Market To Mondays – Part 6

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Welcome to the latest edition of our new weekly blog series, Market To Mondays. Each week, we will introduce you to a new group of people you should market to. We’ll tell you who they are, why you should market to them, and how you might get started.

Last week’s group was Google Searchers.

Today’s Group = Your Competitor’s Customers

Depending on what industry you’re in, customers will have different levels of brand loyalty. But across the US, consumers are proving to be less and less loyal to brands and products than they’ve been in the past.

And it’s not just price that draws people away. Consumers are looking for companies that value them, make their lives easier, offering more effective solutions, etc.

So it should be no surprise that your competitor’s customers make an excellent target market. Not only do you know that they need what you have to offer – they’ve proved that by shopping with a competitor already – but you know exactly how you’re better than that competitor. Which means you can construct very specific messaging to lure those customers away.

But how?

Surprisingly, there are a number of ways that you can market to your competitors’ customers.

The most direct is calling them out in advertisements. The best current example of this is Sprint’s “Cut Your Rate in Half” ads that are running right now. The entire purpose of those ads is to attract Verizon and AT&T customers with lower prices. This can be very affective, especially for new companies in a market or industry who are looking to get their name out there.

Another option is targeting search ads to your competitors brand terms. This works on a smaller scale, but is a good strategy if you’re going up against a well-established brand in your space. You can also target Facebook ads to people who “like” or “follow” competitive pages on Facebook.

If you or your competitor have physical locations you can try outdoor advertising in the surrounding area to lure customers away. And depending on how big your competitors are, they may make their customer lists public and/or saleable. You may be able to buy a list of their customers and sell directly to them with direct mail, email or phone calls.

The point is this, just because someone has chosen your competitor in the past, doesn’t mean they are a lost cause. In fact, they are an easy group to target, and one that should almost always bear fruit. So don’t give up on them, ever.

What group should we cover next? Now accepting submissions for audiences that we will cover in an upcoming “Market To Mondays” post. Submit your ideas via our contact page or in the comments section below.

Market To Mondays – Part 5

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Welcome to the latest edition of our new weekly blog series, Market To Mondays. Each week, we will introduce you to a new group of people you should market to. We’ll tell you who they are, why you should market to them, and how you might get started.

Last week’s group was Friends of Followers.

Today’s Group = Google Searchers

It may seem obvious to some, but many small and mid-size businesses are still wary of advertising on search engines. But you need to start today.

People are searching for you. They may not be doing it by name, they may not know you exist, and they may not even know they’re doing it. But they are searching for what your company has to offer. And when they do, you can win their business by showing them an ad for your company.

It’s not just Google. It’s Yahoo, and Bing, and any other search engine that your customers might use. They all allow you to pay to show ads to people who are searching for you. You pay only when someone clicks on the ad. And you can control how much you pay, and what keywords your ad shows up for.

It’s a relatively cheap and easy way to start advertising.

But how?

You can sign up with Google Adwords, or the equivalent on any other search engine. You will have to create campaigns for your products or services, write text ads for them that will show up atop or alongside of search results, and add a list of keywords that you want your ad to show up for.

The ads platform works as a bidding system. So you can enter the maximum amount you want to bid for each keyword, and the search engine will use that to determine what ads to show, and in what order. Popular keywords will have more advertisers bidding on them, so they will cost more for each click. But Google makes it easy by showing you the relative search volume and popularity of each keyword, and tells you what they think you need to bid in order for your ad to show.

The initial set up can take time and will be quite complex for someone doing this for the first time. Luckily, there are some options you have to make it easier to get started.

First, Google offers a simple “How-to” course for anyone interested in learning how to get the most out of their Adwords platform. It walks you through, in detail, everything from set up to launch of your campaigns and beyond.

If you’d rather not do it yourself, you can hire and agency or consultant with experience. There are thousands of people out in the world who have done this for other companies. And you can pay them to ensure your account is set up correctly and working the way you want it to.

From the day you launch your campaigns, people searching for you will start to find you more easily. And you’ll be able to measure the direct impact this has on increasing your sales.

What group should we cover next? Now accepting submissions for audiences that we will cover in an upcoming “Market To Mondays” post. Submit your ideas via our contact page or in the comments section below.

Market To Mondays – Part 4

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Welcome to the latest edition of our new weekly blog series, Market To Mondays. Each week, we will introduce you to a new group of people you should market to. We’ll tell you who they are, why you should market to them, and how you might get started.

Last week’s group was Social Media Followers.

Today’s Group = Friends of Followers

Last week we discussed why and how to market to your company’s followers and fans on social media. Today, we take it one level further.

Because social media is, for lack of a better term, social, there are entire groups of people just beyond your reach as a brand.

The social circles of your followers don’t necessarily follow you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t market to them. In fact, I’m here today to tell you that you can, and you should.

Why should you? The two main reasons are simple. First and quite simply, you are able to. Second, people usually surround themselves with people similar to them in age, location, and interests.

That second point is important. It says that if your followers are customers or potential customers, than their friends are also potential customers. Not in all cases, but in many. So to ignore their friends would be to ignore an entire audience you might easily connect with.

But how?

The how in this case varies by social media platform. The first and most direct way to advertise to the friends of your followers is by using Facebook’s ads platform. The brilliant people at Facebook have made this simple by adding a “Friends of Followers” setting on every ad when selecting your targeting options.

Beyond that, you can target the friends of your followers across all networks in three distinct ways. The first is by sharing content that itself is share-worthy. Content that engages your followers is more likely to be shared by your followers, thereby providing a direct link (almost a referral) from your brand to your follower’s friends.

Second, you can host a social media contest that incentivizes sharing. Contests with a social component that reward entrants for number of votes or likes actually encourage sharing. Entrants need an army of friends to help them win the contest, and so they are likely to tell everyone they know about the contest, and indirectly, your brand.

And finally, you can launch a social referral program designed to turn your followers and customers into brand advocates, actively marketing your brand to their friends and followers. By rewarding them with special offers or discounts, you incentivize them to act on your behalf as an army of marketers.

Let the followers of your followers become your followers, and you can grow your market at the speed of light.

What group should we cover next? Now accepting submissions for audiences that we will cover in an upcoming “Market To Mondays” post. Submit your ideas via our contact page or in the comments section below.

Market To Mondays – Part 3

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Welcome to the latest edition of our new weekly blog series, Market To Mondays. Each week, we will introduce you to a new group of people you should market to. We’ll tell you who they are, why you should market to them, and how you might get started.

Last week’s group was Past Customers.

Today’s Group = Social Media Followers

If your company participates on social media, meaning you have created accounts and you are spending time cultivating fans, followers, likes, and other forms of engagement, then those audiences are ripe to be marketed to.

Social media followers are following your brand for a reason. Either they like the kind of content that you share. Or they have purchased from you in the past. Or they are considering buying from you in the future.

No matter who they are, there are a few things I can tell you as facts. First, they know who you are. Second, you have a very simple way to connect with them already.

So why wouldn’t you market to them? There is none. You should.

But how?

How you market to social media followers is likely to be very different than how you market to other audiences. That’s because social media is not a platform for selling.

You can’t be too self-promotional. You can’t only publish deals, and discounts, and offers. That’s how you lose followers, not turn followers into customers.

So marketing to social media followers is about doing three main things: growing your follower base, turning casual fans into active ones, and making it easy for them to take the next step and turn into a paying customer.

To grow your follower base and turn casual fans into active ones, pay attention to the kind of content you share on social media. Track what gets you the most traffic, the most likes, and the most shares. Content with more engagement is better. More people will see it. And more people will be exposed to your brand.

Intersperse major announcements about your company – product releases, contests, special offers, and other news – that gets your active fans closer to your sales funnel. Get them off social media and onto your website, where they can shop or speak to someone from your company.

It’s a numbers game. More followers will lead to more engagement, more traffic, and more sales. It takes time and energy. And most importantly, it takes the commitment and patience of management.

What group should we cover next? Now accepting submissions for audiences that we will cover in an upcoming “Market To Mondays” post. Submit your ideas via our contact page or in the comments section below.

Market To Mondays – Part 2

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Welcome to the latest edition of our new weekly blog series, Market To Mondays. Each week, we will introduce you to a new group of people you should market to. We’ll tell you who they are, why you should market to them, and how you might get started.

Last week’s group was Website Visitors.

Today’s Group = Past Customers

The people who have purchased from you in the past are an ideal audience to market to. Why?

Because you already spent the money it took to get them to buy in the first place. They already know who you are. They already took the risk of buying from a company for the first time. And all you have to do now is get them to come back.

You know the old adage in marketing – it is 5 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to sell to an existing one.

And so, your existing customers are an audience that you should focus on. If you do the right things, it will be the least expensive marketing program you’ve ever put in place.

But how?

It actually starts with the product itself. It has to be a good one. It has to fill a need or solve a problem that the customer has. And it has to do it well.

All the marketing in the world is not going to bring back an unsatisfied customer. So work with your product teams to make sure you are constantly improving the quality of the things that you sell.

Second, approach your customer service department as a friend. After you’ve got a great product, you need great customer service. Nothing kills a relationship with a customer more quickly than poor service. You want your customer service department to be the most helpful, friendliest people on the planet. They make unhappy customers happy. And they make happy customers more loyal.

Once you have the product and service teams on your side, it’s time to figure out the marketing. Three things you should be doing are email, loyalty programs, and community building.

Email is the best way to keep in touch with past customers. When they purchase from you, have them give you their email address. Then send them regular emails with special offers on the products they’re most interested in. And get their feedback through surveys and polls about the product and the service they’ve received.

Loyalty programs are a great way to turn happy customers into returning customers. Regular customers should receive special benefits that new customers don’t get. That could mean lower prices, ancillary products or services, or rewards. When they become “members”, you make it harder for them to choose your competitors in the future.

Community building works with loyalty programs to create an atmosphere of engagement. Using your own site or a social media platform, create a place for customers to interact with your company and each other. This will get them more involved and make them feel like they are a part of your brand. This fosters increased loyalty and can even create brand advocates that will help your marketing efforts.

What group should we cover next? Now accepting submissions for audiences that we will cover in an upcoming “Market To Mondays” post. Submit your ideas via our contact page or in the comments section below