”I hate receiving so many emails.”
When we talk with some business owners, we run into quite a few of them who are reticent about marketing aggressively (something that we often say is worth erring on the side of). A lot of these businesses feel like their marketing is somehow “bothering” customers, and if they do it too much, they’ll turn people off. Certainly, there is an aspect of marketing fatigue that’s worth being aware of, but few small businesses ever reach that point – or even come to close to crossing that line.
This argument above exemplifies a truism about marketing: It’s not about what you think. It’s more about what the customer thinks. Could your opinion be a proxy for what a customer thinks? Sure. But is this always the case? No. As a small-to-midsize business owner, it’s critical to step out of your world and put yourself in your customers’ shoes whenever you think about marketing your business. This is especially true if you market products and/or services to those who are not like you at all, which happens more often than many believe.
So, how do you get to know what your audience thinks? Well, for starters, you can do a few things immediately:
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- Ask audiences directly what they think. You can do surveys, interviews, focus groups, which can tell you a ton of things, etc. At this point, don’t worry about statistically significant samples, which are important but can get expensive. Just try to get some insights from them that can help you market to others better.
- Delve into data around their demonstrated behaviors. Sometimes qualitative data or interviews don’t tell you everything (or sometimes lie to you if you bias the questions) so look at behavioral data too: open rates to your emails, engagement on social media, where audiences go on the website.
- Read about what customers think about you on independent review sites. Are there favorable testimonials or are some negative? For the negative ones, what can you use to help improve your business, products, or services?
That’s the general starting point and the mechanism by which you learn about audiences’ opinions and beliefs. Specifically, though, your audiences have beliefs around several things regarding your business that are helpful for you to know. Among them, here are four that are critical to understand:
No. 1: What Do Audiences Think of Your Brand?
One of the most important determinations audiences make is how they come to view a brand. Because that will influence whether or not they buy. Is the business trustworthy? Is it reliable? Is it known for quality? Does it understand my age or ethnic group? Is it known for solving the problems of people like me? Is the business more old-fashioned or geared to a more elderly age group? Is it modern or youthful?
We know many business owners who believe they project a certain brand or narrative to their audiences. But that may not be how your customers see you. Problems often happen when either that message isn’t consistent, leading to brand confusion or the brand projection is not aligned with where audiences are to start with. The latter is an especially acute problem. A prime example: Think of small (or large) businesses that have been around a while. It may be the customer base is aging and the brand projects an air of “only old people go there.” Trying to reinvent themselves for a younger audience will often not work unless there’s a complete overhaul. Need help? Contact us for a free consultation today and we’ll be happy to discuss challenges around brand narrative and projection.
No. 2: What Do Audiences Think of Your Products/Services?
At first glance, this may seem to be an area outside of marketing as it involves your core products and services. But it’s really not. One of the roles marketing can play with your business is to provide feedback on how well your particular solutions are working. Getting a lot of bad reviews? Maybe it’s time to address these, change your products/services, and then market what you’ve done to improve. This will help you redefine your narrative in the marketplace.
It also goes to a larger point – that marketing is integral to almost every aspect of your business and if you’re not considering marketing in the development stage of your products and services you’ll likely be losing out to those who do.
No. 3: What Do Audiences Really Think of Your Communications Cadence?
As we’ve illustrated above, there’s often a big difference between what you might think and what audiences actually think. The hard part here, especially when it comes to asking customers straight up what they think of the number of times a marketer might put content or ads in front of them, is that they will always tend to overstate how much they don’t like to get marketing by a company.
But the data often tells a different story.
There’s a saying in marketing that audiences “vote with their feet.” In other words, people generally need to be reminded about purchasing a product/service and it can take anywhere from 8 to 14 touch points before someone converts. That’s a lot of touches. And rather than unsubscribing or asking ads not to be shown to them, the truth is people consume them. And often choose the product or service from a company that stays top of mind.
Two things you can do here.
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- Take a look at the communication norms for your industry both for email and any advertising you do. In some cases, such as retail, companies can email several times per day. In others, it may only be once per week or a couple of times per month.
- Test different frequencies and see where you get the most success. If people start unsubscribing in great numbers or you see little engagement with ads etc., you can always dial it down.
No. 4: What Do Audiences Think of Your Marketing in General?
Whether it’s advertising, social media, website content, video, or email, you can certainly gauge what audiences think of your marketing by how much they engage with it. Are you getting decent click-through rates on your advertising? Are people responding to what you’re posting? Are they sharing and commenting on social? Do you get decent click-through and engagement/conversion on the emails you send? When people come to the website, are they exploring beyond the landing page? Finally, on YouTube are your videos getting viewed?
These are all gauges of what audiences think of your marketing. If you’re finding your marketing performance is not getting the kind of engagement you want, we suggest taking a look at the following:
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- Look at your own marketing and see if there were examples where you did have success. Was it a particular topic? Was it a different approach you used from a content perspective?
- Look at examples in your industry of where there was success and model your approach after those.
- Look at examples outside your industry that made you engage in a particular ad, piece of content, or email. What can you do to apply those to your industry?
Conclusion
As always, we hope this has been. If you need help with strategizing or developing marketing in any area, contact us today. Our mission is to help you excel in digital marketing. Learn more about our story.