Dept’s Sam Huston charts the complexity of the modern customer journey. It’s one, Huston argues, that is constantly moved by the ripples of algorithmic dominance.
The convergence of brand and performance media creates butterfly effects across the consumer journey. This means that even small changes in a marketing campaign can have significant, unpredictable consequences. For example, a study by Google found that a personalized ad can increase click-through rates by up to 20%. However, if the same ad is shown to a consumer who has already purchased the product, it could backfire and damage the brand’s reputation.
The divergence of individual media consumption habits is further exacerbating this butterfly effect. In the past, consumers were more likely to consume media in a linear fashion, meaning they would see the same ads multiple times. This made it easier for marketers to build brand awareness and positive sentiment. However, today’s consumers are much more likely to consume media in a nonlinear fashion, meaning that they may only see an ad once or twice. This makes it more difficult for marketers to reach their target audiences and to have a lasting impact.
Culture at the speed of algorithms
Algorithms are playing an increasingly important role in this new marketing landscape. They’re used to target consumers with personalized ads, to measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, and to make predictions about consumer behavior. In some cases, algorithms can even have a direct impact on product sales and brand adoption.
For example, a study by Nielsen found that consumers are more likely to trust recommendations from friends and family than traditional advertising. However, an algorithm can use social media data to identify which consumers are most likely to be influenced by their friends and family, and then target them with personalized ads that are more likely to be effective. Culture now moves at the speed of algorithms, and Brands need to be prepared to move at the same speed reacting to the butterfly effect in real time.
The great convergence
The convergence of brand and performance media, the divergence of individual media consumption habits, and the growing importance of algorithms are all creating a new marketing landscape that is more complex and unpredictable than ever before. Marketers who understand and adapt to this new landscape will be the ones who are most successful in the years to come. However, those unprepared for this new reality may find themselves at a significant disadvantage.
Need convincing? Here’s some cold, hard data for you:
A study by Salesforce found that 70% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that they have interacted with on social media.
A study by Gartner found that by 2023, 80% of marketing budgets will be spent on digital channels.
A study by the World Economic Forum found that by 2025, artificial intelligence will create 133m new jobs – and displace 75m others.
These data points suggest that the future of marketing is increasingly digital and data-driven. Marketers who embrace these trends will be well-positioned to succeed in the years to come. Those unprepared for this new reality may find themselves at a significant disadvantage.
Feature Image Credit: According to Dept, the modern customer journey is buffeted by butterfly effects of algorithms and media convergence / Drz via Unsplash
We catch up with the rental app’s marketing boss, Hiroki Asai, to hear why he shifted its strategy so dramatically and how he’s confident it has now found a winning long-term formula.
An Airbnb ad launched today spotlights the perks of staying in one of its rentals rather than traditional hotels. In one of three playful, animated short films, a group of friends is ready for a relaxing, kiddo-free vacation – only to find the hotel pool teeming with screaming children. Luckily, the travellers find solace in a picture-perfect thatched-roof Airbnb with a peaceful, private pool. “Get an Airbnb and get a place to yourself,” a voiceover chimes.
The spot is part of a new brand campaign that will roll out across the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and a handful of other markets across the globe throughout the coming weeks.
It comes on the heels of the brand’s multichannel spring campaign, which spotlighted Rooms – Airbnb’s newly-rebranded offering of private rooms within shared homes – by telling the story of individual hosts from across the globe and the unique experiences that can come with a Rooms stay.
These and other Airbnb marketing efforts of the last few years evidence a broader paradigm shift in the way the brand aims to connect with and engage audiences everywhere. It’s a shift that began with the Covid-19 pandemic.
A strategic shift
When the pandemic upended the travel and tourism industry in 2020, Airbnb lost about 80% of its business overnight. As Brian Chesky, the company’s chief executive, told entrepreneur and ‘This Week in Startups’ podcast host Jason Calacanis: “We were staring into the abyss.”
Although the existential disruption may have easily sunk the business, Chesky and his team were determined to tackle the crisis opportunistically.
The challenge wasn’t in the remit of product, operations or finance alone. Marketing, too, would play a critical role. “It basically turned the company upside down – but it was also an opportunity to reimagine Airbnb a little bit and take a look at what the next iteration of Airbnb would be,” chief marketing officer Hiroki Asai tells The Drum.
The company’s founders, including Chesky, chief strategy officer Nathan Blecharczyk and chairman Joe Gebbia, sought to make Airbnb “a much simpler company” says Asai – one that was “creatively driven,” with brand and design at the heart of the corporate story.
For Asai, who has been at Airbnb for about three and a half years, the approach felt natural. The executive began his career as a graphic designer before spending 18 years on the marketing team at Apple. A core focus on design and brand-level storytelling is in his DNA.
Pre-pandemic, Airbnb’s marketing strategy was primarily performance-driven, with much of the brand’s marketing budget dedicated to digital advertising. But when the pandemic flipped the business on its head, performance marketing wasn’t delivering what the brand needed. Asai tells The Drum: “The problem was that Airbnb wasn’t able to put its own message out into people’s minds and out into the market, so the messages were being driven by reactive PR and comms and basically what the world and what social media was talking about. Airbnb kind of lost control of the brand a little bit – and of the message and the narrative.” To regain control of the narrative, Airbnb decided to dial back its investment in performance marketing significantly.
Instead, Asai says, the plan was to “go back to the core of what Airbnb was about – which is about core hosts, primary homes and guests.” The brand poured marketing dollars into communicating this message with big, bold brand campaigns instead of performance-driven buys.
It was a much-needed strategic adjustment, in Asai’s view. “As Airbnb was growing, pre-pandemic, it was losing its differentiation. There were a lot of competing options for travellers out there and Airbnb … was losing its uniqueness. It was losing its sense of brand and who it was. So, coming out of the pandemic, the decision was to really focus on the core business and to focus on creating experiences, creating features and creating a product … to differentiate ourselves – and then to use brand to actually communicate and teach people what those differences are.”
Keeping product and brand in dialogue at all times
The brand began to invest deeply in developing and highlighting specific features and tools that set its product and experience apart. For example, a key focus of the last few years has been building out Airbnb Categories – classifications of home types, styles and locations that help users find inspiration, discover unique stays and narrow down their search. Last year, Airbnb launched a campaign showcasing its range of over 60 Categories to explore on the platform – from treehouses and off-the-grid cabins to private islands and luxe mansions. It told the stories of travellers staying in some of the platform’s most unexpected and exciting homes, like a giant potato in Idaho and a cave home in Utah.
As Asai explains: “At the core of what we need to do is to create a product and experience that’s different than any other service. And to do that, we need to innovate on the software, on the technology. And we want to use brand not just to advertise our values and what we’re about – we also want to use brand to help explain what these features are and how they make for a different experience.”
And the shift change has largely paid off. Following the decision to reduce performance marketing spend, Airbnb’s traffic levels reached 95% of what they had been in 2019 before the pandemic. Chesky said in 2021 that the brand would never again rely so heavily on performance marketing. And two years after the decision to reallocate marketing spend, the company reported its most profitable fourth quarter on record in February 2023. Revenue jumped 24% year-over-year, helping Airbnb reach an Ebitda of $506m for the quarter.
Since the strategy is proving effective, Asai and his team are only digging deeper into ways to communicate product differentiators through a brand-first approach. Airbnb’s Rooms campaign earlier this year, he says, has been a successful example. “Our approach is that product development and marketing should go hand-in-hand. We’ll work off of one central customer insight that then feeds what we do on the product – and that same insight also feeds how we market it and how we talk about it in paid media and in PR.”
With Rooms, the central insight was that many Airbnb users were interested in more cost-effective stays but were sceptical of staying in a shared home where they knew very little about the host. “The barrier that’s keeping [users] from booking Rooms is that they really don’t know who that host is and need some insight. That led to this idea of a Host Passport and adding more than just kind of dry facts [and instead adding] more insights into the space, who the host is, the hosting journey, why they’ve decided to rent the room, the story of their home. Then that same insight fed the advertising in a way that put the experience [front and center].”
The in-housing philosophy
Airbnb is able to keep product and marketing so tightly interwoven in large part due to the brand’s in-housing model, according to Asai. Not only is all product development and technology design done in-house, but so too is the company’s marketing and advertising. As the executive puts it: “What that allows us to do is to have a very, very tight system for all customer-facing things, from marketing down to product – and to work off of one insight in an extremely integrated and consistent way.”
Operationally, too, Asai says, in-housing makes sense for Airbnb as it helps the company run a tighter ship. “It’s so much easier to not deal with multiple agencies and to not deal with what the agency wants to do versus what you want to do – plus timelines, cost, just the layers of management you have to have to keep those relationships going. More importantly, I think you get a much better creative product when you have the people that create the advertising sitting literally right next to the people that make the product.”
It’s an approach Asai believes in wholeheartedly. “I’m really bullish on in-housing creative because I’ve worked on both sides of the fence – I’ve worked on the agency side, on the design firm side, then as an in-house creative and then ultimately on the marketing side. I’ve seen all ends of it and I really think people with a creative background get short changed working on the service side – I think amazing work happens out of agencies, but I think for creative to grow, they really need to be exposed to everything that happens upstream … and everything that happens downstream. Being in-house really gives you that visibility in that breath. Ultimately, it makes you a better designer, makes you a better art director, makes you a better writer.”
Nonetheless, he acknowledges that in-housing may not be the appropriate model for every brand. He admits it can be “a very difficult thing to manage.” Airbnb, in his opinion, is uniquely poised to benefit from the model because of its roots in commercial creativity. “The reason it works for Airbnb is because we have creative founders and creative leaders. Our CEO was trained as a designer, so he has a unique understanding of the creative process and can champion it and make it work and he is really involved in the work.” But in-housing, Asai says, “is really not for everyone.”
Mapping out new frontiers
When it comes to the brand’s future, Asai is confident that the continued integration of product and marketing will be a boon to the brand’s success.
As it looks to the future, a major focus for the brand in the near- to medium-term is expansion into new markets. It’s a goal Chesky spoke about openly on the company’s latest earnings call earlier this month: “The next big focus for Airbnb is reliability. If we can make Airbnb even nearly as reliable in many markets as hotels, I think you’re going to open up a whole new generation of travelers to Airbnb.” In particular, the company is eyeing Asia Pacific, which Chesky says represents “a huge opportunity for growth.”
It’s a plan that Asai is eager to take part in, adding: “It’s also super exciting to be able to introduce Airbnb to whole new audiences and cultures.”
As the company aims to expand, a focus on brand-centric marketing will remain a key part of the growth strategy, with Chesky saying during that Q2 earnings call: “When you invest in a brand, when your brand’s a noun and a verb, and you have something unique, you get a lot of … benefits. And I think it’s going to be consistent and we’ll have pretty consistent marketing spend as a percent of revenue over time because of the strength of the brand.”
The 30- or 60-second TV spot – the ‘hero ad’ – has long been the prestige centre of ad campaigns. Is it time for that approach to die? PMG’s Scott Everett thinks so.
This might be controversial on the tailwinds of celebrating Cannes Lions, but it’s time to stop making hero ads the hero of every brand story.
The almighty 60- and 30-second spots that we have long revered as the centrepiece of every brand campaign are no longer the most important components of the marketing mix. That’s not to say that TV advertising and brand-building storytelling are not important, but it is time to acknowledge that advertising has fundamentally evolved. Today’s brands need a more nimble and data-driven creative model that recognizes live TV audiences are shrinking, streaming and social viewership are on the rise, and our creative canvas is exploding with opportunities to make advertising work harder and perform better.
Creatives have long put their faith into hero ads for building brands, but right now, we have an opportunity to embrace the power of integrated creative in telling stories and driving business impact. With audiences and engagement more fragmented than ever, customer journeys aren’t linear, and our creative strategies can’t be either. That means creative must be more unique, more complete, more agile, and in more places than ever before.
In media agencies, creative teams are benefiting from the innovation and inspiration that come from creative, strategy, and media working together. We are serving an increasingly complex and competitive marketing landscape, informed by new behaviours, artificial intelligence, and breaking through in new mediums ranging from Netflix to TikTok and Reddit.
Never before have we had more audience signals or indicators of intent helping us move people along the journey from awareness to purchase. Equally, never before has the journey been less of a straight path than it is today.
Mastering this creative flywheel is the hardest and most important job ahead of brands and creatives working together to build high-performing marketing strategies. Here’s how we can better align for the full-funnel future.
1. Build a flexible and robust story platform that fuels a high-performing media plan
Brand versus performance. Data versus instinct. Creative versus creators. Super Bowl spots versus Performance Max ads. It’s not either/or, and we all must embrace the healthy tension of building a plan together.
A flexible creative storytelling platform is a comprehensive, consistent library of stories that fuels a smart media plan, facilitating real-time iteration, optimization, and learning. When everyone is operating from the same blueprint and playbook, creatives can flex into any opportunity, planned or unplanned, and advertising works harder to deliver more for the brand.
2. Plan for speed and agility
While our creative palette for building cultural relevance has expanded, speed to market is critical. Everyone must work together across strategy, insights, creative, and media to adapt to where consumers are and what they expect from advertisers. Once everyone is aligned on the brand’s objectives, teams can be empowered to deliver impact in real time. This can be anything from partnering to accelerate the media and creative working hardest to leaning into emerging opportunities like AI, the metaverse, first-mover advantages with creators and platform partners, and any number of new ways of bringing creative ideas to market.
3. Embrace the white space between brand and performance
While TV ads are great for building broad awareness, product ads can be untapped opportunities for creatively engaging with a brand’s audience. Too many advertisers continue to bridge brand-to-conversion with discount messaging rather than creating a cohesive storytelling strategy around building brand and product love. The middle funnel is the creative frontier that makes all marketing work harder, and it’s beckoning us to think beyond the creative approaches of the past.
Technology advancements in this area are particularly exciting. For example, at PMG, we’re using AI to determine real-time creative insights that tell us what creative is performing best in any given moment, based on creative elements ranging from colour to product types to backgrounds or the use of models.
Once we let go of making hero ads the hero, creative can work harder across the full customer journey. Integrated creative can then truly become the hero of helping businesses meet their goals and accelerate into the future.
As new event paradigms dawn, event sponsorship is dying, says Lively’s Mike White. Promoters and brands clinging to the traditional sponsor paradigm will be left in the dust.
Marketers have long turned to events as an advertising vehicle, for good reason. Event marketing is one of the most impactful channels for bringing a brand story to life. A study about the influence of events showed that 93% of consumers feel live events have a larger influence on them than television ads.
It makes sense. Events afford brands an opportunity to build brand awareness with consumers in controlled environments that leverage a shared community, a moment in time, and a unique experience. When executed well, exposure to engaged audiences correlates with brand lift from association with popular events and entertainers.
But while there’s no question about the efficacy of events, the live event paradigm is desperately in need of a modern refresh.
Traditional experiential balances competing objectives
The first issue to overcome is a misaligned incentive structure that’s baked into traditional event sponsorship. Consider the typical brand-promoter deal wherein brands and promoters have different respective objectives.
Promoters want to sell tickets and add revenue to their bottom lines. Brands want to sell their products and achieve ROI from their investment. Since events are costly to produce, they often capture a sizable chunk of an annual marketing budget and, therefore, are under intense scrutiny.
This brand-promoter paradigm doesn’t even consider the motivations of audiences to participate in a one-of-a-kind experience, or the aspirations and needs of the event’s entertainers. (All parties, crucially, want to build community. More on that later.)
A new event paradigm: from sponsorship to partnership
The last two decades of my career on the bleeding edge of live and hybrid event production have taught me a critical lesson: because of disparate objectives between brand, promoter, sponsor, and audience, it can be hard to orchestrate a positive experience for all parties.
This is why sponsorship needs to be put to rest and partnership needs to take its place.
Under a partnership dynamic, all stakeholders invest and align on goals, using the following 4 steps.
1. Shift the event objective
First, marketers need to refocus the event objective to one goal that all stakeholders have in common: community building.
The objective is to convert event audiences who are there for the event’s entertainment into an always-on community so that you can create conversation and grow relationships and engagement over time.
This should align key stakeholders around a measurable goal, and overcome potential pitfalls of different objectives.
2. Integrate technology
Today’s audiences occupy more than a physical space in time. At any given moment, they’re connected to multiple environments across digital touchpoints, including social media channels, mobile applications, and other communication and streaming platforms.
To lose sight of these digital spaces is an immense opportunity lost, since an audience’s engagement in the context of multiple channels can expand the footprint of an event while building a shared community for the event’s partners.
At Lively, we’re highly attuned to these touchpoints. We call them ‘experiential media ecosystems’. When stakeholders are intentional about these ecosystems, they become owned channels for communication and engagement that live well past the one-time event.
Not only does this allow brands to experience sustained gains, but inviting audiences into an owned community offers rich and actionable data that can help marketers iterate meaningfully on strategy.
3. Focus on authenticity
Looking at event execution as a partnership means all parties align on the audience they want to engage. Authentic engagements between creative, sponsor, and audience are essential to successful activation.
Once brands and creators align on audience and messaging, brands can and should relinquish control to creative to allow them to communicate with audiences in ways that resonate genuinely.
4. Grow and engage the community over time
Event promoters have traditionally pushed back against hybrid and other tech-enabled events because they fear that streaming live events might take away an incentive for an in-person ticket purchase.
Promoters need to evolve their thinking, because streaming can expand the reach of live events, engage new audiences, and create fomo.
The content shared at live events does not replace the in-person experience. Instead, when events are well-executed, it makes our peer groups want to attend the following year.
If all three parties can benefit from an owned event community, it allows the audience to be engaged far beyond the event in interesting and meaningful touchpoints.
More than ever, events are ripe marketing vehicles for brand marketers. Ensuring that stakeholders are aligned is the key to reaping the benefits of experiential activations. Integrating technology to build and engage a community that lasts beyond the event invites new audiences and fortifies event interest. Promoting the community alongside all stakeholders will ensure that event ROI is even more than the sum of its parts.
Musk’s revamped X network ushers in X Pro, formerly known as TweetDeck, behind its verified Twitter Blue tier.
The Gist
Transforming TweetDeck. Now a subscriber-only product called X Pro.
Pay to play. Users must be Twitter Blue verified.
X Pro view. Control multiple timeline columns in one interface.
In a move that could reshape the digital marketing landscape, Elon Musk’s revamped social network, X (previously Twitter), has unveiled its rebranded social media dashboard: X Pro, the successor to the well-loved TweetDeck. Long serving as the go-to platform for marketers juggling multiple brand and client accounts, X Pro is now ensconced behind a paywall, accessible exclusively to verified users of the platform.
The shift to a subscription model comes with its own set of perks, but at a price. Joining the “Twitter Blue” tier will set users back $8 monthly or $84 annually. In return, subscribers gain the coveted blue check mark, the power to edit tweets and a streamlined experience with prioritized rankings in conversations, searches and notably fewer ads.
For marketers, however, the key question remains: Will the benefits of X Pro justify its cost, or will they be forced to re-evaluate their social media management strategies?
From TweetDeck to X Pro: Will Marketers Embrace the Evolution?
TweetDeck served for years as a valuable tool for many marketers, with multiple account management capabilities, real-time monitoring and scheduled tweets — the collaborative platform also provided customizable columns to track specific hashtags, mentions, lists, keywords and the ability to perform competitor analysis.
Originally an independent app from 2009-2011, TweetDeck Ltd. was subsequently acquired by Twitter Inc. and integrated into Twitter’s interface, soon becoming one of the platforms’ most popular features — especially among marketers.
But the question remains, with the rebrand to X Pro, will the latest incarnation offer marketers even more?
What Can X Pro Offer Marketers?
In July, the company unveiled plans for a “new, improved version of TweetDeck.” However, they noted that access would be granted only to verified users, who were given a 30-day notice to secure their verification.
Mainly viewed as a name rebrand (as well as a new revenue source), the current features offered by TweetDeck are expected to remain with X Pro.
Among X Pro’s currently known features and facts:
All users will be able to continue to access their saved searches and workflows.
All saved searches, lists and columns will carry over and users will be prompted to import their columns when the application is loaded for the first time.
The platform supports full composer functionality, including Spaces, video docking, polls and more.
Teams functionality is temporarily unavailable but will be restored in the coming weeks.
And while X Pro is now offered as a paid service through Twitter Blue, verification does come with some perks. The subscription offers users a suite of enhanced capabilities, including sharing extended videos, the freedom to edit tweets within a 30-minute window, the option to retract tweets before they’re seen by others, the use of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) for profile imagery, and entry to the Spaces Tab, a hub for audio content.
As the digital world continually evolves, so do the tools that marketers rely on. X Pro’s transformation from the iconic TweetDeck signifies not just a name change, but a paradigm shift in how digital marketing tools are packaged and priced. While it brings a fusion of old (and possibly new) features, it’s evident that its success hinges on its value proposition to its core users — the marketers. As the dust settles on this transition, the digital marketing community waits with bated breath, poised to decide if X Pro is indeed the next frontier or a nostalgic nod to an era gone by.
Jennifer Torres, is a Florida-based journalist with more than two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics. Currently, Jennifer is a staff reporter at CMSWire, where she tackles subjects ranging from artificial intelligence and customer service & support to customer experience and user experience design. Jennifer is also the esteemed author of a collection of 10 mystery and suspense novels, and has formerly held the position of marketing officer at the prestigious Florida Institute of Technology. Connect with Jennifer Torres: X
Rachel Klaver is a marketing strategist, specialising in lead generation and content marketing.
OPINION: I’ve used buyer profiles in retail businesses before, but they have just as much merit when applied to a service-based business. I’m not sure why we seem to think humans will be any different depending on whether they are buying a vacuum cleaner or contracting a cleaner. In the end, your services are still products that humans are choosing to spend their money on.
There are nine key buyer profiles we can intentionally (and unintentionally) attract. No one is better than the other, but you and your business will fit some more than others. It’s a matter of being aware of who you’re attracting, who you are ignoring that you could attract, and who you have consciously decided to repel with your marketing and sales style.
I’m a big fan of using the marketing and sales process to help find your ideal clients, by showing them at the outset what your own business values and boundaries are for. A simple example of this is choosing to only email your prospects during work hours, if that’s what you have as a core way of working with your clients. For me, we do the vast majority of work via Zoom. This is why we also do our sales calls via Zoom too. If the person is uncomfortable with this, they may also be uncomfortable with working with us, too.
When I went through the nine buyer profiles I found several I don’t want to attract, and a few I’d like to do better in drawing in. Use this list, and mentally check against it what you could do in your marketing to help these types of people want to buy from your service-based business.
The Browser
For me, my whole marketing approach is to help the browser. I’ve got people on my email list who’ve been there for three years or more before becoming a client.
These curious individuals stumble upon our content, and while they may not be ready to make a purchase right away, we can capture their interest by infusing our content with personality and emotion.
It’s essential to let them get a real sense of who we are, to truly understand our voice and the way we do things. When they resonate with us, they’re more likely to choose us over our competitors who don’t evoke the same connection. These people will choose us because we consistently resonate with them. They didn’t find us when they were ready to buy. But as soon as they are, they’re coming to us (I often get people emailing me saying: “Love your content. Not ready for you yet, but I’m going to be one day!”).
The Bargain Hunter
In writing this I realised this was me. I’m definitely always sniffing around for a good deal. This is an issue because I also don’t believe we should be discounting our products and services to get the sale.
However, we can cater to these types of buyers without discount. We just need to provide great deals.
To grab their attention, we can offer them lower-cost options or limited-time promotions. For me, I’ve learned that by providing resources, workshops, or even my book, that they can engage with at a lower price point, they can get a taste of what we have to offer and develop a stronger connection with us.
I also use free content. I provide that with things like this column, my podcast, my email newsletter and my blogs. They get value, and then it’s my job to show them that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to working with me.
Showroomers
Showroomers are one type of buyer I’m starting to work harder to attract. I’m weirdly reluctant to share testimonials (of which I have hundreds) and feedback. I literally have to force myself to do it.
What I’ve learned is these types of buyers can take a while to make a decision but they are locked in once they decide, and they become incredible word-of-mouth referrers to others. For me, they are worth connecting with.
These savvy buyers are thorough researchers who want to know all the details before making a decision. Testimonials and feedback from other customers become crucial in gaining their trust.
Sharing testimonials that highlight the benefits and outcomes others have experienced can be a powerful tool in showcasing the value of our services. Testimonials help potential customers understand the benefits they can receive by working with us, and they serve as social proof of our expertise and credibility.
The “I’m on a mission”
These are also great clients, and again a section I’ve ignored in my marketing without realising it. Again this comes down to a reluctance to “show off” in my content. I’m working on this as I’m teaching my clients to become better at it, and I don’t like being a hypocrite as I do!
These individuals come prepared with a detailed checklist of requirements. To cater to their needs, we must clearly outline the features and benefits of our services.
It’s important to highlight what sets us apart and the specific outcomes they can expect to achieve.
Testimonials play a vital role here as well. They help potential customers envision the results they can achieve by working with us.
However, we don’t need to give them everything they want. It’s ok to have boundaries. I’ve encountered mission shoppers who requested to see strategies I’ve created for other clients. That’s a no from me, as it’s sharing someone else’s document, and also my intellectual property. It’s also often showing them the wrong part of the process, which is the completed document. The strength in my work is in the conversations we have to create it (which again is why I prefer to get them on a Zoom instead).
The Impulse Buyer
This might be a perfect fit for your business, but not for me, unless it’s a lower-cost product like a webinar, my book or a small course.
I often recommend service-based business owners don’t target this type of customer unless you’ve got one that solves a pain point that’s easily resolved, and you aren’t necessarily looking for a repeat purchase.
Impulse buyers make quick decisions based on their gut instincts or limited-time offers. To capture their attention, we can create enticing, low-cost options that allow them to experience a taste of what we offer.
If you’re going to target these buyers, having a chat on your website and being quick to respond to social media questions is key. These buyers want it right now.
The Chatties
I’ve got nothing against this type of buyer, but they aren’t a fit for my personality and business style. It’s not a “them” problem. It’s a me issue. I’ve got ADHD and love to talk. I can easily overshare, and add too much value in a sales call. I’ve had to learn to be pretty strong about moving people off phone calls and on to zooms that we’ve scheduled to prevent my entire week to be filled with chats with potential clients that often lead to nowhere. Boundaries are needed when it comes to me, clients and time.
Chatties are enthusiastic individuals who often seek free advice or consultations without genuine intentions of becoming paying customers. It’s crucial to set clear boundaries and protect our time and expertise.
This is also why I teach my clients to ditch the “discovery call” and rename it a “check the fit” call which has a higher sales intent. You may get less of them, but your conversion rate will go up.
Rather than offering endless free consultations, transitioning to structured sales meetings can guide them towards a more committed decision-making process. It’s an area where I’ve struggled in the past, as I genuinely enjoy helping people and can sometimes give away too much for free.
I’ve learned the importance of creating boundaries and directing these individuals to group interactions where others can benefit as well.
The Indecisive Shopper
Indecisive shoppers take their time when making purchasing decisions. They often have specific obstacles or objections that need addressing.
Patience, providing necessary information, and offering support are key in navigating the indecisiveness. It’s important to stay true to our values and clearly communicate the benefits of our services.
Addressing their objections and concerns while giving them the space they need to reach a decision is crucial.
I’ve learned that when faced with a money objection, it’s not merely about the cost but about the perceived value and trust that need to be established. Giving them time and ensuring they have all the information they need is incredibly important
I personally can find the key is to not over push, and allow them to take the time they need. Follow-up is key, but be wary of converting them before they are ready. It will cause you no end of pain as they stay indecisive as you work with them.
Unsplash
Indecisive shoppers take their time when making purchasing decisions. They often have specific obstacles or objections that need addressing. (file photo)
The Fully Educated
These buyers are slow to act, but when they do they come in hot. Educated buyers are well-informed individuals who have followed our content for years. They have done their research and have a deep understanding of what we offer.
Nurturing these relationships requires consistently providing valuable content through various channels. Our website should be clear and informative, while regular promotions and offers can keep them engaged and interested.
It’s important to provide actionable opportunities for them to take the next step in their journey with us. I normally recommend dedicating 10% to 20% of our content to serve these educated buyers is essential. They have invested time in us, and we should reciprocate by offering content that caters specifically to their needs.
The Loyal Customer
Service-based businesses can build a highly successful business by harnessing the magic of these types of buyers. They book and rebook with us, they tell others about us, and they always remember to pay.
Our loyal customers deserve our utmost appreciation. They have stuck with us through thick and thin, and they become our biggest advocates. Offering exclusive discounts, early access to new offerings, and free resources is a way to reward their loyalty.
These loyal customers often refer others to our business, and their support is invaluable. Recognising their loyalty and showing gratitude helps solidify our relationship and build long-lasting partnerships.
Understanding these nine buyer profiles allows us to tailor our marketing approach and connect with potential customers on a deeper level. By recognising the specific profiles that resonate with our business, we can identify areas where adjustments can be made in our marketing strategies to help talk to the best buyer types for our business model. It’s important to remember that patience, value, and consistency are key when engaging with different buyer profiles.
It’s absolutely fine to have several types that you don’t cater to. The key is to take the time to really think about which types work best for your business, then create content in your marketing that helps them get ready to buy. This can grow your business, without significantly changing what you are selling.
Feature Image Credit: Mark Taylor/Stuff
By Rachel Klaver
Rachel Klaver is a marketing strategist, specialising in lead generation and content marketing.
People-based marketing is a term that we hear regularly, but is often misunderstood. It’s a highly effective media buying strategy that has helped the ‘walled gardens’, including Google, Facebook, Instagram and increasingly TikTok, take a disproportionate amount of global advertiser spend in recent years.
So what is people-based marketing? A definition
People-based marketing enables brands to bring their own first party data, such offline and online CRM data, and match it with a publisher’s data so that they can deliver more effective personalized advertising. Many scaled premium publishers and broadcasters have been striving for years to match these capabilities that the walled gardens enjoy, but it’s only recently that they’re starting to see this become a reality.
People-based marketing has previously been touted by some as the sole answer to the cookie conundrum. But the reality is that no ‘silver bullet’ exists for the entire ecosystem to solve the removal of cookies. Instead, publishers need to employ an arsenal of solutions to overcome the loss of third party cookies and other signals. These include contextual targeting options, first party cookie-based audience segments, but increasingly, authenticated audiences are a vital asset to ensure they remain competitive. Authenticated audiences that power people-based marketing is a lucrative opportunity and must be considered an essential part of a publisher’s digital media toolkit moving forward.
Why should open web publishers prioritize people-based marketing?
Thanks to the ease and sophistication with which the walled gardens have enabled people-based marketing, many brands already have a solid understanding of its power. In fact, a disproportionate amount of ad spend has been diverted to the walled gardens as a result – an OpenX study found that 63% of UK ad budgets went towards logged-in environments, despite the fact that users spend more of their time on the open web.
Increasingly, however, brands have expressed strong interest in investing outside of the walled gardens. A survey conducted by LiveRamp earlier this year found that more than two thirds of UK brands are likely to increase their open web ad spend. Coupled with the rapid growth of retail media, whose people-based approach has fundamentally changed the landscape and is driving significant investment, many brands are rapidly evolving their media buying strategies to incorporate people-based marketing. So, the opportunity is there for publishers to emulate the success of digital retail media, and capture some of these growing ad budgets.
Take, for example, a major CPG brand who wants to reach all of their known “premium brand item” customers to promote a new product launch. In partnership with a leading retail media network, the CPG can identify those customers to personalize their campaign messaging. Previously, this budget would have gone straight into the social platforms via their “custom audiences” solutions, but now every publisher with authenticated audiences can take their share. This is a big win for the CPG. They’re no longer restricted to advertising on social media websites, they can run campaigns using different creative formats and ultimately reach their audience in more places than before.
With publishers facing increasing pressure to drive growth, they must focus on maximizing the value they are delivering for brands and ensure they have the tools to capture people-based marketing budgets. Those that fail to cater will continue to face revenue pressures and put at risk existing brand relationships.
How do publishers leverage people-based marketing?
An “authentication strategy” needs to be at the top of every premium publisher’s agenda in 2023. This strategy should identify the value exchange you create with your users to provide you with the data you need. While log-in is one method of authentication, there are plenty of routes that publishers can explore, such as newsletter click throughs, social media logins or commenting widgets. Every publisher is different, but every publisher has the opportunity to create a more personalized experience for their users.
Many publishers already have authenticated audiences today, but often believe they don’t have enough users that are logged-in, and thus have limited consented, first-party data to offer this type of targeting at a sufficient scale. Even if just 10% of your audience is authenticated, it’s highly likely that these are your most engaged users, and are probably generating in excess of 40% of your advertising inventory.
What are the strategies you can deploy to increase authentication? What is the value exchange you can create with your users? How will this also increase engagement of your users so that they spend more time on your site? Once a user authenticates, and provides the required consent, you have a great opportunity to increase your ad revenues whilst also improving the user experience.
A powerful tool in the publisher’s arsenal
By itself, people-based marketing is not a magic cure to the deprecation of third-party cookies. Nevertheless, while publishers must look at a range of options to maintain ad revenue, people-based marketing’s potential is not to be underestimated.
Brands across verticals are spending large amounts of budget on people-based marketing strategies and are open to exploring new relationships with partners that can offer the same authenticated, first-party data at scale. Those publishers who have already taken steps to optimize their authentication strategies, improving the value exchange with their users and leveraging addressable identity solutions, are reaping the rewards, including stronger bonds with their users and profitable partnerships with their brands.
Re-creating the success of the walled gardens before them, people-based marketing offers publishers an invaluable means of staying ahead in the privacy-centric future of digital advertising.
Local marketing aims to build a strong presence in the local market, increase brand visibility, attract local customers and drive traffic to physical stores.
The Gist
Geo-targeting essential. Social media offers geo-targeting for precise local advertising, increasing community engagement.
SEO optimization. “Near me” searches are frequent, making a Google Business Profile and mobile-first strategy critical.
Traditional Tactics. Traditional methods like radio and event presence alongside digital strategies amplify local marketing reach.
Local marketing refers to the strategies and activities that are used by businesses to target and engage with customers in a specific area or local community. It focuses on promoting products or services to customers within a particular region or area. Local marketing aims to build a strong presence in the local market, increase brand visibility, attract local customers and drive traffic to physical stores. This article will examine tactics, strategies and tips for brands interested in local marketing.
What Are Some of the Types of Local Marketing?
Many types of marketing practices are included under the umbrella of local marketing. One example is a brand that sells gift products that tourists often buy when they visit destinations such as the beach, the mountains or specific locations, such as the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls. In each case, businesses that sell such products simply reach out to companies near each locale to see if they would like to carry the brand’s tourist products in their stores. Additionally, they participate in Facebook Groups for each tourist destination.
Another example of local marketing is when businesses adjust the products or services they sell based on the tastes, habits, culture and beliefs of the people living in the area of the service. Such a business would also adjust the marketing or advertising copy to reflect the social norms of the people in the area. One can see examples of this in international brands that sell their goods or services across the globe to people with very different tastes, habits and beliefs.
Yet another example of local marketing is the use of geolocation apps that send customers a text message or alert when they are physically near a brand’s location, such as driving by in their car, walking past a store or restaurant, or strolling through a large store that has other businesses within its premises. One example would be a fast food restaurant in a Super Walmart. When a customer that has downloaded the restaurant’s app to their mobile device is in Walmart, the app sends an alert to the customer’s phone, letting them know that they are offering a two-for-one deal on Quarter Pounders, for instance.
Finally, many businesses operate exclusively as local brands. Buckeye Donuts, which is located in Columbus, Ohio, is not trying to market its goods to people in other states. Its marketing and advertising campaigns are mainly based on word-of-mouth, local advertising, radio, local periodicals and participation in community events.
How Are Brands Using Local Marketing?
Many brands today are using local marketing in their communities and around the world. One unique instance of local marketing involves a collaboration between Mattel and Airbnb. Initially launched in October 2019, Airbnb announced that the Barbie Malibu Dreamhouse, located in Malibu, California, would be available for rent by one lucky guest, who could bring along three guests of their own, for the low price of $60 per night. It was designed to raise awareness of The Barbie Dream Gap Project GoFundMe initiative, which aims to help level the playing field for young women so they can follow their dreams.
We recently looked at another excellent example of a brand’s use of local marketing in an article on cultural intelligence. McDonald’s demonstrated the importance of adapting to different cultures in its marketing practices, product offerings and even its pricing. In India, where religious prohibitions prevent adherents from eating beef, McDonald’s introduced vegetarian options and replaced beef patties with mutton, chicken or fish.
In Thailand, where the minimum wage is much lower than in other parts of the world, McDonald’s lowered the cost of its Big Mac to approximately US $2.20 (contrasted to Switzerland, where Big Macs sold for around US $6.20). In order to adapt to local culture in China, McDonald’s offered rice as a french fry alternative.
Additionally, McDonald’s uses different media personalities and influencers to promote its brand based on the cultural tastes of the locale. Its ability to adapt and change its products, marketing practices, pricing and advertising strategies to suit different geographical and sociological differences is a good indication of why it has become a hugely successful global brand.
Often, local marketing is not about reaching customers in their locale, but rather, bringing them to the brand through community building. The US Sports Network, Bally Sports, was interested in finding a better strategy to understand and engage its local fan base through the use of third-party data, but very quickly this became extremely costly. Instead, Bally turned to its online customer community, FanZone. This inclusive online community became the place where Bally’s diverse fans could get together with other fans, share their thoughts and experience a feeling of belonging.
Using its FanZone community, Bally Sports enhanced and improved its ability to connect with regional fans in new and unique ways. It obtained on-demand feedback from customers, enabling them to gain a deeper understanding of its audience’s preferences and doubling its fan community through targeted live on-air promotion efforts.
Use Social Media for Local Marketing
Most brands today have a social media presence, but for local marketing, social media is a necessity rather than an option. The benefits of social media for local marketing include:
Geo-Targeting: Many social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, offer geo-targeting features for advertising. This enables businesses to target users in a particular location or radius specifically.
Local Engagement: Social media enables local businesses to engage directly with their community. Businesses can foster a sense of community and build local loyalty by sharing local news, participating in local events or spotlighting community members.
Cost-Effectiveness: Social media can be cost-effective compared to traditional advertising channels like TV or print. Businesses can start with a small budget and scale up based on results.
Real-Time Feedback: Local businesses can receive immediate feedback from their community. This can be invaluable for understanding the needs and preferences of local customers.
Word-of-Mouth Amplification: Satisfied customers can easily share their experiences and recommendations, resulting in word-of-mouth marketing.
Versatility: Social media provides a platform for various content types, from videos to images to stories, enabling businesses to be creative and diverse in their messaging.
Aside from advertising on social media and regularly contributing appropriate content, many brands use the community aspects of social media to engage with and attract customers. Ashley Mason, marketing consultant and founder of Dash of Social, a social media management consultancy, told CMSWire that she built the client base for her business through the use of Facebook groups.
“For me, as a Massachusetts resident, I started joining several Boston-based Facebook groups revolving around entrepreneurship, business, etc. in 2016,” said Mason. “Because many members in these groups were often business owners looking to hire social media managers or marketers for their companies, I was able to use these communities to my advantage to establish thought leadership, build trust, gather leads, and grow my business.”
Mason attributes much of her revenue to Facebook groups and wrote about her success on Instagram. “Approximately $630,000 of my total business revenue came from Facebook groups, either by working with people who were in the same Facebook groups as me, or getting referred to other businesses by people I met in those Facebook groups.”
Optimize SEO for “Near Me” Local Searches
Consumers today often search for local businesses by using the phrase “near me.” In fact, a 2022 Statista survey revealed that 82% of US consumers who used their smartphone to shop had used near me searches.
Local businesses trying to increase their online presence and show up more often in near me searches should create a Google Business Profile. It’s free, and once a business has been verified, it will appear in near me search results. The name, address and phone number displayed on a brand’s Google Business Profile should match what is displayed on the brand’s website and any promotional material.
A 2023 BroadbandSearch report indicated that 54.4% of web traffic was conducted on mobile devices (compared to 0.7% in 2009). Additionally, a recent Hubspot report revealed that local searches are what lead 50% of mobile users to visit stores within 24 hours. Brands today should create their website with a mobile-first strategy, optimizing for mobile devices as a priority, rather than optimizing for desktop displays.
Amy Jennette, senior director of brand marketing at the popular web host GoDaddy, told CMSWire that ensuring your website is mobile-friendly is a key part of the equation. “Consumers want information on the go, so double check that your site has mobile-friendly text, menus, forms, and buttons that make it simple for your audience to browse site information on the go.”
Jennette said that businesses should localize their website to make the content relevant to their target community. “For example, if I was the owner of an electric bicycle shop in my hometown of Seattle, I may rephrase the terms on my website’s homepage to say, ‘bringing our community the greenest bikes for a greener Seattle’ rather than simply putting ‘electric bike shop.’ And this moves beyond just your website —localizing your marketing should be applied across your digital and print ads, social media pages, and other public marketing materials,” said Jennette, who added that these simple tweaks could make a major difference for your audience as they research online local businesses that best fit their needs.
Leverage Traditional and Non-Traditional Advertising
Local marketing often relies on more traditional methods of obtaining the eyes and ears of customers and leads, such as TV and radio advertising, having a visible presence at local events, word-of-mouth, billboards and collaborations with other local businesses. “Whenever possible, join in on local industry-specific events, fairs and festivals, and neighborhood gatherings to boost your brand awareness, show off your locality, and further press the importance of supporting small, local businesses,” said Jennette. “In no time you’ll be the local authority in your industry, and you’ll have the local marketing tools in your toolbelt to thank for it.”
Other brands are using local marketing strategies that include digital displays located in areas where potential customers will see them. Geoff Crain, senior director of sales and marketing at Kingstar Media, a digital marketing and video production agency, told CMSWire that his business uses digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising for local marketing due to its ability to target local audiences precisely, deliver contextually relevant content and allow real-time updates. “By strategically placing digital displays in specific locations, we have the ability to reach specific and local communities effectively,” said Crain.
“DOOH also allows for dynamic and tailored messaging, incorporating local references and promotions to establish a deeper connection with the local community.” Crain explained that the real-time capabilities of DOOH enable businesses to adapt campaigns quickly, providing timely and accurate information to their desired local audience, enhancing engagement, and driving positive business outcomes in specific local markets.
Traditional marketing and advertising mediums can still be effective strategies for local businesses. Although many may not recognize radio’s reach today, a recent Statista report indicated that radio is one of the most powerful mediums in the United States, with a weekly reach of around 82.5% among adults, and 78% of those under 18. “Radio is another form of media we utilize for local marketing due to its ability to reach a wide and diverse audience within a specific geographical area,” said Crain. “With radio, we can effectively target local audiences, delivering our advertising messages directly to potential customers in their communities.”
Mobility is another benefit of radio advertising. “Radio also offers the advantage of being a mobile medium, reaching consumers in their cars, homes, or workplaces, allowing our clients to stay memorable and top-of-mind throughout the day,” said Crain. “Radio also allows for the creation of engaging and memorable audio content, leveraging the power of storytelling, music, and personalities to connect with the local audience on an emotional level, making it an impactful and cost-effective medium for local marketing.”
Final Thoughts on Local Marketing
Local marketing provides brands with the unique opportunity to intimately connect with their surrounding community, addressing its distinct tastes, cultures and preferences. By using a blend of traditional and digital strategies, from SEO and mobile optimization and social media engagement to radio advertising and participation in community events, businesses can effectively bolster their local presence.
Scott Clark is a seasoned journalist based in Columbus, Ohio, who has made a name for himself covering the ever-evolving landscape of customer experience, marketing and technology. He has over 20 years of experience covering Information Technology and 27 years as a web developer. His coverage ranges across customer experience, AI, social media marketing, voice of customer, diversity & inclusion and more. Scott is a strong advocate for customer experience and corporate responsibility, bringing together statistics, facts, and insights from leading thought leaders to provide informative and thought-provoking articles. Connect with Scott Clark:
Retail stores have always faced the challenge of attracting and retaining customers. This challenge has become even more difficult in a world of increasing competition and evolving technology, making it even more important that businesses find ways to entice new customers and show existing ones they are the best choice.
In my experience within the industry, retail stores have to continuously strive to attract and retain customers. Achieving this requires investing in marketing, advertising, and customer service initiatives. With that in mind, here are six steps any retailer can use to market their independent business.
1. Establish brand recognition.
In my experience, the success of any business depends on its ability to establish a recognizable brand. Part of this process involves creating a memorable name, logo and slogan that help customers recognize and remember your brand. The logo should be easy to recognize and have an eye-catching design. Many studies have shown that the most memorable logos have a simple design.
It’s important to not overthink the logo’s design but also to ensure that it stands out and targets your audience. One way to do this is to conduct market research to understand your target audience’s preferences and design a logo that reflects your brand’s personality and values.
A slogan can also help to differentiate your brand from its competitors and create a memorable impression with customers. Aim to create a slogan that is concise, catchy, meaningful, easy to remember and embodies the business’s core values.
2. Market on social media and search engine advertising campaigns.
Once the logo and slogan are created, the next step is implementing social media campaigns to generate more awareness about the brand. You can create ads that appear when people search for certain products or services. This can help merchants get more leads and increase sales.
I recommend utilizing various social media platforms to reach a wider audience, although your messaging should resonate with your target audience the most. Consider using platforms such as Google Ads and Bing Ads, as these campaigns allow you to target specific keywords and demographics to ensure your ads reach the right people.
Other online marketing strategies include email marketing campaigns and working with influencers. Combining these strategies can help you create an even more effective online presence and increase your brand’s visibility.
3. Create promotions to attract customers.
Another effective strategy is to create promotions to attract customers to a business’s products and services. Promotions should be tailored to your target audience and designed to be engaging and attention-grabbing. Consider using BOGO, free shipping, free samples, coupons, flash sales and giveaways; I have found that these tactics can do a lot to increase customer engagement and drive sales.
Most people love savings and discounts, so offering promotions and exclusive deals can be a great way to attract and retain customers. Additionally, providing exceptional customer service and personalized experiences can also help you build strong relationships with consumers and encourage repeat business.
4. Build a loyalty program.
An effective loyalty program encourages loyalty by rewarding customers for their repeat purchases. This can also help your brand build long-term relationships with your customer base, giving them a sense of belonging.
Loyalty programs can include a variety of incentives, such as discounts, rewards points and even access to exclusive events. These programs encourage customers to continue purchasing from your brand, but they also provide valuable data on customer behaviour and preferences to help make more informed decisions about future marketing efforts. Many brands use a point-of-sale (POS) system that facilitates the creation and maintenance of loyalty program memberships by automatically tracking the customer’s purchases and issuing rewards at checkout.
5. Advertise at the point of purchase.
A point-of-purchase (POP) display can target potential customers already in the store. Placing ads at the checkout counter can quickly grab customers’ attention, leading them to consider a product they may not have thought of before.
POP advertising can take many forms, including displays, posters, signage and other digital media. Additionally, many retailers will use POP advertising to promote special offers, such as discounts or coupons. These ads can inform customers about new products, promote loyalty programs.
6. Analyse what works best for your customers.
Data analytics can be used to track customer purchases, in-store traffic and website visits. The store can use this data to determine which marketing strategies are most successful. This can include tracking the effectiveness of email campaigns, print advertising, social media and even word-of-mouth. With this data, you can focus your store’s marketing efforts on strategies that are proven to be effective, thus ensuring a better return on investment.
Additionally, you can survey customers to determine what motivated them to shop. Do your customers favour particular brands over their generic counterparts? Do they make choices based on impulsive or emotional needs, such as buying the latest trends and fashions? Pay close attention to what they say, then use this information to tailor your services and products to better meet their needs.
Overall, independent retail stores must continuously strive to attract and retain customers in today’s landscape. I encourage you to invest in marketing, advertising and customer service initiatives and stay up-to-date on the latest trends. Continuously improving and adapting to the changing market can help you ensure long-term success and growth for your business.
Social media marketing can be cost-effective when you pick platforms suited to your business and consistently deliver messages that engage your target audience.
Social media marketing, a type of digital marketing, uses social media platforms to deliver online content to a business’s target audiences. Content is generally designed to build brand awareness and promote products or services, but it can also help a business increase visitors to its website and gather information about followers that can be used in email marketing and other campaigns.
Social media marketing allows you to engage in a more direct way with your target audience, even in one-on-one conversations in some instances. It can be less expensive than other forms of marketing, but it’s also highly competitive due to continuous streams of social posts vying for the attention of consumers. Creating an intentional social media marketing strategy can help you maximize your efforts and improve your return on investment.
How to create a social media marketing strategy
Social media marketing works like other forms of marketing as far as defining goals, identifying a target audience and creating content. However, to keep an active social media presence, a business will need to post regularly on their platforms of choice and regularly monitor brand mentions and customer comments.
Determine your social media marketing goals
Plotting out your goals from the outset will help guide you in the other decisions you’ll need to make, such as which social media platforms to use and the type of content to post.
Here are some general goals that are common to social media marketing:
Increase brand awareness.
Gain customer insights.
Increase sales.
Develop leads.
Increase website traffic.
Respond to customer complaints.
Retarget visitors to your website who don’t make purchases.
Get followers to share your content on promotional events.
Draw attention to a charity or non-profit organization you support.
When possible, be specific when setting goals, but also keep in mind that the success of some of your efforts may be hard to document. For example, it can be more difficult to measure an increase in brand awareness, but the goal of higher website traffic can be documented through marketing tools such as Google Analytics.
Define your target audience
Knowing your customers is important to any marketing effort. Customer information, such as interests, buying behaviors, pain points and demographic details like age, gender and annual income, can help you create content that will interest your target audience.
Also, demographic details may influence your choice of social media platforms. For example, if your target audience is primarily women, you may want to market on a platform that has a higher percentage of women than men. Or, if your target audience is younger, you may want to use a platform that is popular with that age group.
However, with daily users numbering in the millions on many popular platforms, your target audience may be well represented on any platform. Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram are a few of the platforms that offer audience insights tools you can use to learn about the people using the platform. Talking directly to your customers about which platforms they frequent most can also help inform your social media strategy.
Pick your social media platforms
You may choose to target even more niche social platforms based on your type of business and customers, but here are some of the most popular and how they’re used:
Facebook: Text, image and video sharing. A Facebook business page can provide important information about your business and build community.
YouTube: Video sharing.
Twitter: This social networking platform is mostly used for text-based Tweets, but you can also incorporate images, videos and GIFs.
Instagram: Photo and video sharing.
TikTok: Video sharing. Compared to YouTube, this is best for shorter videos.
Pinterest: Image sharing.
LinkedIn: A professional networking platform, LinkedIn is primarily used to market to businesses rather than consumers, or to increase brand awareness by participating in industry-specific forums.
Snapchat. Instant messaging, image and video platform.
Reddit: Forum-style discussions.
Assess your content needs
The type of content you’ll post on social media will depend on your business, goals and which platforms you’re using. It can range from promotional to educational and should reflect the human characteristics and voice that best define your brand, or your brand personality. For example, if your business sells outdoor gear, your brand personality might be rugged and adventurous. Or, if your business sells products and services for small children, your brand personality might be playful but nurturing.
Social media content can include text, images and videos. You may also be able to link to other content you’ve created such as articles, blogs, e-books and videos. Depending on the platform, there may be limits to what can be included in posts. For example, on Twitter, a Tweet can contain up to 280 characters plus up to four images, videos and/or GIFs.
Your social media marketing efforts might also include the use of digital ads on multiple social media platforms and search engines such as Google and Bing. Each platform will have its own requirements for ads and typically offer content recommendations. For example, YouTube offers step-by-step instructions on creating video ads, with pre-made templates and other tools.
Post consistently
Posting consistently is an important factor in successfully promoting your business on social media. Each business’s posting cadence, whether it’s daily, a few times a week or weekly, will depend on its goals and audience. You’ll also want to factor in the time it takes to produce quality content — a video or high-quality photos may take longer than a text-only Tweet, for instance.
Creating a posting schedule can help your business post consistently — and marketing software can help automate the process. While you can post the same content on all your platforms, it’s better to customize the content for the audience of each individual platform. Plus, as discussed, each platform has unique requirements for postings.
Posting regularly can help a business to:
Increase brand authority, credibility and reputation.
Build followers.
Gain familiarity with the platforms and tools.
Establish its brand voice.
Improve content rankings on platform feeds.
Support paid advertising efforts.
Monitor mentions and respond quickly
It’s important to monitor the mentions of your brand and comments made on your posts. Customers frequently take to a business’s social media when they have customer service questions or complaints. In those instances, responding quickly and positively is key, but aim to resolve the issue privately, by encouraging them to direct message or email your business.
Monitoring mentions — and encouraging customers to post about your business (while tagging your account) — can also help you identify brand advocates and gather user-generated content to repost, which can ease the burden of content creation.
It may take months before you see noticeable progress toward your marketing goals, but social media management tools like Hootsuite, Zoho Social and Buffer can help you monitor your content as well as help with posting, scheduling and measuring results.
