How To Connect With Your Audience
&
Grow Sales
Marketing
Keep Consumers In Mind; Create An Experiences To Be Remembered
Lead Your Customers Down A Journey Of Brand Awareness & Discovery
“It’s all about the journey and not the destination”
As we’ve said before
“What consumers want from brands is a personalized experience, one that mirrors the way they interact with peers, family and friends.”
But most brands and marketers fail to deliver. They’re TOO focused on the end goal and not enough on how they’ll get there. Then, when they don’t achieve those goals they’re left wondering why.
It’s because they focused on the final metrics, and not enough on all the small scale metrics that lead up to the end goals – inevitably treating their consumers as just a means for an end (money, sales, viewership). Ultimately they fail to look at their consumers as what they are – people. The very people who will carry your company / brand and get you to where you want to go.
Marketing Is All About Connecting With Your Audience
And Should Always Start With Brand Awareness
This is your introduction to your audience (outreach). As stated, people will almost never buy from a brand they don’t know.
So those “buy from me” type of ads will never work straight out the gate….save them for later… You’re thinking too small….
Look at the bigger companies, the ones leading the industry. You almost never see a “buy from me” type of ad, instead they focus on informing the public. Introducing them to the product, showing it off and it’s capabilities, putting it in front of their face, and giving you a chance to experience it.
With the age of social media we have become too accustom to wanting everything now – that even goes for brands and wanting sales. Too often is the road to those sales skipped, many marketers and brands take the short cut and go straight for the sales. What if we told you going back to the journey it takes to get there will increase ROI and lead to many more conversions in the long run?
Well it’s true. Engaging with your refined target audience and starting with brand awareness is the key many people lack. That’s why the door leading to where you want to be has never been opened.
Start with brand awareness. Show people who you are, don’t tell them. People are already hard wired to think companies will lie to them and make themselves sound better than what they are. That’s why telling them about yourself will never work. Instead, showing them exactly what you are is giving them all the information they need while also allowing them to form their own opinions on you that will stick for life (brand equity – the public’s perceived opinion on you).
Present them with what you are and allow them put together the pieces of the master puzzle. This can be accomplished through events, appearances, sponsorships, strategic brand placement, aligning yourself with relevant causes to your audience, and of course digital marketing – advertisements, promos, videos, your imagery, how you use your social channels, etc. It all boils down to how you engage with your audience. Go down this road first and converting your loyal audience into consumers will be an easy task.
Don’t Look At Your Consumers As A Means To An End. Focus On The Consumer Journey
Your refined target audience (going back to this post) doesn’t want to be sold to (yet). They want to feel like they’re making a decision of buying from you.
There’s a big difference between being sold to and buying from.
Remember that.
You need to engage your consumer and get them familiar with your brand to the point where they become a fan. How many times have you said “[blank] is my favorite brand / store / channel”.
When something is your favorite that means you like what they provide you with, what they do for you, and how they keep you engaged. Psychologically, you have no problem buying from something you love; of which love turns into trust.
How To Give Your Audience An Experience
How to Connect With Your Audience
Provide people with something free first (knowledge & content) and they’ll be more inclined to pay for what you have later.
Treat your audience like they’re your friend, talk with them on a daily basis.
Give them content and knowledgable information they can use – information they’re already searching for.
Give them consumable content related to your market.
You have to show your audience that you are a leading source (an expert) within your field so that they can trust you and eventually buy from you. From there, you have to become their favorite source for the type of content you put out.
Let’s look at it in terms of a specific industry
For real estate agents looking for new houses to list: formulate your social media pages and posts around information that people trying to sell their house will be interested in. Such as “how to sell your house fast”, “how to raise market value” etc.
Show them your expertise and they’ll eventually trust you to sell their house.
The one thing about engaging with your audience is – you have to keep them engaged. This means you have attain and hold onto their interest. You have many forms of content in your arsenal to keep your target audience engaged: blog posts, videos, check lists, pdfs, e-books, images, infographics, podcasts, Q&As, discussions, presentations, webinars, etc. Going a step further, utilize all the features allocated to you (such as live videos). The point is to always retain your audience’s attention.
Forming A Content Schedule
It’s not even as hard as you think, just formulate an editorial schedule and stick to it (calendar planning).
For example, sticking to the real estate agent field, I’m sure you get asked the same 20 questions every day. Day in and day out you hear the same questions – they might just be worded differently but always require the same answer.
So you can post an answer to these regularly asked questions once a day in status updates. Once you hit day 20 you can then switch over to a congregated post encompassing all these questions in the form of an infographic. A week later you can record a video about these same questions diving into deeper detail. Then you can host a live Q&A. From there, a spin these questions into a webinar and then a downloadable pdf on the topic.
This is what you call repurposing content. Using the original post and spinning it into different formats over days, weeks, or even months and fully flushing out your content schedule. All the while, generating trust, showing your expertise over your given market, and growing your email list / potential leads.
This is how you give your audience an experience!
- They find your company
- You give them needed information while keeping them entertained
- You lead them back to your website (if your aim was to grow web traffic)
- Provide them with more content
- Present them with information and an experience they don’t want to miss (growing your email list)
- Hold conversations with them and get to know them.
- Then once you’ve finally gained their trust – you go for a sale.
They’re either ready to “buy” now or not quite there yet; but regardless – they ARE searching online. It’s the quickest way to get the information when you need it. So why wouldn’t you want to become the source for the answers they need when they need them? The content source that feeds the hunger of their interests?
This is why you need to worry more on the how (how to get there) and not the what (where you want to go). This is exactly what marketing and content marketing is all about – giving your audience an experience. Giving them value rather than shouting a marketing message at them.
Ending Note:
Get Your Consumers To Love You
It’s more than just finding your refined target audience, it’s keeping them engaged time after time to where they look forward for what you have to put out.
That’s what social media is suppose to be, a platform to keep in-touch with your audience. The same way we as humans use it to keep in touch with family and friends. Use social media as a means to connect with your audience and become a “friend” to them. Don’t ignore them and use it as a mens to make a sell. Instead use social media as a way to keep in touch with your audience so they don’t forget you, keep them engaged, and keep them in conversation to the point where your name is always at the tip of their lips.
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