Buyer Persona
There are countless companies out there supporting the idea that advertising, and marketing for that matter, should be consumer driven. The idea that the way we speak our message, the way we portray our product to the world and who we target should all be about our consumer. Whether it’s HubSpots “Buyer Persona”, or “x” company’s “Buyer Profile”, the new age of marketing is no longer about what we, as the business, want the people to know, but what the buyer needs to know about us. The proven expertise beyond self-proclaiming “#1 Ad Agency in New England” is crucial in developing a relationship with our potential clients or customers. Giving the end-user the peace of mind they need, so their purchase was not for nothing, or feel as though they are scammed into the product or service. How many times have you seen “Download my E-Book if you want to grow your company’s business by 10,000%” or any number of gimmicky types of “scammy-marketing?” It’s a type of marketing that used to work when the Internet was just a baby and the general population was naive. You’re telling your customer what you want them to hear, and forcing your “expertise” onto your potential lead. Instead, why not take a different approach?
Not Everything is Going to Work Right Away
Strong, useful, effective content takes time and energy. It’s a necessary “evil” per se due to its time consumption and lack of immediate return. The short sells just DO NOT WORK anymore. The general population is now too educated, and the upcoming generations are doing all the research before they even step foot in your brick-and-mortar or your eCommerce store. You cannot fool your potential lead any longer. You have to adjust. Giving away materials that are useful and relatively significant, creating a video that explains something more than “We can guarantee you phone calls” when you and I both know there is no such thing as guarantees.
You can put together the ultimate marketing plan, plan your media effectively, take time in the creative to make sure your potential customer finds it useful, write the perfect copy and test out your content over cable, radio, billboard, direct mail, programmatic and social, yet your results are not what you want them to be. Or you feel as though the ROI you tracked was not the 2.5x you needed. It’s the nature of marketing. Was the content something that if you, the buyer, would want to read, download or subscribe to? Are you confident that you did not just force the information you wanted them to know down their throat?
Marketing View Shift
In 2013, Forbes put out a “Forbes Insights” piece about “The Customer Experience: Priority One for CMOs” (yes, you read correctly, in 2013 they knew this). In this piece they stated the following numbers: 69% of CMOs see the customer experience as vital to growth strategy as well as marketing strategy, 66% of leading organizations saw collaboration across the enterprise is key to addressing the customer experience, and only 12% of CMOs are taking full advantage of data analytics to better understand your customers. That last percentage was ASTOUNDING to me. Data, as an advertising guy, is VERY important in how we help our clients. It is the basis of the entire campaign! How do we know our target demographic? How do we understand their purchasing process? How do we know what appeals to them? All of these insights are pulled from data, and assist with how we advertise to our target audience.
Inbound Trends and it’s Importance in 2017
It Takes Time!
Your unbelievable content you delivered didn’t generate 10,000 leads. Boohoo. It’s not about the short-term gratification. These things take time, energy and effort, with TIME being the most important. It’s widely known that your content generation will not see optimal results right away, and some professionals believe it takes roughly over a year to see results. OVER A YEAR. That’s an unreal amount of time to invest. But if you do something you love, believe it will help other people, and you are confident in the product or service, then two years will fly by. Plus, you, as the business, will be well-versed in your industry and educate yourself along the way, making you even MORE of an expert in your field. Isn’t that the point?
Now in June 2017, Salesforce put together an article stating that marketers are exponentially increasing their focus on the customer experience and their needs more than hard-selling them. 65% of business buyers said they’ll switch vendors if a seller doesn’t personalize the customer experience. 89% of business buyers want companies to understand their business needs and expectations. Though these stats are geared more towards B2B sales, this proves that customer experience has 360 degrees of important. B2B, B2C. Doesn’t matter. The experience for the customer should always be first because your leads will convert, your sales will increase, and your company will expand.