So you have finally finished your website and you are ready to turn on the traffic and start taking orders. Usually you are cautious about buying traffic, so you search around for some free methods. You learn about traffic exchanges and banner advertising, as well as article marketing and directory submissions. As you work on these methods you start to notice something disturbing: your visitors come and go without buying anything.

Free methods can work with many different types of sites, but the common ones usually only work with sites of general appeal since it is difficult to target your prospects by demographics with the free methods mentioned above. Website owners who follow the demographics of their visitors are often surprised at who actually buys from their site.

A demographic map is one of the most important tools you will use in marketing your business both online and offline. What is a demographic map? It is essentially a breakdown of who your ideal prospects are. Any time I give marketing advice I always ask people to tell me who the perfect customer would be. Many entrepreneurs get excited about their products, but forget to think about who is going to buy, and that is the most important part of the marketing plan. The best direct response marketing companies in the world have demographic maps and use them all the time. The formula has been perfected many times because they know how to identify the target market.

Ask yourself if you know whether you would rather market to single or married people, to men or women, to older people or younger people, to which region of the world, and to which interests. A demographic map can help you find the perfect customers, as long as you know who they are. I can tell you one secret that you should never forget: you will convince more people to buy by being as specific as possible. What I mean by that is do not try to reach everybody because by doing that you will end up convincing nobody to buy. If you tailor your marketing messages for a very specific group, you will be able to match their profile on multiple points with just one advertising message.

Let us suppose you chose to target young single men in the western United States, and you choose California specifically since it has the largest population on the pacific coast.

Suddenly it becomes a lot easier to identify who your customers are and what their needs are. You can choose that you want to sell to a surfer who is interested in becoming attractive to the hot young beach bunnies. With a demographic map, you will be able to reach this kind of person and hit him full speed with your advertising, a very specific ad that talks about how your product makes life better for him. The buyers will come in droves and you will be smiling as you drive down to the bank just to look at the fat profits in your account.