Value Focus: Which aspect(s) of your product should your marketing emphasize?

Tweet

As a MarketingExperiments blog reader, I can already assume a few things about you. You’re an evidence-based marketer. You are an effective communicator. You have an exceptional understanding of marketing. You are skilled at analyzing campaign effectiveness. And you have experience in a wide range of marketing disciplines.

But if you were pitching yourself at a job fair, and could emphasize only one of these elements about yourself, which would it be?

Savvy marketer that you are, I’m guessing you would first size up the company you’re applying to — ask questions of the recruiter, take a look at the booth and read some of the literature — before deciding what value to highlight when presenting yourself.

The way you approach marketing your products and services should be no different.

 

Don’t bury the lead

Almost every product or service has several ways it benefits customers. Your challenge is to determine the value focus — which element of value will you lead with in your marketing.

You may highlight more than one element of value as secondary benefits on your website, in your print ads and in your email marketing. However, there likely is a place within your marketing where you have to choose what the primary value focus should be — the headline of your print ad, the hero space on your homepage or, perhaps, the entirety of an email.

Let me give you an example from my own customer journey.

 

Connect with customer motivation

Photo: Kārlis Dambrāns

I recently purchased a Nissan LEAF. In looking at other cars compared to the LEAF, the car I chose offered many elements of value that Nissan highlights on its website:

• Save money when you use the car — The car is 100% electric, so, as Nissan’s site says, you will “Never Pay For Gas Again. #KickGas” Another benefit is lower maintenance costs since it doesn’t need oil changes, belts, etc.

• Nerd out — The car has a certain appeal to early adopters, just because it is electric. Plus, you can access several features (like turning the A/C on to have the car cool down before you get in it) from an app or through a portal on a website using something called telematics. It also has one of those wireless keys that you keep in your pocket when you start the car. Nifty. One headline on Nissan’s microsite for the LEAF is “High-Tech. Low-Impact.”

• 100% fun — This is from a Nissan tagline: “100% electric. 100% fun.” This is kind of hard to quantify since some people will have fun driving a 4×4 pickup truck through a muddy field, which is a very different experience than what the LEAF offers. But I do find the car fun to drive, almost like driving an iPhone.

• Save the planet — Since it runs on electricity, the car does not pollute directly. In fact, Nissan stamps “Zero Emission” right on the side of the car.
  

  Photo: RACC

• Performance — Some carmakers sell their cars by screaming about a HEMI or horsepower or overhead cams. Nissan promotes “100% torque, 100% fun.” Because it’s an electric car, the engine doesn’t have to rev and shift gears to accelerate. It has instant torque. Now I’m not a car guy, so I don’t really understand or care about what that means. But for driving on the highway, acceleration is important. And for a small car, it does accelerate quickly.

• Safety — Again, it’s a smaller car, so safety could be a concern. It does have airbags all over the place — popping out of seats and the roof. Though this would seem to be an important issue to car buyers, I didn’t see any prominent mention of safety on Nissan’s microsite for the LEAF. 

These are just a few of the possible value elements that popped into my head. I’m sure there are many more.

When I was at the car lot, the salesman was able to size me up, ask me a few questions and determine my motivation. This meant he could easily pivot from one value focus to the other based on my responses.

Nissan has a bigger challenge on its microsite for the LEAF. Which points should it emphasize most prominently?

The path Nissan has taken at the top of its microsite is not to include a value focus at all. In fact, there isn’t even really a headline.

 

The closest thing to a headline is “2016 Nissan LEAF®.” This does serve to orient the visitor that they are on the right page, but it doesn’t present any value.

The other two major emphasized elements do not focus on the value either. Rather, before presenting value, the LEAF microsite communicates the cost (in this case, the starting price of its base S model) and an anxiety reducer (in this case, range anxiety, by highlighting how far the car can drive).

Below the fold, the microsite starts communicating value with a rotating animation of six banners (what used to be known as a Flash banner) listing different elements of value.

 

Simply put, Nissan has not chosen a value focus for the LEAF on this microsite. (This is not unique to the LEAF for Nissan; this microsite is a template it uses for all of its car models.)

Now, one could make the argument that visitors to this microsite are already so motivated that they don’t need any value communication and their bigger concerns are price and range anxiety.

However, even if they are already motivated, you should reinforce that value once they hit the site. After all, a car purchase is a major decision, and you want to keep driving them up the funnel. It’s also a way to let them know the LEAF is the car for them. “Hey, we understand you. You’re among friends.”

Also, there are likely many less motivated car buyers who are just kicking the tires on several cars, and thus visiting many car sites. By leading with value (and the right value focus), you have the opportunity to turn those few moments of interest into deeper research about the vehicle you’re selling.

If we take a look at the nearest competitor to the Nissan LEAF — the Tesla Model S — we can see that its landing page does lead with value. (It might be a stretch to consider these two models competitors due to the huge price discrepancy — and therefore, possibly differing motivations of its buyers — but they are the two best-selling all-electric cars in the U.S. and comprise 58% of all pure electric cars sold in the United States in 2015.)

 

Like the LEAF’s page, the headline is pure orientation — “Model S” — however, the copy below focuses on value such as “Highest Safety Rating in America” and “Autopilot with Autosteer and Summon.”

 

How to determine your product’s value focus for your marketing

We’ve discussed how it’s important to communicate value in your marketing. But how do you determine what the value focus should be? Here is a simple process to get you started:

Step #1. Understand the product

Effective marketing merely clarifies the value inherent in the product, so begin with the product itself. What elements of value does it provide to customers? If you weren’t involved with the product creation, talk to product developers, business analysts or business leaders who were. Then read professional ratings and customer reviews of your product to get an outside perspective on how well the product delivers on that intended value.

Step #2. Determine the persona

As I said above, there are many reasons to love a LEAF. If I were running a print ad about the car in “Organic Life” magazine, I would focus on the zero emissions and environmental/sustainability aspect. However, if I were writing an ad for “WIRED” magazine, I would focus on the techie/early adopter aspect. Your products likely has more than one customer segment. Before creating the messaging for a specific customer touchpoint, determine which segment or segments you will be communicating with.

Step #3. Ask the customer

Interview current and previous customers. Those who didn’t buy. And those who are just in the segment you’re targeting who may not even know about your product. Participate in forums and LinkedIn Groups that are popular with different customer segments. Talk to customer service, sales and other customer-facing positions in your organization. Read the magazines, blogs and Tumblrs that your ideal customers read, listen to their podcasts, and monitor their communication on social networks. Conduct focus groups. These are just some examples of ways you can ask customers what element of value most resonate with them.

Step #4. Test

The customer is always right. But the customer doesn’t always know what he wants. So it’s not enough to just ask your customers about value. This data simply helps you create hypotheses to test with real-world customers to see which value focuses generate the best response. Test value focus in your email. Test in your PPC ads. Identify elements of value that could be the most compelling value focus, and then run follow-up tests throughout the customer journey to discover how to best message that value focus.

 

You can follow Daniel Burstein, Director of Editorial Content, MECLABS Institute, @DanielBurstein.

 

You might also like

3 steps for laying your value prop testing groundwork

How to use social media to help discover why customers buy from you

Value Proposition Development  [Online course from MECLABS Institute]

 

from MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas http://ift.tt/1Y34phE
via IFTTT

Building a CTA Button Your Leads Can’t Help But Click

It’s the great marketing paradox. We spend hours brainstorming and months testing the copy of our calls-to-action, but whether we ask our users to Sign Up Now, Start a Free Trial, Get Started, Request Access, or Learn More, all we really want them to do it click the button.

Just click the button.

So why do so many of our quality leads fail to comply with our simple request? The way your CTA button is set up on a landing page is just as important as the CTA itself. Otherwise, it’s a button to nowhere.

Make your CTA pop on a pretty page

Visual appeal is everything. Before they see your CTA button, your landing page is the first impression your potential customers will have. Choose attractive, simple imagery – if your page is cluttered, your visitors won’t know where to look. Color scheme also is important: Using complementary but contrasting colors help a page to pop.

Notice how the below example from PopSurvey is coordinated with shades of blue, allowing the pink in the logo and CTA to pop out on the page. The secondary CTA, “Pricing & Sign Up” in the header is a slightly duller pink that still stands out but doesn’t distract from the main call-to-action button.

Ensure your page is easy to read and draws the attention of your customers’ eyes – don’t make them strain to read the text. The following landing page from Website Magazine is cluttered, has too many distracting colors, and small text. It’s impossible to know where to look!

Get to the point

Customers won’t have the patience to stay on your page if they don’t know what you’re offering. Use clear, strong wording to elicit the quick reactions that all good Calls-to-Action invoke.

Active verbs like “join” or “discover” can make people feel like they’ll be a part of something or learn something new. Negative questions like “worried?” and “confused?” can tap into human fears – always an attention-getter. And make it personal and urgent – use pronouns like “your” or “my” to convey ownership, as well as time-sensitive words, as in “Get my free newsletter now.”

At Socedo, one of our landing pages, is frill-free. We’re still A/B testing variations around “Start My Free Trial” or “Start My 14-Day Free Trial.” Regardless, previous testing has confirmed that the phrase “Free Trial” is crucial to our CTA buttons. It’s simple and to the point, and users know exactly what will happen when they click the button. No matter where you look on our site–the landing page, the navigation, or the blog–you’ll see a blue button with the “Free Trial” copy.

But just like any marketing strategy, you should always be A/B testing. What works for one brand might not work for another, and things can change over time.

Lead to the button with benefits

Drive more leads by offering your unique selling point. When a customer clicks on your CTA button, they should know why it will benefit them. Start with a confident headline on the page that conveys a key value you offer, and support it with a subhead that explains it. Follow with clear button copy that encourages users to claim these benefits.

If you’re like everyone else – boring and wordy – you won’t get your customers to pay attention or even to think about clicking your CTA. Add personality, emotions and enthusiasm to help draw in customers.

This landing page from Manpacks is fantastic and hilarious. It has a header with a clear benefit, in this case convenience on men’s essentials. Then the subhead explains exactly what Manpacks offers. By the time the user reaches the CTA button, they already know what they are going to “Get Started” with.

Sqord is a fitness and game tracking wristband for kids. Their landing page isn’t bad. It has a coherent color theme that reflects the audience and the product, the button pops, and it gets to the point. The headline is catchy but not very specific, and the subhead only provides a few more surface-level details: “Sqord is your online world, powered by real world play.”

By the time the user reaches the button text “Buy Sqord Membership & Gear” it’s hard to know what they’re actually buying. Is it the wristband, the app, or both? And why should I care?

Instill fear of missing out

You always want what you can’t have, right? It’s all about urgency. Customers hate missing out on a short-term offer. Focus on deadline phrases such as “limited time” or give them and end date. Add exclusivity to your product, when appropriate, with phrases like “while supplies last.” And CTAs that save money will always be a winning tactic. Customers can’t ignore it.

This landing page from Slope, a visual marketing platform, creates FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) by implying only a limited number of people will be allowed access to the beta. In addition to avoiding this negative, the button creates a positive experience of exclusivity. If you’re one of the select few who request early access, you’ll be part of the inner club–the talk of the town at your next marketers’ get-together.

Be creative

You’ll probably notice a pattern to the successful landing page CTAs mentioned here. They all have a high-benefit header, an explanatory subhead, and a button with active verbs. They all have a coordinated color palette, with the button standing out. They all get right to the point.

Most importantly, they all have some level of creativity. You can read as many prescriptive tips for CTA buttons as possible, but at the end of the day, it’s the unexpected element of your page that will give you the edge for higher conversion rates.

About the Author: Aseem Badshah, Founder and CEO of Socedo. Socedo helps sales and marketing professionals leverage social media data to discover, qualify, and nurture leads, automatically.

from The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog http://ift.tt/1X0EK98
via IFTTT

How to Idiot Proof Your Ad Campaigns

Marketing promotion sucks when you treat people the same.

That goes for conversions, and it goes for advertising too.

But the minute things start to go awry, people start messing with their landing page headline or ad descriptions.

As if those tiny, miniscule elements are the primary reason traffic’s not comin’ or visits aren’t convertin’.

The best landing page, optimized 100% correctly, can’t make up for the wrong audience seeing that message.

Ad campaigns are already difficult. But the good news is that you don’t need to possess ninja PPC skillz.

Instead, here is a dead simple way you can isolate where problem areas might pop up and stop them dead in their tracks.

When ‘Best Practices’ are Good Enough

Commonly accepted best practices are a starting point. The tip of a metaphorical iceberg.

They get all the attention and ink online. But there’s a mountain below just waiting to sink your campaign.

On a GREAT day, landing pages convert around 10% of visitors (and those are the ‘uncommon’, special ones that vastly outperform all the rest). That means the majority of page visitors are doing, well, anything else besides converting.

Slapping on a different ad-description isn’t going to budge that number. It won’t change the fact that those people simply aren’t ready to buy. It might get you from 6-7%. Which is great!

But in a world where over 50% of all customers interactions follow a ‘multi-event, multi-channel’ journey that takes various touch points prior to converting, we should look beyond tactical ‘best practices’ to make sure the entire funnel aligns to deliver the best conversions for our buck.

Managing the growing complexity is a top priority for marketers, with most juggling anywhere from 5 – 31 separate tools to manage messaging in a multi-channel marketing environment.

This can be best illustrated with the help of Google’s Customer Journey to Online Purchase, which shows how a typical customer’s journey might look (including which channels influence which parts) for most industries. Yay visuals!

The point is, there are many things involved in a single conversion. Whether we’re talking about a product purchased or lead generated.

Unfortunately, ad campaigns today can’t be simple, static paths from New Visitor -> Conversion. Not in a world where it takes a minimum of 6-8 customer touch points prior to conversion. Or when your most profitable customers are NOT the ones who visit your site 1-3 times, but 14-20 before signing up.

Today’s ad campaigns are more like a delicate system of variables that depend on each other for success. (Enter your best ’synergistic’ MBA speak here.)

Making sure those things come together harmoniously is the best way to boost conversion rates for the long-term.

Here’s how.

1. Create Different Ad Campaigns for Each Customer Journey Stage

Ad campaigns should align with an appropriate stage of the sales funnel. Same as any inbound deliverable like an infographic, offline tradeshow, or other campaign.

You know, that whole Awareness, Consideration, Decision bit?

(If you have NO idea what I’m talking about, read about the buying cycle and triggers from David Skok. And then spend another 20 minutes reading everything else he writes – it’s worth it.)

Ad channels (and even different campaigns on the same channel) can then be used for different purposes, whether that’s driving new sales to generating leads or simply boosting awareness. The opportunities are vast, but the execution needs to be precise.

Let’s start with generating initial awareness to see how this works.

Demand Generation

The goal here is to bring in new, targeted visitors. Obviously.

Problem? Nobody knows who you are. And frankly, they don’t really care. They haven’t yet become aware that they have a need for you yet.

So help them. Literally.

Start with their daily life. What issues pop up, take too long, or cause them frustration (that can also possibly tie back into your widgets)?

Listen:

Consumers ignore 86% of display ads. And those average banner ad click through rates are a dismal 0.1%. It ain’t easy out there.

Botching this jeopardizes everything else. So your value proposition needs to be awesome. Not good, or great. But, “Holy s$*% I need to [click this link / read this post] right now”.

Typical display ads, AdWords, and Facebook are well tread options. So let’s look at new, fresh examples like Twitter and Instagram. Less competition typically = less expensive = higher return on ad spend. And the principles are the same, regardless of channel.

For example, let’s say you’re trying to get the attention on Twitter. Instead of simply promoting your account (and making it all about you), solving a huge pain point or even providing a fun distraction can be enough to start introducing your brand to consumers.

The best social ads at this stage also ‘blend’ in with the content people are already consuming. You know, like that whole native advertising thing. For example, this one from I.D. Sarrieri is very Instagram-ish – selling a mood or theme featuring their products.

Find this one, and many more great Instagram ad examples here.

Last but certainly not least, is your headline.

The best headlines are a crystallized version of your value proposition, and they tap into some deeper primal motivation to grab maximum attention. Bnonn’s SHINE headline formula is a great way to get started, giving you the ‘essential’ ingredients like Specificity and Immediacy that are critical to getting people to take action.

You can also study the masters like BuzzFeed, who crank out brilliant headlines day-after-day that can be templated for re-using later. For example:

This one might look like:

• # + [Perfect Adjective] + [Noun/Keyphrase Solution] + [To/For/Like] + [Fix Your Undesirable Thing]

Lead Generation

Once you’ve captured attention, the next step is to get them interested.

You do that by constructing a ‘bridge’ between their problems or pain points, and your widget which can ultimately solve those things for them.

One of the most popular techniques here is some kind of ‘lead magnet’ to generate a micro-conversion like a basic email address. Chances are, you’re familiar with all the usual suspects like eBooks, webinars, checklists, and more.

But ‘content’ based offers can mean much more.

For example, most designers are starved for stock photos, especially with the exorbitant costs at the well known sources.

Here, Bigstock is providing 35 free!

(Here are a few more Twitter ad examples to browse for inspiration.)

Even something as simple as a recipe could work wonders because it blends (pun intended) an offer to get attention with the products they’ll need (and can purchase from you).

Smirnoff’s example below is a perfect example of bridging the gap between those two worlds.

Closing Customers

By this point, prospects should know who you are and at least have some interest in your product.

Otherwise, we run into that original problem of trying to convert cold, unaware leads (which all of the best tactical practices in the world can’t help).

The key? Make them an offer they can’t refuse. Especially if switching costs are an issue.

For example, MailChimp executes brilliantly by running a competitive offer to Constant Contact peeps with a free three month offer. That should help soften the blow of having to move all email templates and contact records, while also giving those people enough time to settle in with the service.

(The actual content and CTA looks a little sloppy, but the overall offer is great.)

Admittedly, selling on Instagram is a, well, tough sell. It’s still early days, and the channel is mostly known for brand awareness.

But still, the Cromwell in Las Vegas does as good a job as any, highlighting their attractive property in a multi-ad set with an appropriate CTA.

If you’ve done all the hard work up to this point (like getting awareness, building interest, and developing trust), the sales offer should be simple and straightforward.

A great offer or promotion can help, but shouldn’t be required to get people to open up their wallets.

But if it is still difficult or damn near impossible, this next section can help.

2. Pinpoint & Upgrade Underperforming Stages

Creating different ad campaigns for specific sales funnel stages can help illustrate potential gaps, making it easier to break down exactly where you’re excelling (or falling short).

That way instead of overreacting and making rash conclusions, you can start measuring those micro-conversions between stages or steps to find leading indicators of success.

For example, experiencing low sales but demand seems to be there? Insert more lead gen and nurturing campaigns into the mix to bridge that gap. The end result, should resemble a complete ‘customer journey’ that seamlessly moves people from one step to the next.

But what if those things check out, and still nothing. You’ve got ad campaigns targeting each step, and they seem to be performing well. Except for that whole sales thing.

Break your ad campaigns down even further into the individual variables that dictate success.

Google AdWord’s Quality Score is kinda the gold standard for using algorithms to award and set pricing in an auction based ad system. Facebook has also been testing different algorithms that act similarly.

What’s unique, is that these algorithms use factors like ad relevancy from the ads you’re running, to the keyphrases or audiences, and even through the landing pages. They factor all of these details, and then create a holistic score that dictates (a) how often your ads show and (b) what you’re going to pay.

Algorithms like these force advertisers to consider how every single ad campaign element works together to produce the best ROI (instead of simply focusing on the single ad creative you’re working on).

So let’s start with the tactics, and work backwards to see if we can get any quick wins.

Addressing or changing elements like the ad creative and landing page are far easier than ripping up the offer and starting from scratch. You can A/B test these elements according to commonly accepted best practices (which take all of 5 minutes Googling).

And it’s the easiest, ‘low hanging fruit’ to quickly improve your Quality Score (or similar relevancy scores in other social ad platforms) that deliver fast results.

If issues still persist, take another step back to address the audience you’re targeting (or keyphrases in AdWords which inherently have a certain type of audience searching). Chances are, improving audience targeting could give you that breakthrough.

For example, custom audiences on Facebook help you get more specific by targeting segments of past customers, retargeting website visits, or even the individual product page visited. Target saw a “20% increase in conversion [using Facebook’s Dynamic Product Ads] compared to other Facebook ads”, according to Senior Vice President Kristi Argyilan.

Assuming your offer or value proposition is sound and that the channel is appropriate, iterating on the audience, ad creative, and landing pages should deliver something at the end of the day.

Otherwise, you have bigger issues (beyond advertising) that are holding you back.

Conclusion

The tactical best practices you read about all over the interwebs are important.

But only to a point.

Breaking things down by sales funnel stages can help you determine where you’re excelling or falling short in key categories. They alert you to gaps in the customer journey that can cause breakdowns in driving new sales.

Once that’s completed, you can get even more granular by looking at each independent variable within a single ad campaign to see where further bottlenecks are choking results. Working backwards from the ad creative and landing pages to your audience will give your campaigns a quick lift (assuming your offer or value proposition + channel selection check out).

Big conversion increases don’t happen overnight by swapping out your headline or button color. They come from iterating on these tiny details along the way, making small improvements at each little step.

And best of all, isolating different variables helps assign priority, keeping execution focused and simple in an increasingly complex world.

About the Author: Brad Smith is a founding partner at Codeless Interactive, a digital agency specializing in creating personalized customer experiences. Brad’s blog also features more marketing thoughts, opinions and the occasional insight.

from The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog http://ift.tt/1RqFF2p
via IFTTT

A Step-by-Step Guide for Determining Keywords to Bid On

When it comes to pay-per-click (PPC) and paid ads, a lot goes into these campaigns. You have to create the landing page, design the ad, and set up a framework for the campaign. Not to mention A/B testing various aspects of the ad and landing page.

If there’s one step that can’t be overlooked when setting up your campaign, it’s selecting keywords to bid on. Keywords make or break a PPC campaign because they determine who sees your ad and who doesn’t. Even the most clever paid ads will fail if they don’t get in front of the right people.

Choosing keywords wisely ensures your audience is well-targeted and relevant, and your budget is put to good use. These 4 steps are all you need to determine the best keywords for your next paid campaign.

Step 1: Brainstorm

The first step in choosing keywords for any campaign is to brainstorm a big, long list of potential terms. Your list should be based on the landing pages the ads will link to.

The key is to get inside your customer’s mind. What are they searching for? How do they phrase search queries? What are they typing into that magic Google box when they’re looking for your product? Don’t forget to include synonyms that customers might use instead of another word and alternate spellings.

Another thing to consider: Your list should include both head terms and long-tail keyword phrases. Head terms are broader and likely bring in a lot of search volume, while long-tail phrases get your ads in front of a highly targeted audience — so it’s good to include both in your campaigns.

To ensure you have a comprehensive list, consider all 4 types of keyword terms:

• Generic terms — Keywords that describe your product or service (i.e. running shoes)
• Related terms — Terms that don’t directly apply to your business that your audience may be search for (i.e. jogging)
• Brand terms — Keywords containing your brand or business name (i.e. Nike.com)
• Competitor terms — Terms including brands and names of your competitors (i.e. New Balance shoes)

The sky’s the limit, so find a whiteboard and list every keyword you can muster to consider bidding on. You’ll whittle this down later, so it’s impossible to have too many keywords at this stage. Once you’ve completely racked your brain, we can move on to Step 2.

Step 2: Choose Local Search Keywords

Local search keywords are exactly what they sound like — search terms that involve a particular location. The query “shoe stores in wicker park, chicago” is a good example. For businesses that are more than e-commerce, these are a big deal. With so many searches happening on mobile devices, these queries bring you even closer to an actual sale. If you have a brick & mortar location, local search keywords will draw the most engaged and relevant audience to your site and your store, because searchers are literally right down the road from you.

Keep local search in mind when creating and refining your list of keywords. Be sure to include terms that relate to your street address, neighborhood, and town. There’s nothing more valuable than getting your ads in front of potential customers who are looking for exactly what you offer, right where you are.

Step 3: Think About Relevance

Now that you have a huge list of more keywords than you can possibly bid on, it’s time to start narrowing it down. The most effective way to choose which terms to eliminate and which to keep is to weigh relevance.

The key to determining how relevant a search term is is to consider the searcher’s intent. Are people who search this term actually looking for what you offer? And how likely are they to buy from you? For example, if your industry has strong brands, then search traffic around competitor terms may not be relevant enough to include. Users who search explicitly for a particular brand — i.e. “Nike shoes” — are probably not interested in buying from Puma.

Another important factor to consider is where in the buying cycle users are. Someone who searches “Nike Womens Free 4.0 Flyknit” is probably a lot closer to making a purchase than someone searching “good running shoes.” Depending on the type of content your ads link to, you’ll want to target terms that indicate a particular time in the buyer’s journey. If your ad is for a blog post called “What Characteristics Make a Great Running Shoe,” then target users early in the cycle. For product-specific landing pages, you want to get in front of people who are ready to make a purchase.

Don’t Forget Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are terms and phrases that you explicitly don’t want your ads to show for. By including them in your campaign, you’re essentially telling Google, Don’t waste my budget on these terms. As your campaign runs, you can find negative keywords in your search query reports. If you see any terms that aren’t a good fit for your campaign (they’re irrelevant or offensive, or user intent doesn’t fit), you can add them to your negative keywords at any time.

However, you should be able to identify some negative terms right off the bat. For example, if you’re located in Tulsa, you can eliminate queries like “shoe stores in atlanta ga.” If you’re selling software that doesn’t include a freemium option, omit terms like those pictured above. Including these from the get-go will help you spend your budget on terms that actually drive revenue.

Step 4: Consider Competition and Cost

By now, you should have a decent-sized list of keywords that have been refined to reflect what your business really does and what your customers really search for. This list is your ideal campaign. However, now you need to consider the competition for these keywords and how much you’ll have to spend to actually show up for them.

Here’s an example, if your company is named “Apple Running Shoes,” can you realistically expect your ads to show up when people search for “apple?” (Hint: The answer is no.) It can also get expensive to bid on your competitors’ brand terms.

It’s important to do your research to determine who else is bidding on the keywords you want, how much they’re spending, and average cost per click. This info will help you determine which terms are worth spending your budget on and which ones are just a pipe dream that will chew through budget with little return. Once you have cost and competitive data, you can eliminate overly competitive and high-cost keywords from your list.

Step 5: Get Some Tools

Great news: You don’t have to do all of the above by yourself. There are plenty of tools available to help you determine user intent, competition, and the overall value of bidding on specific keywords.

• With Google’s Keyword Planner in AdWords, you can see historical stats on any keyword. You can get information on how keywords might perform, what competitive bids look like, and recommended budgets.
• Google Insights for Search gives you access to a wide range of data to help you predict future trends and turn information into actionable, well, insights.
• HubSpot’s Keyword Grader condenses all of the data into one, easy to interpret number. The “difficulty score” is based on a number of metrics and scored 0-100.

There are tons of other options for keyword research, too. All you have to do is find the one that works for you.

Get Started

Now it’s time to get moving. To get started with your initial list, keep these brainstorming rules in mind:

• No criticism
• Encourage wild ideas
• Emphasize quantity

At first glance, it might seem obvious which keywords make sense for your business and your campaign. However, taking the time to complete the steps above will ensure your campaign is well-informed and highly effective. Choosing the most targeted keywords through adequate research and data analysis can be the difference between success and failure.

About the Author: Kiera Abbamonte is the Content Marketing Specialist for Citrix Grasshopper. She loves a good baseball game and finding new ways to make content awesome. Catch up with her on Twitter @kieraabbamonte.

from The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog http://ift.tt/1RIgYu7
via IFTTT

5 Neuroscience Secrets to a Better Customer Acquisition Engine

Your brain contains approximately 100 billion neurons, which are the cells that enable you to process information. What makes these neurons exponentially more powerful is the electrical or chemical connections they create with one another through synapses – your brain actually houses approximately 2 ½ miles of neuronal network interconnections in every cubic millimeter of gray matter.

Clearly, your brain packs quite the punch. In fact, last year a PhD student from Carnegie Mellon University collaborated with one from University of California, Berkeley to calculate that the human brain is actually up to 30X more powerful than the world’s most powerful supercomputer. Incredible, right?

When considering the dominating influence that the human brain has on the purchase decisions being made by a company’s target audience, it’s stunning how little focus is applied to neuroscience in the customer acquisition development process at many companies.

It behooves any marketer to leverage the power of neuroscience in attracting attention, building relationships, and moving prospects to action. To that end, here are five effective ways to use neuroscience to rev up your customer acquisition engine.

1. Deviate

First, you need to grab the attention of your target audience. On average, your prospective customer encounters over 5,000 marketing messages daily, and this doesn’t even count social media. What’s a marketer to do to cut through all the noise?

Deviate! The brain is hardwired to love surprises, as evidenced in neuroscientific studies lead by Gregory S. Berns, M.D., Ph.D at Emory’s Neuroimaging Group. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure brain activity, Berns’ team showed that the brain actively responds more to the unexpected than even to things a person likes or finds pleasurable.

The dashboard SaaS company, Domo, which targets business executives, ran a series of ads screaming “CFO Porn!” and “Stop making I.T. your report monkey” in an otherwise serious market where they could have otherwise released standard ads about big data.

When seeing the ads, you couldn’t help but click on them. With Domo’s annual revenue reportedly approaching upwards of $100 million, deviation has certainly helped it to stand out.

The monthly razor subscription company Dollar Shave Club has utterly upended a mature industry with its series of jaw-dropping, laugh-out-loud videos, mocking the restrictions in drugstores that treat razor customers like felons or making fun of the excessive technology claims by the established players in the industry. Within 48 hours after launching their first video, approximately 12,000 people signed up for the subscription service. Within a few months, that exploded to 330,000. That first video? It now has more than 22 million views.

Deviating does not necessarily mean shock and awe, though. It just means being demonstrably different from the competition. Take the customer support software company Groove. Its blog first documented its rise from zero to $100K in monthly revenue and now to $500K in monthly revenue. They reveal EVERYTHING, showing you every pimple and scratch along the way. The level of transparency is unprecedented, and you can’t help but get sucked in and become a fan.

So shake it up and be different. Really different! If your brand awareness and direct response activities at the top of the funnel are currently blending in with the massive amount of noise enveloping your audience, craft your marketing for surprise and delight.

Not only does deviation help you to stand out among competing marketing messages, it also helps your target audience to remember you. Today’s consumer or B2B buyer has a higher threshold for stimulation than in the past. If the messages they are consuming are similar, it becomes more difficult for the brain to do the work of figuring out which messages to remember. The more you can deviate from the other inputs, the more likely they are to recall your message when it’s time to buy.

2. Evoke an Emotional Response

If you want new customers, evoke an emotional response. Peter Noel Murray, Ph.D., principal of a consumer psychology practice, reports in Psychology Today that emotional ads outperform content-based ads based on purchase intent by 3-to-1 for TV and 2-to-1 for print intent. Murray also points to fMRI neuro-imagery that shows consumers primarily use emotions over information (brand attributes, features, and facts) to evaluate brands.

According to a study from Google and CEB titled From Promotion to Emotion: Connecting B2B Customers to Brands, B2B brands achieve twice the impact with buyers when using emotional marketing that communicates personal value compared to marketing based on business value. From the study, “Despite our attempts to make purely rational decisions, we are primarily driven by emotional motivations… Purchase intent dips when messaging becomes less emotional.”

In studies by the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, it was revealed that without emotions, people found it almost impossible to make decisions. Damasio studied a group of people with damage to the part of the brain that triggers emotions yet with their reasoning otherwise unaffected. What Damasio uncovered was that these individuals couldn’t feel strongly enough about one option versus another to make even simple decisions like what to eat, let alone what to purchase.

In other words, if your website is not evoking an emotive response in your site visitors, your marketing is essentially pushing your prospects to NOT make a purchase decision. This is why the marketing of companies like Mailchimp, Autodesk, and Google are centered on emotions. It’s why marketing powerhouses such as Nike, Apple, P&G, Red Bull, and MasterCard focus their marketing on your heart.

The benefits of a strong emotional connection with your audience extend even beyond the purchase itself. Emotion was the number one driver of customer loyalty in 17 of 18 industries studied by Forrester. Not only are emotions critical in ensuring your prospects make the purchase in the first place, but they are also critical in making sure your prospects continue to purchase from you again and again, reducing churn.

3. Identify Their Urgent Wants

People visit your website for one of two reasons. They either want to achieve a goal or eliminate pain. So figure out exactly how your offering does either or both for your site visitors, and then cut the crap and focus all of your messaging on this.

There are different methods to achieve this. One way is a hardcore message that takes your audience by surprise with its penetrating directness. For example, certain marketing teams find it painful to create landing pages in order to drive new leads. Sometimes, they are required to have their web team do the heavy lifting for every page. The SaaS landing page solution Instapage eliminates this pain, with a website containing the super simple and short headline, “Create a Landing Page in Just 3 Minutes” and the call-to-action button “Build My Page Now.”

The clarity, directness, and boldness make the message not only immediately understandable, but also immediately impactful.

Another approach is to use the power of mirror neurons to move your audience to action. Mirror neurons were identified by a team of scientists led by Giacomo Rizzolatti in Parma, Italy that was monitoring the brain waves of monkeys. When a graduate student walked into the lab with an ice-cream cone and then raised the cone to his mouth, the monkey’s brain started firing neurons in reaction. What was amazing was that those neurons were the same neurons as if the monkey were eating the ice-cream itself. In other words, the monkey’s brain did not differentiate between the observation of the eating of ice-cream and the actual act of eating it oneself.

Let’s say that your site visitor is looking for financial management software. Instead of showing only screens of your interface, show your prospective customer what their life could look like if they used your product. The top of the Mint.com home page displays a person by the waterfront under the headline “That Horizon Might Be Closer Than You Think. We’ll help you get there by managing your money and budgets better every day.” The urgent want of the site visitor is not the tactical idea of organizing one’s finances, but instead is peace of mind by achieving sufficient wealth and eliminating money-related anxiety. And through mirror neurons, Mint is triggering their neurons so that site visitors feel as if they are already achieving this.

This is the strategy that many fitness and weight loss programs use in their marketing. All the before-after examples that they feed you are to activate your mirror neurons, because they know that your urgent want is to lose weight and look fit. If they focus instead on specific exercises, or diets, or ingredients in their messaging, the impact is weakened, because the brain does not react as viscerally.

4. Scare the Heck Out of ‘Em

People fear loss more strongly than they seek gain. This aversion to loss is powerful, and can be used effectively when you show prospective customers all the negative effects caused by not purchasing your product.

What’s especially surprising is that even if you present the same information to the prospect but frame it in the sense of what they lose, your conversions can increase. For example, instead of speaking to how your product saves the prospect money, tell them to avoid losing money by making the purchase.

A UCLA study was the first to provide neural evidence that people are hard-wired to avoid loss more than seek gain. The study examined the behavior of people who were given 250+ opportunities to gamble with $30, with a 50-50 chance of winning each time. For example, would they agree to a coin toss in which you could win $30 but could just as easily lose $20? On average, with the risk of losing $10, participants in the study needed the chance to win $19 in order to accept the gamble. The study found that the reward center of the brain responds not only to actual gain and loss, but to potential gain and loss.

Quantifying people’s predilection for loss aversion, Professor Daniel Kahneman at the University of California, Berkeley, who later won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, found that most people are about twice as sensitive to potential losses as to potential gains.

In the examples below, the automated investment software company Betterment uses loss aversion in its messaging to make its site visitors anxious about losing money to excessive fees. They then take that message further by detailing the different types of fees site visitors should worry about losing, such as trade fees, transaction fees, and rebalancing fees.

5. Price It Like You Mean It

You know that the price you set will influence whether a prospective customer buys from you. But beyond just the price, the actual display of the price can also have a major impact at a subconscious level on the buying decision.

Research findings by professors at the University of Richmond and Clark University published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology reveal that the brain believes that a price is actually more affordable or more expensive in just the presentation of the number itself. For example, the price $1,000.00 could be written as $1,000.00, $1,000, $1000.00, $1000 or $1K. The shorter the display of the number, the more affordable it is perceived, even though all of the actual numbers are exactly the same.

A University of Pennsylvania/Carnegie Mellon University study published in the Journal of Consumer Research further revealed that the framing of a price can have a drastic impact on purchase rates. For example, by changing the language for an overnight shipping charge from “A $5 Fee” to “A Small $5 Fee”, purchase rates of tightwads increased by 20%.

Another pricing strategy to drive your prospects to make the purchase is through the use of multiple price points. Even if you have only one product, it’s important to segment the pricing into multiple options (even if one option is going to end up representing 90%+ of the sales).

When I worked at Panasonic, we would always add a more expensive option to any product. Psychologically, when the brain sees two options, it makes it easier for the prospective buyer to make the purchase, as they are either going to feel good about saving money and purchasing the cheaper option, or feel an elevated sense of worth by buying the more expensive option. This is called perceptual contrast.

But keep it simple! Getting carried away by offering more pricing options can easily backfire. In a study by Sheena S. Iyengar at Columbia University and Mark R. Lepper at Stanford University, researchers set up a jam-tasting table at a supermarket. At times they offered six varieties of jam, and at others 24 varieties. While more options brought more tasters, only 3% actually bought the jam. Compare this with a 30% purchase rate when only six varieties were offered. That’s a 10X difference in purchase rate!

Conclusion

The brain is a major influence on whether your target audience will respond to your marketing and will make a purchase from you. By structuring your customer acquisition funnel based on an understanding of neuroscience, you can significantly accelerate your customer growth, increase conversions, and build your business.

About the Author: Tom Shapiro is the CEO of Stratabeat, Inc., a branding, marketing, and design agency. Through his career, Shapiro has developed marketing strategies for a range of startups as well as Fortune 500 companies, including AT&T, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, UnitedHealthcare, and P&G. Follow him on Twitter at @TomShapiro and @Stratabeat.

from The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog http://ift.tt/1Mwhy20
via IFTTT