buyer persona

Lessons Learned: Buyer Persona Gone Wrong

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Before a company can establish a solid marketing plan, it must be aware of the specific target markets or customer profiles it has the best chance to attract to its product or service. Creating a buyer persona is essential to effective attraction marketing.

Market Segmentation

In order to perfect your approach in buyer persona launch, these are some common mistakes to avoid:

  1. Don’t Forget to Focus on the Buyer Decision

The most common mistake marketers make is solely defining a buyer persona by the buyer profile, rather than putting detailed consideration in what is most useful: the buyer decision.

How to fix this:

Aside from using previous data, we recommend using the research questions provided by 5 Rings of Buying Insight™, which incorporates every aspect you need to know about your buyer persona’s decision making process:

  1. Priority initiatives – What causes certain buyers to invest in solutions like yours? What is different about buyers who are satisfied with the status quo?
  2. Success factors – What operational or personal results do your buyers expect to achieve by purchasing this solution?
  3. Perceived barriers – What concerns cause your buyers to believe that your solution or company is not their best option?
  4. Buyer’s journey – Who and what impacts your buyers as they evaluate their options and make a selection?
  5. Decision criteria – Which aspects of competing products, services, solutions, or companies do your buyers perceive as most critical? What do your buyers expect for each?

Ultimate Guide to the Buyer’s Journey- Find out What Each Stage of the Buyer’s Journey Entails

  1. Keep Your Research Questions Simple and Sweet

Marketers often stray from insightful target market findings if they use too much detail in their research questions. When conducting research about your buyer persona through surveys or focus groups, avoid questions that are overly personal or technical. This may deviate your campaign away from any productive findings that would help you truly get to know your ideal customer niche.

How to fix this:

When developing questions, it is best to start by establishing what the key problems or questions are that you ultimately want answers for.  You may start with a larger, broader list of questions… however, do not make the mistake of forgetting to shave it down. In the end, all questions should lead to answers that are simple, sweet, and directly related to the problem trying to be solved at hand.

 

  1. Assuming About the Buyer Persona Leads Campaigns Astray

It is important to remember that the most helpful information comes directly from the customers. When researching a potential buyer persona, it is crucial to avoid filling in the blanks, skipping the interview, or assuming anything about the client. A campaign could go in the complete wrong direction if this occurs.

How to fix this:

Rather than making an incorrect assumption based on survey results, in-depth conversations with people can provide the answers you need to bring your brand to the next level. Additionally, a small sample size may lead to incorrect assumptions. Since quality > quantity, and many agencies fixate too much into demographic or other obvious information rather than actually helpful insights, in-depth interviews are again a solution to avoiding this mistake. In order to avoid an over-reliance on anecdotes, always ensure they are backed up by data. You know what they say about assuming… it definitely does not make an accurate buyer persona!

 

  1. Less is More: Master One Buyer Persona First!

It is important to focus on mastering one target market rather than taking on too many to handle. Trying to tackle too many buyer personas at once can overwhelm. This results in a lower quality of target profile insights and vague understanding of individual buyer personas.  Before deciding to take on another buyer persona, it is important to know that this new initiative will bring about sufficient revenue and that your company has the resources necessary to execute.

How to fix this:  

Instead of pondering how many buyer personas to generate, it is important to first focus on establishing how many ways your company needs to market its product or service as the solution for a given buyer persona. Once these are established, it is much easier to gauge if another buyer persona should emerge.

 

  1. One Stock Photo Cannot Fit All

Though stock photos incorporate a creative, personable, and emotion-driven touch to a targeted campaign. However, marketers often forget that one stock photo cannot fit all customers within a buyer persona. Do not make the common mistake of overthinking a stock photo to the point it (mis)leads your campaign into the (wrong) direction.

How to fix this:

In order to solidify your campaign, be sure to start the buyer persona creation process with fleshed out, concrete ideas about who exactly your target market is. Only then should you allow yourself to do the fun part of depicting this persona; stock photos should embellish your envisioned buyer persona- not create it.

More on Buyer Personas:

buyer persona guide for business

 

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TikTok Advertising Strategies Are Becoming More Common

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Most businesses these days are using at least one or two social media channels to market their brand. However, new social channels emerge every year, many of which are worth your attention. Take TikTok for example. Although initially dismissed by most as another social media platform for teens, more businesses are taking notice. This is because they are beginning to realize that TikTok is attracting more adult users every day. As such, TikTok advertising is well worth considering.

What is TikTok?

TikTok started off as a platform on which users could upload videos of themselves lip-synching to music videos. These videos were no more than 15 seconds long. In a way, they were like a more niche-based version of the now-defunct Vine social platform. As such, it was no surprise that the platform attracted a younger audience. However, older users began taking advantage of TikTok’s audience to showcase themselves in different ways. For example, comedians would upload short videos of stand-up routines. Another example is of skateboarders, who would upload tricks that they landed. Soon, TikTok allowed its users to upload videos up to 60 seconds long.

Who Uses TikTok?

TikTok still has a userbase that leans on the younger side with more than 66 percent of its users under the age of 30. However, if you have a younger target audience, then TikTok is very much worth your time. This is especially true when you consider the fact that more parents are using TikTok on a daily basis (it’s estimated that 41 percent of dads have used TikTok). Not to mention that TikTok currently has over six million users in the U.S. alone.

Video Marketing Ideas: Using Storytelling in Social Media

How Can You Leverage TikTok To Market Your Brand?

If your buyer personas match the target audience of TikTok, then you may be curious as to how you can use the platform to your advantage. The following are just a few effective tactics when it comes to TikTok advertising:

  • User-generated content

TikTok is a great platform for encouraging user-generated content. Instagram is the other social channel where user-generated content is incredibly effective. One of the reasons user-generated content is so successful on both of these channels is because it encourages active audience engagement. Not only will they be engaged with your brand, but they will also generate content that helps promote your brand. In a sense, you’ll be getting free advertising. Users are more likely to participate using TikTok as well due to the platform’s focus on video creation.

  • TikTok challenges

One of the reasons why TikTok’s popularity has exploded over recent years is due to the challenges that users engage in. For example, one type of challenge involves doing a specific dance move or physical challenge (such as taking off your shirt while doing a wall stand). Many of these challenges go viral organically, but businesses have begun creating their own challenges in an effort to engage more users. When creating a challenge, make sure to use a hashtag along with an appropriate title. Doing so ensures that the challenge has a better chance of being found and shared.

  • Influencer marketing

Just like Instagram, TikTok is home to users with enormous followings. As such, you should consider influencer marketing. Influencer marketing involves building a relationship with someone on the platform with a large influence (number of followers). As long as your brand is relevant to them, they will be able to influence their followers’ awareness and feelings about your brand. For example, if you create a challenge, you can get it exposure by having an influencer take part in that challenge. They can also encourage their followers to do the same.

  • TikTok’s advertising platform

Like other social platforms, TikTok does have its own advertising platform that you can use. Some of the TikTok advertising options include in-feed videos, brand takeover ads, branded AR content, and more. TikTok can even help assist with your influencer marketing campaign via its customer influence package. Additionally, you will can customize your targeting options using website traffic, ad engagement, app activity, or customer contact data.

Begin Integrating TikTok Advertising As Part Of Your Social Marketing Strategy

Although TikTok has a younger user-base, it is continuing to grow, attracting more and more older users. As such, it’s worth considering TikTok advertising, especially if any of your buyer personas match with TikTok’s current audience.

 

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Marketing Strategies In Times of Fear and Uncertainty

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In order to have reassured customers, they must first be reassured by your marketing strategies. Unfortunately, there is much uncertainty in the world, and that’s truer now than ever before. It’s no secret that the coronavirus has left many people in a state of fear, anxiety and grief. We know this is a great time to be marketing- but perhaps unsure what is best for every customer during these times. While these concerns are well-founded, it’s important to keep a positive attitude. Your marketing strategies should therefore be about helping your customers keep that positive attitude. Here are a few ways to help them do just that.

Love Your Customers

A great idea is to reach out to every one of your customers. Either that or have your sales and client service teams send personal notes to check in on your customers. Now is the best time to thank them for their support and their business. Do more than just a company email. Ask how they are holding up. It’ll will go a long way in cementing your relationship with your customers.

Reconsider Your Marketing Mix

Another idea to consider pulling any outbound advertising. Shift those funds into content creation. Amplify your best thought leadership and share your articles.

More than likely your annual event schedule is either not happening or is cancelled. Consider how to make it an amazing virtual experience. Bring in experts in your industry to speak to the latest trends. Get your customers to share their success. And create a plan to use all that content and re-purpose it into articles you can share on your website.

Webinars are certainly another great place to start. Setup monthly sessions to stay connected with your prospects. One thing that may be a concern: so many companies are making this shift. Think about how you can be different? Use professional speakers. Conduct an ask-me-anything. Maybe even offer a prospect some free advice or assessments. Long term thinking is exactly what we all need to do right now. Any video content at this point is doing extremely well; as people are home and watching more and more.

Similar Article: What’s Trending In Marketing For May 2019

Be Thoughtful and Intentional

Over the last few months, we have seen business leaders and marketers acting thoughtfully and with intention. Changing business operations to include “social distancing,” mandating that all workers able to work remotely do so, moving as much work online as possible, and limiting the amount of in-person interaction possible. These decisions are all thoughtful and intentional choices that demonstrate concern for individuals.

Marketers should be continuing to be thoughtful and intentional in their marketing strategy efforts. It’s ok to still post blog posts as long as the topics are worthwhile to the audience. It’s ok to send an email newsletter if the content is sensitive to the audience and offering value. Remember that many folks are taking their additional time right now to improve their skill set or expand their knowledge. They are focusing on the future and your content or materials will help to educate them while also letting them take their mind off the uncertainty surrounding them.

Connect with Your Teammarketing strategies2

Get together with your marketing colleagues and brainstorm new ideas. Reach out to your colleagues in the sales organization and find out what needs to be updated. Get time with executives and stakeholders across the company to reset expectations.

Everyone is feeling the same way: worried, anxious, afraid. So reach out and connect with them personally. If you don’t already have one, check into the opportunity for mental health services for your company; make sure everyone is aware of tele-health options for doctors. This may sound like HR stuff, but we’re great communicators in marketing. Let’s help everyone out!

Stay Positive and Optimistic

The most important marketing strategy to keep in mind is this: things will get better. People are still shopping and researching, but maybe just not this paycheck. We need to continue marketing and stay top of mind. Try and find the stories of hope that keep you positive. Think about all the healthcare workers putting their lives at risk to help others. As well as the volunteers who have signed up to offer free mental health support.

In conclusion having these marketing strategies is very important in long- term and short- term for several reasons. That is because, we still have an important job to do. Like those on the front lines of every crisis, we try and help out a little more, in any way we can.

A GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE MOBILE MARKETING TECHNIQUES
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How to Implement a Successful Digital Word of Mouth Marketing Strategy

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A good word of mouth marketing strategy has always been incredibly effective. It occurs when customers spread positive information about their experience with the company on their behalf. For example, if a customer recommends a product to a friend, that’s a form of word of mouth communication. The reason it’s so effective as a marketing strategy is that people tend to trust the word of other customers over that of a company. As a result, customers can help to build your reputation, increase brand awareness, and even generate leads for you by way of word of mouth.

While some word of mouth marketing is organic, you should encourage it as much as possible. This is especially true in this day and age when word of mouth can spread like wildfire online. With that in mind, the following are six tips to help you implement a successful digital word of mouth marketing strategy:

1. Encourage Customer Reviews

Due to how easy it is to find information online, the majority of customers will research a company before making a purchase. Part of this research entails reading through customer reviews left online. Customers can leave reviews on social media channels, on Google, and on a variety of third party websites that are review focused (such as Yelp or Angie’s List, to name a couple). The more positive reviews you have across platforms, the better your word of mouth will be. As such, encourage customers to leave reviews, not just of their customer experience with your company, but also for the individual products or services that they purchased.

2. Create Customer Testimonialsword of mouth marketing2

Testimonials are similar to reviews but tend to go more in-depth. Customers who are particularly happy with the customer experience are more willing to provide a testimonial. This can be done in the written form or in the form of a video. Video testimonials are particularly effective because people will have an easier time connecting to the customer giving the testimonial on an emotional level. Not to mention that it’s much easier to trust a video testimonial than a written one.

3. Connect With Influencers Online

Influencers are a little different than the traditional consumer. An influencer is someone who often has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. They are considered an authority and are highly trusted, which means that if they promote a certain company’s product, their followers pay attention. Basically, they can help spread a positive word of mouth using a digital loudspeaker. You should look to connect with both macro and micro-influencers, both of which can help improve brand awareness and help spread your message.

Similar Blog Article: The Advantages of Using Public Relations In Your Marketing Strategy

4. Encourage Customer Referrals

Although many customer referrals happen organically, you should encourage them as much as possible. Individual referrals are often incredibly effective. Leads that are referred to you by an existing customer are going to be much easier for you to close since they will already be further down the sales funnel. There are several ways that you can encourage customer referrals. The first way is by simply offering an incentive. Provide customers with a link that they can use to refer another customer (such as a link leading to a service they can sign up for). If someone signs up to your service using that link, you can provide the customer with a discount or free gift as a reward.

Another way to encourage customer referrals is to set up a referral program. This is a more official way to incentivize your existing customers to make referrals. A referral program will make it much easier for customers to make referrals. It will also make it easier for you to monitor your customer referrals and to measure their success.

5. Encourage And Leverage User-Generated Content

User-generated content is content showcasing your brand or products created by your customers. This type of content helps to build trust and showcases the positive aspects of your brand or products. Not to mention that people tend to engage more successfully with user-generated content. All of these elements make user-generated content an effective vehicle for spreading word of mouth. You can encourage user-generated content by simply requesting it on social media or by holding contests. For example, a contest on Instagram for the best picture showcasing how customers used your product.

6. Provide The Best Customer Experience Possible

In the end, none of these digital word of mouth tactics are going to be very effective if you’re not providing a good customer experience in the first place. Customers don’t want to help brands that gave them a poor experience, after all. With that in mind, focus on providing the best customer experience you can and you’ll find that a positive word of mouth will begin to spread organically.

Word of mouth marketing can be a powerful way to increase brand awareness and to generate more leads. Not to mention that a word of mouth marketing strategy is an incredibly cost-effective strategy. Consider using these six tactics to encourage the spread of a positive word of mouth online.

A GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE MOBILE MARKETING TECHNIQUES
micro influencer marketing1

Micro Influencer Marketing Benefits

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Influencer marketing has been growing in popularity over the past few years. The idea is simple: connect with someone who has hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of followers on social media. By connecting with an influencer, you in effect obtain access to their audience. As a result, you can significantly boost brand awareness as well as increase your own audience. While many businesses have been scrambling to develop relationships with such influencers, more crafty businesses have been adopting a different strategy: micro-influencer marketing.

What is Micro-Influencer Marketing?

Traditional influencers are individuals who have name recognition within your industry. They have enormous audiences who trust what they say and what they do. When they promote a brand, that brand will get a lot of attention as a result. Micro-influencers don’t usually have as much name recognition. In fact, many of them are not widely known at all. They have audiences that are much smaller. Typically, they will have less than 100,000 followers. In some cases, they may have less than 10,000 followers. Micro-influencers also tend to focus on more niche subject matter as opposed to traditional influencers (or “macro-influencers”).

The Benefits of Micro-Influencer Marketing

micro influencer marketing2At first glance, it might be difficult to see any benefits of targeting micro-influencers instead of macro-influencers. After all, why would you want to target an influencer who seemingly has much less influence? The following are  some of the reasons why micro-influencer marketing can actually be incredibly effective:

Less competition

Most businesses are familiar with influencer marketing. Any business that has decided to invest in influencer marketing is likely going to target individuals with the most influence. This makes sense, as these influencers likely have millions of followers and lots of name recognition. The problem, however, is that all the businesses within your industry are going to be targeting the same couple of influencers. Because micro-influencers are much less well known, it will be much easier to get into contact with them and to develop a relationship with them. Not to mention that most micro-influencers are more niche-oriented, meaning that they will be relevant to fewer businesses in your industry.

Enjoy The Article: The Power Of An Influencer Marketing Strategy: How and Why It Works

Less expensive

Influencers who have millions of followers are going to have tons of suitors lining up to pay them for their influence. This means that getting a macro-influencer to highlight your company in some way is going to cost you a lot of money. Since micro-influencers are less well known within your industry, they are going to be much less expensive.

More relevant audience

Even though micro-influencers have smaller audiences, they are likely going to be much more relevant to your company. This is because micro-influencers are focused on a specific niche. If that niche is related to your offerings, odds are their audience will be your audience. When it comes to macro-influencers, their scope tends to be much broader. This means that your brand may not be relevant to a significant number of their followers. As a result, not only are micro-influencers more affordable, but you’ll be using your money in a more effective way, leading to a higher ROI (return on investment). It’s one of the reasons why conversion rates using micro-influencers tend to be higher as well.

  • More engaged followers – Macro-influencers may have millions of followers, but many of those followers are only following because of the influencer’s name recognition. Because the influencer isn’t niche-oriented, many of their posts may not be relevant to all of their followers. Micro-influencers, on the other hand, tend to have followers who are much more engaged due to their niche focus. Micro-influencer followers often engage on a daily basis, which means that they pay much more attention to what they have to say. They are also more loyal than the followers of a macro-influencer. This means that your message will get across more successfully when relayed by a micro-influencer.

Consider Targeting Micro-Influencers

While you shouldn’t completely give up on macro-influencers (especially if you have the budget required), you may find that targeting micro-influencers will end up being much more effective. Not only do micro-influencers cost less, but you’ll also have a much better chance of reaching and engaging their audience, leading to a higher conversion rate and a higher overall ROI.

Integrating Social Media & SEO Efforts For Enhanced Search Engine Results
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Improve PPC Success With These 7 PPC Optimization Strategies

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PPC (pay-per-click) optimization is an often underlooked marketing strategy that can be incredibly beneficial to your overall marketing efforts. One reason many businesses overlook it is because they think that it will cost too much to implement. However, PPC advertising is actually quite cost-effective. This is because PPC optimization works by allowing you to bid on specific keywords. You can bid however much you want. While the amount of your bid will affect how often the ad is displayed for that keyword, you will only pay for the ad if it’s clicked on.

Of course, the success of your PPC campaign will rely heavily on whether or not you get clicks and whether those clicks result in conversions. With that in mind, the following are seven PPC optimization tips to improve the success of your PPC ads:

1. Perform Keyword Research

Don’t assume that you know what keywords your target audience will use. Using keywords without performing the necessary research can result in inefficient use of your marketing budget. The last thing you want to do is bid for keywords that you can’t compete with or that expose your ads to the wrong audience (resulting in low click-through rates and low conversion rates).

When performing keyword research, identify keywords that are relevant to your business, to your ads, and to your audience. Find out what the search volume of each keyword to figure out whether they will be effective at exposing your ad as well as whether you’ll even be able to compete with them. Via keyword research, you’ll also be able to identify new keywords you may not have thought of before as well.

2. Identify Negative Keywords

When running ads, you can find out what keywords and search terms were used to trigger your ads to display. Some of these terms may not be relevant and can be considered “negative” keywords. You can add these to a negative keyword list to ensure your ad doesn’t show up for those terms. For example, if your clothing company only sells adult clothing, then the word “children” would be a negative keyword.

3. Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience is essential for identifying keywords that are relevant to their search queries. After all, if you target the wrong audience, your PPC ads won’t perform well. To figure out who your audience is, develop buyer personas based on your ideal customers. These will make it much easier to successfully target your ads, both in regards to the keywords you use and the copy you write.

Enjoy the Article: A Guide to Successful Marketing Optimization

4. Create Effective, Relevant Copyppc optimization2

If your keywords and your copy don’t match up, it’s going to affect your ability to generate clicks. After all, if someone performs a search and an ad is displayed that isn’t relevant to what they’re looking for, that person is not going to click on your ad. Your copy not only has to match the keyword, it also needs to be well-written and to the point. Make the copy easy to scan so that people know exactly what it is you’re promoting and what the benefits are of clicking on the ad. Additionally, keep in mind that a good title is essential to drawing attention. Without a good title, people will scroll right past your ads.

5. Create Effective Landing Pages

Getting clicks is going to be an enormous waste of money if nobody is converting. One of the most common obstacles to a highly converting PPC ad is the landing page. If your PPC landing page is poor, it won’t convert. In fact, some businesses don’t even have landing pages — they just direct the people who have clicked on their PPC ads to their homepage. If you do this, they’ll have no idea what they’re supposed to do.

Your landing pages should reiterate the offer of your ad. Make sure the page is clean and easy to scan. A cluttered landing page can be distracting and confusing. In addition to emphasizing the offer of your ad, make sure you use the same language — including the same keywords.

6. Optimize Your Ad Groups

Google recommends that you create three to four ads per ad group and to create different messages for each one in order to see which performs best. Your ads will rotate automatically to display the ads that perform best most often.

7. Test Your Ads

Make sure to test your ads so that you can identify what works and what doesn’t. For example, you can create an ad group with one control ad and one test ad. You can test ads using different keyword variations, titles, copy, and more. Monitor conversion rates, cost-per-conversion, and click-through-rate to identify what ads perform better and to optimize your ads more effectively.

The key to a successful PPC ad lies in how well you’ve managed to optimize that ad. These are seven PPC optimization strategies that you should implement to help boost the effectiveness of your PPC advertising strategy.

Download Our White Paper Guide To Learn How To Perfect Buyer Personas For Your Business
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Email Marketing Metrics You Should Keep In Mind & What They Mean

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Email marketing was one of the earliest forms of inbound marketing — and it’s continued to be one of the most widely used due to how cost-efficient and effective the strategy is. If you’re implementing an email marketing campaign, then it’s important that you keep track of certain email marketing metrics so that you can judge how your campaign is performing and identify what is and isn’t working so that you can make strategic adjustments as necessary. The following are some of the most important email marketing metrics that you should be following:

Click Through Rate

Click throughs refer to how many recipients are clicking the links in your email. The higher your click-through rate is, the more enticing your content was to your recipients. A poor click-through rate means that you’re not connecting with your readers. A/B tests, which help find new ways to get more clicks in your emails, also make use of CTR’s.

Unique Opens

Unique opens refers to how many people open your emails. If you don’t have many unique opens, it means that your subject lines need work — or you may not be timing your emails properly and they’re getting buried in the inboxes of your recipients so that they don’t see them.Email Marketing Metrics 2

Forward Rate

Forward rates weigh the percentages of recipients who share your posts. A high forward rate is a good sign that you’re doing something right. It means you’re providing content that recipients believe is helpful and informative. As a result they then forward it to friends, family members, or coworkers.

Bounce Rate 

The bounce rate measures how many subscriber email addresses didn’t receive your email. A soft bounce means that the email address is valid; but the inbox was full or the server was down. A hard bounce means that the email wasn’t valid. To avoid a high bounce rate, periodically update your email list and remove old addresses.

Similar Article:Exploring The Differences Between B2C and B2B Email Marketing

Deliverability Rate

The deliverability rate refers to the percentage of emails that reach your recipients’ inboxes.  Factors that may prevent your emails from being sent include email addresses that don’t exist or no longer exist or emails that are spam.

Click-through-rates only refers to how many times your links were clicked. However, Clicks per link is a more detailed metric. It shows which links get more clicks on your campaign; not counting how many times each recipient has clicked on the link .

Conversion Rate

Your conversion rate, will assess how many people click on the link and then complete a specific action. A low conversion rate means that your content isn’t connecting or your calls-to-action aren’t effective. Similarly, conversion rates give unique insight into your return investment. When you know how much you have spent, and how many subscribers have converted, it easier to determine whether or not the money you put in has paid off.

Unsubscribes

The higher your unsubscribe rate is, the more likely it is that there’s something wrong with your email campaign. There are two potential causes for this — you may be sending out too many emails to the point where your recipients are unsubscribing because you’re filling up their inbox or the content of your emails isn’t relevant to your recipients.

Once you’ve launched your email campaign, it’s important that you track how it does. You can make adjustments to your email marketing efforts throughout the campaign, after all. If things aren’t working, you won’t want to just let it fail — you’ll want to right the ship. To track how your campaign is going, be sure to keep these email marketing metrics in mind.

Download Our White Paper Guide To Learn How To Perfect Buyer Personas For Your Business
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Whats Trending in Marketing For February 2020

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Being informed about current and recent marketing trends, is an excellent tool for advertisers to have. That way, you can evaluate past strategies and find new ways to stay ahead of the competition. We’re aware that keeping up with these trends can often be difficult. As a result, the following articles come from popular marketing blogs and highlight current marketing trends that we think are worth paying attention to:

Noteworthy Marketing News

Top 10 Marketing Trends to Watch for in 2020

Right now, voice searches are used for simple queries like an address, calendar reminders, or song title. But as user needs expand and grow more complex, so must voice search features, and so must optimization. Exceptional customer experience is leading the way in marketing, shifting focus onto inbound strategies for serving and retaining existing customers. When customers share their enjoyable experience or outstanding service, their reviews are more likely than ads to impact new buyer behavior and marketing trends.

Google Ads enable bids simulator for target ROAS, budget simulator for Maximize clicks, conversions

Google is extending the availability of bid and budget simulators to more smart bidding strategies. The bid simulator has only been available for manual and Target CPA bidding. It’s now available for Target ROAS campaign. The simulators can be helpful directional indicators of the potential performance impact from making bid or budget adjustments. As always, keep in mind the projections are based on historical data and actual future performance can (and often does) vary from these projections.

Facebook Introduces 3 New Ad Reporting Tools

Facebook is making it easier for advertisers to measure ad performance across accounts, channels, and publishers. With this data, advertisers can better understand how ads are performing, which demographics they’re reaching, and where the most conversions are coming from. Cross-Account Reporting, Custom Metrics, and Conversion Path Reporting are all viable options that are explored in depth as Facebook continues to evolve its measurement solutions to address the priorities of potential marketers.

Similar Article: What’s Trending in Marketing For April 2019

Improving Your Marketing Program

6 Social Media Trends To Follow in 2020

At this point in time, every business with an inbound marketing strategy should have a social media presence of some sort. Social media is one of the most effective ways to build relationships with your target audience. You can engage directly with them and learn more about what their wants and needs are. However, social media is constantly evolving. Which means that you need to keep up with all the latest social media trends, so that you don’t fall behind the competition.

6 Reasons Why Your Business Needs B2B Inbound Marketing

There are many B2B companies that continue to advertise using more traditional methods, such as TV commercials, magazine ads, cold calls, and more. While traditional marketing can be effective, it’s a good idea to implement a variety of different marketing strategies. This includes inbound marketing.

The Advantages of Using Public Relations in Your Marketing Strategy 

As most know, when it comes to marketing strategy, public relations plays a key role in getting the word out.PR helps maintain your reputation through winning audience approval. It can educate all possible consumers and sway them to your point of view. It even helps to provide the target market with more detailed information than they would normally receive from other forms of marketing. Simply put, these public relations advantages should be on the forefront of every marketer’s agenda

Recent Marketing Reports, Updates, and Trends Marketing Trends 2

Vast majority of Amazon advertisers plan to spend more on ads again this year

According to a Marketing Land survey of digital advertisers, 81% of current advertisers plan to increase their ad spend on the platform in the coming year. Of those planning to increase their Amazon ad budgets 41% said they plan to spend as much as 25% more than the previous six to 12 months. 22% plan increases of 25 to 50%, and 10% expect Amazon budgets to increase by 50% or more.

B2B buyers consume an average of 13 content pieces before deciding on a vendor

We know that content is incredibly important for ranking in search. It’s also critical for sales support. But this report makes clear there are broad ranges of first and third party content types that are highly influential to B2B buyers. It also shows how critical the vendor website is in the buying process. Indeed, the report basically outlines a content strategy for the entire B2B buyer’s journey.

Marketers struggle to stay ahead of technology advancements

When asked how difficult it will be over the coming year to stay ahead of new technological advancements, remain competent across multiple programs and avoid long-term experience debt, 88% of CMO consultants surveyed by executive service firm Chief Outsiders said it would be difficult — with 10% claiming it will be “very” difficult.

The survey included a relatively small pool of CMO consultants. However it underscores a primary challenge faced by marketing leaders; CMOs are taking on more responsibilities while playing catch-up with the technology available to propel growth.

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Real Estate Marketing Strategies1

5 Easy & Efficient Real Estate Marketing Strategies

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People are constantly looking to build their own homes, which justifies the constant need for home builders. However, as a home builder, you can’t afford to just wait for potential clients to come to you. There are many home builders out there all competing with each other in an attempt to attract new clients. Attracting new clients is especially important in the home construction industry. After all, for the most part, you cannot depend on repeat customers. With that in mind, the following are five real estate marketing strategies that will help you increase awareness of your home construction company and help attract more buyers to work with.

1. Create A Website

It can’t be overstated just how important a website is. By setting up a website, you create a presence online that allows people to find you. Without a website, potential clients will be more likely to stumble upon the websites of your competitors. By setting up a website, you’ll have the opportunity to educate clients about their needs. Additionally, you can help offer the solutions to their needs. You’ll also be able to provide information about the area you serve and the home building industry in general. Not to mention that a website gives you a place to provide your contact information. Which makes it easier for potential clients to find your phone number and email address.

2. Begin A Blog Real Estate Marketing Strategies2

Once you’ve set up a website, you’ll want to create a blog. A blog allows you to publish content to your website on a regular basis that’s relevant to the needs of your target audience and that’s informative or helpful in some way. There are several reasons why it’s well worth the time and effort to begin and maintain a blog. First of all, if properly optimized, your blog can help to boost organic traffic from Google. Secondly, your blog will help keep visitors to your website engaged. Finally, a blog can help build your brand authority, which helps improve your reputation and increase trust amongst your audience.

3. Establish A Social Presence

Setting up a page on various social channels, such as Facebook, will help to expand your presence on the web. Social media also happens to be a great way to engage directly with your audience, which means that you can answer questions, address concerns, and much more. You can use social media to post content, which followers can then share with their social circles (which means they’re basically advertising on your behalf). Being on social media also makes it easier for past customers to recommend you to friends and family who may be looking for home builders in the area.

Similar Article: Creative Real Estate Marketing Ideas for Homebuilders

4. Optimize For Local SEO

Because many people will be looking for a home builder to build a new house in a specific area, you will want to optimize your content for local SEO. This helps increase the chances that you’re found when potential clients perform local searches in your area. In order to improve your local SEO, you should do the following:

  • Submit NAP – Besides posting your NAP (name, address, and phone number) on every webpage and social media page you have, you should also submit it to local directories, such as Yelp or Angie’s List.
  • Use local keywords – Whenever it’s appropriate, optimize your content using local keywords (such as the names of towns or neighborhoods).
  • Create local content – Posting content to your blog that focuses on specific neighborhoods or events happening in your city can help bolster your local presence.
  • Create a Google My Business account – Claim or create your My Business account on Google to improve the odds of being listed on Google’s SERP for relevant queries.
  • Optimize for mobile use – People use their mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets, to perform local searches on a regular basis. Make sure that your website is optimized for mobile use to ensure that it will be displayed properly on all screen sizes.

5. Use PPC Ads

PPC (pay-per-click) ads are incredibly effective real estate marketing strategies.  They increase exposure and attract prospects who are ready to engage with a home builder. What makes them particularly effective is that you can choose local keywords to ensure that they are displayed for local searches that are relevant to your business. Additionally, not only will your advertisements be more targeted, but you’ll only pay for the actual click-throughs that your ad gets, not for the impressions it gets.

These are five real estate marketing strategies that have been proven to be effective if properly implemented. Marketing your home construction business is critical to your ability to attract new clients and to your ability to compete with other home builders in your area.

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Senior Living Marketing Strategy1

7 Tactics to Implement in Your Senior Living Marketing Strategy in 2020

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Although there is a great need for high-quality senior living facilities that can cater to a growing senior population, there are many different facilities who are competing against one another for the attention of potential residents. As such, an effective senior living marketing strategy is an absolute must. A good senior living marketing strategy will allow you to generate more awareness of your facility and more interest in it. If you don’t employ a number of marketing tactics, you’ll find it challenging to compete for residents, which, in turn, will make it difficult to succeed. With that in mind, the following are a few marketing ideas that can help you improve your senior living marketing strategy in 2020:

1. Improve your web design

Your website is the main hub of your online presence. All of your inbound marketing efforts will direct prospects to your website. However, if your website design is poor, you will likely lose a lot of the prospects that you worked so hard to attract. Make sure that your website uses a simple and easy-to-read layout that’s not cluttered. Every webpage should be easy to scan so that visitors can find what they’re looking for. Your website should also be easy to navigate. Implement a menu bar that’s not overcrowded with links and that includes links to the main pages. A search function can also be very helpful. Finally, it’s vital that your website loads quickly. Visitors will abandon any page that takes longer than two to three seconds to load. They may even leave your website as a result of the wait.

2. Publish helpful content

Create content that is relevant, helpful, and informative to publish throughout your website. Every page should have good content on it. You should also have a blog on which you can routinely publish new content to keep the interest of your prospects. While written content can be effective, make sure that you create a variety of different types of content to keep visitors engaged. For example, images, infographics, video content, and podcasts can all increase engagement.

3. Make it easy for leads to engage

If your leads have questions or simply want to get into contact with you, you need to make it easy for them to do so. Have your contact information available on every webpage and social media page that you have so that prospects can contact you through phone or email. Having a social media presence will also give them the option of messaging through your social channel as well. If you want to go the extra mile, implementing a live chat or a chatbot feature can also be quite effective.

Similar Article: 4 Senior Living Video Marketing Ideas That Will Improve Engagement

4. Encourage leads to take action

It’s not enough to just nurture and educate your leads. The last thing you want is for someone to be interested in your facility as a result of exploring your website, only to decide that they will contact you later. Because you run the risk of them forgetting to do so. Use CTAs (calls-to-action) to encourage leads to take action right away. Whether it’s contacting you or filling out a form to sign up to an email list or to redeem an offer (such as a downloadable ebook).

5. Use PPC ads to attract better prospectsSenior Living Marketing Strategy2

PPC (pay-per-click) ads are effective because they allow you to target specific prospects using keywords. When someone does a search for that keyword, your ad has a chance of showing up. Not only can this help you spread awareness of your facility through Google, but it’s a cost-effective tactic as well. Because you’re only paying for the actual clicks that your ads get.

6. Use local SEO to find residents in your area

Many decision-makers who are looking for senior living facilities for their loved ones will want to keep them close to home. As a result, you should implement a local SEO strategy that makes it easier for people to find your facility while performing local searches. There are several tactics that you can employ to boost your local SEO. You can submit your NAP (name, address, and phone number) to online directories, such as Yelp, you can use local keywords throughout your content whenever appropriate, and you can add or claim your Google My Business to strengthen your local presence on Google.

7. Establish a presence on social media

A social media presence not only makes it easier to interact directly with your audience to answer questions and address concerns, but it’s also a great way to spread awareness of your facility. When you engage with people, their followers may see the interaction, which is an excellent way to boost your reputation. You can also post content to social media, which if it’s shared, liked, or commented on, can help increase exposure.

The success of your senior living facility is going to depend on your ability to generate awareness of your facility. As well as, being able to engage and entice decision-makers to reach out to you. These are seven tactics that you should implement in your senior living marketing strategy in 2020 that will do just that.

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