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How Marketers Dig Themselves Into Holes When Designing Audience Profiles

Posted: 03 Mar 2019 10:00 AM PST

Today's marketers are tasked with staying on top of martech tools that have grown 45 times since 2011. Additionally, they must manage countless influencers across half a dozen social platforms and an advertising environment that's now three-quarters mobile. Then, there are the ever-growing generational marketing gaps. Is it any wonder they spend too much time thinking about how they should connect and too little thinking about who they should connect with?

Despite all the new territory marketers are supposed to cover, their mission remains the same: lead as many members of the brand's target audience into its sales funnel as possible before competitors snag them. Technologies and influencers certainly help but only if the marketer has targeted the right consumers in the first place.

What makes marketers, who were hired for their keen instincts, sometimes go the wrong way? The following mistakes have marketers perennially barking up the wrong tree:

1. Assuming surface-level information is all that counts

The vast majority of consumer data brands buy focuses on demographic information like age, gender, and geographic location. But, it's not possible to build an audience profile with this information alone. Their purchase decisions are not the same across a certain age group or location. Instead, today's consumers are much more complex and fickle. While some older demographics may not be technically savvy, there is an entire segment out there that is first in line to buy every gadget that comes to market. Going on the surface-level data means you'll miss out on these other potential customers.

To narrow their audience profiles, lifestyle-based brands, in particular, rely on psychographics. A brand like REI targets affluent, well-educated men and women between the ages of 22 and 45. Plenty of people who fit that profile, however, would prefer to read books in their free time than backpack through the mountains. Psychographics are what makes demographic details actionable for niche brands and help them identify their specific customer.

2. Failing to truly "see" their audience

For many companies, the buyer is typically the same person as the user. But, with other products like school supplies, the target audience may not be so straightforward. Many products with less-than-obvious buyer-user splits are bought as gifts. Two of last year's most popular holiday gifts, for example, were Google Home and Fitbit's Ionic Watch. This year, don't be surprised to see TV ads for those two products targeted at busy moms doing their last-minute Christmas shopping rather than gadget gurus and exercise enthusiasts. In this case, it's most often the mom in the household that takes care of this annual task, buying for the teens and gadget lovers in the family.

The lesson here is that marketers should conduct interviews with buyers. Find out whether they plan to use the product themselves; if not, determine what motivated them to choose it for someone else.

3. Trusting data merchants

In marketing, third-party data sellers are notorious for telling buyers what they want to hear. They know somewhere around 71 percent of purchased data is inaccurate.  To make the sale, these data merchants claim their data is different and capable of helping a marketer to build a full audience profile. In reality, data is most accurate when it comes from consumers who are willing to share it. Give your users an incentive to truthfully and thoroughly describe their backgrounds, interests and opinions.

4. Neglecting cultural differences

Cultural nuances that can cause problems when marketers don't bother to interact directly with their audience members. Sometimes, simple demographics like age can make the difference. When it came back to the U.S. market after a 15-year hiatus, Vespa Motor Scooters assumed its target market would be 20-somethings, as it is in Europe. However, in the U.S., the 20-to-30 demographic commutes longer distances and is more accustomed to cars. In contrast, Baby Boomers turned out to be Vespa's most enthusiastic U.S.-based customers. They are retiring and ready to relive the bicycle-friendly days of the 1960s and 1970s. Once Vespa figured this out, it redirected its marketing efforts and achieved success.

Hitting the Audience Bullseye

It's no easy task to accurately target, reach, and engage with the right audience. Marketers don't want to harass their audience with questions or make them feel uncomfortable with too many questions that seem personal. They also don't want them to be concerned about what happens to the personal data they may share.   

In reality, the audience wants to tell you what they want so you can hit the bullseye and deliver on those desires. And, the closer brands get to their audience, trust develops, specific preferences and expectations are shared, and brands are much closer to the market -- if not, on target. With more data and analytics tools, marketers must go deeper in their development of personas, look for more niche segments, never assume and be ready to evolve as those profiles change over time.

Theory vs. Reality: How to Solve Your Marketing Strategy Problems

Posted: 03 Mar 2019 07:00 AM PST

Marketing professionals know that drafting a good strategy for reaching your customers and boosting business can often be an exercise in futility.

There are dozens of established marketing strategies, all of which serve a purpose connecting businesses to customers. But when businesses' best-laid marketing plans fail, dry strategies can only take them so far. It's important to separate what will work in practice rather than what works in theory for marketing strategies.

With that in mind, here are four common marketing problems and a theoretical and practical solution to help marketers solve them.

1.) I Need to Reduce My Marketing Spend But Still Reach Cucsstomers

Theoretical solution: Word-of-mouth advertising

If a business invests too much money into online or physical advertising and doesn't reap the rewards, they may consider using word-of-mouth advertising as a solution. With word-of-mouth advertising, marketers can increase reach to customers by trying to get highlighted on social media or getting included on review sites.

Practical solution: Form a connection to customers through blogs, social media

Traditional word-of-mouth advertising can work if a business identifies a glaring need. But a business' problems may be more connected to a lack of face-to-face interaction with consumers. A different strategy of creating authoritative, personal content and interacting with customers outside of advertising can help form a bond.

2.) My Website Gets Few Views on Search Engines

Theoretical solution: Search engine marketing

During a time in which businesses are all competing to get more eyeballs online, a website's placement on search engines can be the difference between success and obscurity. That's where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. SEO is a search engine marketing tool that allows search engines to find and "rank" websites based on keyword searches. A great SEO strategy can take a site from the bottom of the barrel to the top of the charts. By merely focusing on SEO, businesses can see immediate results in how its website is ranked and who understands its content.

Practical solution: Use SEO as part of a complete content overhaul

SEO can be a valuable tool for any website that is looking for viewers, but it won't attract and retain users on its own. To bring visitors to a website, it's essential to have a content strategy that includes blogging, social media interaction and more. When you have a good content infrastructure, SEO tools can take already great content to the next level. Using tools like quality back-linking and keyword tags can elevate content, but bringing consumers back to a business' products or services requires a personal connection that you can form through many and substantial material.

3.) I Have a Small Staff But Need More Outreach

Theoretical Solution: Commit to outbound marketing

Outbound marketing, which includes reaching out to consumers directly or through targeted campaigns, is the oldest form of marketing there is. If a business has a small marketing team that doesn't interact enough with consumers, outbound marketing strategies could help get the word out. Some of the most common forms of outbound marketing include direct mailers and emails and can even scale up to TV commercials and paid advertising.

Practical solution: Mix strategies to fit staff and needs

While outbound marketing can be a great solution, it requires more staff and the ability to turn out more content. Businesses also run the risk of alienating consumers with "hard-sales" tactics. If a staff is in short supply, businesses may want to consider a mixed approach of inbound and outbound marketing. Inbound marketing includes forming a relationship with customers through content creation, newsletter, and social media and letting the customers come to them. Paired with more traditional outbound marketing, businesses can best utilize a small staff and reach even more consumers.

4.) I Have Never Paid for Advertising, and Now My Sales Have Plateaued

Theoretical solution: Invest in paid advertising

If a business has thrived without a dollar of paid advertising, they are truly blessed. But for companies that have relied on word of mouth and now see sales stagnating or even decreasing, you could be tempted to flood the zone with targeted advertising.

Online advertising tools like Google Adwords can help you target your audience through placed ads on search engines. That strategy can help you reach more customers than without any advertising at all. Other forms of advertising can include social media ads, physical ads or even TV or radio commercials. With some financial investment, you could help kick off a new wave of strong sales.

Practical solution: Determine where ads are needed and re-invest in connections

While advertising can help you reach and attract consumers, it's important to note that throwing advertising dollars at a problem may not address the underlying concerns. For instance, maybe your business has not invested enough time in forming relationships with your current and former customers. Your marketing strategy should take elements of what has already worked for you and consider new options to help your business.

If your company has survived on only word of mouth, advertising could hurt your appeal to consumers. It's best to maintain what has worked and keep looking for new strategies to grow your sales.

Theory vs. Reality

In general, treating a single marketing strategy like the end-all solution will leave you flailing to adjust to a changing market.

In almost every scenario, businesses should treat marketing strategies like puzzle pieces that suit your needs. Theoretical solutions often fold under the harsh heat of reality, so it's important to keep your options open and go where your consumers take you.

When looking for solutions, a firm grasp of theory can help open you up to new possibilities -- but don't lose touch with what your business is about and what makes you successful.

5 Ways Sales and Marketing Teams Can Close More Deals Together

Posted: 03 Mar 2019 06:00 AM PST

Your sales and marketing teams don't need to exist in separate silos. Interaction and collaboration between them is the key to unlocking the true potential of your business operations. It ensures that your marketing efforts are generating qualified leads that jump through the stages of your sales pipeline to finally convert and generate revenue.

Here are five ways you can combine the sales and marketing teams' efforts and close more deals.

1. Facilitate inter-departmental communication

Poor communication is one of the major reasons for collaboration failure between sales and marketing. So how can you facilitate better inter-departmental communication?

  • Hold combined departmental meetings for sales and marketing teams.

  • Come up with a unified set of goals for both the teams and provide them with actionables to attain those goals.

  • Brainstorm the KPIs and measure the results as a unified team.

  • Invest in collaborative tools like Slack, Asana and Basecamp to foster communication between both the teams.

  • Establish a feedback loop in which the sales team can communicate what lead to target while the marketing team can deliver on the content that can improve the sales.

2. Create buyer personas

Get your marketing and sales team to collaborate in creating buyer personas and defining the target customer. Use the research and analysis of the marketing team with customer insights from the sales team to profile your ideal buyer -- the person whose problem your product or service intends to solve.

The marketing team is responsible for the initial contact with the potential customers with inbound and outbound marketing techniques, but the sales team is the true forerunner of your business. A discrepancy among the targeted customer for both can result in ineffective lead generation culminating in a failure of closing the deal.

The efforts of the sales and marketing teams must be directed at the same prospects. The buyer personas help illustrate the customers who are an ideal fit at every stage in the sales funnel and provide invaluable information for designing marketing campaigns leading to the building of a killer sales pipeline.

3. Optimize your use of technology

Share the data in the sales CRM software with the marketing team in order to generate more qualified leads. No matter how talented your sales reps are unless they are given qualified leads to work with, the sales aren't going to happen.

The analytics tools of your CRM software are a great resource for figuring out why the sales aren't taking off. Sharing this data with marketing would result in creating content that is targeting the buyer who is your ideal fit.

Discord between the message sent out via the marketing team and the sales pitch can be rectified by effective use of sales pipeline management software. There are a number of sales and CRM software to choose from depending on your budgetary requirements, like Salesforce, BenchPoint and Pipedrive. You can choose the one that best meets your requirements and makes analytics and data sharing between the sales and marketing teams easier. [Check out Business.com's reviews of the best CRM software on the market.]

4. Hand over lead nurturing to the marketing team.

Have your sales team evaluate your sales pipeline to determine the leads that aren't likely to convert. They might not have the need for your product or service offering, may require additional information to trigger the buy decision or simply may not have the purchase authority.

Whatever the reason, don't let your sales pipeline get clogged by dead leads. Instead, hand them over to the marketing team. Ask them to generate relevant content to keep them engaged and for nurturing the lead so that when the time is ripe and the prospect converts into a sales qualified lead, the sales team can take over again.

The feedback from the sales team can also help in designing a marketing strategy for your business. For example, if you have a SaaS product as an offering, the input from the sales team is a vital resource for redesigning or creating a SaaS website. It can also help the marketing team to create relevant content for inbound marketing through blog posts and social media marketing to generate new leads and nurture the existing ones. Knowing what the customers want brings you one step closer to delivering it and it can only be achieved via an effective collaboration of sales and marketing teams.

5. Market your sales representatives.

The members of your sales team may be great at selling the features of your product or service offering to the customers but they may not be their own advocates when it comes to demonstrating their expertise. Establishing the sales team as thought leaders within their specific niche gives them credibility and recognizes their expertise which is essential for the client's trust. The sales team is after all the face of your business.

This is where the role of marketing comes into play. By providing them with relevant content generated as a result of marketing research, the members of your sales team can turn into thought leaders and industry experts which would generate leads in an organic manner. Content is a powerful way of bolstering the credibility of your sales team and subsequently an inexpensive way of boosting traffic and promoting your product or service offering.

Start combining your marketing and sales efforts right now and see the magic happening and deals closing.
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