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Improving Customer Communications with Video Calls

Header image for SharpSpring information on PROSAR website.

Although nothing beats meeting with people to fully communicate, understand each other, and form well-rounded impressions. Communicating via email and text is efficient and can be very effective once a relationship is established. Phone calls are much better at discussing complex issues and getting to know a person, while video calls provide the benefit of voice, facial expression, as well as shared screens and group presentations.

Communication has always been the key to marketing and sales. Now, and for the foreseeable future, video calls have never been more important. Here are some tips for making effective and professional use of video calls.

 

Making Good Video Calls

Since we’re all spending more time in virtual meetings, consider these tips for good video calls:

  • Look Professional: If it’s a business call, show respect for the other participants, your company and yourself — dress accordingly for your business and role. Video calls from home can be a little more relaxed, but you still want to be seen as competent and professional so hygiene, grooming and pants are strongly recommended.
  • Be Prepared: Keeping people’s attention can be more difficult online so don’t create downtime or lags searching for information or trying to remember what you wanted to say. Have all resources close at hand and ready, make notes beforehand and include your goals for the meeting to keep you on track content-wise and strategically.
  • Set the Scene: A cluttered or discordant background make it difficult to focus on you; it may also make it difficult to take you seriously. A plain background is your best backdrop. Good lighting is critical, but from the front not back. Avoid lights and windows behind you.
  • Watch the Time: The informal nature of a video call versus an in-person meeting can foster long, boring affairs. Be mindful of the time and what is being accomplished. Keep to the agenda schedule for your input and move others along if you are the chair.
  • Watch your Mouth: Video calls are often recorded, so think twice before you speak.
  • Take Notes: Just as you would in a regular meeting, take notes to remember key points and action items that involve you. Ensure your notes are in sync with the meeting minutes.

Making Good Video Calls with SharpSpring

SharpSpring has complemented its Sales Optimizer with in-application video calling. It makes it easy to connect with others on their laptop or desktop. Recipients don’t need to use SharpSpring and there is no software to download. Their browser will ask permission to use their laptop’s mic and speaker and that’s it… you’re face-to-face creating relationships and opportunities.

Getting connected for online meetings and meaningful conversations is simple. Reach out to leads in your SharpSpring CRM with the click of a button, invite anyone via email, even invite people to video calls already in progress. Easily contact team members by clicking Video Call in the top toolbar.

Animated gif showing how easy it is to create a video call from SharpSpring.

 

SharpSpring Video Call Features

A full complement of video call features will help you succeed online:

Table of SharpSpring video call features.

 

CTA graphic promoting free download of Marketing Automation Playbook PDF file.

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Does Your Content Go the Distance?

PROSAR Blog Image_Letter cubes spilled from a cup,spelling CONTENT

With exponentially more content available to your target audiences from myriad sources, your content had better be performing. Follow the A, E, I, O and U principle.

For all organizations — large and small, corporate and non-profit — content marketing has become a more complex activity. It’s no longer adequate to drive traffic to an information-loaded, passive website. Today’s digital devotees are responding to curated content, presented with their perspective in mind, thoughtfully packaged in accessible and easy to absorb (and share) formats. Successful writers and editors have expanded their skill set and become veritable content engineers.

Enticing such a savvy audience requires a professionally branded online presence (website, appropriate social media and content) along with strategically developed content resources that will Attract, Engage, Inform, Offer and Understand.

 

Improve SEO and Engagement with Relevant Content Encourages Action

Writing content designed to attract, engage and inform seems to be the goal of most good writers. Material that improves organic SEO and interests the reader is key to good content, but the goal post should be moved further. Every organization has motive for publishing/posting content; that goal is to persuade the reader to take some specific action: buying a product/service, registering for a seminar, joining an association, signing a petition, etc. Creating awareness is a critical first step, but on its own — without the offer — it has achieved little value for the organization.

To be successful, the offer needs to be of value to the reader, and should therefore be appropriate for where the content is in the sales funnel. For example, an association looking for new members shouldn’t necessarily ask a reader to join simply because they registered for a blog article. An invitation to download more detailed, or related, information would be more appropriate. On the other hand, a reader on an HVAC site, who has visited several product pages on air conditioners and downloaded “10 Things You Need to Know When Buying an Air Conditioner,” may be ready to book a sales appointment in the showroom.

The take-away here is that interesting content with the right keywords is not the end goal; you should include an offer associated with the content to move the reader further down the funnel.

 

Create Personas and Content Strategy for Better Results

The next step in the process of attracting, engaging and converting readers is understanding. Hopefully, you have already created personas for your target audiences and you have a solid understanding of their perspective, needs and wants. Now is the time to demonstrate that knowledge and try to develop a relationship. People are relationship driven and we choose to deal with those we trust and those that show they care. The best way to develop and maintain a trusting relationship is via the content you produce and the communication you have directly with the reader (which is, after all, more content).

The reality is that most of your readers will not engage with you. (I know, it hurts.) Even if they liked what they read, most will be hesitant to move further with your relationship attempts. Understanding their point of view and the type of information that interests them allows you to provide more information and other offers that help you gain trusted relationship status. Welcoming readers further along your funnel with relevant content and thoughtful offers is part of the nurturing process, as well as an important aspect of actively maintaining customers.

Back to the content engineering: doing it right is a lot of work. Developing strategy, researching and defining personas, creating a content plan, developing topics, themes and keywords… this all happens before the actual research writing and editing. Then you have the actual implementation monitoring and responding. If you’re taking advantage of marketing automation you’ll also need to develop emails, landing pages and strategic workflows to nurture your interested readers.

Whether you contract out these tasks (which will still require some significant time from you and your team), or handle it all internally, you’re best advised to budget time and money to be successful. Either way, ensure to use a comprehensive process that will attract, engage, inform, offer and understand your readers.

Click to download Email Best Practices Whitepaper

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5 Tips for User Friendly Content

Above view of business man working place. Cup of coffee, laptop, notebook and pen. Business, education or blogging concept.

In this drive for more, more, more content, it can be hard to ensure that all your content is accessible. Sometimes it’s important to take a step back and ask yourself: Is my content readable?

Not every member of your target audience is going to be internet-literate, and not everyone is able to easily navigate websites from disabilities. These members of your audience are just as important as those who understand the internet. Catering to them allows you to expand your market.

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) also has content regulations in place, so taking a look at your content can be the start of compliance and is a part of upkeep on your website.

Here are five tips to make your content as accessible and readable as possible

 

1- Use Headings Extensively

Headings help break up long blocks of text, allowing people to more easily scan content. Having properly nested headings is critical for both readability and AODA. This means a single H1 is at the start of the page, followed by secondary headings being H2, and so on.

This also means not using headings for spacing. The only time H1 should show up on the page is at the beginning, and all subsequent headings should have text in them. Screen readers rely on headings to determine the content of the page, and they are a key component of compatibility.

Easily scanned content also allows busy professionals to know if the page will be valuable to them, making them more likely to either keep browsing the site regardless of if they find what they want on that page. If they don’t find what they need, they know finding other content on your website will be easy because it’s well organized.

 

2- Make sure titles are descriptive

Jargon happens in any industry. But, be careful that your menu headings and links leading to other sections of your site are in plain language.

There is nothing more confusing than looking at a website and having to decipher what basic menu headings mean. This leads to guessing at what sort of content might be beyond the link. It’s a problem for those who screen readers, too, because unclear headings make it much slower to navigate website; people who rely on them might give up — and your website to get penalized in its SEO ranking.

Go through your menu headings and make sure somebody with minimal knowledge of your industry or organization can make a reasonable guess at what’s behind the menu item.

 

3- Employ Lists

Bulleted lists are easier to skim, and can act as a mini table of contents for longer pages of content. They provide high points that can then act as hyperlinks down to headings should such jumps be advantageous. Even if they’re lower on the page, their indented nature makes them stand out, causing people to pay attention.

Accordion lists are also useful for keeping pages at a manageable scroll length. While people are less shy about scrolling than they used to be, there’s still something intimidating about a long scroll bar.

Both techniques allow people to see the most important information at once, giving people to read the sea of content around them.

 

4- Ensure Logical Groupings

This is a fancy way of saying grouping like with like, which is harder than it sounds.

This is especially important when you have content that can fit under multiple headings. Information about programs and services offered can fall under multiple headings. It’s important to make sure the pages are cross-linked.

Really look at your content from top to bottom and determine if people would assume all the information under the heading (including sub-pages) can be found under the top heading. If it feels obscure or unnatural consider breaking off the content to something more appropriately named.

 

5- Have a Site Map

Some people know exactly where they want to go. If you combine proper headings and good page names, a site map is an invaluable tool to help people know where to look. Placing it in the header or in an otherwise prominent position will give people a shortcut.

A site map is also required for AODA compliance, allowing people to navigate easily.

 

If you keep these five tips in mind, you’ll be well on your way to having users get the most out of your content. And the more users can get out of your content, the more likely they are to trust your business. As an extra bonus, you’ll be closer to AODA compliance.

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Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

accessible button on the keyboard

Ontario is in the midst of rolling out AODA, a set of guidelines to make Ontario more accessible for people with disabilities. Websites will soon be judged on whether or not they adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, AA compliance (except for live audio and video). The timeline for when compliance is required can be found on Ontario’s AODA page.

Reaching WCAG guidelines helps open up your website to a wider variety of potential prospects, and earns goodwill among clients. Many principles of content accessibility are good SEO, smart design, or both. Even if compliance isn’t mandatory (which it is for all public companies and all private companies over 50 employees), WCAG are often simply good design protocols.

accessible button on the keyboard

Where to Start

Low or no vision accommodations make up a large percentage of WCAG guidelines; this includes making sure all links are comprehensible out of context, there are proper code markers in place for screen readers to know there is text to read, and all information available in graphics is also available within text.

This is one of the most comprehensive places to start, and one that shows the most immediate benefit. Making graphic information available in text also helps your SEO by giving either alt text (for simple images) or search engines a better idea of what is displayed on your webpage (which helps determine its relevancy).

 

Keep Cleaning Up

If you have audio or video content pre-recorded on your site, transcripts and descriptions need to be available for those. Building a site map is also advised, for how it helps people navigate and find the page they’re looking for more quickly. If people have to make choices on your site, make sure colour is not the only differentiating factor.

Any PDFs you have available on your site should also be checked. If you have Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can use tools within the suite to determine if they’re accessible. Make sure all buttons have a programmed purpose, so a screen reader can say what button to press.

 

Continue to Maintain

Reaching WCAG guidelines is both an initial investment and a continuing one. If you refresh content on the site frequently, then any and all new content must also be compliant. This includes new graphics, PDFs, pages, and audio/video. Determine how often you should review your content based on the frequency you update the website, and allocate time to run a small scale audit for accessibility. Our monthly maintenance packages can help you stay on target.

 

Make sure your website is accessibility compliant. Avoid significant fines and boost your SEO performance. Learn more now.

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Manage Sales Costs With Marketing

Paying Travel Expenses

Sales calls fact – it’s damn hard to get in to see anybody these days.

 

I recently spoke to a business owner about sales travel. He replied that his sales people were travelling less these days. It’s hard to get suspects and prospects to commit to appointments. Past customers are not interested in the latest and greatest unless they actually need something. Factor in the high cost of travel and the sales’ regular road trips are often not viable.

 

Paying Travel Expenses
Gettyimages/ Ridofranz

Willie Loman would die an early death in today’s markets.

 

Still, business relies on a constant supply of new customers and new business. Although the specifics vary by business and industry, the cost of acquiring new customers is multiple times the cost of retaining customers. There are resources and costs required in both efforts.

 

Business owners and sales managers have a dilemma. How to manage resources effectively between acquiring new customers and retaining existing customers?

 

Marketing can help with managing the costs of both obtaining new customers and keeping existing ones.

 

In many cases, a majority of sales come from existing customers. The satisfaction of existing customers and ongoing “staying in touch” are obviously very important in retaining customers.

 

Focus on acquiring new customers is equally important in keeping the sales pipeline full and fuelling company growth.

 

Marketing Qualified Leads

 

One aspect of marketing is to cast a wide net for new business opportunities.

 

Marketing can do much of the ”leg work” of qualifying leads before the expense of sales people are required. Marketing can reach many in an instant, much faster than even your speediest inside sales star or your heartiest cold caller.

 

The Internet has made marketing more focused and effective by allowing for very specific targeting, yet on a broad scale.

 

Marketing can filter the wide catch of prospects into those that you actually have a chance of doing business with. Filters like company size, geo location, and simple questions determining needs can qualify prospects before assigning to sales.

 

Marketing to Existing Customers

 

Another aspect of marketing is retaining existing customers and loyalty.

 

There is a lot of work to satisfying customers and showing the appreciation that you really care about them. It’s delicate staying in touch with people while respecting their reluctance to talk to sales people when not they are not in shopping mode. Sales people often feel they are banging their heads against a wall.

 

The Internet plays a large role in marketing effectiveness. Engagement is the key and in today’s world often public. The public nature of social media, reviews, and commentary is well serviced by the marketing dept. This takes some of the heat off of sales staff in not getting mired down in trying to do everything for existing customers.

 

Marketing techniques and marketing automation service existing customers until they are ready for sales assistance. Again, “leg work” is provided until valuable sales people need to get involved.

 

Managing Sales Costs

 

Having marketing help manage sales costs can make a big difference in profits:

 

  • Marketing can bring down the costs of acquiring new customers by qualifying suspects into prospects. Marketing qualified leads can be passed on to sales. Sales can then do what they are hired to do – work with legitimate prospects and close them.

 

  • Marketing can bring down the costs of customer retention by delivering consistent messaging and managing customer engagement. Satisfied customers become repeat customers. The lifetime value of repeat customers should not be underestimated.

 

Managing sales costs in today’s markets is a challenge. Marketing can help by doing the “leg work” of getting your message out in the widest distribution possible. Marketing qualifies the interest generated to ensure precious sales staff only focus on potential opportunities. Marketing maintains the message that your customers are important and your organization is always a part of the conversation.

 

 

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Nomophobia: The Reason Why Your Business Should be Mobile

You heard it first! Nomophobia!

Now before you start wondering what that is and how it impacts your business, just quickly look to your left, and now to your right or at the most, in your pocket. Did you find your smartphone yet?

women looking at phone in misty woods
gpointstudio/Thinkstock

Like 73% of people, if you don’t find your phone immediately or don’t feel it at hands reach, you might start to feel panicked or a little nervous and worried while trying to remember where it is. This fear of not finding your phone is called Nomophobia and as you can see, close to three quarters of your customers might be victim of the same faith. Now, how does that play in your favor? That means that more than half of your audience are always or constantly on their smartphone browsing the Internet to find new products, deals and the latest provider for their required service. If you are not mobile yet, this is the time to join the trend.

Nomophobia aside, 1st Aerial created an infographic that puts into perspective the importance that we place on our smartphone and main arguments why your business should be mobile friendly and offer a mobile adapted website. To see the full infographic, click here.

Now why should your business consider this statistic:

4.77 billion of mobile users worldwide

There are 4.77 billion people worldwide that own a smartphone. The statistic goes even further by confirming that more people own a smartphone than people that own a toothbrush. That is a massive audience that cannot be ignored. Although these people are still regular customers in your store or online on their laptop, the fact that so many people today own and use a smartphone can only mean more potential customers are moving their purchases online and will be getting a first impression about your brand through a phone screen instead of on a computer or in person.

crowd using cell phones
Michael Blann/Thinkstock

Without necessarily offering an app or bringing your entire business onto mobile, there are advantages of adapting your website to be mobile friendly and offer a great experience to your customer every time they look you up on their phone. My colleague, Claire Phillipowsky, also covered the topic of mobile friendly websites in The New Mobile-Friendly Website Imperative: What all Top Businesses Already Know.

 

83% of internet usage is mobile

It is a fact that purchasing has moved online and more and more people will go into a store to evaluate an item but will most probably go online to find a great deal and complete their purchase. Now, on top of that already challenging step in the customer journey, nearly 83% are doing most of their internet searched on their mobile. This number clearly examplifies the current behavior of your customer and is a very good reason to be online and to easily be found when your name gets typed in to a search. As a business, you might already be investing in Adwords and online search advertising but make sure with your agency that mobile searches are being included in your potential reach.

 

More than 60% of people are more sociable with their mobile than real people

The survey showed that 35% of people admitted to looking at their phone when they are in public or have nothing to do. And another 33% said that they pretend to be busy in a restaurant or a bar by browsing through their phones instead of talking to people around them. So over 60% of your customers and potential customers are using their smartphones as an excuse to keep themselves occupied and not look bored. A great way to do that is to shop on their mobile, look up their next purchase and plan their next trip thanks to your mobile friendly website, your latest app or your SMS filled with tips.

two people using cell phones facing each other
Image Source Pink/Thinkstock

Out of sight, out of mind, so make sure to be present in your customers mobile experience and help them choose you as their ideal provider, partner or simple marketplace! For more advice about how to bring your business forward and add a mobile component to your marketing, meet with a PROSAR team member today.

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Who’s Your “Amy”?

three women with shopping bags
Photo credit: ThinkstockPhotos-454296797

Last week the Globe and Mail published an article by Marina Strauss on Sears Canada’s marketing focus (New Sears Canada president’s mission: Win over ‘Amy’) — spoiler alert, it’s all about Amy. Amy is “40 years old and has one child and another on the way. She’s time-starved and looking for reasonably priced fashions.” And she doesn’t exist as an actual person, she is a representative of the ideal customer that they believe will help Sears regain some of its lost market share in Canada. And, for the foreseeable future, most of their marketing decisions and service implementation will take Amy into account.

Defining your ideal client, even to the point of naming her or him, shouldn’t seem odd in this time of avatars and online profiles. In fact, determining your target market and understanding your customer is nothing new. However, the structure and detail applied in the current trend does seem to be adding an additional dimension to the practice. And, that’s a good thing. It is driven, in part, by the rise in content generation and inbound marketing tactics. It’s important to understand who you are writing content for and how best to attract their attention and online loyalty.

Sears realizes, of course, that they can’t ignore the existing customers who remain loyal shoppers. Have you met Linda? She’s an “over-50 customer with two grown children and an ingrained Sears shopping habit.” (Maybe Amy and Linda will go shopping together, and Amy can help Linda post her purchases on Instagram.)

Under the savvy stewardship of new President Carrie Kirkman Sears Canada is applying a disciplined marketing strategy. It sounds obvious, and you might assume that all companies employ this type of strategy, but most don’t. In fact, many SMEs don’t truly implement any structured marketing strategy. (Yes, they probably have some form of strategic plan, but they often don’t have a workable implementation plan, so it never becomes part of the day-to-day consideration.) And that’s the real strength of what Sears Canada is doing. This strategy is pervasive and lends itself to implementation at all levels — not easily, it will take real commitment. But making it more tangible (Would Amy use that product, notice that display, appreciate this service…) It’s easier to understand directives and more motivating to care about how they are fulfilled when you’re “doing it for Amy.”

In addition to facilitating implementation, here are some other advantages to a successful buyer persona directed marketing strategy:

Coherent Communication: For any organization, and especially large corporations, communication (both internal and external) can be rather confusing. Concentrating on buyer personas provides a simple and engaging storyline internally, and coordinates clear external messaging.

Resource Deployment: Having such a laser focus reduces waste as you more effectively direct spending and staff.

Staff Morale: Understanding who you are working for and why can be a rallying force for staff. If everyone understands their targeted demographic is, if everyone knows Amy, then the entire organization can understand what they are doing and why. Retail, and virtually every organization, is reliant on service; isn’t it easier to care of a friend?

Satisfied Clientele: Not trying to please everyone allows your organization to hone in on satisfying your targeted market — improving both ROI and customers’ experience.

Regardless of the type of organization, you will benefit from articulating your ideal client/customer/member/donor/patron, and focusing your strategy on that buyer persona. Any business is not necessarily good business, so determine who you should be catering to, and set out to rock their world.

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The 3 A’s to Business Networking Online

Recently, I have been looking up different ways to maximize online strategies to connect with potential partners and networks. I mostly found that articles don’t explore as much the idea of social media as a networking environment and focus mainly on reaching the end-user. Now, when I say networking, I mean mainly to interact and connect with other businesses and services that will help you promote, distribute and eventually, generate sales. To help you remember what you need to consider when thinking of such a strategy, check out my 3 A’s to Business Networking Online.

 

Achievement

Every good strategy has a goal or an objective. This is what I call an achievement. Although, you have not yet achieved it, this is what you want at the end of your networking efforts.

Important to note, contrary to a B2C approach, you will not be speaking directly to the end user. You will be connecting with like-minded partners, peers and other parts of your industry. So what do you want to achieve at the end of it all? Here are a few examples of achievements you should work towards:

– Position yourself, or your organization, as an expert in your field
– Find partners that are willing to work with you to push your message or cause
– Generate leads to grow your distribution channels

Like any worthy destination, these achievements will take some time and effort to reach. Which also means your networking strategy needs to be on a longer timeline than a simple social media campaign to promote a new product or make a quick sale. Best to set achievement goals that will push you to connect, network and create relationships over both the short and long term, but remember that time will be required to gain significant traction. To find inspiration, and check out what other businesses might consider a priority, check out Scott’s article on a recent HubSpot survey: Only 8% of Sales Leaders Prioritize Social Sales.

 

Audience

When thinking about the audience you want to reach, remember that every company has individual people in it. This being said, your message needs to be focused to achieve your goal, but accessible enough to be noticed by a broader audience. Typically, it will be be an employee, community manager, or even a CEO, looking on social media for like-minded partners that will find you and initiate the conversation.Looking for ideas on what to achieve? Prosar can help

To start that process, you will need to decide, what part of your industry you want to network with and why. If we adopt the three goals listed above, this is what could be considered:

– Position your company in the industry: you will want to connect with researchers, experts, other companies that are pushing the development of your industry.

– Find like-minded partners: you will be connecting with potential competitors, associations, organisations, partners in other countries, companies that can collaborate or recommend you.
– Generate leads and grow your distribution channels: you will connect with other parts of your supply chain, partners in new markets you want to reach, prospective customers.
Creating a dialogue with these people and nurturing relationships builds a network for referrals, feedback, advice and industry/competitive information. In many cases, these contacts become more intimate than in typical B2C social networks, where the relationship can be more generic.

 

Avenue

Here, I am referring to the different channels, platforms and media that are available to you. From a social standpoint, the main ones to include are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Now within each of those platforms, here are certain avenues to consider for your networking efforts:

  • Facebook: Does your industry have any specific Facebook groups you should be apart of? If not, maybe you should be the one to create it.
  • Twitter: Are your industry experts, researchers and partners online? Do they participate in certain Twitter chats? Are they on certain lists? If not, you should perhaps host a chat to regroup your like-minded partners.
  • LinkedIn: What groups should you be in? What kind of messages are your peers posting? What kind of knowledge do they want to receive? Can you contribute in any way?
  • Forums: Does your industry have its own topic? If so, than find those forums and see what the conversation is all about. Can your company help find solutions in any way? How can you get involved?

Transform online connections into offline business with ProsarAnd let’s not forget the offline avenues! Lasting connections can be initiated and nurtured online but often offline conversations will reinforce those relationships and help you generate leads or references. Here are a few avenues to consider:

  • Events: What events can you go to? Can you be a guest speaker or host a workshop?
  • Publications: What publications should you be in and how can you contribute a piece of information instead of a simple ad?
  • Direct Contact: What companies can you meet face-to-face with and how can you connect with them directly?

These suggestions based on the 3 As (Achievement, Audience and Avenue) are meant to serve as pillars when building your online networking strategy. To start your journey and add the right elements into your plan, include these considerations!

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How to Find Your Ideal Client

Or, perhaps more to the point, how to make sure your ideal client finds you. All organizations face this issue, and it can be especially challenging for small businesses. But done right, online inbound marketing puts you in the driver’s seat – you just need a roadmap for success.

a smartphone with a maps app overlaid on top of a map with a compass and pen
Oleksiy Mark/iStock/Thinkstock

In the same way that not everyone who walks into your physical “bricks and mortar” store is actually going to be a client, not everyone who visits your website or your social media channels will be a client either. So, how do you drive the real clients to your website? And once you’ve achieved that, how do you find them amid all the other site visitors? Is there a way to not only identify them, but also to separate them out for closer attention? There is… and it involves two terms: Segmentation and Target Marketing.

 

Segmentation and Target Marketing Defined

The online Business Dictionary defines market “Segmentation” as: “The process of defining and subdividing a large homogenous market into clearly identifiable segments having similar needs, wants, or demand characteristics.” This dictionary goes on to say: “Its objective is to design a marketing mix that precisely matches the expectations of customers in the targeted segment.” Which brings us to our second term…

Target Marketing involves breaking a market into segments and then focusing your marketing efforts on one or a few key segments so you can concentrate on understanding the needs and wants of that particular market intimately. The bottom line is that Target Marketing is about attracting customers who will buy what you’re selling.

 

Who is your Ideal Customer? The Art of Buyer Personas

If you’re going to target your ideal customer, obviously you need to know who that is. Before you try to identify specific people, groups, or organizations, take some time to define your ideal. What characteristics does your target buyer have? Go beyond just demographics such as age, gender, location, marital status, education level, and income bracket. What are some key personality traits that might make them a good fit for your products and services? What might their interests be? What motivates them? What might they be trying to achieve that your offering could help with? The more information you can determine about your ideal customer, the better you will understand them and the more effectively you will be able to tailor and deliver your messaging to them.

Use this information to develop one or more buyer personas. According to SharpSpring, a buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers. Be as detailed as you can. Give each persona a name – Frank the Farmer, or Connie the Coffee Connoisseur – and have some fun with personality traits. Done well, buyer personas help to focus your marketing content and hone in on the right audience to reach out to with your message.

 

The Advantage of Online Marketing

Working online using inbound marketing tactics gives you more power over your marketing efforts and outcomes. With an ad in a newspaper or magazine, you have no way to determine who has seen it, nor do you have any way to follow up with those who have. By contrast, online marketing allows you to discern who has seen your banner ad or other digital marketing content. Not only are you able to collect information about people who visit your ad, site, blog, or social media page, but you are also able to track that information over time, use it, and act on it:

  • follow up with a thank you for downloading an article,
  • respond with an email message or an offer, or even,
  • have a complete automated campaign set up that guides your prospect through several steps, providing gradually more detailed and more targeted information about your products and services.

You might start with an ad on social media or in an online publication, then provide a useful checklist that your buyer would find helpful in reaching their goals, and follow that up with a more detailed white paper on a topic they’ve expressed interest in during your interactions. This progression gives you more information about what they are looking for at the same time that you are leading them through your sales process and propelling them towards a buying decision.

 

Multi-faceted Results

If you do the following:

  1. develop strong buyer personas
  2. use these to define a relevant target audience
  3. streamline your online marketing message for this audience
  4. provide progressively more detailed or tailored content to meet the audience’s needs

You will see positive results on a number of different fronts:

  • Efficient use of time and resources
  • Cost effective marketing activities
  • More sales, increased revenues, and improved profit margins
  • Improved customer relationships and happier customers
  • Measurable progress and results throughout the entire customer engagement cycle

 

An important part of the mix is including smart SEO to help attract the right audience. Your content should follow and support your customer’s journey (for all target audiences). As a small business, it can be difficult to set aside the time needed upfront to establish solid buyer personas, to clearly define your target audience, and to create content that will resonate with them. However, experience tells us that these efforts will pay off in spades.