A successful digital marketing strategy in Somers Point doesn’t just write itself. And it’s definitely not based on guesswork. Effective campaigns all share one thing in common: They are laser focused on their audience.

Now’s the time to ask: is your marketing campaign audience-focused, or is it all about you and your offer?

We’ve developed a simple but effective strategy to create successful, audience-focused marketing campaigns. Here’s the rundown to help put you in the right state of mind.

Research Your Market for the Why

Motivators

Research your market to find out what drives them to make a purchase or pay for a service. In other words, identify your buyer’s primary motivators.

Typically, these motivators fall into three broad categories:

1. Benefit – A buyer will purchase for growth, for market expansion, for acquisition, or for personal growth. When motivated by benefit, a buyer is in a “feel good” state and is moved to buy in order to feel even better.
2. Fear – This can range from fear of missing out (limited time only!) to fear of a catastrophe (car insurance). Real or imagined, fear may be the most powerful motivation category.
3. Logic – Arguably the weakest of the three, the motivation of logic simply uses the “better buy” as the deciding factor. Greater deal, higher value- these buzz words trigger a logic-driven consumer.

Pain Points

Pain points are the problems that drive your buyer to purchase your product or service. The goal here is to find out what your customers need, and then position your product or service to fulfill that need.

To get your market’s pain points, you can:

• Talk to your sales team or your customer service team.
• Use online forms to gather information.
• Read industry media and publications.
• Read social media and forums for insights.
• Always listen to your buyers.

Emotional Desires

Emotional desires are deep-seated longings that all humans share. Because these desires are often subconscious, they are very powerful and effective motivators. If you can tie your market’s emotion to your product or service, you have a powerful marketing message.

Identify these 7 common emotional triggers in your audience:

1. Fear
2. Value
3. Guilt
4. Trust
5. Competition
6. Belonging
7. Time

 Demographics

Demographics help segment your market for better targeting.

The most important demographics you want to know about your market are:

• Age
• Gender
• Income Level
• Race
• Ethnicity

Gather this data with a quick Google search, and bookmark the tab once you’re done. Demographics can give you key information in your research to segment your market for ultra-specific targeting.

Develop a Convincing Buyer Persona

Now that you have your data, it’s time to sketch out your ideal buyer. Create a Buyer Persona, which is a specific picture of your average ideal buyer. Be sure to make a story-based persona by giving him or her an identity: a photo, a name, and even a “day-in-the-life” story. You want to create a convincingly authentic buyer who could sit down and have a conversation with you.

And don’t just limit yourself to one. You might have two very different buyer personas that are both on track with who you want to be marketing to.

“Business-Owner Bob, 30-45, minority male, 250k, suburbs, married, young children.”

“Coffee Shop Claire, 18-30, white female, 30-45k, college age, urban, single, hourly wage worker.”

This is how you familiarize yourself with a buyer who is living a story — a story that you want to be part of. And your product or service must have a specific place in that story in order to make them buy.

Research Your Keywords

Refer very closely to your Buyer Persona(s) during the process of keyword research. You want to identify keywords and phrases that your buyer will use when searching online (or by mobile) for your product or service. Within your persona’s story, you will find clues to keywords that you may not find in your typical research of the industry.

Moz.com has a great article on keyword research where they explain how the right keywords actually qualify your leads. While you want to draw increased traffic to your website, you really want increased qualified traffic. Identifying the keywords that are most important to your buyers will qualify your traffic and improve your leads.

Create a Compelling Offer

Now that you’ve increased your qualified website traffic, let me introduce you to the Buyer’s Journey. Every buyer travels the same basic road to the sale, although the road can differ in each industry. Crafting compelling offers that align with the stops on their route enhances your chances of making a sale.

The Buyer’s Journey consists of three stages.

1. Awareness – The buyer may or may not be aware that they need your product or service. Develop their interest at this stage by increasing their awareness through valuable, targeted content. Move them to consider your offer.
2. Consideration – At this point, the buyer is aware of the need and is researching your product along with competitors’ products. Buyer motivations are extremely important here to move the buyer into the final stage.
3. Decision – The buyer now makes the decision based on the research done in the Consideration Stage. The decision-making step must be effortless and logical for the customer. Evaluation immediately ensues once the purchase is made.

Using your story-based Buyer Persona, map out your buyer’s specific journey. Focus on the motivations and keywords from your research to craft an offer specifically tailored for your persona. You now have a targeted campaign developed solely from information you learned about your audience.

Focus on Your Audience and to drastically improve your digital marketing strategy in Somers Point!

Take the time to do the research, and if you need help, give us a call. We’ll lay out every step you need to create successful digital marketing strategy and launch a campaign that will grow your business and boost your bottom line.

Hey – Don’t forget to follow all six steps to a successful digital marketing strategy!