One perfect customer today - that's all you need for this business

Everyone stresses about list size and driving massive traffic. They say if you don't have 50,000 subscribers you will never succeed!

Baloney.

If you have to have a huge list to be profitable online, I suggest you rethink your business model because you are not set up for the kind of success an "average" marketer should expect. Here's what I mean.

If your business is selling a $7 ebook and you want to make $100,000 this year, you're going to have to sell 14,286 books to gross $100,000. If you experience a 1% conversion in your marketing, your sales message is going to have to reach 1,428,600 prospects. What kind of an advertising and list building effort is that going to take? How can you pay for prospects and still be profitable?

Yes this is a simplistic view. My purpose is to point out that your business is set up to fail. Can you see why?

Getting loyal paying customers and keeping them is the hardest part Internet business, in my opinion. Driving targeted traffic and converting that traffic into buyers is typically the sticking point, the road block, for many marketers. They set their businesses up in such a way that they have to have massive traffic in order to be profitable. That is not the pathway to success!

I believe that marketers should focus on getting the highest quality traffic and converting that traffic at a high rate - then huge prospect and subscribers numbers are not needed. Go after your "perfect" customer.

All you really need is one great subscriber today. One great subscriber tomorrow. One the next day. Maybe some days you get none and some days you get two. That's all you need if your business is set up right. Here's how you do it, regardless of your niche:

1. Be very open, specific and targeted in your business and let prospects know exactly what your business is, what it does, and what they will gain from joining you. You can't be everything to everyone in your niche - position your business to do one thing extremely well; in fact, be the very best alternative online.
2. Advertise and market to only those who will obviously benefit from joining your list and being your prized customer because you have exactly what they are looking for. What this means is that you're not prospecting for numbers . . . you are going after highly targeted potential customers that are aligned exactly with what you're selling. Your looking for the perfect customer for your business.
3. Deliver unique, original, and useful content, products, and services that won't be found elsewhere. Stay focused on the specific niche you identified in #1. If you want to branch out, do it at another web site.
4. Let your prospects know that it's never too late to subscribe to your list - they probably won't on first contact. Put your sign-up form or a link to it on every page of your web site and in every email, piece of content, article, and product you offer.
5. As you build traction in your business, your focus will be less and less on finding new prospects and more and more on satisfying the needs of the customers that are giving you money. Helping your customers is way, way, easier than finding and nurturing new ones because you can always get help from other experts in the field.

The bottom line is this: you are looking for very targeted buyers that will want badly what you offer. Focus your marketing efforts on them specifically. Consider it a success when you are not getting great numbers but you are attracting the right ("perfect") potential customers, i.e. people that will buy what you offer.

You can increase and ramp up what you are doing successfully once you know you're marketing to the right populations and with the right marketing methods (done through testing and tracking results).

Keep in mind - and you have heard it before from very top-notch marketers - a list of 100 proven targeted buyers is way more valuable than a list of 50,000 run-of-the-mill prospects. Shotgun approaches in online marketing miss the mark. You need a high powered rifle with a scope and the mentality to build your list one perfectly targeted customer at a time.

Keep in mind that the corollary to this kind of business is offering more, much more, in the way of higher priced products. You aren't going to offer just a $7 ebook to your perfect customers. They are going to pay you hundreds of dollars every year for the opportunity to benefit from your offers of all kinds based on what they are asking for.

Your focus turns away from driving traffic and constantly finding and converting new prospects.

Instead, your focus as the business owner is on your paying customers, your buyers, and working with them to keep them happy and to give them what they want in the niche.

There are plenty of "perfect customers" out there. If each one spent $500/year on your business, how many would you need to be successful? 100? 200? 500? What if each customer gave you $1,000/year? You do your own math.

Opposing view points are always welcome.

I hope all of you have success in your chosen niche.

Steve