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3 Steps to better Understand your Customers' Content Needs in 2015

According to the Content Marketing Institute at least 58% of the businesses have set aside a higher budget for the content marketing and research for the new year 2015. Now their aim is to get to know their customers better to get an adequate return on that budget.

Why must we get to know our customers better than we did in 2014? The most basic difference between content marketing and traditional advertising is an acute focus on our customers’ needs. Obviously, we have to find an overlap between our customers’ needs and our business goals. But content marketing doesn’t work if we don’t deeply empathize with our customers.

Talk To Customers

Big data, for better or for worse, is not a substitute for actually asking your customers questions about their research process and informational needs.

 The questions used to frame the conversation include:

•   What caused you to look for a solution?

•   What did you want to change?

•   Where did you go to look for information?

•   How do you prefer to consume information?

•   Who else helped to evaluate the choice?

•   What pushback did you get?

•   What did you need to build the business case?

•   Why did you choose us?

•   When it comes to the opportunities to improve your business function, what are you most excited about?

•   What aspects of your passions and interests overlap with your occupation?

The final two questions are quite important to understanding your customers at a truly human level.

Validate & Tweak With Web Analytics

For this purpose we use Advanced Segments in Google Analytics. It allows you to define groups of website visitors based on the following criteria:

•   Demographics. Segmentation by age, gender, language and location.

•   Technology. Segmentation by operating system, browser, and device.

•   Behavior. Segmentation by how often a user visits a site and how they interact with the site.

•   Traffic Sources. Segmentation by referral sites and campaigns.

For each of my persona groups, we use the Advanced Segment Reports to answer the following questions:

•   Do they actually behave differently than they suggested in the interviews?

•   What else do they want that was not revealed in the interviews?

•   What do they suggest is an important informational need in an interview, but clearly does not lead to a purchase based on web activity?

The combination of persona interviews and web analytics reports should arm you with a better understanding of that overlap between your customers’ needs and your business goals. You may think we are done and ready to spend the increased budget we garnered, but alas we’re not done.

Craft A Customer Empathy Map

Based on the previous two exercises, we have identified the what customers want and how they generally behave. What we have not yet identified is how they feel.

David Gray, founder of XPLANE, developed a template for an empathy map to fill in the blanks to this sentence: Our users need a better way to ___ because ___.
The questions that asked are

• How do customers think about their fears and hopes?
• What do they hear when other people use your product?
• What do they see when they use your product? What is the environment?
• What do they say or feel when using your product, whether in private or public?
• What are their pain points when using your product?
• Is this a positive or a painful experience for them?
• What does a typical day look like in their world?
• Do they hear positive feedback about your company from external sources?
• What do they hope to gain from using your product?
• Has your customer repeated quotes or defining words?

These are the questions you pose to your internal stakeholders and lead to the conclusions you post in the grid.

We should recognize that our customers are more than web visitors. They are more than their social media posts. They are people with aspirations, fears, challenges and opportunities. We need a combination of qualitative research, quantitative research and group brainstorms to empathize with our customers at a deep level.

We hope this helps you in planning your business’s content marketing.

 Fin J

5 Myths about Social Media Marketing

Consumers have now moved into the digital space, yet they still crave the attention of corporations they admire. Unfortunately, many brands are still getting stuck on social media, failing to effectively utilize this channel.

Social media is constantly changing, so myths are constantly spreading. It’s important to go through some of these myths and figure out where they are following the wrong path.

Myth #1: Consumers Aren’t Reading Your Social Posts

Contrary to popular arguments, not only does your social content get read, it also has the ability to influence purchasing decisions. In fact, HubSpot concluded that in 2011, “67 percent of B2C companies and 41 percent of B2B companies have acquired a customer through Facebook.”

However, it’s important to remember that your reach on Facebook is determined by a number of factors, one of which is fan engagement with your content.

Text-only status updates tend to perform poorly compared to images and links; so, make sure to consider that when creating your social strategy. Well-respected corporations like Proctor & Gamble offer contests and engaging photography send out coupons weekly and anoint very specific employees to be their brand ambassadors.

Remember, though, Facebook isn’t the end-all-be-all of social networks. No matter what the social network, consumers will read any text, video, image, contest or coupon you publish.

Myth #2: Too Much Content Will Reveal Trade Secrets To Competitors

Having thirty pages of content doesn’t make you a bookbinder. The more transparency you maintain with your customer the more trust they have in you, followed by loyalty and increased sales.

Failing to leverage social media will reveal some weaknesses to your competitors, though — like your company’s inability to provide knowledge and remain current within your industry.

Myth #3: Social Media Cannot Heal Reputation Wound

Just as important social media is, it is important to also keep a check on the posts, which get posted relating to your institute. Also, Ignoring website feedback could produce bad social karma. Receiving that indignant Ripoff Report can destroy your reputation in search results.

Professionals know how difficult it is to rebuild a tarnished reputation; avoid this nightmare by implementing an aggressive social media strategy from the very beginning.

Ensure that your social page administrators are empowered to mitigate each problem quickly, individually and thoroughly. As you develop a strong rapport with your customers via social channels, egregious racketeering sites like Ripoff Report will lose credibility.

Myth #4: Social Successes Should Be Gauged Solely By Social Interactions

The numbers of social interactions you get out of a campaign are a KPI, but ultimate success should be measured by sales opportunities or revenue. Interactions may enhance the likelihood of increasing sales opportunities; but, if you don’t close any of those leads, the campaign is a failure, regardless of how many interactions were generated. Marketing exists to drive sales.

Joseph Knoop, a Pinterest celebrity with over 3.8 million followers, is a living testimony that Pinterest isn’t just for creative types and stay-at-home moms, but for businesses, as well. For eg: many businesses have their pages on pinterest. The more their articles or pins get pinned or liked, the business becomes more popular and thus the sales increase.

Myth #5: Social Media Marketing Costs Nothing

Though major social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube are all free to use, hidden costs always exist when implementing a social media marketing campaign. These costs might include spending hours developing a social strategy, creating content assets, posting updates, and responding to customers. An effective social media campaign is much more than one of us simply posting a random blog or FB post when we had time.

To create an active and engaging social media promotion, you need someone who prioritizes and implements the plan, manages the messaging, and monitors the mediums for customer feedback.

Additionally, paid social campaigns should not be discounted — these are very effective for increasing brand awareness and gaining new followers outside of your existing customer base.

So, I now hope you got to know many new things and surely the myths are broken. See our other posts also. J