3 Improved Ways to Reach the Modern Target Audience

In one of my previous marketing class, I had to draft up an individual profile that would be representative of a certain brand's target audience. I had to include the age-range of this consumer, where he lives, what he likes to do, what his profession is, and include a picture of what this consumer would look like.

This detailed description can provide your inbound marketing team with a clear vision of its target customers. In the practice of traditional marketing, this target audience was commonly reached by deciding what TV shows they watched to determine where to place TV advertisement, figuring out what kind of music they listened to determine which radio stations to focus radio commercials, and knowing what they enjoyed reading so print ads were published in the right newspapers or magazines. 

But haven’t you heard? These techniques are outbound, ineffective, and immeasurable! People are recording their favorite TV shows and fast-forwarding through commercials, jamming to their favorite music on ad-free iPods, and reading content online. It’s crazy town—but as a marketer, you have to be a part of it.

So let’s take a look at these 3 distinct differences between how marketers used to reach their target audiences, and how they must reach them today.

1. Find Them Online

Then: Conventional efforts to reach your audience included knowing where these consumers resided so that you could reach them geographically. That way, you knew if you should be paying for a suburban newspaper ad or an urban newspaper ad. 

Now: Marketers must find where these people are online. Perhaps your audience flocks more toFacebook than Twitter, or maybe they are more concentrated in an industry-specific social network. As a marketer, the time and effort you spend on these networks should reflect that. Be present and participate where your audience is participating. Use analytics to guide you: take advantage of Facebook Insights, use Twitter analytics like Bit.ly, and implement other tracking tools to monitor traffic and leads from these sites to determine what is effective and how you should be allocating your time.

2. Be Part of the Conversation

Then: When you talk about customer service before the internet and social media, people would wait in long lines, sit on the phone for hours, or fill out complaint forms. You would then give them a muddled response or sometimes just blow them off because hey, it’s only one person, right?

Now: Wrong. Anything negative about your company is now easily transmittable through Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other social networks. Businesses must not only monitor their brand and be prepared to respond at any moment to these complaints and clear the virtual air, but also be engaging with prospects and customers online in general. Join groups and discussions on LinkedIn, Facebook, and other online sites where people are discussing a topic relating to your product or service. Use Google Alerts and social media monitoring software to monitor conversations about your brand. Participating in these dialogues by sharing your opinion and providing answers to questions will show your audience that you care.

3. Change the Way You Communicate

Then: The marketing world used to solely be a one-way communication-based industry. As a campaign was executed, some PR or media relations specialist would take the story your brand described and pitch it to traditional media outlets in your target market. The hope would be that it would get picked up and covered in the media so your target audience could see what you were all about. What people thought, or how many people even the read story, was left to circulation numbers—which isn’t the best method of measuring your reach. Let's face it: not everyone who purchased that magazine or watched that broadcast necessarily paid attention to that particular story.

Now: Communication is now two-way and asymmetrical. Brands are engaging with prospects and customers through social media and telling their stories through business blogging. Getting media attention is still important, though many articles and broadcasts are now posted online. This allows marketers to clearly analyze and better understand what their audience's reactions are with online marketing analytics that report on comments, traffic, inbound links, leads, etc.

Use Google's Keyword Tool (or if you’re a HubSpot customer, our Keyword Grader tool) to conduct keyword research and unveil what your target audience is searching for in relation to your product or service. Then, talk about it. Create blog posts that contain content your target audience wants, and don’t feel the need to limit it to just text. If your audience hates to read but sits on YouTube all day, then you should have a series of videos for them to watch that answers their questions and keeps them engaged. If your audience has an even shorter attention span, perhaps a quick infographic or cartoon that catches their eye is what you should be producing.

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10 Tips to Increase Your Sales Page Conversion

If you are selling something online then you need to pay attention to the conversion rate of your sales page. The conversion rate can vary wildly and is totally unpredictable but even an one percent increase in conversion rate can make the difference between losing money or making profit.

What is Conversion Rate?

In online marketing conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who take a desired action (for example: make a purchase or click an ad).

You can think of conversion as pouring traffic into a funnel where they get filtered on different levels and at last the remaining portion gets converted. Usually a large portion of the traffic will leave the sales page right after they land. A majority of the remaining traffic will abandon the sales page when they see that it does not fit their need or they want to do research or compare the price with other sites. The small remaining portion of traffic consists of customers that have already researched the products or were referred from another site and are looking to make a purchase.

Tips to Increase Sales Page Conversion

It is a good idea that you optimize your sales page with keywords related to the product you are offering. This way the traffic being driven to your sales page is targeted traffic for the product(s) you are selling. This will in turn lead to a higher concentrated pool of customers “With their minds set on purchasing”. The following tips on various sales page elements should help you increase the conversion of your sales page:

1. Headline

Headlines are an important step in getting the traffic to your post. The headline is what catches the visitor’s attention and draws them into visiting and reading the post. Headline starting with “How to…”, “Ways to…” “Top 10”, “Most popular” have a higher chance of catching the visitor’s attention. Some other headlines that can be just as effective for increasing conversion rates are:

• What you should know about…
• Here’s a Quick Way to….
• Little Known Ways to….
• The Secret of….
• Profitable tips for….

2. Purchase Button

Research has shown that using a larger “Buy” button is one of the most proven ways of increasing the sales page conversion rate. This is why the “Belcher button” is the most used button for sales pages. The creator of this button Perry Belcher tested every design element of the button in over 10,000 transactions and was able to increase conversion rates by 35% to 320%. Here is an example of the belcher button:

Belcher Button

You can find the belcher button here.

3. Font

The font of your sales page is very important. Always use a font which is easy to read and fits your sales page design. Here are some example of good sales page fonts for you:

• Arial
• Verdana
• Tahoma

The size of the font should be between 12-14pt. This way the font size is neither too big nor too small to read comfortably.

4. Image

You should use images relevant to the products you are selling on your sales page (this way the customer does not get confused as to what they are purchasing). This will make your sales page look more professional and creditable. This will also create trust with your visitor and they will be more likely to purchase the product(s) you are trying to sell.

5. Product Details

You should provide a detailed description of the product including why it will be useful for the user and how it can solve a problem that the customer maybe having. The sales page should explain the product in a nice well written flow of text, so that after the visitor reads about the product, he is completely convinced that the product is just what he is looking for.

6. Focus

The sales page should focus only on the product you are trying to sell to the user. It’s a good idea not to include any inflated content which may cause distraction. For example: you are trying to sell an e-book and your sales page has all the information about why your e-book will be useful to the user. Now, while the visitors are reading, if they see ads/image banners on the sidebar they can easily get distracted and click on the ad which will take them away from your sales page.

7. Targeted Traffic

Getting more traffic is always good for a website as there is a higher chance that this traffic will buy your product but you don’t want to bring in just any traffic to your site. Bringing in non-targeted traffic to your site is just a waste of your server bandwidth, as this traffic has no interest in buying your product(s). You really want to focus on bringing targeted traffic that is looking for a solution to a problem that your product will solve .

Traffic from social networking sites tend to be less targeted where as traffic from search engines are highly target so focus on getting search engine traffic more.

8. Testimonials

Consumers tend to believe others rather than the business owner’s hype to be truthful. Customer testimonials are a powerful form of endorsement. If you have any customer testimonials then include them on your sales page.

9. Price

Research has shown that using a price which ends with 5 or 9 after the decimal point increases the conversion rate (I don’t know why). For example: the following three amounts are all equivalent but the 1st and the 2nd one are suppose to convert more:

• $19.95
• $19.99
• $20.00

Read the Maximize Revenue 101 article to learn more on how the price change can affect your sales conversion.

10. Limited time offer

One of the most widely used limited offer tactic on a sales page is to mention the quantity you have left to sell for that product. This way you create the fear that you may run out and they will miss out on buying the item if they wait too long. This helps converting the customers who like to sit on the sideline. You can also offer limited discount coupons.

If you can include a few or all of these elements on your sales page, you are bound to see an increase in sales conversions. Don’t forget to share your tips in the comment area below.

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#OurABC: Channel in Social Media Rebranding

ABC latest channel to tap into the social media buzz and paves the way for TV future.

The Aussie branch of ABC is under-going a fresh rebranding operation in the hope to promote channel/audience inclusion and interactivity.

ABC's main channels, ABC1 is the channel facing the new changes, starting with the new name of ABC. While the new name isn't anything to write home about in terms of creativity, the rest of the rebranding operationpromises to make waves.

The use of the hashtag #ourABC is the main talking point and the vocal point for the rebranding campaign; a campaign that the broadcaster has labelled "bold, simple, raw and real."

guardian.com

The hope is that the new hashtag tagline will emphasise "inclusion, togetherness and connection"according to ABC's head of marketing and communications.

The channel's new image is also set to include new idents featuring everyday ABC personalities along with anew 'channel anthem' of 'Throw Your Arms Around Me' by Hunters and Collectors.

The rebranding coincides with their new look website which is set to launch on July 20th.

Speaking about the channel's new image, ABC's director of television, Richard Finlayson said that "Now more than ever, ABC Television needs to be relevant." 

With almost everyone sharing their thoughts and opinions online, it isn't hard to see the reasoning behindABC's new way of thinking. They are beginning to tap into where it's audience are coming from, and where they will go to express their opinions on the channels programming. It is a clever and innovative way of keeping up to date and relevant to their audience and it can't be too long before other channels across the world follow in ABC's footsteps.

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How to Retarget Content to Facebook Custom Audiences

Have you considered using Facebook to reach your existing customers or those who visit your website?

Have you tried Facebook’s custom audience options?

Retargeting to the right audience is a must if you want to see more conversions from your Facebook ads.

In this article you’ll discover four Facebook custom audiences you can create to retarget your content to the most relevant Facebook audience.

Retarget content to a your audience with Facebook Custom Audiences.

Why Retargeted Content?

The goal of retargeted content (also known as remarketing) is to place your brand top of mind. Common strategies remarket to people who have already visited your website.

Updates like this can show up in your news feed if you’ve ever visited the Plated website.

People rarely buy from you the first time they visit your site or see an offer. They would rather take their time, compare your pricing with competitors’ and visit your site a few more times before completing that valuable sale.

Here are four custom audiences you can use to retarget Facebook users with your content.

#1: Website Visitors

The most common remarketing tactic is targeting relevant ads at people who have already visited your website (usually a specific landing page).

To create a targeted audience based on website visitors, you must have a Facebook website custom audience in place.

Overall, retargeting website visitors is a simple concept: When someone visits a page with your custom audience code (i.e., an offsite pixel), they’re added to your custom audience list in your Facebook Ads Manager.

You can include those visitors (and the custom audience they’re part of) as a target audience in a Facebook ad retargeting campaign.

Custom audiences are important to Facebook retargeting campaigns.

There may be a case where you want to retarget only a portion of the traffic that has visited a landing page on your website. No problem. You can do that by creating a personalized custom audience:

1. Go to your Facebook Ads Manager and choose Audience.

2. Click on Create a Custom Audience.

3. Under Website Traffic, select People Visiting Specific Pages.

3. Next to the Visited field, customize the URL elements to match the pages you want to retarget.

4. Click on Create.

You don’t have to retarget everyone who visits your website.

After you create your personalized custom audience, it’s ready to use. However, keep in mind that it may take a few hours for the new audience to have the final user count.

#2: Facebook Fans

Retargeting to existing Facebook fans is incredibly easy: When you set up your Facebook ad, choose to target people who are already fans of your page.

Narrow your retargeting audience to include only people who are fans of your page.

Does it seem odd to advertise to existing Facebook fans? Consider that acquiring sales from existing customers is cheaper than acquiring new leads (and many of your fans are probably customers). You can also upsell those existing customers with new or better products and services.

Additionally, your fans may not be seeing all of your Facebook updates. If youretarget your most important content to them via a Facebook ad, they’re more likely to see it.

#3: Email Subscribers

You can actually strengthen the power of your newsletter by serving Facebook ads to existing email subscribers.

To set up this custom audience, you need an Excel file with a column that includes all of your subscriber email addresses. Once you have that, go to Audiences in your Facebook Ads Manager, click Create Audience and choose Custom Audience.

Click on Data File Custom Audience and follow the instructions for the setup. Make sure to indicate that you’re updating email addresses.

Create a custom audience based on your email subscriber list.

Retargeting to email subscribers can increase the chance of conversion exponentially. It’s worth the extra effort to set it all up.

#4: Similar Audiences

Many of your users—whether website visitors, Facebook fans or list subscribers—have overlapping demographics, interests and behaviors. Wouldn’t it be great to find more people like them? Well, you can.

You can create a custom audience targeting people who share similar characteristics to your existing connections—people who are very likely to be interested in your products, services and content.

The custom audiences you create to retarget to by similarity are called lookalike audiences and they expose your ads to a more vast and relevant audience.

To create a custom audience based on similarities to website visitors, go to the Audience section of your Ads Manager and choose the custom audience installed on your website (see #1). Click Create Lookalike Audience at the bottom of the page and choose the desired audience reach.

To create a custom audience based similarities to your current Facebook fans’ personal data (e.g., behavior, interests, etc.), go to the Audience section of your Ads Manager, click Create Audience and choose Lookalike Audience from the menu.

Create a lookalike target audience to find potential Facebook fans and customers.

Click Source and type your page name. Select the country you want to target and how similar your audience should to be to your current fans. Click Create Audience.

Choose the characteristics of your fan page lookalike target audience.

To create a custom audience based on similarity to your current email subscribers, go to your Audience menu, click on the name of the email list you loaded in #3 and click on Create Lookalike Audience at the bottom of the page.

Once you have your custom lookalike audiences in place, you can select each as needed depending on the goal of your Facebook ads.

Wrapping Up

Retargeting via Facebook ads helps you stay top of mind while they’re considering their decision.

The trick is to retarget content to a precise audience rather than a generalized audience that may or may not be interested in learning more about your business, product or service.

Take advantage of Facebook’s extensive custom audience options to capture more conversions and meet your advertising goals.

What do you think? Have you retargeted content using Facebook custom audiences? Did you see more conversions? Leave your comments and questions below.

Have you considered using Facebook to reach your existing customers or those who visit your website?

Have you tried Facebook’s custom audience options?

Retargeting to the right audience is a must if you want to see more conversions from your Facebook ads.

In this article you’ll discover four Facebook custom audiences you can create to retarget your content to the most relevant Facebook audience.

Retarget content to a your audience with Facebook Custom Audiences.

Why Retargeted Content?

The goal of retargeted content (also known as remarketing) is to place your brand top of mind. Common strategies remarket to people who have already visited your website.

Updates like this can show up in your news feed if you’ve ever visited the Plated website.

People rarely buy from you the first time they visit your site or see an offer. They would rather take their time, compare your pricing with competitors’ and visit your site a few more times before completing that valuable sale.

Here are four custom audiences you can use to retarget Facebook users with your content.

#1: Website Visitors

The most common remarketing tactic is targeting relevant ads at people who have already visited your website (usually a specific landing page).

To create a targeted audience based on website visitors, you must have a Facebook website custom audience in place.

Overall, retargeting website visitors is a simple concept: When someone visits a page with your custom audience code (i.e., an offsite pixel), they’re added to your custom audience list in your Facebook Ads Manager.

You can include those visitors (and the custom audience they’re part of) as a target audience in a Facebook ad retargeting campaign.

Custom audiences are important to Facebook retargeting campaigns.

There may be a case where you want to retarget only a portion of the traffic that has visited a landing page on your website. No problem. You can do that by creating a personalized custom audience:

1. Go to your Facebook Ads Manager and choose Audience.

2. Click on Create a Custom Audience.

3. Under Website Traffic, select People Visiting Specific Pages.

3. Next to the Visited field, customize the URL elements to match the pages you want to retarget.

4. Click on Create.

You don’t have to retarget everyone who visits your website.

After you create your personalized custom audience, it’s ready to use. However, keep in mind that it may take a few hours for the new audience to have the final user count.

#2: Facebook Fans

Retargeting to existing Facebook fans is incredibly easy: When you set up your Facebook ad, choose to target people who are already fans of your page.

Narrow your retargeting audience to include only people who are fans of your page.

Does it seem odd to advertise to existing Facebook fans? Consider that acquiring sales from existing customers is cheaper than acquiring new leads (and many of your fans are probably customers). You can also upsell those existing customers with new or better products and services.

Additionally, your fans may not be seeing all of your Facebook updates. If youretarget your most important content to them via a Facebook ad, they’re more likely to see it.

#3: Email Subscribers

You can actually strengthen the power of your newsletter by serving Facebook ads to existing email subscribers.

To set up this custom audience, you need an Excel file with a column that includes all of your subscriber email addresses. Once you have that, go to Audiences in your Facebook Ads Manager, click Create Audience and choose Custom Audience.

Click on Data File Custom Audience and follow the instructions for the setup. Make sure to indicate that you’re updating email addresses.

Create a custom audience based on your email subscriber list.

Retargeting to email subscribers can increase the chance of conversion exponentially. It’s worth the extra effort to set it all up.

#4: Similar Audiences

Many of your users—whether website visitors, Facebook fans or list subscribers—have overlapping demographics, interests and behaviors. Wouldn’t it be great to find more people like them? Well, you can.

You can create a custom audience targeting people who share similar characteristics to your existing connections—people who are very likely to be interested in your products, services and content.

The custom audiences you create to retarget to by similarity are called lookalike audiences and they expose your ads to a more vast and relevant audience.

To create a custom audience based on similarities to website visitors, go to the Audience section of your Ads Manager and choose the custom audience installed on your website (see #1). Click Create Lookalike Audience at the bottom of the page and choose the desired audience reach.

To create a custom audience based similarities to your current Facebook fans’ personal data (e.g., behavior, interests, etc.), go to the Audience section of your Ads Manager, click Create Audience and choose Lookalike Audience from the menu.

Create a lookalike target audience to find potential Facebook fans and customers.

Click Source and type your page name. Select the country you want to target and how similar your audience should to be to your current fans. Click Create Audience.

Choose the characteristics of your fan page lookalike target audience.

To create a custom audience based on similarity to your current email subscribers, go to your Audience menu, click on the name of the email list you loaded in #3 and click on Create Lookalike Audience at the bottom of the page.

Once you have your custom lookalike audiences in place, you can select each as needed depending on the goal of your Facebook ads.

Wrapping Up

Retargeting via Facebook ads helps you stay top of mind while they’re considering their decision.

The trick is to retarget content to a precise audience rather than a generalized audience that may or may not be interested in learning more about your business, product or service.

Take advantage of Facebook’s extensive custom audience options to capture more conversions and meet your advertising goals.

What do you think? Have you retargeted content using Facebook custom audiences? Did you see more conversions? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Twitter Marketing Strategy & Top Tips for Online Business Promotion

Twitter is a great source to promote business and improve brand engagement. This is the reason why even small businesses are investing money in Twitter marketing & promotion. Here are some Twitter facts that justify its popularity as online marketing platform:

• Twitter’s projected growth for 2014 is 24.4%.
• The micro blogging service will have over 227 million users by the end of this year.
• By 2018, Twitter user base will grow to 400 million.

Such a large base of engaged users is making businesses and marketers think about promoting business on Twitter. However, Twitter marketing is not as simple as running a banner ad. To succeed on Twitter, you need a unique Twitter marketing strategy.

This blog post will help you create a Twitter marketing strategy that will increase business leads, improve brand engagement, and build a loyal following;

Twitter Profile Basics

Your master strategy for Twitter marketing will generate maximum results only with a strong foundation. The very first thing you need to market is a pro Twitter profile. Below are the things you need to focus on;

• User name – Also known as Twitter handle, user name is whatever comes after @. For example, @yourbuisnessname. Think before choosing user name as it is not suggested to change it after building a following.
• Name – Differentiate the Name from User Name if possible. Don’t try to stuff keywords. Keep it relevant to business
• Bio – While telling what your business is all about, add words that your customers or clients might use to search for you.
• Profile image – Also known as avi & dp, businesses usually use logo or brand name for this.
• Banner image – This image should give an idea about your industry in a creative way.

While brands and businesses have official Twitter profiles, new accounts are also created for special campaigns, support, and area. If you plan to manage your Twitter campaigns & activities on your own, make sure you have good understanding of how it works.

Twitter Marketing Strategy

Twitter marketing is not just about sending promotional tweets and sharing product images. The social media platform carries a strong potential of brand building and promotion but only with a well-planned Twitter marketing strategy.

Below are some points that will help you in creating the best online marketing strategy for Twitter;

Identify target audience – Who said Twitter is about young population? The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is 55-64 year age bracket. Identify the people that matter to you and create your strategy accordingly.

Define goals – What do you want to do with Twitter? Do you want to use it as customer service tool or brand monitoring platform? Define your goals so that campaigns can be planned accordingly.

Determine budget – A global brand can easily spend tens of thousands of dollars on Twitter marketing but small businesses have smaller pockets. Decide how much you want to spend on the planning table itself.

Create plan of action – Once you have defined goals and determined other critical details, it is time to prepare action plan. Think about tone of communication, use of visual media, investment in paid options, and other technicalities while creating the plan.

Types of Twitter Campaigns & Marketing

Twitter brings vast range of advertising solutions and promotional tactics for online marketers to connect with target audience, generate sales, and improve visibility. Visithttps://business.twitter.com/marketing-twitter to learn more about marketing with Twitter.

In case you don’t want to invest in promoted solutions and want to engage your audience in a natural manner, you can seek help from experienced Twitter marketers. Social media marketers will manage you Twitter profile, optimize it for your business, and make sure that the buzz stays with your brand. Discuss you social media marketing needs.

Make your choice to become part of these Twitter success stories

Top Tips for Twitter Marketing

In case you are not seeking help from social media marketers to manage your Twitter, then, here are some tips to help you undertake Twitter marketing on your own;

Use #hashtags – Hashtags gives better visibility to your tweets. So, make sure you use them. However, don’t clutter your tweets with hashtags. One or two are more than enough.

Utilize weekends –Research has shown that Twitter community is more active on weekends. So, make sure your brand is active on Saturdays and Sundays

Mix it up – Don’t just talk about your brand. Share humorous posts, new updates, and legit non-related content from time to time.

Tweet variety – Add variety to your tweets. Share photos, quotes, questions, videos & presentations to give variety to followers.

Observe competitors – Keep a watch on competitors & observe their Twitter marketing strategy. Check their followers list to find people relevant to you.

Analyze – Use tools like http://followerwonk.com/ to connect with industry influencers and crunch statistics.

Set goals – Make monthly goals about followers, retweets, replies and mentions. Set an achievable monthly percentage increase in followers.

Follow smartly – Never follow back without studying a follower. Follow influencers and brands that matter in your industry. Follow people that frequently retweet you and participate in discussions.

Participate – Reply to queries, ask questions, and retweet followers. People will stay engaged only if you will participate.

Create sub-strategies – Just creating Twitter marketing plan is not enough. Create dedicated strategies for Following, Engagement, Interaction, Observation, and Posting.

Business marketing and promotion on Twitter is a full time job. You need to keep track of the general mood, study trends, plan posts, and respond quickly. That is why small businesses as well as big brands hire internet marketers to manage their Twitter activity.

If you have read the post carefully, then, you will do fairly well in Twitter marketing. However, if your business keeps you busy, then, speak with Twitter marketing professionals about the job.

Do you have any other doubts about Twitter marketing strategy development? Share your questions in the comments section. To enquire about professional Twitter marketing, get in touch with online marketing experts.

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