marketing online and Related Posts

Know Your Audience . . . Then, Act Accordingly

February 1, 2016 By Matthew White 1 Comment

Some of the insights in the recent Gamma Notes post on using customer profiles and knowing your audience might seem obvious. But, you’d be surprised how often things like internal protocol or our own personal preferences impact decisions.

In fact, a little (big) something called confirmation bias can impact something as simple as your decision to continue reading this post . . .

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is neatly defined by Science Daily as “a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.”

According to authors Chip and Dan Heath in their book Decisive, confirmation bias is a major roadblock to good decision making because “it can look very scientific. After all, we’re collecting data.”

Right?

They go on:

When we want something to be true, we will spotlight the things that support it, and then, when we draw conclusions from those spotlighted scenes, we’ll congratulate ourselves on a reasoned decision.

Haven’t we all done that? And, if you say no, you’re probably guilty of confirmation bias.

Know Your Audience And Thyself

Know your audience and market accordingly. What's outside the spotlight? — What’s outside the spotlight that you’re not seeing? Know your audience, then act accordingly.

In order to determine which decisions are based on good information versus bias, we have to do some testing. (And of course, not let confirmation bias color how we read the results.)

Returning to an example in the previous post on customer profiles: My friend believed that incoming phone calls held no promise for lead generation.

There are in fact a number of possible variables that could be skewing this perspective, and these variables act as great tips for analyzing almost any similar situation:

Positioning – Perhaps the phone number isn’t presented in such a way that actually encourages use – how would a vanity number change the results? Does toll-free matter? Maybe a simple local number is more appealing to the audience.
Messaging – Is the overall message and brand something people feel they can engage by phone? Or, is the thought intimidating for some reason?
Call to Action – How is the number presented? What’s the expectation that callers have? A wait? A human being? An automated system? Lots of questions?
Bias – She may not like using the phone. (I know, it’s not my first pick either.) Or, perhaps a previous experience involving one of the above has biased her outlook on the phone as a lead generator altogether.

As you can see, there is a great deal to consider and all of the above can be narrowed down with even basic testing and analysis.

For example, a more specific call to action such as “call for a free (blank)” might be all that’s needed to get at least some result. A phone number with no call to action may generate exactly that . . . no action.

So before reinventing the wheel or worse, taking on that rebranding strategy, it can pay to take a step back and look at the situation objectively.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

A business professor and friend once told me, “The numbers don’t lie.” And rarely will your customer profile.

We, on the other hand, lie to ourselves all the time.

How might you be deceiving yourself in the way your business messages, markets, and sells? Please share your thoughts and questions below.

Knowing Your Audience: Do You Have A Customer Profile?

December 10, 2015 By Matthew White 3 Comments

“No phone calls?” I asked, surprised.

“Maybe two a day,” my friend responded.

“But you’ve got trucks all over town, driving around with the phone number plastered on them.”

“People don’t want to talk with a human being – they want to type everything.” She added, jokingly, “Don’t you know that?”

Yes, that’s a phone. And, this phone could still be one of your best sales tools. Or not. How do you find out?

I agreed half-heartedly. I certainly would rather type than talk for most tasks and problem solving – ordering a book, researching a new car, arranging grocery delivery, solving a tech support issue . . .

But, what surprised me most is that her business is a more traditional residential and commercial services business. And, it’s a successful one still growing at a healthy rate.

There are some assumptions I’d like to see tested (more about that later), but I was surprised that either:

a) The phone plays such a small role in lead generation, or

b) The online component is responsible for so much more.

Different Strokes, Different Folks

There are of course statistics to support the idea that people are emailing more than they are talking on their smartphones. No surprise there perhaps. However, it stands to reason that certain markets and market sectors would be more phone-friendly than email-friendly (and vice versa).

Without a doubt, different businesses and niches have their unique requirements. The nature of the business, the market’s demographics, and other factors all play a role. These unique requirements – and nuances let’s call them – impact the messaging, marketing tactics, and strategies that end up being successfully employed. Very simply put, this is called knowing your audience.

Knowing Your Audience

Without building a customer profile, you’ve got an empty picture frame.

If you’ve fielded sales calls, responded to questions, or spent any time in customer service, you’ve developed a sketch of who your customer is. And, subconsciously you can make a lot of decisions based on your picture of who that person is: They do or do not like a follow up email, for example. Or, they tend to respond to certain phrases and avoid others. Their eyes light up when you ask certain questions.

This is a customer profile. And, we’ve all developed them – some with more research and analysis, some with more nitty-gritty hands-on experience.

Why The Customer Profile Is So Valuable

The problem is that many businesses do not make as many decisions as they should based on this profile. Individually, they may know the profile. As an entity, it’s often the policy, bureaucracy, and warring agendas that cloud the business’ decision making.

However, lots of answers to common problems can be discovered simply by bouncing it off of your customer profile. Here are just a few of the things a customer profile can help you determine:

What kind of blog articles, social media posts, and social media channels deliver information they actually care about.
How they want to pay, when they want to pay, and how much they want to pay.
Methods for follow up – such as email or phone – and the timing of that follow up.
Is a referral program a good idea? If so, how should it be structured?
How big an issue is reputation management and what channels should we be monitoring?

Building A Customer Profile

There are a number of ways to go about building a customer profile, and as you can gather from the above, you probably already have a start. An outside perspective is very helpful however because you can avoid some of the biases that confuse the process. In addition, there is a great deal of analysis and some metrics that should play a role.

We can help. Share your thoughts below or reach out for marketing and sales help for your business.

In our next article, we’ll continue the topic with more thoughts on knowing your audience and some related pitfalls.

5 Inbound Marketing DO’s and DON’Ts Inspired By Car Shopping

October 20, 2015 By Matthew White 1 Comment

Had the pleasure of buying a new car lately? It’s not much more fun that it was twenty years ago. The cars have a lot more bells and whistles. The dealerships have some new toys at their disposal, including 84-month financing.

In short, the process is still very painful. However, there are lots of marketing lessons – based on what not to do – for small businesses and organizations everywhere.

The 1960 Corvair - Is your inboud marketing stuck in 1960? — The 1960 Corvair. For many car dealerships, it might as well still be 1960. Don’t make these same mistakes with your inbound marketing.

Inbound Marketing

The advent of inbound marketing changed the way organizations attract, convert, and nurture customers. Past marketing efforts relied on a “spray and pray” approach – advertise or send direct mail and hope for leads to come in.

Attract and Convert

Inbound marketing’s focus is on generating useful content that attracts customers and then utilize tools as simple as calls-to-action, forms, or chat to convert those customers. This approach wouldn’t have been as effective before the Internet or social media eras, and the outbound approach was really the only marketing approach available in one-way communication environments like snail mail, radio, and the newspaper.

Close and Cultivate

After the attract and convert stages, you have two final stages we’ll call close and cultivate. Once you convert a prospect to a lead that you close, you want to continue to cultivate that relationship. Why is cultivate the last stage? In most businesses, and especially the car business, the goal is to cultivate a long-term relationship where customers trust you and actually want to return to you for ongoing needs in your area of specialty.

Needless to say, beating up the customer “in the box” over a $1000 “Fabric Protection Package” doesn’t bode well for future business.

The Human Part: Going Beyond Inbound Marketing

Text from an inbound marketing email confirmation — Here’s a sample follow up email I received from one sales manager. The grammar teachers among this dealership’s prospects won’t be thrilled.

The problem with car dealerships is that for the most part, they have some of the tools of the Internet and social media eras but still do business like they’re selling the Corvair.

In our four stage process of effective inbound marketing (attract > convert > close > cultivate) dealerships have some of the tools necessary for attracting and converting, but they’re generally lousy at closing and cultivating.

That’s where the human part comes in.

Based on my recent experience with car dealerships, the follow-through via conversion tools like chat or web forms is problematic in two ways: Follow up isn’t a) timely or b) tailored to my needs as the customer.

Timely Follow Up

What does this mean exactly? On several occasions, submitting a web form did not result in follow up from a human being that knew what to do with my needs. On at least one occasion, I received no follow up whatsoever beyond the automated response email (at the time of writing, it’s over 63 hours and counting).

Tailored Follow Up

To add insult to injury, any resulting email thread so far has resulted in a scripted path, despite my questions. It’s as if my questions are secondary and putting me on the path is the most important objective. This is also true with any web chat thus far: The goal it would appear has usually been to follow a script or convert to an appointment on-site instead of sell me a car.

5 DO’s and DON’Ts

So, what can be learned from car dealerships on how not to use inbound marketing effectively? It’s almost difficult to know where to begin. But, here are five do’s and don’ts to take away:

Don’t Forget the Human Element
Just because you have decent tools for converting, don’t forget the human element. Try being a secret shopper and see how effective your tools really are.
Don’t Let Following Scripts Become The Goal
Scripts can be effective when working in conjunction with conversion tools . . . but only when they serve as roadmaps for converting and closing a customer. Scripts work better in some business models than others, and all business models require various levels of “scriptedness.” Don’t let following the script be the end goal.
Do Follow Up in a Timely Manner
A confirmation email is good for exactly that: confirmation. It doesn’t count as follow-up or response. Anything over 24 business hours for real human response to a direct inquiry is absolutely ridiculous.
Don’t Think That You’re Done When You Close
It’s many times easier to sell to an existing customer than convert and close a new prospect. Once you attract and convert, treat your customer with honesty and respect through the close and you might just have a customer for life.
Do Continue to Cultivate Your New Customer
It’s easy to focus on attracting and converting prospects, but what are you doing to enrich the ongoing experience for your existing and future customers? Cultivate new customers to become customers for life by being useful, helpful, and available.

And no, I still do not have the new car I want.

Got an experience with inbound marketing that drove you nuts? Need help with your organization’s inbound marketing? We want to hear from you.

Exposure vs. Engagement (With Five Calls to Action)

July 13, 2015 By Matthew White 2 Comments

Just within the realm of web and mobile marketing, there are so many vehicles for “getting the word out” that it can get awfully overwhelming.

In fact, it’s easy to lose sight of the entire purpose of it all. You may have experienced this moment before: You’re in the middle of a direct mail project or managing your Twitter account and you ask, why am I doing all of this anyway?

The big picture answer is an easy one: You want to get someone to do something. And that’s why it is important to understand the difference between exposure and engagement.

First, There’s Exposure

Exposure is like dressing for success . . .

Exposure is getting you or your offering in front of people that might be interested. Exposure alone is rarely a bad thing. In the past, one rule of thumb was that potential customers must encounter your brand seven times before it “sticks” in their minds. This “stickiness” factor is much like what has been referred to more recently as “top of mind awareness.” (See also Made to Stick and The Tipping Point for more.)

For several reasons, I don’t know how true the Rule of Seven is anymore. The good news is there are a lot ways to get that exposure now – far more than in the past. The bad news: There is far more noise than ever before.

Then, There’s Engagement

One of the goals with exposure is to make your message stand out from the noise. But, remember your ultimate goal? To actually get someone to do something?

. . . and engagement is more like “wanna do coffee sometime?”

A call to action is one of the first steps toward engagement – a level of interaction that brings that special someone closer to doing that special something. Your call to action doesn’t have to be a direct plea to buy your widget immediately. It can be. But, more often, it will be something free or something that will benefit your audience and build real trust.

Five Sample Calls to Action

Sample calls to action might involve:

A simple question to get your audience thinking.
An invitation to connect with questions.
A contest.
A helpful blog article.
A discount code.

There are, of course, many more possibilities. In the next installment, we’ll look at a real nuts and bolts example of what exposure vs. engagement looks like.

Meanwhile, do you have questions? Ideas? I want to hear from you, and I’m happy to give free advice based on your questions below.

Small Business Tips: Best Marketing Strategies for Small Business

February 16, 2014 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

I’ve seen it asked in more than one place – what are the best marketing strategies for small business?

There is no easy – or quick – answer of course. However, there are several factors to consider that help narrow down the possibilities on what those best marketing strategies for small business are.

One Question to Ask Before Determining the Best Marketing Strategies for Small Business

A best marketing strategies for small business dartboard — Determining the best marketing strategies for small business feels like playing darts blindfolded. However, asking one question can help get you on your way.

I always – always – say to ask who your audience is first. No other discussion or questions matter until this question is answered. Many take this question so seriously that they create a composite customer they use to test all of their marketing ideas. This is a great approach – just remember that your customer base may be more complex than usual.

Perhaps it is best to think in terms of who you’ve found to be your ideal customer. Whether or not you’re aware of it , you know who this is. Just look in your business’ history or ask others in your business. You know very quickly who the problem customers and prospects are versus the customers you look forward to hearing from.

Is Your Ideal Customer Global, Regional, or Local?

The best marketing strategies for small business differ based on the physical location of your customer. Yes, geography does still matter. Some even argue that it matters more now than ever, because of all the noise generated by social media and the web.

Global?

For example, if your ideal customer is global, are you providing everything they need in terms of information? Could you do more? If so, look at your blogging efforts. This is a great way to serve your existing customers better while winning new ones. How strong is your social media effort in engaging those customers? Are you using the right – or wrong – social media channels for engagement?

Local?

If your customer is local, you can probably do more with regard to your Google Local profile or Google+ account to hone in on prospects.

And, of course, don’t forget what we now call analog marketing. What does that ideal customer do? Where does she go regularly?

What’s Next In Your Strategy?

When determining the best marketing strategies for small business and how they can help you, the devil is of course in the details. But, revisit who your ideal customer is. Then, use that line of logic to guide your decisions – all of them. You’ll discover that you already have many of the answers.

No? Do you feel that this might let me off the hook a little too easily? Reach out or comment below. We’d love to hear your thoughts.