#marketing

The online consumer’s mindset

May 25, 2021

Even if you do not sell a single thing online, odds are:

• You have a website.
• People are “shopping” you on that site, even if they know they can’t buy there.

As consumers, on average, we now make between 70% and 80% of our buying decision online, even if we know we’re going to visit a brick-and-mortar store to make the purchase. Google and research partner the Behavioural Architects recently released a study on how decisions are made online.

When considering a purchase, consumers fluctuate between two mental modes. In the beginning, as they are considering the possibilities, they are in an exploration mode, which is an expansive activity. At some point in the journey, they shift to a more evaluative mode, which is all about reducing down the choices. Google refers to this state as the messy middle.

According to the research, brands have a significant advantage if they begin as first-choice. But if they fail to communicate their value proposition in a compelling manner during both the exploration and evaluation cycles, they run the risk of being knocked out of contention.

The study explored how behavior is influenced by six biases:

1. Category heuristics: key product specs that simplify decisions.
2. Power of now: the longer you wait, the weaker the offer becomes.
3. Social proof: the power of recommendations and reviews.
4. Scarcity bias: as availability decreases, desire increases.
5. Authority bias: trust and expertise can sway decisions.
6. Power of free: a free, even unrelated, gift with a purchase is a motivator.

When making a purchase, consumers seek out category and brand information in multiple locations, including search engines, social media, aggregators and review sites. They bounce back and forth between the exploration and evaluation stages until they make a final buying decision.

Which of the biases you lean on the most will depend on whether the purchase can actually be made online. If you’re selling ag equipment, the power of now is going to be less influential. But reviews and having an expert’s endorsement may be much more significant.

One of the more interesting aspects of this study was how the researchers were able to sway a buyer’s decision to a fictional brand that had no brand equity when they magnified one or more of the biases listed above. What that means for us is that we have to be mindful of how we’re leveraging different triggers, or our next buyer could be lured away. It also means even if you’re not the category leader, investing time, and energy into really understanding and wooing online tire kickers who are still in the exploration stage can win their ultimate purchase.

A key takeaway from this study is that brand-building is vitally important, but it’s not enough in an online environment. You will enjoy a definite home-field advantage if you’re the market leader. But you still have to communicate your value proposition in a very compelling way if you’re going to secure the sale.

The opinion of others (both reviews and authority endorsements) clearly plays an important role. Highlighting both directly on your site will reinforce the idea that you’re still in the running as the consumer is shifting into evaluation mode.

The results of this study remind us of two very important marketing truths. There is no such thing as set it and forget it anymore. You must keep revising your site, looking for new ways to leverage the biases to your advantage. For every entity out there, having a website built for your best-fit potential buyers is absolutely critical whether the website visitor is a frequent customer or is just beginning to learn about your brand.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

More

Email’s role in your sales funnel

May 18, 2021

In last week’s column, we covered the power of email and some of the ways we could improve our use of this tool in 2021. I promised that we’d talk about the role that email plays in each segment of the sales funnel, and that’s what we’ll cover in this week’s column.

Before we can talk about the funnel, we need to talk about what you’re going to send. If the plan is only to send sales notices and product promos, don’t bother. Your audience will hit the unsubscribe button in a flash.

Think of your email as your best portal to creating a relationship with your buyers and potential buyers. Like any relationship, it’s about being interesting and valuable to them. When businesses create a newsletter, they often emphasize the wrong part of that word. It’s not the news they crave; it’s the letter. The getting to know you and your company part. If you want them to stick around, you must create a connection.

The top of the sales funnel is all about attraction and awareness. In this phase of the funnel, the prospect doesn’t know you or your company, and odds are you aren’t aware of them either.

Many companies will offer a lead magnet (downloadable information) to capture email addresses. You might also attract them to you via social media, advertising, re-targeting, etc.

However you get their email, the next step is critical. Creating a memorable first impression.

Your welcome email needs to bring value, a sense of who you are and what they can expect. Don’t try to sell anything in this email. Just create the connection.

The next phase of the funnel is what you could call the mushy middle. They’re not newbies to you anymore, but they are not ready to buy. The biggest mistake you can make at this stage is to hard sell. Many of your email contacts will remain in this phase for years. You need to be ready to provide value for as long as it takes.

In this phase, you are consistently helpful. You teach. You share resources and tools. You answer questions. You can soft sell, and when someone clicks on one of those links, they’re indicating to you that they’re ready to move into the next phases of your sales funnel – consideration and conversion.

Once someone has raised their hand and indicated that they’re ready to learn more about what you do or sell, they’ve dropped into the next phase of your funnel. Typically, in email, this is done when they click on a link to learn more about something you’ve mentioned in your newsletter or email blast.

Now you can begin to talk more explicitly about what you sell. But it should still be done from the “how can I help them be better at their job or make their life better today” point of view. This is where you ask them to move from email to another form of communication by filling out a form or picking up the phone to schedule an appointment, or maybe go right to purchase.

The phase of your sales funnel that most businesses forget about is the post-sale phase. This is where you move from a transaction to a relationship based on loyalty, and if you do it well, advocacy, where your best clients are also your best marketing.

In this phase, think about exclusive offers, insights you don’t share publicly or exclusive events.

This is where you make them feel loved and appreciated.

Email is an essential element throughout your sales funnel. But being mindful of where you and your audience are at will help you craft the right message for the right time.

 

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

More

Email for 2021

May 11, 2021

As marketers, we are often drawn to whatever the hot new platform or channel is, and it’s fun to think about what strategy we might use for getting the most out of whatever new tool is on our radar screen.

Most marketers and business owners who do their own marketing will admit to a good dose of shiny object syndrome. We are drawn to what’s new and cool.

This is why I think email marketing often gets overlooked. It’s been around for a long time. There’s nothing incredibly sexy about it. But it works.

Email is very cost-effective and allows a brand to build on a relationship with known prospects. It’s particularly critical in B2B marketing, where the sales cycles are longer, and there’s usually no retail floor or experience. One of the reasons email marketing works as well as it does is that the average worker spends 2.5+ hours per workday checking email. Beyond that, 82% of us check our work email outside of work hours.

Email is one of the few pieces of the digital landscape that we still own and control beyond our website. When we market on social channels, we’re squatting on someone else’s ground.

Their rules and algorithms dictate what we can and can’t do, and those rules can change in an instant.

In contrast, when someone trusts you with their email address (which is the only way someone legally should get on your list), you can communicate consistently and directly. You know your message will get to their inbox and, if your content is compelling, you can be confident that they’ll read it.

By law, you have to make it easy for a recipient to unsubscribe to your emails, which means that anyone who is still on your list is there because they want to be. That makes it permission marketing (they’ve given you permission to market to them), which is a much warmer sales than most other channels.

Despite the potential of email marketing, most don’t take full advantage of the channel because they don’t invest the time, money, and energy to do it well. Email marketing has gotten so sophisticated, if you’re willing to take advantage of your options.

All too often, emails are hastily written and sent. There’s not an overarching strategy or a strategy for each individual email. We rush to execute without doing the proper planning.

One of the most important aspects of email marketing is testing. There are so many elements worthy of testing. You can and should test subject lines, what time of day is most effective, and various calls to action. How frequently you email your audience will also affect open and click-through rates.

But there is no uniform answer to that question. You have to test your audience to get that answer. Even the placement of your call-to-action button can influence the performance of your email.

One of the best aspects of email marketing is how measurable it is. You can track and count just about every aspect of your campaign. Four critical metrics that should be part of the evaluation of just about every email campaign are delivery rates, open rates, click rates, and conversions. Not every email will warrant vigorous measurement, but delivery and open rates are still worth tracking even at the awareness level.

For other emails, click-through and conversions won’t matter, but engagement and pass-along will. Every email will have a unique set of metrics because, ideally, your strategy will have a unique set of goals and calls to action.

Of course, measurement is often tied to where in the sales funnel the email falls. In next week’s column, we’ll explore how email can be used differently for each stage, from awareness to conversion.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

More

Share of search

May 4, 2021

Digital marketers have long employed online search to predict how consumers will behave in the short term – will they take action in the next few minutes, hours, or days? Campaigns have most often been a short-term play and been all about the transaction at the moment or shortly after the search was conducted. No one thought about search from a longer-term brand perspective.

A recent study conducted by Les Binet, the head of effectiveness at agency Adam & Eve DDB, and the industry’s “godfathers of marketing effectiveness” looked at the importance of the “share of search” metric for the past six years.

Share of search is a way of measuring brand visibility within organic search results. It’s calculated as the portion of overall online interest in a particular keyword that you are capturing. If there are 100 searches every day for your product category, how many would your site receive? The higher the percentage, the higher your share of search.

You can quickly obtain your site’s monthly search referrals for specific keywords or phrases from your Google Analytics dashboard. To get the average overall searches for that same phrase or keyword through Google, use the Google Keyword Tool. Be sure to set the same criteria and restrictions in both tools (country/region, keyword vs. phrase, etc.).

To test his ideas around share of search, Binet explored three categories: an expensive considered purchase (automotive), a commodity (gas and electricity) and a lower-priced but very crowded brand segment (mobile phone handsets).

The results were very telling. Here are some of the biggest takeaways:

1. Share of search correlates with market share in all three categories.
2. Share of search is a leading indicator/predictor of share of market – when share of search goes up, share of market tends to go up, and when share of search goes down, share of market falls.
3. This long-term prediction can also act as an early warning system for brands in terms of their market share.
4. Share of voice (advertising) has two effects on share of search: a significant short-term impact that produces a big burst but then fades rapidly, and a smaller, longer-term effect that lingers for a very long time.
5. The long-term effects build on each other, sustaining and growing over time.
6. Share of search could also be a new measure for brand strength or health of a brand by measuring the base level of share of search without advertising.
7. While share of search provides essential quantitative data, brands should also use qualitative research and sentiment analysis to get a more robust picture.

 

One of the data points that is incredibly insightful is the correlation between shares of voice, search, and market. Binet reports that “eventually, you reach a point where a brand with 10% steady share of voice will have a roughly steady 10% share of search and a roughly steady 10% share of market.”

When a brand earns an “extra share of search,” which is defined as the brand registering a search share above its market share, it is most likely to enjoy growth.

How do we influence our share of search? Organic search performance is all based on relevance. The more relevant your content, the more you should see your share of search increase. The more narrowly you define your audience and the content that will resonate with them, the more likely you will achieve a higher share of search. When your audience is niched down, you reduce the number of competitors trying to rank for those specific key words or phrases.

For most marketers, one of their goals for 2021 is to improve their visibility and search metrics. Binet’s research demonstrates the value of pursuing that goal with a vengeance!

 

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

More

What’s your strategy for a cookie-free web?

April 27, 2021

More

2021 Trends: Engaging customers who aren’t leaving their homes

April 20, 2021

In this third column of the 2021 trends series, I want to look at a trend that I think will be short-lived but important. While we wait for the vaccine to become widely administered here in the U.S., many people will choose to stick close to home.

Most of us are champing at the bit to get back “to normal,” which will include travel, dining out, going back to church, gathering with large groups of friends at sporting events and live performances, and big family events like weddings and funerals. Research shows that most professionals who are still working from home are eager to get back into a work environment.

But for some, this homebody stance is ideal, and they don’t want it to go away. Some will seek jobs that allow them to continue to work from home, and the curbside pickups and home deliveries of the past year will no doubt be available long after the pandemic is over.

What will this mean for us?

If you’re a local business, this is good news. Yes, e-commerce is surging and will be about 32% higher than in 2019. But that’s still only 14.5% of all U.S. retail spending.

This means there’s still plenty of money to be earned by brick-and-mortar businesses.

If you’re a local retail business, this is a massive opportunity for you. Consumer sympathies toward the struggles local businesses have endured in 2020 are at an all-time high. People want to buy local.
To take full advantage of this unique moment in time, you should consider:

Increasing your visibility. There are consumers out there who want to give their money to locally owned businesses. But they can’t give it to you if they don’t know you’re there. Better signage, investing in advertising, partnering with other companies to spotlight a shopping district or region, and finding ways to earn the media’s attention will all help make sure you get your fair share of the local spend.

Develop multiple delivery models. Some of your customers want to get out of the house and visit your establishment. Others will fully expect you to bring your offerings to them as you have for the past 10 months. Expecting everyone to come to you is probably a thing of the past. Businesses have demonstrated that they are willing to have multiple conduits for their customers. Even long after the pandemic is over, some of your customers are simply going to prefer the convenience of some level of delivery.

You can’t over-communicate. This has been a recurring theme of the pandemic, but it is still pure gold. There are no excuses anymore. Your social media activity and your ongoing communications with customers have to level up. Not only do you need to stay top of mind, but you need to make them feel informed, safe and excited about your products and services.

Garner the support of your suppliers. Now would be an excellent time to partner with suppliers to put together creative offers, unique products, special financing or enticing pricing to encourage your potential customers and regulars to come back in or to place an order. Work together to share the expense of these offers and reap the benefits of the added exposure and sales volume.

This is your opportunity to make up some of the revenue you lost in the second quarter of 2020. There’s a lot of pent-up demand and cash and a desire to support locally owned businesses. To take advantage of this trend, you need to be on your consumers’ radar screen with an offer enticing enough for them to leave their house or, at the very least, invite you to leave it on their doorstep!

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

More

2021 trends: Staying relevant in the age of e-commerce

April 13, 2021

In this second column of the 2021 trends series, I want to talk about the acceleration of e-commerce adoption. The pandemic forced many consumers to change their purchasing habits, and e-commerce was the lucky recipient. Techcrunch predicted e-commerce would be up more than 20%, and in the third quarter of 2020 e-commerce increased by over 30% over the second quarter.

There’s no doubt that the forced isolation, stay-at-home orders, and working from home have all accelerated e-commerce growth globally, and most marketers predict this shift is permanent.

On the flip side, we are all urging each other to buy local and support the businesses around us. The question is really: How do we take the best from each buying experience and weave it throughout the other?

As consumers, we all love the 24/7 convenience of online shopping. It’s hard not to delight in being able to do your holiday shopping in your jammies while enjoying a roaring fire at 10 p.m.
But that delight often turns to frustration when you can’t reach anyone to resolve a problem or ask a question.

On the flip side, we love being welcomed into a store or business and enjoy the personal service. But it’s frustrating when we made an effort to get there and what we want is out of stock, or they can’t help us.
On the local front, many businesses have had to reinvent how they deliver their products and services in 2020. Innovations around deliveries, curbside pickups, ramped-up websites with more functionality, and even Zoom delivery of services that had traditionally always been face-to-face. But finding ways to integrate the warmth of the in-person experience with a robust website and active social media channels will be critical for survival in 2021. “We don’t have time or the money” just won’t cut it anymore. Having a digital presence is mission-critical.

It’s time to go beyond the convenience factor for businesses that are already crushing it on the e-commerce side. Creating brand loyalty and a community of happy customers will allow you to develop a connection with your customer base that will encourage repeat purchases and word-of-mouth buzz.
The other area that needs plenty of improvement is the gap between the organization’s brand and the online experience. Convenience loses its allure when you can’t get hold of someone to answer a question or deal with an issue.

Every business needs to be paying close attention to how and where their brand shows up online. Findability goes beyond simple SEO. Getting on referral sites, digital shopping lists, and ramping up your efforts to get reviews are all going to be critical.

But it’s not all about the online aspect of the relationship. Building your brand promise and ensuring it’s delivered at every touchpoint is even more critical when you have never met your customer in person. Your brand has to be much bigger than the channel. Your brand needs to be channel-agnostic.

Another aspect of e-commerce that needs some attention is the whole concept of packaging and presentation. There’s a lot to think about in this arena. We immediately go to protecting the contents from breaking. Given the power of social media, live streaming, and influencers, the unpacking process itself should not be ignored. How do you make the opening of your package an experience unto itself?
How do you bring your brand to life if you don’t get to interact with your consumer in person? How does your brand translate to Zoom, an e-commerce site or an email interaction?

That’s the most important question we need to answer as we acknowledge that the digital revolution is here to stay. It’s filled with opportunities if we’re smart enough to seize them!

 

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

More

Are you a need?

March 30, 2021

We often spend time thinking about how our potential customers view our products or services, but we often focus on the offering instead of the audience considering that offer.

How would your customers classify what it is you do? Are you a luxury? A nice to have, or are you actually a necessity?

As consumers, we all got very clear about what we needed versus what we wanted in 2020. If something you offer was still in high demand this past year, you know your customers consider it an essential purchase. You should be going to market with a very different strategy for products and services that are must-haves, as opposed to being more of a “nice to have” offering.

Granted, there were some needs that were pandemic-specific. Masks, toilet paper and hand sanitizer aren’t always going to be on the top of everyone’s shopping list. But if your organization sold a lot of a specific product or service that wasn’t triggered by the most basic needs of security, safety and health, then you’ve got something that people will continue to categorize as a must-have.

The significant advantage you get when your product or service is considered essential is that you can cut to the chase. You don’t have to convince your prospects that they should buy what you’re offering. They’ve already decided that they need it. Your marketing needs to answer three critical questions that the buyer has on their mind:

1. How is yours better than your competitors’?
2. What are the mechanics of buying it? (Do I have to order it direct? Does it require a purchase order? How is it packaged and priced? And so on.)
3. Is this a one-time purchase? If not, what’s the timing of recurring purchases?

The first question is all about features. In classic marketing, we often talk about not focusing on the features but instead narrowing in on the benefits. But your consumer doesn’t need to be convinced that they need what you sell; they already understand the benefits.

So you need to ignore conventional marketing wisdom and dig into the features. What does it do that the others do not? Help me understand why choosing one of your competitors’ products would be a disappointment or a riskier choice.

The second question is all about the how. In 2020 we all learned how vital it was to be very specific and directive to assist our potential customers in making the actual purchase. Even with a must-have, buyers want to understand their options and look for the most convenient purchase path. COVID-19 forced many businesses to find contactless or friction-free ways to buy. I don’t think consumers will let go of those options once we’re free from the pandemic.

The third question has a lot of elements wrapped up in it. But they are all about the investment required. In some cases it’s about the money, and in the case of services, it’s often about the consumer’s time commitment. It’s also about the quality and durability of what you sell if it’s a product. If you sell something that people will need to keep purchasing, convenience will also be a factor.

Understanding the lens through which your customers and prospects see what you sell can help you hone in on your messaging that will be most helpful to them and shorten the sales cycle. Recognizing that your audience has already decided they need this particular product or service will allow you to cut to the chase and just show them why your particular offering is the right choice for them.

 

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

More

When sales slow down

February 16, 2021

As our country works to climb out of the recession, sales in many industries have been sluggish at best. Many sales teams are struggling to get calls returned, and even when they get the opportunity to talk with a prospect, they often aren’t getting too far.

The uncertainties of the economy, coupled with the pandemic, are stalling many sales. How can marketing help keep the sales team in the running when the prospects are running cold?

One of the nuances of marketing that often gets overlooked is the “be interesting, not interested” maxim.

Our marketing efforts often make it clear that we are interested in the prospect. We want them to buy something from us. When we show up wearing that intention on our sleeve, it’s easy for them to tune us out, unsubscribe to our emails, or ask us to stop calling.

When sales are flowing more quickly, it’s easy for us to miss the consequences of that mistake. But when everything is stalled, we need to earn the right to keep talking to our prospects. The way we do that is by being interesting. It looks incredibly simple to do, and yet many marketers fail miserably.

Why? Because they are not patient enough. The “be interesting, not be interested” works because the prospect doesn’t feel any pressure. When someone isn’t ready to buy, the only way they’ll tolerate our continuing communication is if we’re interesting to them. The minute they feel like we’re trying to close the sale, they’ll walk away.

To be interesting, you need to:

Be helpful: This is the most effective and easiest way to be interesting. But it’s one that many marketers are leery of because they don’t want to give away their secret sauce. Smart marketers know that when they give away everything they know, it creates a connection that leads to a shorter sales cycle and a bigger sales total.

Going out of your way to create helpful content, be available to answer questions, or point your prospect to a resource they can use are all ways you can earn the right to stay in touch.

Know something the prospect does not: When someone knows something we don’t, we find that intriguing. This is where industry data, research, case studies, how-to blog posts, and insider information prove incredibly useful. If you keep serving up interesting tidbits that give them an edge, they’ll keep listening.

Make an introduction: Odds are many people within your organization have powerful connections and collaborators. Maybe they served on a board with an influential individual, or it’s a client you’ve had for years. But many of your prospects would greatly appreciate being connected with someone in the industry who could help their career or be valuable to their company.

When someone trusts us with one of their contacts, we know they’ve, in essence, called in a favor on our behalf. That creates a sense of gratitude and the need to reciprocate in some way in the recipient of the introduction. That’s a powerful connection that will serve you well as you work to maintain a relationship with the prospect.

The most significant danger to this strategy is our own impatience. With a reluctant prospect, we need to wait until they clearly indicate to us that they’re finally ready to hear about our product or service.

In a time when we can’t offer special pricing or some other incentive to speed up the sale, we just need to keep things interesting!

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

More

When old is new

February 9, 2021

It’s 2021, and we’re still in the midst of a pandemic, so all marketing paths are leading to digital solutions, right?

Actually, no.

Long before the pandemic hit, some very old-school marketing tactics were enjoying a new lease on life, and the realities of 2020 have just furthered their success. I don’t believe any of these will fade in effectiveness or popularity post-recession. Which means we’d better study up on how these golden oldies have been reinvented to be relevant today.

Direct mail: As our inboxes get more cluttered, our mailboxes have become prime real estate again. Technology has leveled up what’s possible with direct mail. AI technology allows brands to learn more about their target audience. Based on what we can now do with personalization, tracking how a recipient interacts with a direct mail offer or whether it results in a call, product trial, or purchases, is much easier.

Catalogs: Remember when you were a kid, and you pored over the Sears, J.C. Penney, or other toy catalog at Christmas time? I read and reread those catalogs like they were the latest Harry Potter novel. Amazon and other retailers have picked up this old tradition but with several new twists. Amazon’s 2020 catalog is about 100 pages packed with toys, electronics and games for all ages. It uses technology like QR codes, special in-app pricing and other targeting tactics to take full advantage of our nostalgia, the fact that people have screen burnout and the latest in technology.

Referral and loyalty programs: As all sales screeched to a halt this past spring, marketers were quickly reminded that there’s incredible gold to be mined in their existing customer database. Many businesses were kept afloat by those current customers, who were the most likely to spend money as things opened back up. Word of mouth stimulated spontaneous customer campaigns on social media to support local businesses and drove new opportunities when everyone was clinging to every dollar.

Product demos: No one is hanging out in the mall or big-box discount stores, gathering around the demo table, watching live demonstrations. But thanks to the power of video, demos are alive and well. Some brands have combined demos with an influencer campaign so that they have a “celebrity” endorse their product. But many brands are forgoing the influencer and using employees, real customers, or animation.

With the help of technology and social media, all of these marketing tactics can take on a new life and new effectiveness. One advantage we have this go-around is that we can weave all of these tools together to maximize their success. Merging digital and analog marketing efforts can be a potent combination that reaches your audience in multiple channels and often with multiple mediums.

We can also use sophisticated first and third-party data resources to make sure we’re delivering our messages directly to the people who are most likely to be receptive to them.

Our ability to accurately measure and monitor in real time has also improved dramatically, even over the past five years. While none of these marketing tactics work instantaneously, we can make adjustments quicker based on the real-time data collected, saving both money and time. We don’t have to wait for months to see trends and do A/B experiments to see if we can spike results or reduce waste.

As you think about how you’re going to connect with audiences in 2021, don’t forget that there’s still plenty of life left in the tactics that you probably cut your teeth on early in your career. Be wary of the shiny-object syndrome that we’re all susceptible to and remember that, at least in the marketing world, you can teach an old dog some new tricks!

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

More