One of the most fundamental parts of a good marketing strategy is to know who you are actually trying to reach. Oftentimes, businesses pump out marketing materials based on who they want their audience to be or even worse, who they think their audience should be. But, you can’t reach someone that you don’t know. This is why knowing your audience is the crucial first step in building your marketing playbook.

Meet Your Audience on Day One

Knowing your audience should begin early in the development of your product or service. Too many businesses develop a product and then ask their marketers to figure out the target audience later. In reality, you can’t sell something if you don’t know who you’re trying to sell to, no matter how great your product might be. Creating a customer profile or persona can help mitigate this. By starting off with an idea of who you’re trying to reach before you get started with your marketing campaign, you are guaranteeing that you’re already on the trajectory to successfully reaching your potential client.

Engage and Listen

One of the easiest ways to get to know your audience is by engaging with them. Social media and email marketing are great ways to accomplish this. Find ways to get your audience invested and engaged. For example, you can put out a social media post and ask your audience a question to get them talking. Or, you could send out an email campaign and encourage them to respond with their thoughts. People love to feel like their thoughts and opinions are being heard by companies they care about. Once you start getting feedback from your audience, it’s imperative that you listen to what they’re saying and consider implementing changes that could better suit your audience. 

The Takeaway

Knowing your audience and communicating with them in ways that appeal to them and reach them directly is the foundation on which a successful marketing strategy is built. Ready to get started? We can help you determine who your audience is and how to reach them. Reach out to us and let us help you reach new heights of success!

The post Know Your Audience first appeared on Twin Peaks Communications.

The digital marketing landscape is constantly changing and at times it can be challenging to keep up and decide what options are the best fit for your customers and business. You may have heard of PPC or pay-per-click, but is it of value to your target audience?

What is PPC?

According to HubSpot, PPC or Pay-Per-Click is “ a form of advertising that allows you to pay a fee to have your website on the search engine result page when someone types in specific keywords or phrases to the search engine.” Once people have found you on the results page, you only pay for advertising if they click on your ad.

PPC ads aren’t just found on search engines. Many social media platforms also utilize Pay-Per-Click advertising. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and even Amazon all have options to allow you to advertise your product or service to potential consumers who use their channels. 

What are the Benefits of PPC?

Using Pay-Per-Click advertising can be a valuable part of your marketing strategy. There are many reasons that PPC may be a good option to consider. A few of these include:

Budget-friendly: Platforms allow you to set your own budget and keywords. While in some capacities you may need to increase your budget to reach your audience, this is a great way to start advertising and can be a very cost-effective way to bring in sales and potential leads. 

Trackable: PPC campaign analytics are easily trackable which helps you determine which ads are working and which ones need to be revamped or shelved. 

Easy to adjust: Because Pay-Per-Click analytics are easily trackable, they are also easy to adjust which means you can change marketing campaigns in real-time.

Target your ideal consumer: PPC platforms allow you to specify who your ads are shown to and where they are located. This can help you make sure you are reaching the right consumer and also help make sure that you are maximizing your advertising budget.

The Takeaway

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising can be an important component of your marketing strategy if used properly. Ready to take your marketing to new heights? Twin Peaks can help! Reach out to us, we’d love to talk more!

The post The Value of PPC first appeared on Twin Peaks Communications.

Marketing is one of the most important aspects of any successful business. While there are many different ways to reach your potential clients, in 2023 digital marketing is undoubtedly one of the most crucial.

What is Digital Marketing? 

According to the American Marketing Association, digital marketing is  “any marketing methods conducted through electronic devices which utilize some form of a computer, including online marketing efforts conducted on the internet.” A digital marketing strategy may include websites, SEO, social media channels, email marketing, and more. In more traditional forms of marketing, a company communicates in a one-way direction with its potential customer or client. Digital marketing often involves two-way communication and evolving practices. As technology becomes more advanced, so do many marketing techniques.

How to Get Started with Digital Marketing

There are various components of a successful digital marketing plan including:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Successful SEO practices help improve your ranking in search engines and increase the chances that potential customers will find your website or products easily. 

Pay-Per-Click (PPC): PPC or Pay-per-click is a form of digital marketing where advertisers run ads and only pay for them when consumers click on them.  

Social Media Marketing: Using your business’s social media channels to connect with your potential consumer base can help you build on-going profitable relationships. 

Websites: Your website is an integral part of your digital marketing strategy. Creating engaging content and driving traffic to your website can help increase sales.  

Email marketing: Email marketing gives you an opportunity to communicate directly with your potential client and send promotional information to them as necessary.

The Takeaway

Digital marketing is a vital component of a successful marketing strategy. Finding new and dynamic ways to reach potential clients or customers can help create relationships and bring in new revenue. No matter what element of digital marketing you are considering adding to your strategy, Twin Peaks can help you succeed. Ready to reach new heights? We’d love to talk more!

The post The Foundation of Digital Marketing first appeared on Twin Peaks Communications.

In 2023 it seems that there are an unlimited number of ways to reach your potential customer. Social media ads and pay-per-click (PPC) have become dominant players in the inbound marketing world. With the ever-changing digital landscape, many may ask if tried and true email marketing is still a valuable tool in their marketing strategy toolbox. The answer may surprise you. 

Email marketing has been a cornerstone of marketing campaigns for nearly 50 years. On May 3, 1978, a marketer named Gary Thuerk sent the first unsolicited email pitch to 400 business prospects. His result? Nearly 13 million dollars in sales. With services like Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, and many others, it is now easier than ever to reach potential customers via email. Campaigns can help you build a relationship with your audience and drive traffic to your website or social media pages. Additionally, effective email marketing can be a useful tool to run A/B tests and see which strategies work best for your audience.

According to HubSpot, nearly 80% of marketers list email campaigns as one of their top 3 marketing strategies. With numbers like this, you could assume that these email campaigns bring companies overwhelming success. However, these same statistics show that nearly 72% of marketers using email campaigns find the biggest challenge to be low open rates among consumers. So, this leads us to ask if so few people are even opening your emails, is it even worth it to invest in sending them? 

The answer? Sort of. Email campaigns will probably be a consistent mainstay in your list of marketing tools. However, like most marketing techniques it’s vital to test what works best in your industry and what works for your potential customers. For example, if you find your email campaigns are generating leads and getting good open rates, it may be worth it to make email the main element of your marketing strategy. On the other hand, if you find that you’re getting few results and even fewer open rates, it may be a better idea to invest more in another form of digital marketing.

Like all marketing strategies, email marketing is a tool that can be successful if used effectively and with the right audience. It is always important to challenge the status quo and see what techniques are the right fit for your business or organization. Just because something has been around for 50 years doesn’t always mean it’s the best fit for the success of your business. At Twin Peaks, we can help you find the best marketing strategies and solutions that work for you. Ready to get started? Let us help you reach new heights!

The post In 2023 is Email Marketing Still Valuable? first appeared on Twin Peaks Communications.

When implementing any type of marketing strategy it’s important to have an idea of the objectives you are trying to achieve and how to get there. One of the easiest ways to do this is to implement a SMART Goal. Not only can a SMART Goal help you achieve the best results for your business, but it can also help you set new objectives in the future.

SMART stands for:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Time-Bound

Now that we have the basics of what a SMART Goal is, let’s break it down even further.

Specific

Many times when starting on something new, we tend to set goals that are much too vague. For instance, if you want to add reading into your weekly routine, you might say “I want to reach more people with my marketing.” This is a good start, but how can you ensure that you’re setting yourself up to achieve it? By setting the specific goal of “I want to reach more potential customers on social media” you are increasing the chances of your goal’s success.

Measurable

A measurable goal is a goal that is easier to maintain and track. When crafting a SMART Goal, let’s use our example above of “this year I want to reach more potential customers on social media.” For the measurable part of our SMART Goal, we could specify our goal by saying “I want to reach 15% more potential customers on social media.” Now we have a specific objective and also a very tangible number that we’re attempting to reach. 

Attainable

This part of the SMART Goal should go without saying, but it’s very important to set a goal that you can achieve. Using our social media goal as an example, if after looking at the previous year’s numbers, you realize that maybe 15% is too ambitious, revise your goal to “reaching 10% more potential customers on social media.” It’s all about being realistic and making sure that you are setting your business up for success.

Relevant

Making your goal relevant helps to guide your marketing efforts in the right direction. It’s important to ask yourself if your goal is relevant to your overall success. For instance, is making sure that your business “reaches 10% more potential customers on social media” crucial to your business? The obvious answer is yes, but this is not always the case. It’s important to be able to decipher what is and isn’t relevant to your marketing strategy and adjust your goal accordingly. 

Time-Bound

The last component of a SMART Goal is making your goal time-bound and setting a specific time frame to complete your goal. In our example, this might mean “I want to reach 10% more potential customers on social media this year.” This not only gives us something tangible to work towards, but it also helps us set realistic goals in the future. If we are successful in our goal this year, next year we have a better understanding of how to set future goals.

SMART Goals are part of a crucial marketing strategy for your business or organization. These goals can be a part of the process of taking your marketing to new heights. Ready to get started? We’d love to talk more!

The post How SMART Goals can Enhance your Marketing first appeared on Twin Peaks Communications.

In 2023 attention spans are short and the amount of content your potential customer has access to is excessive. How do you make your content stand out and reach the right people? We have the tips to help overcome “content shock” and make your marketing engaging and profitable.

Before learning how to combat content shock, you need to know what it is. Content marketing strategist Mark Schaefer defines content shock as occurring “when the amount of content available exceeds our ability to consume it.” Unfortunately, this idea should come as no surprise to us.

Think about your social media feeds. Besides the content that you actually want to see – your friend’s photos, birthday notes, and even news from your favorite source – your feed is filled with content that is completely irrelevant to you in the form of ads. Your potential customer is going to scroll past anything irrelevant to them the same way that you do. This is where knowing how to overcome content shock comes in. Here are some ways to make your content more than just noise.

1. Let’s Get Visual

Making your content unique and visually engaging is one of the easiest ways to help combat content shock. This can be done in many ways. Some easy options include using inviting colors, fonts, and photos to help draw attention in the attention of your audience. Not only does visually engaging content help catch the attention of potential customers but it also makes your content more shareable which can be crucial when it comes to brand awareness and ultimately lead generation.

2. Make it Personal

When making and sharing content, it’s important that your messaging is relatable to the potential customer you are trying to reach. One of the best ways to do this is to make it personally engaging. Humor, holidays, pop culture, and current events are all great starting points. We recommend avoiding politics; after all, your potential consumer is likely getting political content from enough sources as it is.

3. Engage, Engage, Engage

One of the best strategies for making your content stand out is by engaging with your potential customer as they consume it. By creating great content and showing potential customers that you are interested in connecting with them, you are doing more than just advertising to them. You are encouraging them to invest in your brand. 

For instance, a popular magazine recently posted a series of social media graphics about the coronation of King Charles and asked readers to weigh in on whether or not they were planning to watch the ceremony. As followers began commenting, the company responded and in some cases even began sharing links to their website with more relevant content and options for subscriptions. This is a great example of how engaging with your consumer can make your content stand out – and help drive profits in the process!

The Takeaway

There are many ways to combat and overcome content shock. By engaging with your potential customers and making your content shareable and personally appealing, you are off to a great start. Ready to take your marketing to the next level and cut through the noise of content shock? Reach out to Twin Peaks Communications for a free consultation today!

The post 3 Ways to Overcome Content Shock first appeared on Twin Peaks Communications.

The main goal of any successful business is to connect with its customers or potential customers and to sell a product. In a world filled with endless amounts of social media images and television commercials, how do you make your business stand out and how do you make sure that you’re reaching the right people? What if we told you there was a magic formula to help you connect with your best potential clients and bring them right to your doorstep? Would you believe us? In the marketing world, there’s no need to rub a magic lamp like the genie in Aladdin or shake a Magic 8 Ball the way you did as a kid. The solution is a magic formula called Inbound Marketing.

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound Marketing is defined by HubSpot as “the method of growing your organization by building meaningful, lasting relationships with consumers, prospects, and customers. It’s about valuing and empowering these people to reach their goals at any stage in their journey with you.” In other words, Inbound Marketing is simply knowing who you are trying to reach and creating engaging ways for your clients to naturally desire to connect with you as a brand.

Think about how many ads you see each day when you scroll through social media. How many of them are relevant to you? What if instead of seeing endless ads for things you don’t want (or need) all the content was tailor-made to interest you and make you want to check out a brand? This is the idea behind Inbound Marketing. In essence, it’s as though Inbound Marketing seeks to connect with your customers as if you weren’t advertising to them at all. Instead, you are creating valuable and necessary content and conversations that they want more of and want to continue coming back for.

How to get started with Inbound Marketing

Inbound Marketing can be done in many different ways. In today’s era of constant social media noise, it’s important that your brand isn’t just “piling on.” You don’t want to be another ad talking “at someone.” Instead, it is imperative to talk with your potential customers and to make them care about what you have to say. Your customer’s journey begins long before they ever get to the check-out on your website or the register at your storefront. According to HubSpot Inbound Marketing is done with three steps: 

1. Attract: Using dynamic content that is valuable to your potential client so that you are making sure to bring in and attract the right customers. 

2. Engage: Presenting solutions and options that are relevant and needed by the customer, and showing them why your product is the right one for their needs. 

1. Delight: Going the extra mile for your customers and reassuring them that they made the right choice in purchasing from you.

How is Inbound Marketing Different?

Traditional marketing of the past could be likened to a person standing on the corner with a megaphone yelling at you. It doesn’t matter if you’re interested or not, the person standing there is going to yell their message at you no matter what because you happen to be passing by in front of them. Unfortunately for them, when you walk past their store and onto the next street to get away from the noise, they’re going to lose any potential sales that you may have provided them. Old-school marketing can often be seen as pushy, out of touch, and even annoying in some cases. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Inbound Marketing seeks to target the people who will be most interested in listening to your message and trying to communicate with them in ways that they are open to and looking for.

What are examples of Inbound Marketing?

Inbound Marketing can come in a myriad of forms. Blogs (like this one), interactive social media posts or graphics, and even colorful or engaging email campaigns are all forms of Inbound Marketing. The key is to realize that attention spans are short and your content has a lot of competition for those few precious seconds a customer has to spare. By creating something helpful, informative, or interesting to read or look at, you have given your brand the best shot at being remembered. Having great follow-up campaigns and customer service are also important parts of the cycle. Imagine bringing in a potential customer, selling them on a product, and then once they’re hooked and have made their purchase, bailing on them when they seek out help or have questions. The Inbound Marketing methodology focuses on meeting customers wherever they are in their journey and consistently reassuring them that your product or service is the best one for them and their needs.

The Takeaway

Inbound Marketing is an incredibly valuable and vital strategy for any growing business. It’s not about just talking “at” someone, it’s about talking to the right people. Inbound Marketing furthers the success of your business by meeting your potential customer where they are, providing materials or content to both attract and engage them, and then to reaffirm their confidence in their choice once a purchase has been made. So, now that you know the secret to success with Inbound Marketing, are you ready to reach new heights? Let Twin Peaks Communications help you connect with your potential customer through Inbound Marketing. Reach out to us today for a free consultation!

The post The Power of Inbound Marketing first appeared on Twin Peaks Communications.

Overview:

This is a brief guide on suggested best practices and methodologies to facilitate successful and efficient supervision and direction of the teams affiliated with marketing projects (and most other departments) for both businesses as well as non-profit organizations.

Communication:

Heavy emphasis and priority should be placed on maintaining communication channels both between the organization / company and its “target audience” as well as between departments and/or employees.  The communication should be respectful, courteous, and open-minded.  Getting feedback from the “target audience” is crucial for determining project end goals and milestones as well as the development of products, content, marketing materials, etc.

End Goals and Milestones:

It is very important to have a clearly-defined mission and end goals.  And with that end goal serving as a “north star,” then detailed milestones and objectives should be established along a “charted path.”  These milestones allow the leadership and/or management to ensure that all departments and components of an organization are functioning as desired.  If a milestone is not achieved, then it can be addressed as to why and an appropriate remedy can be introduced.

Organization and Efficiency:

Most companies and other entities (especially non-profit organizations) should focus more attention on developing these aspects.  Many start-up companies and non-profit organizations literally hemorrhage money through inefficiency and disorganization, especially in the areas of budgeting and financial management (including bookkeeping).  It is vital to get as much “bang for your buck” as possible from reinvested profit margins and/or funding raised from investors or donors.

Maximize Employee Strengths, Minimize Weaknesses:

In every professional team each employee will have strengths and skills as well as weaknesses and opportunities for growth.  Teams and departments along with delegated tasks should be carefully assessed and then organized in a manner which utilizes these strengths and minimizes the impact of any weaknesses and/or professional deficiencies.  Besides the fact that the team will generally be much happier with this arrangement, this approach drives operational efficiency and therefore achievability of milestones and end goals as well as profitability.

Use Your Data Tools:

Be sure to utilize as many tools and assets that gather and express data as possible.  The old cliche` that “knowledge is power” still rings true, and it is imperative to know as much about your output and impact of products, services, content, etc., as possible.  This data ranges from SEO performance to interaction with social media algorithms to financial budgeting and P&L reports, and much more.  The point is that “ignorance is bliss” absolutely does not apply to any kind of business operations, and certainly not in a marketing sector.  

Balance “Right-Brained” and “Left-Brained” Skill Sets:

Relating to the previous point, most teams (especially from a creative and/or marketing standpoint) will consist of both “right brained” creative types and “left brained” analytical types.  A good practice is to work with the analytical team members to develop strategies and parameters to achieve the end goals and milestones of the company and/or organization, while the creative professionals work within those guidelines to reach those objectives.  A practical example would be an operations director of a content writing team for a website working with the “left-brained” SEO analysts to determine what content is generating the most traffic and ad revenue, for instance.  The SEO analysts explain that the website gets the most traffic from, say, women in their late twenties and early thirties who are new and/or youngish mothers and family-oriented.  The operations director would then explain to the creative “right brained” content writing team, graphic designers, etc., that extra emphasis is now placed on mothers aged twenty-five to thirty-five, and that a certain portion of their content should be created with that demographic in mind.  In simple terms that means that both the relevant content and format would appeal to that target audience in all aspects, including subject matter, imagery, fonts, color palettes, etc.  And, getting back to the “left-brained” crew, such as a sales and business development team, the operations director could delegate the task of reaching out to businesses that sell products and services relating to motherhood, children, etc., for sponsorship opportunities, exclusive write-ups, etc.

Speak Nicely and Maintain Morale:

This point may sound like a nagging lecture your mother gave you in third grade, but speaking nicely goes a long way with the management of teams, especially in a marketing and creative sense.  Expressing consistent gratitude to your teams maintains a feeling that their contribution is valued.  Also, using the “sandwich method” of placing an element of constructive criticism between two positive comments is helpful.  Personally, I have found that communicating consistent (and sincere) praise to my team for their accomplishments and contributions makes it much easier to express occasional constructive criticism.  This aspect is especially true when working with creative and artistic types who are often very emotionally invested in their work output.  It is often much more effective to give direction (and even constructive criticism) to an artist who feels that his or her work is always valued and appreciated, and only in a relatively rare instance is there an expression that he or she needs to adjust the artistic product.  In practical terms, that means that if a graphic designer creates ten products, and nine of them are sincerely praised and gratitude is expressed, it is much easier to explain that the tenth item might need to be tweaked to achieve the desired result.
(Bonus:  If your organization is Jewish in nature, it should be noted that according to Jewish values gratitude is essential and speech has immense power.  The term “Jew” comes from “Yehudi,” which is based on the Hebrew word for being thankful.  And the very first passages of the Torah describe the Almighty “speaking” the universe into existence.  The implication is clear: speech is so powerful it can literally build or destroy entire worlds.)

Conclusion:

The concepts discussed here are just a few of the methodologies that have proven to be effective in the optimal management of marketing teams and/or other departments in both a business and a non-profit setting.  These practices will help ensure that objectives are met, deliverables are achieved, and that success and profitability is maximized, which is a fancy way of saying everybody wins. Want to take your marketing to new heights? Twin Peaks Communications can help. Reach out to us for a free consultation today!

The post Recommended Practices for Managing Marketing Teams first appeared on Twin Peaks Communications.

The idea is clear and obvious. For any business to succeed you need to market and advertise your products and/or services you provide to warm bodies with cash in their wallets. In the twenty-first century, small businesses have a wide range of marketing and advertising options, especially using online tools and applications. In order to be successful and competitive with your new business, you need to build and maintain your audience of customers. This task may seem a little bit overwhelming at first for many…

But what if it doesn’t have to be?
What if successfully engaging with your audience of customers is even easier than you might have originally thought? 

Here are seven simple things that you (and any business professional, new or seasoned) can do to successfully engage with your audience of customers and clients to maximize the success and profitability (which means money!) of your company’s marketing projects.

Know your audience of potential or existing customers and clients

Knowing your audience is by far the most crucial part of marketing any business or service. Who is your key consumer? Who are you trying to reach? What are their interests and/or pain points? How do your products and/or services meet those interests or needs? Knowing the answer to these questions and continuing to discover who your audience is goes a long way. If you own a start-up business and you are marketing to customers in an area that has a heavy cultural preference for contemporary pop and hip-hop music, creating marketing materials with a country western theme and background music will probably fall pretty flat. A dating website for farmers doesn’t try to market themselves to young professionals living in the New York urban jungle of Manhattan (and for good reason).

Be unique, be bold, and don’t be afraid to show it

You created your business because you have a unique service or product to offer. Your communication with your audience of customers and clients should be equally unique. It’s important that your marketing materials highlight the components of your company that set you apart from others. Imagine that you received a flyer in the mail advertising a new restaurant around the corner. If the front of the flyer has colorful images and a phrase emphasizing that the chef is from Paris and has won awards for his delicious culinary creations, you would be much more likely to check out the restaurant than if you’d just gotten a run-of-the-mill advertisement that does nothing to distinguish the new restaurant from the local dining locations already in existence. The way you present yourself to your audience should be the same. Tell them what makes the products and/or services that you and your business have to offer unique and special, and why they should choose you above the rest.

Focus on one or two communication channels to start with

Sometimes when wanting to get the word out about new products or services, it’s easy to want to put the pedal to the medal and go all in. It is tempting to throw as much advertising as possible to the proverbial wall just to see what sticks. In reality, when using this method almost nothing sticks ever. What’s even better than that is focusing on only one or two communication channels that have proven success and that yield strong results to begin with. Once those channels have gained traction, then begin to branch out, growing your audience and client base even more. If you have a strong following on Facebook and get great results with email marketing, for instance, focus on those two components while slowly building your Twitter and Instagram following. If you have a dynamic podcast, work to make it the best podcast ever, rather than branching out prematurely to video creation (especially if you or your team are still up-and-coming in your video production skillset). Don’t try to build all your platforms at once with limited content. You will undoubtedly overwhelm yourself and underwhelm your audience. Spreading yourself too thin can take away from the places where your consumer base lives and breathes.  It is far better to have quality marketing content that breaks through the clutter on one or two platforms than to have mediocre content on five or six platforms that barely gets any notice whatsoever.

Talk WITH your audience of customers and clients, not AT them

This point is one of the most important aspects for any kind of audience engagement, especially via interactive platforms like social media. Envision your audience as someone that you want to have a conversation with. Nobody likes that guy at a party who drones on and on about a topic that is only of interest to him and who is completely oblivious to the fact that his victim is anxiously glancing around the room for an excuse to escape. It is vital to make sure that your marketing and advertising doesn’t become “that guy.” In other words, don’t just talk at your audience. Instead, talk with them. Show them why what you have to offer is the best product and/or service available to fill their needs, and then actively listen to and engage with their feedback. Consumers love feeling as if they are somehow involved in that process of product and service development, and that what they say does make a difference. Looking for opportunities to have an ongoing dialogue with your audience will help them to feel engaged and invested in your company and products. Bonus tip: besides marketing and sales, this approach is hugely valuable for free “R&D” (research and development). People are usually more than happy to tell you exactly what’s right (or wrong) with your business products and/or services as they are developing. It’s wise to listen, since it is their satisfaction and willingness to open their wallets that ensures that your business will succeed.  

Consistency is key when communicating with your audience

One of the biggest mistakes a business of any size or tenure can make is not being consistent in communication with their audience. If you sat down to watch your favorite evening news program everyday at five p.m. and then suddenly the production company changed schedules and started airing the show at midnight every other day, you’d throw your remote at the television set and then retrieve it only to change the channel. The same is true with your audience engagement. Putting out information about your company and brand on a regular basis keeps you at the top of their minds and lets them know when and how they can count on you for engaging content and notification of products and services.

Follow through and further interact with your audience of customers

Related to consistency is the follow-up of your audience engagement. It is common knowledge in the sales world that potential customers must often be engaged several times before they make a purchase. Marketing and advertising is no different, which makes following up with your audience of customers and clients so crucial. If you send out an email to your audience and several people respond with questions or comments, it’s important to answer them clearly, professionally, and promptly. Think of it in terms of setting up your sales pitch and then following through rather than “bailing” on your leads. This factor is especially true on social media platforms where comments often come in almost immediately after your content posts. Replying to or even just acknowledging your audience’s comments or questions helps them to know that you and your business are committed to their needs and interests. It also keeps your products and/or services at the forefront of their mind, and with a little bit of effort, it might even establish you as the “local expert” in your industry or sector.

Push yourself to your professional limits, but know those limits.  

Finally, know what you do best and use that to your advantage. Not everyone has every talent; know your talents and pursue them. And find a balance between quantity versus quality. On the one hand, quality should generally be favored over quantity. Many start-up entrepreneurs make the mistake of rushing their marketing materials, which leaves the potential customer or client with a negative impression that the business itself is sloppy or unprofessional. However, don’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good. If you take so much time to polish and perfect your marketing content that you rarely (or never) actually release those advertising materials, well, then that just defeats the purpose entirely. So it’s usually best to find that “sweet spot” of knowing exactly how much time, effort, and money it will take to create your reasonably polished marketing content, and then achieve a balance that promotes a satisfactory level of both quality and quantity of marketing and advertising presentation.

That may seem like a lot of material to digest, but ultimately the important thing to remember is that your audience of customers and clients are people just like you. They want you to interact with them in a manner that reflects that understanding. They have a need or an interest, and you have a way to “scratch that itch.” That’s the core of any business. Successful marketing through audience engagement with your customers merely focuses on the best way to communicate with them that you are more than happy to meet those needs and satisfy those interests. And by using these seven tips, you are in a great position to do exactly that and watch your customer and client engagement flourish and your business grow. Are you ready to take your business or organization to new heights? Twin Peaks Communications can help. Reach out to us for a free consultation!

The post Seven Ways to Engage with Your Customer Audience for B2B and B2C Marketing first appeared on Twin Peaks Communications.

KEY CONCEPTS AND PREMISES

There are essentially two primary ways to develop and market a product and make it profitable in any industry, including software. For our purposes here, they will simply be referred to as “model A” and “model B.”

Model A

The target audience / potential customer community is first determined before the product is created (or at least finished). Their wants and needs are analyzed, often by communicating with them directly. The product is then developed to meet those specific wants and needs. In this model, the target audience / potential customer community is aware of exactly what the product is before launch. When it launches, they already understand the product and ideally many of them have expressed “buy-in,” which dramatically increases the ease and potential success of marketing and sales.

Model B

A product is created on its own merits or inherited / acquired before a target audience is identified. After the product is complete, a marketing and sales team is brought in to determine the potential customer base with the obvious intention to sell the product and make the project profitable.

Let’s use the analogy of car manufacturing to illustrate what I mean. In model A, ABC Motors determines that mothers with three or more children are their desired target audience / potential customer community. As such, they figure that a minivan or medium-sized SUV is the product that would be most appealing to these potential customers. They build or utilize a community of mothers with children and get their feedback as the product is in development (especially using online and/or social media tools). The minivan or SUV is tailored to their interests, and a buzz is already created among the potential customers about this new family-based vehicle that is specifically designed for their wants and needs. This community of potential customers, many of whom are now excited for the vehicle product to come out, anticipate the launch of the car, and ideally many of them purchase it not long after. 

In model B, ABC Motors creates a minivan based on what they believe to be the best family-based vehicle. Once the minivan is completed, they then use their product marketing and business development personnel to determine who might be interested in buying this new minivan. The personnel are now tasked with sorting through all the data of who buys cars (and who doesn’t), in order to determine what segment of the car buying sector might be interested in this new minivan. Once they have identified a probable target audience, they then further research the trends, characteristics, demographics, etc., of that target audience / potential customer community, and create marketing materials and a sales plan to reach them.

Most businesses, especially start-ups, follow model B rather than model A. In my experience (and according to the business development and marketing professionals that I have worked with and/or ascribe to), model A is more efficient and less risky because you know from the beginning exactly who your customers are and exactly what they want or need. This allows you to develop all of your products and marketing accordingly. And in some cases you can even create buy-in and buzz with potential customers before your product is even complete and launched. To be clear, model B absolutely can be successful. However, it is more complicated and therefore the business development and marketing requires more effort. For that reason, I highly recommend that all businesses incorporate some version of model A, or at least a hybrid of A and B, if at all possible.

So how does a company make a product successful using model B? If a company creates or otherwise possesses a product without having a highly-defined target audience / potential customer community beforehand, I would assert that there is realistically only one way to make that product marketable and successful.

The marketing and business development personnel need to sit down with the developers and engineers who created it and invest hours, days, or even weeks to understand every function of that product.

It is generally just not possible to successfully market a product without knowing either everything about the target audience / potential customer community, or everything about the product. Ideally, as much as possible about both should be known as soon as possible. But in the absence of knowing ahead of time who the target audience / potential customer community is, then at the very least the product needs to be understood.

Using our analogy with ABC Motors, let’s say the vehicle was developed and the marketing team was tasked to determine who would be interested in purchasing it. At that point the marketing team needs to know all of the details and features of the product. Is it a minivan, SUV, sedan, sports car, etc? Two-doors, four-doors, sliding doors, etc.? How is it on gasoline efficiency? Does it have four-wheel drive? Etc., etc., etc. What if ABC Motors says, “We have created a car. Marketing team, analyze the entire market of car buyers and break them down into data points and a smorgasbord of categories so that we can then determine where this car fits in.” In this case this latter method is far more complicated and far less efficient (which basically means time-consuming and therefore unnecessarily expensive). In contrast, a better method would be for the marketing team to get all the details of the vehicle, (and if they are smart take it for a test drive), and then dive into determining who the target audience / potential customer community is. So in that case they establish that ABC Motors’ new vehicle is a medium-sized minivan with a lot of room for passengers and gets much higher than average gas mileage. Such being the case, the marketing team can then begin asking the necessary questions to determine the target audience / potential customer community, such as:

Who needs a vehicle that can comfortably carry as many as six passengers?

Who would consider the asset of better gas mileage to be important to them in a purchasing decision?

Just on the basis of these two questions, the marketing team can immediately determine that the answers to both of these questions would be middle-income families who either live in an area with high gas prices and/or who are environmentally sensitive. Thus, the marketing and business development team would probably consider creating marketing materials and strategies to appeal to families (especially busy mothers) in a place like southern California. In contrast, the marketing team therefore does not need to spend any time or effort (and company money) on analyzing irrelevant target audiences / potential customer communities, such as divorced male business professionals who just might be going through a midlife crisis. This latter group would be keen on buying the newest flashy sports car, and wouldn’t be caught dead in a minivan, no matter how great the gas mileage is.

But… a strong word of caution…

When using this methodology to determine the target audience / potential customer community for an already existing / nearly finished product, there is a fact of life that is extremely important to understand. In fact, in my experience and observation this simple reality is probably one of the number one reasons that so many start-ups fail.

What people should want and what they actually want are not always the same thing.

Let me give you an example. Years ago just after my active duty military service in the Israel Defense Force I was asked to consult on the development of a security and defense product. The problem to be solved was that cargo ships and oil tankers were being attacked by pirates in east Africa, southeast Asia, and other parts of the world. The ships and even the crew were then held hostage at gunpoint in terrible conditions until the shipping company utilized their insurance policy to pay the ransoms. In response, a start-up company created a security barrier for maritime shipping that was permanent in nature and designed to replace the current barriers that were disposable, ineffective, and just flat-out expensive. The idea was that pirates can’t take over a ship if they can’t get on board it in the first place. And since ultimately these said pirates were opportunists, just the visible deterrent of the barrier alone was of immense value.

The business model was solid. The barrier product was designed to last for at least five years, and could be sold for as little as $200,000 per ship and still be highly profitable. In that five year cycle the shipping companies were spending at least $1,000,000 on their original, inferior solutions. Thus, the barrier company would have been able to provide a product that was much cheaper and much more effective, and they had a lot of room to dramatically inflate the price and still be cheaper than the less effective options.

So this sounds like it would have been a grand slam and it’s time to break out the champagne in celebration, right? Well, not quite…

The product developer and marketing specialist (not me) that the project brought on was a US Marine special forces veteran who had worked in maritime security. He knew all about counter-piracy and whatnot, but he was not initially aware of the nuances of the mid-level executives of the shipping companies themselves that were the “gateways” to getting the security barriers on the ships.

The reality of the situation was that the shipping companies as well as the insurance companies working with them were multi-billion dollar companies. That meant that a lot of money (and perk benefits) were floating around. The insurance brokers were extravagantly wining and dining the shipping executives to maintain the status quo of outrageously expensive insurance policies that were only justifiable as long as the problem of ships getting captured by pirates persisted. In other words, the mid-level shipping executives were far more interested in just doing what they had always done and getting showered with lavish perks from the insurance companies than they were saving the multi-billion dollar shipping companies that they worked for millions of dollars (which they would have seen little to none of). And if that meant that one hundred million dollar ships and even the crews running them had to be ransomed from murderous pirates, well, then so be it.

That’s shocking and even appalling. But that was the ugly reality of it. And therefore a product that was designed to be both way better and way cheaper than the existing solution was unexpectedly determined to be unmarketable to that target audience / potential customer community. A drastic shift in strategy was necessary, but most start-ups with limited funding don’t survive these types of unexpected setbacks.

So how is this scenario avoided? Even if a company is presently using the aforementioned model B, at least some elements of model A should be incorporated as much as possible.

Using our analogy of ABC Motors, our product marketing team has determined that they and the business development strategists want to first target large families and small businesses in southern California and similar places. It is extremely important to interact with that community and communicate, getting their feedback. Just because these California mothers should want this amazing new minivan with great gas mileage doesn’t mean that they actually will want it. But why wouldn’t they? Well, perhaps the marketing team misidentified the interests, needs, or “pain points,” of these mothers in California. The marketing strategists projected that good gas mileage would be the most important factor for this target audience / potential customer community. But maybe these California mothers really choose their family vehicle based on children’s car seat considerations (safety, ease of getting the seat in and out of the vehicle, etc.) A competing minivan that is great with car seats but gets mediocre gas mileage in that case would probably outsell ABC Motors’ new minivan. In that case, the product development engineers would have invested an immense amount of time, effort, and money developing a feature (low gas mileage) that ultimately wasn’t a primary consideration.

The only way to truly know what people want is to ask them. And they are usually more than happy to tell you. Examining data, analytics, metrics is absolutely crucial, but I would contend that it must be done in coordination with direct feedback from your potential customer community. Otherwise, you might be surprised to find what people actually want.

As a side note, this same methodology also goes for internal operations as well. I once managed several teams of bank employees who were also responsible for sales. One of the bank branches I inherited was failing (the lowest ranked out of twenty branches in a multi-state region). I communicated with the bank employees to determine the issue. In speaking with them carefully, I soon understood two deficiencies. First, the bank did not have universal sales training for the employees; whatever methodology that the employees had learned in a previous job is what they used. Needless to say, sales approaches were disjoined at best and therefore poor in results. More surprisingly, I was astonished to learn that these bank employees (mostly college-aged young people) were not motivated by cash bonuses. They were, however, motivated by food. I was completely flabbergasted to realize that my employees would openly say with a straight face that they would rather work for an occasional five dollar pint of gourmet ice cream than a bonus of more than one hundred dollars at the end of the month. (Apparently for these young people that feeling of “tangible realization” that came from me waving a pint of ice cream in front of their face as a pending reward and then putting it in the freezer until the sales came in was more valuable to them than a one hundred dollar bonus, even though they could have bought twenty pints of ice cream with it.) At any rate, I incorporated a series of ice cream prizes and branch-wide lunches at the end of successful sales months. Within six months these failing branches then led the multi-state region in achievement of sales goals.

EXAMPLE CASE STUDY FOR A SOFTWARE PRODUCT AND SAMPLE PLAN OF ACTION

Let’s say a software company has developed a unique and valuable community engagement and tracking software product. They utilized model B, and focused on the development of the software before properly considering who the final user would be and who would purchase it. (This theoretical example would also apply to a company that inherited a software product in the acquisition of another company, etc.)  The software company now seeks to determine who would be interested in purchasing it, and how to market and sell to that “target audience / potential customer community,” as I call it. These are a few initial thoughts on developing a viable plan of action.

• The software engineers would sit down with the marketing professionals and discuss the software in great detail.
• A highly detailed and clear list of functions and benefits of using the software would be created together in collaboration. 
• This list is vital to determine who on the user end would benefit most from the software, which would enable the marketing professionals to analyze that list and brainstorm who might be most interested in those functions (and ultimately use and purchase the software).
• The marketing professionals would begin writing down options for target audiences / potential customer communities, and then further narrow that list down to varying priorities.
• The marketing professionals would then begin active research on those target audiences / potential customer communities through every avenue available, ranging from online materials to direct personal consultation with members of that target audience / potential customer community.
• Once the marketing professionals have a grasp on the dynamics and specifics of this target audience / potential customer community, they would then work to create dialogue and rapport with that community through various channels (including but not limited to social media).
• The marketing professionals and business development / sales teams would then analyze that dialogue to generate strategies on how to move forward in every category from graphic design of marketing materials to creating a list of leads for both B2B and B2C sales.
• The marketing, business development, and sales teams would move forward with striving to generate revenue, working in tandem with one another and carefully observing the analytics and data to determine what marketing strategies and sales methodologies are most effective.

As is obvious, much more information about the software product in this theoretical case study would be needed before properly narrowing down possible target audiences / potential customer communities. But in the context that it is online community engagement tracking software, here are four immediate suggestions:

• Small businesses actively seeking growth
• Non-profit organizations trying to maximize their fundraising
• Government agencies and their public relations departments connecting with their citizens 
• Political campaigns trying to track and analyze where to focus their push

All of these industries have in common that the vast majority of community engagement and tracking for operational and marketing purposes will be done by a community relations and/or social media manager. All four of these possible target audiences / potential customer communities would likely be very interested in a product that streamlines and enhances their ability to interact with their own audience / customers, and gives them additional knowledge and tools as to how to leverage it. Few to none of the people who are responsible for community engagement, however, will have a wallet-opening response to any kind of marketing that is presented in a complex or overwhelming kind of way, even if you can manage to secure an in-depth B2B presentation or demo. 

That brings us to an additional challenge that seems to be common for any product or company that is dominated by engineers (software and otherwise). Every engineer that I have ever met speaks “Engineer-ese”; they literally live it and breathe it. Obviously there is immense value to that, but there is one huge drawback.

The only people who speak “Engineer-ese” are engineers. To everyone else, it’s a foreign language. 

What does that mean? For most potential customers if product marketing is written in “Engineer-ese” it might as well be written in archaic Latin. Archaic Latin has great value as the origin of many European languages as well as the dialect of science, intellectual studies, etc. But how many people would click on a post on social media or dive into a promotional e-mail written in Latin? I would presume not many. That means that people who otherwise would open up their wallet (or business expense account) and purchase a software product don’t, simply because they don’t understand the “Engineer-ese” language describing it.

Similarly, it should be noted that marketing and business development are not an engineering-type of field. Engineers work with hard systems like complex coding, mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc. While there are principles that are universal and best practices to be adopted and obviously a right versus a wrong way of developing marketing and business strategies, the fact of the matter is that (very unfortunately) there is simply no “code,” “algorithm,” or “equation” to it (at least, not like what engineers might be accustomed to). The point is that I would suggest that very different approaches and tools are used for engineering fields than are for marketing and business development. Marketing, like art, communicates directly to the psychology and emotions of the potential buyer. There is simply no mathematical principle (or other engineering system) to describe how and why thousands of people line up every single day to view Michelangelo’s masterpiece on the roof of the Sistine Chapel. It can be comprehended as to why, and even analyzed and thoroughly described with corresponding data points, but it can’t be properly explained in “Engineer-ese.”

Any company dominated by engineers must have marketing, communications, and business development professionals on board who can translate that “Engineer-ese” into a language that the target audience / potential customer communities can comprehend. And in the present era, attention spans are very short, meaning that the initial grab must be brief. Most companies selling products need to realize that their target audience / potential customer community has a short attention span, no matter who they are.

In today’s digital age of content overload and short attention spans, product marketing must be able to clearly communicate what a product is, how it works, and how it is beneficial to the consumer in literally seconds, or at the very, very most a few minutes. And it needs to be done at a level that a person with a high school diploma or GED can easily understand.

Now this is a unique challenge for engineer-based companies. Most engineers that I have known would be utterly horrified at the idea of describing their pride and joy that they took years to develop in less than two minutes at a high school level. In fact, this proposition would be so painful to them, that they would probably rather choose to gouge their own left eye with a rusty fork.

But the simple reality of the matter is that when marketing materials are distributed on the internet, or when a sales team begins reaching out to leads of community engagement managers of small businesses, non-profits, etc., via phone or e-mail to try to interest them in the software, the commonality is that many of them will not be much more proficient than a high school or limited college level, and they will almost invariably give you very little time. And these principles apply to both B2C and B2B models equally. Thus, all product marketing must be engaging and immediately comprehensible.

In the context of software, another aspect that I feel is extremely important for any relevant company to understand is that the software-using “commoner” and “lay person” is often easily overwhelmed. Wix is hugely successful because so many small business owners, for instance, are completely daunted by the perceived “overwhelming complexity” of WordPress (a truth that would make most software engineers who specialize in complex coding gasp in horror). Simply stated, the Wix model proves that many potential customers are poised to be overwhelmed by even moderately complex software presentations.

Product marketing for software needs to make that software look easy to use from the onset. If it is not, many persons in the most viable target audiences / potential customer communities will not purchase it. And if their boss or supervisor does purchase it, they will be resistant to use it (let alone thrive with it and recommend it to their friends and family). Never underestimate the stubbornness of the human being to insist on maintaining the status quo (including using mediocre software or even achieving the same results through a tedious manual process) than risk being overwhelmed by something new, no matter how awesome that new product might be if they just gave it a chance.

As aforementioned, the product marketing must be engaging and comprehensible. And in the year 2022, attention spans are very short, meaning that the initial grab must be brief. 

Let’s think of it this way. When you are scrolling through social media or perusing your e-mail, how much time do you really give the content in front of you? Or when you are visiting a website or Amazon to make a purchase, how much time do you spend looking at a product? In both of these cases the answer is probably very little (as in, somewhere between a few minutes to a few seconds.)

For complex software products, for instance, I would recommend a multi-layered approach of marketing materials, such as:

• First layer: “Initial grab” materials that take 5-15 seconds to process and comprehend.
• Second layer: A very concise summary of what the software product is and how it is beneficial that can be processed in 60 seconds or less.
• Third layer: More detailed information, such as a clear, straight-forward, easily comprehensible blog post or especially a video very specifically about the software that is 3-5 minutes in watch length / reading time.
• Fourth layer: Detailed “how to” tutorials that both explain the benefits of the software as well as how to successfully use it that are no more than 60 minutes in length.

There is an additional approach that can be extremely successful and that is “trending” in the marketing world right now: community marketing. The idea is for a person or company to establish themselves as the leading “subject matter expert” in a particular field. This method is particularly effective if the product, such as software, is more complex. By creating a community and following as subject matter experts in your industry, you are in a position to deliver more and more information and marketing about how great your product is in bite-sized chunks that is engaging and doesn’t even feel like marketing or advertising. Further, buy-in is created, and product development is enhanced with feedback. Marketing programs of software “in beta” can be highly useful when used in conjunction with this target audience / potential customer community.

CONCLUSION

All programs for project management and product marketing must be customized and tailored to the end goal.  No two products are the same, and therefore no two marketing plans will be the same.  In summary, I strongly believe that the most important aspects to success first involve a strong understanding of where we are beginning, namely assets, employee capabilities, budgets, etc. And  having a highly defined end goal and target in sight is imperative. It must be clear to all what the ultimate objectives are. And in that context a thorough system of milestones are established as well as guideposts for product development and marketing as well as operational strategies with a high focus on efficiency. And one of the best practices to develop those guideposts is through effective communication both internally with all teams and departments as well as externally with the target audiences / potential customer communities. Ready to take your business to new heights? Reach out to Twin Peaks Communications today for a free consultation!

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