Is your inbox feeling a little crowded? I know many entrepreneurs feel this way so they decide that emailing their subscribers less frequently (or not at all) is the best course of action.
It can happen to even the most experienced marketing professionals. Your carefully-planned campaign didn’t perform as you had hoped – or worse, it was a total flop. All the time and effort you put into your initiative seems to have been in vain. Was the timing off? Was the message incorrect?
Digital marketing is one of the most effective ways for companies to market their services, generate leads and grow sales. But it can also present challenges to entrepreneurs and businesses due to the ever-changing nature of search engines and other websites.
Marketing campaigns that are precise and highly targeted yield the best results. But how can you generate results if you don’t know who to target? No matter what you’re selling, you’re always selling to people, which is why every company benefits from the creation of at least one client persona.
Client personas (or buyer personas) are the foundation of your marketing efforts. Without them, you won’t know what to say or what platforms to leverage. Client personas can drive real results for your brand when they are carefully crafted and used consistently.
A client persona is a semi-fictional, written representation of your ideal customer. It’s not meant to detail one specific person but is reflective of the group of people it represents. These descriptions are typically developed from customer insights and market research.
Because many organizations have more than one ideal customer, it’s common to group buyers into categories and develop several personas.
Creating and using your personas helps ensure you implement successful, laser-focused marketing campaigns. The “one-size-fits-all” approach rarely works. And you’ll waste a lot of time and resources in the process. Building a campaign with detailed personas ensures the right people are seeing your message which means you are more likely to convert qualified leads.
Here are a few additional benefits:
It is important to include as much details as possible. Each client persona should include details such as:
Ultimately, the goal is to create client personas for each of your main target markets so that it will be easier for you to understand their needs. This approach simplifies the marketing process because you can speak directly to each persona by utilizing your knowledge of the things that are most important to them.
Pro Tip: While your personas should be developed from data and customer insights, sometimes you’ll make edcucated guesses based on what you know.
My advice: start with your existing clients. Take a long, hard look at the people you already do business with. Even among a diverse group of clients, you’ll probably start to recognize similarities that can be used to describe your market.
A client persona doesn’t have to be perfect the first time. If it brings clarity and focus to your marketing, then it’s working.
You need to consistently reference each client persona to ensure your marketing campaigns communicate the right message and leverage the right tools – by tools I mean blogs, videos, news releases, social posts, etc. Consider that campaigns targeting a millennial customer will be very different from those aimed at their baby boomer parents.
Following this framework will allow you to get the most of your marketing budget and ensure that you achieve measurable results. And remember, you will revise your personas as you collect more information about your best clients and as your company evolves.
Have more questions about client personas? Reach out to us directly.
Editor’s Note: This article was last updated in August 2021.
Businesses currently exist in an environment that is driven by two things: Visibility and internet traffic. These elements are necessary for generating leads and moving merchandise.
Automated emails are one of the best methods to nurture leads and convert them into paying customers. When you have an effective email campaign that provides significant amounts of value to those who follow your content, your organization can generate revenue with minimal ongoing effort.
As the world becomes more and more digital in its communication, marketing campaigns utilize a set of metrics that are much more trackable and manageable than they ever were.
What makes marketing so challenging?
Trying to keep-up with the tools, technology and the limited attention span of your target market are all challenging. Get our tips on how to grow leads and revenue, delivered directly to your inbox.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a complex, ever-changing subset of digital marketing that continues to grow in importance. The methods for improving a website’s visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs) range from technical to creative, and they work in tandem to create a positive site experience and encourage repeat visits.
While successful SEO requires extensive knowledge of how search engines work, there are several basic concepts that every CMO or VP of Marketing should understand to quickly evaluate their current situation and understand where there’s room for improvement.
This is the technical side of SEO and much of what we’re talking about in this category occurs “behind the scenes” on a website. But make no mistake, coding for SEO is vital. This is by no means an all-encompassing list, but these are definitely items you want to pay attention to.
Search Engine-Friendly URLs: URLs should be easily understood by humans and search engines. Keep things clean and nest pages in a manner that makes sense.
Meta Data: Basic meta data includes titles, descriptions and links. These elements should include relevant keywords but be mindful not to go overboard.
Redirects: Search engines don’t like duplicate content. You can use several different types of redirects to tell them which pages to look at.
Page Speed: Page speed is a ranking factor and the faster the better. Website visitors have little patience for a page that takes forever to load. Optimize code by removing unnecessary characters.
Cross-Device Compatibility: This refers to mobile-friendly websites which are now a priority for Google and their “mobile first” mindset.
Properly Tagged Images: Properly tagging images helps when an image fails to load for any reason. The user will see what the image is supposed to be with what’s known as “alt text.”
XML Sitemap: This is different from a user-facing sitemap. The XML sitemap is specifically for Google and helps identify the most essential website pages.
Content is still one of the best ways to show search engines that your site is relevant for a given topic.
Do you regularly publish helpful articles? Do you write content that your target market is actively searching for?
Original content typically includes blog articles, case studies, podcasts, videos or white papers. When you create thought-leadership style content for a specific topic, you demonstrate to search engines why your website is relevant. Here are a few tips to consider:
Experiment With Long-Form Content: These articles can be 1,500+ words in length.
Repurpose Old Content: Rather than reinvent the wheel, update an older article to reflect any recent industry changes.
Publish Transcripts: Video and podcasts are very popular, and the transcripts are a great way to add additional content to your site.
While some SEO professionals are placing less emphasis on keywords, we still believe they matter. Optimizing a website inherently involves keywords and keyword research.
Use a Reputable Tool for Research: Moz Pro and SEM Rush are two of our favorite tools.
One Word or Phrase Per Page: Avoid watering down SEO efforts. Remain focused by optimizing each page for one word or phrase.
Don’t go Overboard: Use the keyword a few times, ideally in the meta data and sprinkled throughout the content.
If you follow the best practices with website code and content, you’ll be well on your way to providing a positive user experience (UX) for site visitors. But it’s worth calling out UX as a separate objective because this goes beyond the technical components of a site.
UX involves thinking through every touchpoint that makes up the overall experience on a website. Graphic design is part of this, but at its core, UX involves understanding the user’s needs and objectives and creating a site that solves problems. Some initial questions to consider include:
Although links have become less important over the last few years, they still hold value. The easiest links to secure are typically directory listings. The most worthwhile directory listings are ones that relate to your industry niche. We suggest Moz Local as a place to start. Then explore industry specific directories like Avvo for attorneys or HomeAdvisor for contractors.
Have more questions about how to use search engine optimization to improve visibility? Contact us today for more information.
Editor’s Note: This article was last updated in March 2021.
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A well-rounded digital marketing strategy includes many elements. From paid advertisements to organic search engine marketing, your brand needs to be present and visible on numerous channels. However, there is an underlying component that fuels it all: content.
What makes marketing so challenging?
Trying to keep-up with the tools, technology and the limited attention span of your target market are all challenging. Get our tips on how to grow leads and revenue, delivered directly to your inbox.
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