When you are creating your business plan and strategy you start by identifying your target audiences and what they need and how you provide something that meets that need.

After you have had your website up for a while – you might find that there are other people who are finding your website that may be outside of your original idea of a target audience.  Reviewing your website statistics may give some clues and ideas of other potential markets that you could tap into.

Example:

As a nonprofit of small business you may directly serve people in a specific geographic location.  Perhaps you provide training or consulting as part of your services.

You notice in your website statistics that you have visitors coming to your website from other parts of the country – or even internationally.  Although you don’t know WHO these people are – look at the path they follow and what pages of the website they look at.  This will give you some idea of their interest.  Also you may be able to tell where they came from (link from another website) or what key words they used in a search.

What could you offer these people?  Would you be able to charge for it?  Would it be appropriate for your mission? Would it potentially add value to your organization profile – and also of use to your own clients and affiliates?

You may want to consider creating “Information Products” that would meet the needs of this potential target audience.  Here are a few suggestions:

• Webinars on specific topics.  These could be available free or for a fee.  With many webinar softwares it is possible to record the session, and make them available on your website of via a link.  You could also be building a library of these over time and offer on DVD.
• eBooks. An eBook is readily accessible to download for free or by purchase.  Review the current publications that you have now – or think of topics that lend themselves to a book, whitepaper, or short tutorial that would be useful to this potential market.
• Printed Books.  Investigate publishing a printed book using a self publishing firm.
• Video. Videos are increasingly popular as a means for delivering training and tutorials and providing information to your target audiences.  If you are charging a fee for video views the videos could be in a subscription / members area.

As with any new product or service you will need to do your research, decide on the content, method and resources needed in order to carry this out.

Here are a few links to get you started. These are sources that I have used after researching and found they offer good value

• Webinars – GVO Conference enables you to put on a webinar, record it and store the link to use.  It is a good way to start as there are good tutorials on how to begin and help getting setup.
• eBooks  and Printed Books – LULU.Com gives you the means to publish eBooks and printed publications.
• Videos – Screenr.Com has a free version that you can use to create tutorial. YouTube has a basic editor for video.

Denise Davies is an Internet and media consultant.  She works with nonprofit organizations and small businesses to maximize their effective use of the Internet to build their organization and achieve their objectives.  If you have questions or would like to learn more contact through the contact form