Right time, right place
You wanna be where the people are.
All of marketing is about reaching the right audience. Being where your customers are is about relevance and timing, and in a cross-device world, getting context right requires a new set of tools and a new way of thinking.
Most businesses that are stopped by a growth ceiling use a “dart-board” approach to marketing; throw some targeted efforts at the wall and hope that something sticks.
And while any effort is better than no effort, without methodology, those businesses are most likely losing both time and money, stunting their growth potential in the process.
There is proven, scalable, trackable strategy to chasing down leads [the “right” people] and cultivating loyal customers.
Maximizing “the funnel.”
Once you have the right framework in place to support your marketing efforts (you have a website, digital framework, snazzy product, and PR team in place), you can apply growth strategy to your business. The whole point of your marketing efforts is to get your customers to buy into (and to actually buy) what you’ve got going on.
There’s an ascending process of courting and converting your customer that takes them through a “funnel” of marketing touch points and ultimately leads to action and brand advocacy. Funnel marketing represents your customer’s journey, upon first interaction with your brand
Awareness > Interest > Desire > Action > Loyalty > Advocacy
The goal is to build a strategic plan of action that turns your target customer into a lead and ideally into a loyal brand advocate, all while maximizing available marketing dollars. In short, by doing the work up front and creating a plan, you can get the most marketing bang for your buck.
The whole point of your business is to get your customers to buy into what you’ve got going on.
The rule of seven.
If you want to maximize your brand exposure, be where your people are. Know your target audience and know how to get in front of them.
The rule of seven simply states that it takes an average of seven interactions with your brand before a purchase will take place.
It will take an arsenal of marketing tools to get in front of the right audience on seven different occasions — and that’s only half of the battle. Once you turn desire into action, you have an opportunity to nurture your customer’s experience so they become loyal brand advocates; with advocacy comes true brand growth.
And when you get to the “action” phase of the funnel, you can expect an average conversion rate [people who take action to buy] of 3-7% (industry dependent). If the goal is to get people to take action, and you have to pitch to your target customer an average of 7 different times to get them to stop, collaborate and listen, if you want just THREE paying customers, your marketing will need to be seen 700 times. If you’re looking to sell to 100 customers, you’ll need your marketing to be seen 23,000+ times before you reach that goal.
*Check out our ROI post to see how we break down budget percentages to help you wrap your head around marketing spend.
Here’s what you need to do.
- Always be developing.
Content is king. The more you create and deploy, the more you lay the groundwork for brand growth. ALWAYS have a secure, relevant, and curated digital framework in place — your website, social media accounts, etc — where your customers can find you and interact with the human side of your brand.
- Humanize everything about your business.
Marketing is moving out of static advertising and into the human experience. Your brand should be interactive, establish a sense of trust, don’t like to be talked at or manipulated. People want to feel noticed and feel like they belong. People want to feel like businesses see them as an individual. Brand loyalty is established when brands treat their customers like an individual, not just a part of their broader customer base.
- Have a great product.
Whether you’re selling your skills, an app, clothing, or an amazing new piece of tech, the best marketing will have a hard time hitting if what you’re selling fails to deliver.
- Target the right audience up front.
Know who you want to sell to. Narrow down your audience. Depending on what you’re looking to accomplish (do you people to know about you or do you want to find repeat buyers), figure out who your ideal pool of customers is.
- Don’t skimp on customer service.
A bad review, unanswered email, product blemish, or cranky Karen could tank your reputation. And reputation is brand. And brand is everything. Have a designated point of contact to cultivate customer relations and nurture brand loyalty.