Marketing Strategy Course

The Secrets of Viral Marketing: Optimizing Your Content for Engagement

Also called buzz marketing, viral marketing gets its name because it spreads through a population much like a virus – from person to person. Viral marketing involves spreading your message quickly through your target market. Social media is considered a particularly fertile area for viral marketing because of the potential for engagement with your content to amplify your message. Viral marketing is basically WOM (Word of Mouth) on steroids that also increases the trustworthiness of your message when shared by friends.

However, viral marketing is a myth when it comes to building a sound digital marketing strategy. Yet, I hear this all the time from clients and prospects;

I want you to create a viral marketing campaign that’ll really send my brand over-the-top

The myth of viral marketing

OK, first, I can’t guarantee a post, white paper, image, infographic or another piece of content will go viral and no one else can either. Nobody can guarantee an action will generate viral marketing and, if they say they can, make them back it up with some money. In other words, require a substantial discount if their efforts don’t generate viral marketing results.

Of course, I can use elements “likely” to make a post go viral (and we’ll discuss these later in this post), but I wouldn’t want to bet real money on the whims of social media folks because any number of factors conspire to reduce the virality of your marketing strategy, including many that aren’t under your control.

A good example of a campaign that went viral is Roto Rooter’s Pimped Out John contest, depicted in the image below. The image is so outlandish, folks just HAD to talk about it. Users shared the heck out of the image, commented snarky things that generated more comments, and even the media picked up on the outlandish elements of this contest, garnering an estimated $1 million in free publicity according to the Marketing Director, who was surprised with the unexpectedly high results of the campaign.

Virality

Rather than perpetuating the viral marketing myth, let’s talk about virality — that’s the advice of successful journalist, Benny Johnson of Buzzfeed.

In his presentation, Benny said you can never predict which content will go viral (hence why I suggest the strategy of creating viral marketing is a myth). You can’t form a marketing plan around something so idiosyncratic.

Virality, to a large extent, is beyond your control because it depends a lot on serendipity, as I mentioned earlier. You might publish 100 pieces of really great content only to have some mediocre piece go viral, blowing all your notions that you control virality. Among the uncontrollable factors that contribute to virality, are:

It’s a slow news day. I often see some virality around the holidays, when fewer brands publish content.
Your post appeals to someone very influential. For instance, one of my posts caught the attention of Mari Smith, a Facebook influencer, for some unknown reason and she retweeted the content. Views of that piece of content when through the roof. The same thing happened recently when Google Analytics chose a post about their platform to retweet (see the Retweet below and pardon the bad crop job), despite ignoring numerous similar posts published before and after.

Your post gets featured on an important site or covered in the media. Whenever my post gets featured on the front page at Business 2 Community, website visits spikes.

Certainly, creating great content increases the chances that your content goes viral, but it’s no guarantee.

The ROI of viral marketing

But, the bigger question is: When content goes viral, does it HELP your brand?

And, too often, the answer is: NO!

This brings me to the topic of today’s post: Myths about social media.

Next to the definition of myth in the dictionary, you’re likely to find the viral marketing myth. The viral marketing myth, believed by most digital marketers is so pervasive, I’ve even seen marketing materials touting the firm’s viral marketing prowess. Well, let me say emphatically, viral marketing is a myth!

Now, that doesn’t mean that some content doesn’t go viral — it does. For instance, I published a post on a client’s blog, shared it on his Facebook wall, and got a 1000% increase in website views when the post when viral. Dissecting the success of this post, I found it contained both a provocative title and a captivating image. The post struck a chord that MADE readers want to know more.

Of course, views aren’t conversions so we didn’t see a big shift in that critical metric.

How To Craft a Successful Social Media Content Strategy

The evolution of social media has given brands the opportunity to connect with their audience like never before.

For us, this means the ability to further our brand presence and voice, drive sales, and direct traffic all through utilizing our social media channels as an extension of our site.

Building a successful social media content strategy is more than just posting on every platform—it’s all about determining which platforms align best with your business.

There are so many different channels out there and more constantly popping up. (Seriously, it’s exhausting!)

Test what platform works best for you

My advice is to test out each platform and make it your goal to find a select group of social media channels that will really make an impact for your brand and drive ROI.

Take TikTok, for example. It’s one of the newest channels with huge potential for reach.

But when we tested it out as a new channel for AppSumo, it didn’t give us the ROI we hoped for. Because our audience demographic didn’t align as well on TikTok as it does on other channels like our Facebook Group, we decided our time was better spent focusing our efforts elsewhere.

And it was the right decision.

Here’s a graph of our Facebook Group engagement based on Posts, Comments, and Reactions from Jan. 1, 2020, to Dec. 8, 2020. During that same time, we saw a 19.72% increase in our number of total members.

Example of progress from social media content strategy

It’s so important to set realistic content goals for your brand, figure out what the top priority is, and understand how your social media content strategy can help you reach those goals.

We set specific quarterly goals.

Whether you want to convert customers to buyers, drive brand awareness, or increase community engagement, the strategy you implement should be focused on those goals you set for yourself.

I found that when I focused on working towards a specific goal, I saw a noticeable improvement in our overall social media.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach and each social media platform you use may have a different goal.

Finding a social media content strategy that works best for your brand takes time, iteration, and patience. Consistency really is key when growing your social media presence!

Dive deeper into goals and metrics:

Know Your Audience and Conduct Research

Have a good understanding of who your target audience is when outlining your social media strategy. I find it helpful to do some research on your followers when determining what type of content will resonate best with them.

For example, in looking at AppSumo’s Facebook and Instagram data, I found that the majority of our audience is male and in the 25-44 age range. This is incredibly helpful when planning content out and trying to reach new target audiences.

By understanding our audience demographics, it helps us to determine which platforms we want to focus on.

Based on this data, we prioritize Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube in our social media efforts.

Think quality over quantity when you’re determining which platforms you want to utilize for your brand.

Demographics can help form a social media content strategy.

You also can use Agorapulse reports also to find out:

Where your fans are located
If your audience concentrated in a city or region
How old your fans are (the age brackets they fall into)

Example of demographics from Agorapulse’s reports

Dive deeper into research:

Know Your Competitors

In regards to the competition, I always suggest taking a look at what at least three competitors are doing on social media—this provides a great baseline for what works, what doesn’t, and which areas you can provide more value in than the competition.

To get started, find businesses that are in a similar industry, offer similar services, or what similar to what you aspire to be, and start your research from there.

What to look out for

Try to answer a few key questions:

What platforms are they using?
What type of content are they posting—videos, links, educational, photos, etc.?
How often are they posting?
What is their social media goal?
What are their strengths and weaknesses?

Once you have a good understanding of how your competitors are using social media, you can use this information to build out your own strategy.

Identify the gaps in their social media presence and use this to your advantage.

When you have this information under your belt, it’s easy to find ways in which you can improve and stand out among the competition.

We noticed that our competitors weren’t using video to promote their products and services. We decided to test this as a content strategy and saw a noticeable improvement in this metric.

Take a look at these results after we started creating daily videos:

Know your monthly gained subscribers to help form a winning social media content strategy.

When to Post

Consistency is key in regards to your social media presence.

When planning out content, I always do some platform-specific research to determine the best days and time to help maximize our reach with each time we publish.

At AppSumo, we make note of popular days and times, and schedule our most important content around them.

I also use a content calendar to help execute our social strategy.

It’s an easy way to help me plan, create, and manage all of our content in one place.

Tools We Use

We wouldn’t call ourselves AppSumo (where I work) if we didn’t namedrop some of the awesome tools we use for social media.

Along with the free linked tools, here are some personal favorites for my day-to-day work:

Agorapulse. This one’s an awesome way to manage your social media and schedule it in a clean way. I don’t have to dig through comments because the Social Inbox lets me filter through important messages. Plus, Agorapulse’s one-click reports are super-helpful for me to track metrics.
Canva. Canva is a powerhouse. This one’s great for inspiration and a lifesaver when creating graphics that don’t require a ton of graphic design skills. I like to incorporate these graphics into our Instagram when I can.
Crello. An AppSumo Partner, Crello is a great alternative to Canva and helpful for ideas. I use it to create graphics for Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. It’s got awesome animations and requires no design skill.
Figma. I use this to create templates for things like our Instagram stories (blog shares, deal shares, etc.). It’s also great for quick and on-the-fly design edits for graphics.
Brand24. An internal marketing team fave, for sure. This one’s great for filtering all AppSumo content on the web. It shows you all mentions of specific keywords on your social media channels, even when you weren’t tagged.

Engage with Your Audience and Grow Your Following

Now that you’ve built out your content strategy, the goal is to continue to grow your following. (You’re not out of the woods yet!)

How often to post

The most important thing to remember when trying to grow your social media is to maintain a minimum number of posts per week based on days when your users are most active!

At AppSumo, we post about six days per week with a minimum of 2-3 posts a day.

How to create content for engagement

My advice is to create content that allows your audience to engage directly. I found that when I utilized interactive content, such as polls, we had significantly higher engagement.

Take a look at some of our recent polls, which directly ask our audience what types of content they would like to see more of. This is a super-easy way to promote engagement and actually get feedback directly from your audience.

Here’s us getting the conversation started:

The audience engagement doesn’t end with the content itself! Engage with them in the comment section, posts you are tagged in, and through direct messages.

One fun way to engage your audience is by creating a hashtag specific to your brand. That way, users can share the love when they post about your brand or products.

At AppSumo, we have a few: #AppSumo, #TacoToolsday, and #6FigureSumoling. This is a great way to get your followers talking about your brand and to see what is being said about your products, even when they don’t specifically @ you!

Dive deeper into engagement:

Check Analytics and Audit

Time to talk numbers.

No strategy would be complete without understanding which analytics are important for your brand.

Understanding what your audience likes will lead to more engagement, followers, and a cohesive feed! It seems simple, but creating content your audience actually wants to see can do so much for your social media strategy.

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For example, on Instagram, I dive into our insights and take note of what content has the highest ‘Reach,’ ‘Shares,’ ‘Saves,’ and ‘Comments. These metrics are really great indicators of which content has performed well based on what our audience likes. That also gives it a boost with the algorithm and helps it reach a bigger audience:

To make the most of these analytics, I dive into our insights weekly. This helps me optimize our content and understand what works for the future!

In Conclusion

Building a successful social media content strategy takes time, but all the effort is worth it when you establish an audience that actually wants to connect and engage with you. That sort of reward will build upon itself tenfold!

Remember that consistency is key when trying to grow your social media presence. You should also keep in mind that finding the right strategy for your brand involves a bit of trial and error. (Trust us—we’ve had our share of hiccups at AppSumo. It’s all part of the learning process.) Set specific but realistic goals for your social media content strategy, listen to your audience, and the growth will follow.

Now get on that social media success track! Till next time!

By: Bronte Mojdehi

Get started on saving time and energy on your own social media management! Check out our free trial of Agorapulse to help you schedule, track, and measure all your social media efforts.

Caitlin Bacher

How To Quickly Create Social Media Content Most entrepreneurs spend WAY too much time creating content for social media. As a result, they avoid it entirely…leading to days or weeks without a single post. This is costing you traffic, leads, and customers…but it doesn’t have to be this way! In this video, you’ll learn my secret to quickly creating high-converting content on social media If you to learn EVEN MORE about how you can save time on social media, make sure to download your FREE copy of The Social Media Roadmap. FREE – THE FACEBOOK GROUP HOST ROADMAP: http://caitlinbacher.com/host-roadmap-3 JOIN THE #SOCIALBOSS FACEBOOK GROUP: http://caitlinbacher.com/fb-group TWEET THIS VIDEO: SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE VIDEOS: http://youtube.com/caitlinbacher SAY HEY ON SOCIAL MEDIA! Instagram: http://instagram.com/caitlinbacher Facebook: http://facebook.com/caitlinbacher Twitter: http://twitter.com/caitlinbacher Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/caitlinbacher Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/caitlinb…

The Keys to Successful Online Course Creation

If you are employed as an instructional designer, then you know how challenging the job can be. Sure, it’s easy to just throw a course together and call it online learning, elearning, or digital learning, but it takes time, effort, and skill to create a quality course. So, we wanted to write a short blog that helps instructional designers do their jobs better, by listing the keys to successful online course creation.

1. Develop a clean class outline

Letting people learn at their pace is essential, but not guiding their path will almost always guarantee their failure. Remember, small wins lead to big wins. Big wins lead to success. Creating your classes with this in mind is the path to success. That’s why your class should be straightforward in nature, and learners should readily understand how to go about achieving the promised outcomes. It helps them know exactly what is the next step to take and what they have to gain from it.

Every module and lesson should have one objective or goal. When learners know what they’re working for and how they’ll benefit from it, they are much more likely to be motivated to follow along with the class, and they will learn faster. If a module has three to five or more goals, learners can’t wrap their minds around what they’re trying to accomplish, and it’s easy for them to get overwhelmed and drop out. Contemplate splitting a lesson into two or more shorter lessons to make the path easier to follow.

2. Create an exciting learning experience

A key aspect of making a successful online class is making it rewarding and frictionless. When learners feel empowered as opposed to confused and purposeless, completion rates increase! Better organization and reduced learner friction™ are what will keep customers more content.

Here are two effective techniques to create a rewarding and frictionless experience:

Content chunking
Content chunking is the technique of breaking content into smaller chunks that are easier to manage and learn. Small challenges or chunks are easier to handle and help learners comprehend the material faster and retain it all while exerting less effort.
Digital badges
If you want to inspire learners to finish your class, participate, and interact more with the teacher and the other learners, offering a tangible reward is an excellent method. Why? People love rewards. They want to feel unique, recognized, and essential. And if you can help them accomplish this, their self-confidence will increase, and they will be more willing to continue in your online class. How can you create tangible rewards for your learners? Start by using digital badges to reward your learners:
Provide a digital badge for class completion. People love sharing their achievements with the world and adding them to their CV.
Offer bonus points for accomplishments. When they reach milestones, they get points. They can then turn in their points for Amazon cash, gift cards, etc.
Design a virtual training “passport” and inspire participants to earn visas. The more modules they complete, the more visas (or badges) they receive.

3. Develop actionable class content

Although you may know a lot, resist the urge to pack your class with “nice-to-know” information. Learners want “must-know” information that they can apply to their daily lives. They want to know how to get ahead in their careers. They want marketable skills they can add to their resume.

Don’t ignore theory, but you need to find a way to connect it to the learners’ lives and make it actionable. You can do this by showing how theory can be applied to real situations, exposing case studies, finding applications in real-life issues, adding exercises, missions, and assignments to your class.

If learners can’t see how your content is relevant and don’t have a vision of what they can do with it, they will not learn it. Even if they do learn it so they can pass the assessment, they’ll likely forget about it in a short time. If they learn how to do something, they’re likely to complete the class, achieve their goals, apply the knowledge, and retain the information for a long time.

Actionable content not only tells your learners what to achieve but how to achieve it. It’s engaging, informative, and, most importantly, action-driven. Your learners bought a class instead of an eBook because they were looking for something more likely to help them achieve their desired outcomes. As a class creator, it’s your job to help them do that. You play a major role in helping your learners take action!

4. Separate your class into chunks

Many class creators feel like a longer class packed with lots of content is more valuable, but that’s far from the truth. Having too much content makes you lose customers and blurs the learning path. Remember, you want learners to come back for more, so keeping the lessons short and focused on a specific topic is vital. Breaking down a long class into smaller chunks or mini lessons that are easier for learners to digest increases motivation by giving them the feeling of progress.

The “zeigarnik effect” states that learners are more likely to remember tasks in progress than those they have completed. The zeigarnik effect indicates that people are more likely to want to complete a task once they have started it. This means that when you separate your class into small chunks, it gives learners the motivation to complete all the sections once they have started. It helps learners comprehend the content better, learn more of it, and remember it longer. It also makes each class goal clearer, more specific and easier to achieve.

Concluding thoughts

So that’s it for this article. We hope that it will help you in your quest to create successful online courses. Do you have any additional tips, techniques, or strategies that you would like to share with our readers? If so, leave them in the comment section below.

By Matthew Lynch

Latasha James 46.3K subscribers Sharing a step by step guide of how to create an online course! I created an online course in just a few days using Thinkific. My Video Content Creation for Business Course is out now: https://ajourneyeast.thinkific.com/co… Links Mentioned Thinkfic: https://get.thinkific.com/give-a-mont… ✖ WORK WITH ME » 1:1 Coaching https://latashajames.com/coaching/?ut… » Social Media and Influencer Marketing Courses https://ajourneyeast.thinkific.com/?u… » Social Media Marketing, Podcast + Video Editing https://www.jamesandpark.com/?utm_sou… ✖ LET’S KEEP IN TOUCH » podcast: the freelance friday podcast http://bit.ly/freelancefridaypodcast » instagram: @thelatashajames http://instagram.com/thelatashajames » twitter: @thelatashajames http://twitter.com/thelatashajames » facebook group: the freelance friday podcast community http://facebook.com/groups/microinflu… » business email: hello@ajourneyeast.com SUBSCRIBE for weekly videos on life as a social media manager, entrepreneurship tips, Detroit lifestyle, and travel: https://goo.gl/3Klxj9 ✖ DISCOUNT CODES » TubeBuddy is a must-have service for YouTubers: http://tubebuddy.com/latasha » Monetize your product links with Skimlinks: http://go.skimlinks.com/?id=67873X151… » Get 50% off your first 6 months of Quickbooks Self-Employed: http://fbuy.me/fumsv ☽ video is not sponsored. #SocialMediaManager #Freelancer #Entrepreneur

4 Ways to Stop Attracting People Who Can’t Afford Your Services

There’s nothing worse for an entrepreneur than putting all your efforts into building a service, and a marketing strategy, only to continuously attract people who say they can’t afford them.

While many business owners focus their attention on making sure they have built an apparent “fool-proof” plan to bring people in, they can still stumble into an audience that isn’t right for them. This can be frustrating because people don’t understand why, even though they are good at what they do, prospects aren’t buying or, worse yet, they are asking for discounts on everything.

The good news is that there is a way to stop attracting those who can’t afford your services and shift your attention and marketing efforts to bring in people who are ready to buy. It all boils down to having and implementing a brand strategy that deeply resonates with your target audience and allows you to show up authentically every single time.

1. Get clear on who you do want to attract

For your business to be successful and start attracting the right people, you need to begin by understanding who your ideal customers are at a granular level. The more effective you are at connecting with the right audience and speaking to their problems and needs, the more sales you will make.

Getting extremely clear on who your ideal customers are requires going beyond demographics to truly understand the psychological and emotional elements that are impacting their lives, which will, in turn, determine their purchasing decisions.

The more you understand your audience, the more effective your messaging will be because you will have the capacity to speak directly to them, and they will finally feel seen and heard. Pricing becomes less important when they see you as the best solution to the specific problem or need that they have.

For example, it’s not nearly as impactful or effective to say that you are selling a program for women who want to lose weight, which is hugely generalized, than to say that you help busy women over 40 who are frustrated after trying low-carb, high-fat fad diets without lasting results lose weight. Not only is the latter version a lot more detailed, but it also speaks to a very specific pain point which means that these women will feel an immediate sense of recognition and understanding.

2. Stop undercharging for your services

Many entrepreneurs undercharge for their services because they believe they need to build a robust reputation or have a large audience before they can charge premium prices.

However, in practice, lowering your prices may end up hurting your reputation in the first place. If you’re building an audience based on people who are looking for a cheaper solution then it will be very difficult for you to make sales once you raise your prices.

If you want to start attracting clients who can afford your services as an online coach or consultant, you need to start charging the right price instead. Trying to sell a service by being the cheapest option out there is going to be a race straight to the bottom. After all, there will always be someone with a lower price in the market.

Instead, you want to set your price based on the value you deliver. To make this calculation, first determine what the outcome of the results you help to generate is worth.

3. Position yourself as an authority

Attracting the right people also comes down to being able to effectively position yourself as an authority or leader in your field by creating a powerful brand strategy that will allow you to be intentional with your marketing.

Building an effective brand strategy requires having absolute clarity around who you are, what you stand for and the complete experience that comes from being in contact with your business.

It is fundamental to have a well-defined brand message that clearly communicates your value by showcasing the actual outcome that you help your clients achieve. What you have to ask yourself as a business owner is “what am I really selling?” because I can assure you that it is much more than the service you are giving them. It is truly about the transformation, the outcome and the results they are getting because of hiring you.

Focus your brand communication on them and not on you. Many service providers make the mistake of simply saying things like “I am a web designer” or “I am a fitness coach” as a way to explain to others the kind of service that they provide. When doing this, they are focusing on themselves instead of on the needs of their audience.

Instead, you want to change your messaging to reflect the result you help others achieve. For example, saying things like “I build websites that increase conversions” or “I help women lose those stubborn 10 lbs” is more specific to the outcomes you deliver.

4. True brand differentiation

While it is true that it seems like market saturation is at its peak, in reality, this is only an illusion.

The real problem isn’t that there are too many providers and competitors in an industry, it’s that most entrepreneurs don’t know how to effectively differentiate themselves from others.

To attract the right audience, it’s vital that you position your offer as the best solution and ideal vehicle prospects need to achieve success. One of the best ways to do this is by creating a framework, methodology, or process that is unique to your business, a signature system that distinguishes you and sets you apart from the rest.

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On top of this, according to the theory proposed by George A. Akerlof, winner of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, and Rachel E. Kranton, professor of Economics at Duke University, in their Identity Economics book, people make economic decisions based not just on financial incentives, but also on their identity.

This matters to you as an entrepreneur because if you want to attract the right people, you need to effectively differentiate yourself from others while standing for something in the process. Today’s consumers are making more and more decisions based on their identities and how others’ identities shape their own. What this means is that when faced with many different options, we tend to choose the one that reinforces our beliefs the most.

If you, as a brand, aren’t doing an excellent job at clearly and succinctly communicating who you are, then you are making it way too difficult for the right people to choose you.

Putting the pieces together

Ultimately, attracting the right people comes down to making sure you are being highly intentional with your message and the way this message comes across. This allows you to transform your audience’s perception of you while bringing in the right people into your business. Taking the time to craft your complete brand strategy will allow you to get more effective results with your marketing plan as well.

Fabi Paolini Entrepreneur Leadership Network Writer

Skillopedia – Skills for the real world

How To Attract The Right People For Personal Development & Growth | Soft Skills & Self Improvement Training | Skillopedia #softskills #selfimprovement #personalitydevelopment Researchers and personality analysts say that your personality is a combination of people you interact and spend most of the time with. Yes, it’s true. It’s imperative to surround yourself with the right people for your own self-improvement and personal growth. Now, that might make you wonder how should I attract the right people in my social and professional network? Where do I find them? Some people perfectly do that, they have the right people in their life who motivate and inspire them from time to time. This self improvement and soft skills training video would help you exactly achieve that goal. Learn the steps to invite, not good, but the right people into your life for your own personality development. You are watching this video on Skillopedia, part of Let’s Talk Institute for Personality Development and self improvement. We have hundreds of videos to develop good communication skills, interpersonal skills, personal growth, motivation skills, inspirational tips to develop self-confidence. A complete soft skills training catalogue to help you stay ahead in this competitive world. Skillopedia is a well known name in the corporate training segment in Mumbai to deliver best personality development courses for corporate employees and individuals. To watch such interesting videos and read the complete transcript of this video, visit – http://www.learnex.in/ ============================================= Our Social Media – 👉Facebook – @skillopediaone http://www.facebook.com/skillopediaone 👉Instagram – @letstalkpodcast http://www.instagram.com/letstalkpodcast 👉Follow us on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/letstalkone ============================================= Our other Channels you would ❤️ 👉Learn English as a secondary language http://www.youtube.com/letstalk 👉Learn English through Hindi – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtAr… 👉Learn a new English word daily – http://www.youtube.com/letstalkpodcast Some other Skillopedia sessions you might have missed :- 👉Public Speaking Tips To Overcome Stage Fear https://youtu.be/4-R1EHKmano 👉 How to AWKWARD SILENCE in a conversation? https://youtu.be/CDflqsRwUis 👉What to do when people Shout or Yell at you? https://youtu.be/cR_fjOtNqNo 👉8 Morning Habits To Kick-Start everyday. https://youtu.be/BQQ3I6ztO-A 👉The art of saying – I don’t give a DAMN! https://youtu.be/Hwkavu-F9r0 👉Communication Skills Training – How To Avoid Awkward Silence? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDflq… 👉How To React When People Shout At You? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR_fj… 👉6 Phrases That May Sound Rude. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv48j… 👉Start A Conversation ANYWHERE, ANYTIME https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPxaU… 👉How to be a SMART MOUTH? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fXja… 👉How to attract people like a magnet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYxn9… 👉How to sound more confident when you are not? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJtcV… 👉Why People Misunderstand You? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcW9f..

How B2B Brands Can Identify Their Target Audience

How well do you know your brand’s target audience?

Or, how well do you think you know your target audience?

We find that many brand managers in Europe assume they know their audience very well indeed. They might even have a very clear image in their head of the type of individual they are trying to target with all of their advertising and marketing strategies.

What is often the case, however, is this image in their heads isn’t always completely correct. When it comes to targeting your audience in Europe and motivating them into making a purchase, you need to ensure that your understanding of this group is bang on. Any slight differences between what’s in your head and your audience could result in some of your targeted work falling flat.

If you know that you have this problem in your business currently, here are steps to take to understand your target audience better. If you follow them through, you’ll know how to discover your target audience and start fine-tuning your aim for them in all your campaigns.

Brainstorm your target audience.

The first thing you should do is sit down and brainstorm what you already know about your target audience. Think about the characteristics that all of the individuals who are most likely to buy your products will share. Are they in the same age group? What is their job title; what kind of salary do they earn? You should also look at the common challenges, needs, and objections that this group of people might face in their life.

One great tip is to take a look at the audience that your competitors are targeting. How does that group differentiate from yours? Examine the data-driven insights using the right tools to understand the entire funnel, and how you can leverage this data to incorporate your USP to retarget.

Take advantage of brand trackers.

Use a brand tracker to get measurable and actionable data on your audience. This data can give you various, but specific insights. For instance, tracking brand awareness will tell whether or not your ideal target audience actually knows about you. As well as that, tracking brand consideration will show if they would consider using your brand. You can also track this data for your competitors and compare how your brand fares against them.

In addition, you might even discover that this isn’t actually the best audience for you to be targeting. By digging deep into all of this brand tracking data, you might see new audiences appear that you had never previously considered. Just make sure to choose a brand tracker that caters to niche audiences.

Develop a persona for your target audience.

Now it’s worth creating a persona of what the quintessential member of your target audience is like. There are so many benefits from audience personas, so why not use it?

For example, if you target the millennial generation, go beyond a generic idea of a millennial and think more closely about who you are selling to. If you find that millennial females who live in urban areas and work in the tech sector buy your product more than anyone else, then their defining features and characteristics should also be those of your audience persona.

Once you have made a persona, it’s important that you inform everyone on your team. To keep everyone on the same track with all their strategic work, you all need to be targeting the same persona.

Start targeting.

Now that you know who you are aiming at, it’s time to start trying to reach them. In order to target your audience, focus your efforts on the channels they use most often.

If you know that your target audience spends a lot of their online time using Twitter, then it’s worth starting a campaign on that social media platform. However, if you are targeting an older audience who might prefer to spend their evenings in front of their TVs than tweeting, think about running some TV adverts.

Invest $300 and get $2500 in a week completely legit

Researching the channels that your audience use really can help you immensely — not doing so could end with you shooting blindly and completely missing.

How does running marketing campaigns help find your target audience, you may ask. Well, how can you be positive that they are the audience for you unless you see if they work? And don’t forget…

Continue to monitor.

So you research your target audience well and then start to target them using suitable methods and channels. Job done, right? Not quite.

Sure, you’ve taken the right kind of steps so that the right kind of consumers will see your brand marketing. But how do you know whether that’s really happening once your adverts and promotions are out there in the wild? How do you know that they are helping your sales?

Keep your eye on the ball and monitor how your marketing efforts are doing. You can do this by tracking your brand guidelines and campaigns to make sure that they are hitting the spot.

It’s also worth noting that target audiences can change or shift over time, so monitoring them is a continuous task for every brand manager. As long as you do make monitoring a habit of a lifetime, then there’s no risk of you ever being left behind by competitors.

Those steps don’t sound too difficult, right? If you follow through with them, you should discover new things about your target audience that you might never have realized. And those nuggets of wisdom could help you polish up your marketing campaigns like never before.

Not only that, but you can now carry out all of your campaigns confidently, as your target audience shouldn’t be even easier to reach.

By: Steve Habazin Entrepreneur Leadership Network VIP

Adam Erhart

How To Identify Target Market | Target Market Examples Click here to subscribe: https://bit.ly/2HxjQRa If you don’t properly identify your target market then none of your marketing will work. Period. Not your ads, not your content, not your website, not your social media, nothing. It will all fail miserably. And I don’t want that for you. So in this episode I’m going to be breaking down exactly how to identify your target market and give you a few examples of what that might look like for your business. ***Marketing Resources: Work With Me: https://bit.ly/2FY2vzF Our Advertising Agency: http://aerh.co/1oVVeEc Facebook Ad Image Guide : https://bit.ly/2H9EPt9 FAST Content Formula : https://bit.ly/2JEu5kz 60 Second Video Ad Script : https://bit.ly/2GQF0Kl One Page Marketing Plan : https://bit.ly/2v6HPBp ***Let’s Connect: Website: http://adamerhart.com Click here to subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/2HxjQRa Twitter: http://twitter.com/adamerhart Facebook: http://facebook.com/officialadamerhart Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamerhart

Tag: Marketing Strategy Course

The Secrets of Viral Marketing: Optimizing Your Content for Engagement

The myth of viral marketing

Virality

The ROI of viral marketing

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The myth of viral marketing

Virality

The ROI of viral marketing

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Test what platform works best for you

Set realistic social media content goals

Know Your Audience and Conduct Research

Know Your Competitors

What to look out for

When to Post

Tools We Use

Engage with Your Audience and Grow Your Following

How often to post

How to create content for engagement

Check Analytics and Audit

In Conclusion

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1. Get clear on who you do want to attract

2. Stop undercharging for your services

3. Position yourself as an authority

4. True brand differentiation

Putting the pieces together

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Brainstorm your target audience.

Take advantage of brand trackers.

Develop a persona for your target audience.

Start targeting.

Continue to monitor.

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