You have a great product, fantastic website, financial backing, and undeniable urge to succeed. But, you are not making any money through your website. Why? The answer is you haven’t directed your product to people who are looking to buy it. You have shoe stores that sell handbags and socks, but they specialize in shoes, and that is what you’ll see displayed up front. Then you have shoe stores that sell athletic shoes along with athletic equipment and clothing, but they specialize in shoes. Every store specializes in something, that is its selling point, it’s profit maker. How do you know what a store specializes in? Just look around, do you see more teenage oriented shoe’s/clothing/jewelry or are items geared more toward 25-35 age range?

What keeps these stores going is fact that they know whom their audience is, specifically who they are selling to. They know their demographics. Do you know yours?

Demographics A website is no different than a storefront. You place your best products, aimed at your target audience, in display window to draw your customers in. Then you show them your “other” products, possibly fulfilling other needs that they may not have considered. For example, you sell athletic shoes. You intice a customer into your store by placing images of newest and hottest shoes on your index page. You then add a blurb saying: “Freedom is faster than wind when you wear – such and such shoes.” They click on blurb and are instantly taken to page that provides details for that shoe. But wait! On that page you add images of your top selling shorts and items with American flag imprinted on it. Their patriotism has been psychologically invoked by word freedom and running by phrase “faster than wind.” You’ve made them consider multiple products simply by adding a blurb and image.

Is that all it takes? No. Anyone can sell a product using this method, and they are likely to be successful, to a point. Everyone who sells any kind of product knows this, but what makes some companies stand out and others just get by? If you took those same shoes and built a whole page in a style that appealed to single women, age 25-35, with no children and a love of country and nature, you’ve created a site-specific sales market. You have pinpointed exactly whom you want to sell your product too.

Athletic shoes are not just gender or age specific and that’s partly why I choose them. The same concept can be adapted to a male audience, teenagers, sports enthusiasts and your everyday consumer. It is all a matter of changing demographic styling of page. This can be as simple as adding baseball bats, footballs, and jerseys to intice a male audience. There is more to it than simply changing items you offer, color, sizes, and images have to be considered as well. You wouldn’t display a pink and gray shoe on a page aimed toward men.

Let’s take a deeper look at demographic profiling.

A common question asked among online business owners. In today’s economy it is not uncommon to find businesses based solely online. It has become part of our culture, and readily acceptable by society. These same business websites receive more hits than visits, and more visits than purchases.

What prevents people from buying? You could argue fear of identity theft, but would argument be sound enough? The answer could be a phenomenon Bibb Latane and John Darley called diffusion of responsibility.

While we know purchase is necessary for survival of owner and his/her business, we also know there are millions of other people. These millions will purchase, or have purchased in our stead. So, we do not feel guilty about not purchasing or moving on to another site where we ultimately do purchase.

Sites that are questionably designed, lacking credibility, etc. still sell their products. Artistically designed sites, with all bells and whistles, also generate income. They do so because people are specifically looking for that item, at that price, at that time. Generally, it is an impulse purchase that will be associated with a pleasure. Whether it is making someone happy or enjoyment for oneself. In purchasers mind, at time of purchase, it is a need and they will justify it.