualify and Track Your Referrals

One of the best attributes of “owning” a Magnet site is that you can not only track referrals from the site to your own products or services, but also track referrals to competitors as well. This way you’ll be able to profile your market and get a better idea of which features or prices are sweet spots.

Advertise or Leverage Your Industry Knowledge

Spend some time on market research, so that your figures are up-to-date and accurate. Be transparent with your audience about who is behind the site - it can establish your company as knowledgeable of your market and your price point.

In some cases, new busineses are created from such sites, and they operate on subscriber models.

Build Your Own

Good design, content, search engine performance and promotion is crucial to an effective Magnet campaign. Most market research and Public Relations people are non-technical. That is why Freestyler makes a great base with its ability to manage sites easily without andy technical knowledge and its purpose built templates.

You will also need advice. Datalink can show you real-world examples of effective Magnet websites for a variety of industries and have the experience and knowledge to design and develop effective strategies for your own marketing campaigns.