Wonderful – but you should be asking, “How do I reach out to my targeted customers on the Internet?”  People using the Internet share a lot of information about themselves and their interests by completing profiles for Linked-In and Facebook and through their own online behaviors.  This allows marketers such as Google to use keywords and search patterns to target them specifically and to offer a compelling reason to respond or visit your website.  This might be “authoritative” content on demand such as webinars, blogs, etc. or, it could be a special offer – “50% off your next round of golf at your favorite resort.”

As a “C-suite” executive, you and your company can identify and reach target markets using four different parameters to focus and direct your online marketing messages and campaigns:

Geographic:  You can target a very narrow set of zip codes in one market area such as a city or around specific store locations in specific zip codes.  Online marketing can easily be expanded to the state, national, or international level.

Demographic:  Since so many fill out online profiles, you can target age, gender, income, occupation, and education – these last two are very important in business-to-business marketing.

Psychographic:  The life style, motivation, benefits sought, and loyalty characteristics – what websites do CPAs, lawyers, and small business executives visit?  Remember from my last post, “The C-Suite is probably one of the most passionate personalities… They are not only passionate about their businesses but about their hobbies, families and causes.”

Behaviors:  What needs are they seeking to fill, how do they do their research, what websites do they frequent?  What websites do they visit to satisfy their professional interests, learn more about their hobbies, enhance their family life, and support their causes?

For example, one of our key markets is the chief executive, chief operating, or chief marketing officer in small to mid-sized food manufacturers.  They tend to be strong family men or women, generally conservative, many play golf or tennis, and most enjoy wine.  Professionally, they depend on select websites for insight and information. They are active in Food Marketing Institute, Institute of Food Technologists, and other professional organizations.

Generally, I can tell you the annual sales of the company and the size of the marketing budget as well as their target markets and common strengths and weaknesses.  In addition, they tend to travel and are typically in their 50s but can be in their 40s.

In the past, I would use this “client profile” to select “industry specific” trade publications, direct mail, and some trade articles but today, I can target them by selecting the right Google Adwords based on their “likely search words” and websites they are likely to visit within a defined geographic area.  Limiting or expanding these different variables allows you to better manage the budget while reaching the proper target market.

This ability to focus Internet and search engine marketing on targeted markets allows you to deliver your “targeted message” to your prospects and create an immediate, measurable response.  Targeted online marketing campaigns employ a battery of metrics to closely measure response allowing us to adjust or modify messaging to improve response rate.

The Internet and its ability to reach out to your targeted customers is a powerful tool that should play an important role in reaching and cultivating new customers.

How can these four segmentation strategies be applied to reaching your targeted customer? Let us know in the comments.

Google Reader home page

Google Reader is a way for you to get together everything you read online in one, convenient location. It’s particularly useful if you frequent a lot of blogs. To sign up for a website in Reader, sign up for their RSS feed. In some cases, you’ll have to go in to Google Reader and add the URL of the website by clicking “Add Subscription” at the top left hand corner of the page.

Your subscriptions (the websites you are subscribed to in Google Reader) will show up on the left hand side of the screen.

A list of subscriptions

You can click on your individual subscriptions, and the feed for each will then appear in the browser.

Viewing a blog in Google Reader

As you can see from the example above, the blog I’m reading is Healthy Tipping Point (listed at the top of the screen). The latest post on that particular blog is on the top (Apple Butter and Cinnamon). On the right hand side of the screen, you can see what time the blog was posted. (And if you continue scrolling down, you’ll see subsequent posts.)

Pretty cool, huh? You’ll also notice that the blog post you are reading is highlighted with a blue border. When you scroll down to another post, the first post will be marked as read.

If you’d like to save the post for future reading, you can “star” and/or “like” a post.

When you click on “add star,” that saves the blog post for future reading. When you click “like,” that simply shows everyone else viewing the post in Google Reader that you liked that particular post. “Share” and “share with note” are options for you to share to your followers on Google Buzz. There are also a few other options for you.

You’re probably wondering how to sign up! If you have a Gmail account, it’s super easy – just click on “Reader” on the top of your Gmail screen. You can sign up for a Google account with any valid email address, as well. (Simply go to reader.google.com and follow the steps provided.)

Do you use Google Reader, or something else to keep track of your blog and website reading? What are your favorite blogs to frequent? I love blogs that focus on healthy lifestyles, as well as blogs about literature.

Todd Jackson, product manager for Google Buzz, called it “an entire new world within Gmail.”

On the other side of the aisle, Facebook is allegedly working on an email client that it is calling Titan. This news has come amidst yet another “Facebook facelift,” with the social networking site releasing more changes to the home page, specifically within the toolbar, with Messages, Notifications and Friend Requests now drop-down menus on the left-hand side of the screen.

There is a strong Internet buzz that Titan will kill off Gmail, especially since it is rumored that Titan will be able to be configured with any email client. With over 400 million users, it does seem that Facebook can’t really go wrong with this move. You can already search the web with Facebook. You’re connected to anyone who you want to be connected with. You can update your Twitter account through your Facebook status update with a special app. So if you incorporate email, would you have any other reason to leave Facebook.com?

I’m actually pretty excited about the changes within Gmail; however, I am a little skeptical about any true success. People are looking for the “next Facebook,” not another Facebook. We’re looking for something different that fits our needs in a better way. For a long time, we thought MySpace fit the bill just fine until Facebook one-upped them. If Google/Gmail had something truly innovative, then this would be an entirely different blog post. But they’re not one-upping anyone here – they’re just copying Facebook and hoping that the Google brand will encourage people to switch over.

What Google does have going for it is that the company has a strong track record of responding to consumer needs and desires. With that history alone we can expect several versions of Google Buzz to update our Gmail accounts over the coming months. And there are unique features that have been announced, and I’m sure there will be many more to come. For example, Buzz will be location-enabled on your phone, so it will know where you’re at without even being told. Ignore the creepy factor, and that’s pretty neat. But I’m not entirely convinced that those features will be enough to persuade people over to the Google-verse.

Who knows? Maybe two years from now I will be eating my words and Facebook will be as irrelevant as MySpace is, with Buzz leading the way. I do think Google is on to something with Google Wave, so perhaps they’ll end up mashing together Wave + Buzz + Gmail to create something that will end up eating the Internet.

The first wave is scheduled to start today; hopefully this won’t be on such a limited-basis release as Wave was. I also can’t find a date on when Facebook’s Titan will be released, though I’m thinking that will be sooner rather than later in an attempt to stay ahead of Buzz.

The best news about all of this? With some of the best online sites duking it out, we all win.