Using Language that Reaches Your Audience

The deeper your understanding of your customers, and those target audience groups you wish to persuade to become your customers, the stronger your communications with them will be. Your target audience groups have very particular ways of communicating what they need from you. They use specific language to refer to those needs when they speak with your sales people on the phone or in person and when they search on the web. If this language does not appear in the titles, headings, meta data, links, and body copy (text) of your website pages, as well as your email marketing copy, or any of your off-site content such as blogs, newsletters, pay per click ads, social media sites, press releases, and banner ads, then they are not likely to be finding and interacting with your information.

Professional keyword research is important to your business because it provides you with the language you need to reach your audience groups who are actively searching for what it is you offer. An experienced keyword research professional utilizes industry tools and techniques to uncover the language your target audience groups use to refer to what it is you offer. There are many lists of valuable keywords that refer to the different aspects of your business that are needed. These include keywords and phrases referring to: your overall business; your specific products; your specific services; your specific brands; and any other marketable aspect of your business that is searched.

Whether you are establishing adgroups for your pay per click AdWords campaign or writing a blog post, your lists of researched and analyzed keywords and phrases provide you with the essential language you need to incorporate into your writings in order to ensure your content can be searched and found. Additionally, you will have more success attracting and maintaining the interest of your targeted readers by using language that is recognizable and known to them.

If you’re looking for professional Keyword Research & Analysis contact Industrial Web Solutions.

This type of personalized search can be used to reach targeted audience groups within your social circle. If you have organized your contacts according to industry, for example, you can publish searchable content that you know is of interest and value to each targeted group. If you are not comfortable emailing them directly on every post you make that you know would be of interest to them, you can search engine optimize and publish them online so that they have a good possibility of showing up in their ‘Results from people in your social circle…’

Building out your contacts to reach a larger number of your targeted audience groups is a really good idea for many reasons. With Google’s ‘Your Social Circle’ search results you are provided with yet another way to ensure your valuable information reaches those it is best designed to help.

The very nature of Content Targeting presents a challenge because it involves casting a larger net within a sea of searchers without knowing exactly what it is they are searching for. Within the Search Network you have a clearer understanding of what a person is looking for and are therefore able to compose a highly targeted message that directly speaks to the concerns of the person searching. Not so clear within the Content Network. So how do you effectively deal with the “unknowns” to produce positive, measurable results?

First I would like to point you to a wonderful little article I read recently by Andrew Goodman for ClickZ entitled Three Effective Tactics for Content Targeting. Andrew offers some very helpful advice. In a nutshell, Andrew recommends you 1) use the measurement tools available to you to fully understand what’s working and what isn’t 2) engage in precise targeting – divide and conquer; create adgroups that focus on a smaller perhaps niche market with a short keyword list of 5 – 10 terms/phrases and select highly targeted content sites and 3) make use of view-through conversion tracking; this tool is available ONLY for display ads and NOT text ads and you MUST have conversion tracking implemented; view-through conversion tracking allows you to see how users respond to your display ads by providing “a measure of the number of online conversions that happened within 30 days after a user saw, but did not click, a display ad on one of the sites on the Google Content Network.”

The principle ingredients to effectively manage your targeted pay per click Content Network campaigns are:

Clear goals: Sales, brand focus, announcement – what are you trying to achieve and what are the precise steps that your target audience has to take for you to achieve your goals? Write everything down in a clear and concise manner – everything!! No shortcuts and no omissions!

Precise Targeting: Select the content sites, or de-select content sites, based on your goals; understand clearly whom you are targeting and on which content sites they are most likely to be spending time.

Focused Creative: Whether you are using display ads, text ads or a combination of both, focus your creative based on the goals you have clearly outlined and your understanding of your target audience groups; don’t dilute your message in any way with empty images or words that do not relate your message clearly.

Small Campaigns with Select Keywords & Phrases: Match your choices to your goals and your understanding of your targeted audience groups; keeping your adgroups small allows for tighter control; with fewer variables your results are more targeted, allowing for precise adjustments to be made to enhance your overall results or kill a campaign if need be without affecting the results of better performing campaigns.

Measure & Tweak: Complacency is a campaign killer; set it and let it run may work for some but I bet they are spending way more than they have to; understand what types of measurement tools are available to you and use the statistics that help you to effectively manage your goals; there are many stats available but they may not all be important to what you are trying to achieve; the point is to focus on what is going to help you to understand what you have to do next to achieve your goals.

Content targeting is not for those who do not have the time or the patience to set it up and manage it carefully. Poorly managed campaigns can eat through your advertising budget like termites in a woodpile with a voracious appetite!

Google Docs: Create, edit, store and share documents, drawings, flowcharts, spreadsheets, presentations, forms and more online in real-time with other Google users. The latest version has chat and character-by-character real time co-editing.

Google Places: A great way to manage your local business listing online is to add or update your business information as it appears on Google Maps. The application allows you to communicate with customers, manage your business information, post coupons and live updates, and use the Performance Dashboard to see how your listing is performing for you. There are lots of additional features to help you to get the most out of your business listing while providing Google Maps end-users with the most up-to-date and compelling information about your business.

My Maps: Allowing you to create custom maps that you can share with your existing or potential customers to entice them to visit your location, you can map out routes, highlight hotels and places of interest, and even recommend your favorite bars, nightclubs, restaurants and cafes. Use your imagination and illustrate the myriad of reasons why a visit to your establishment or event is worth the time, expense, and effort. Then create the custom maps and include them in your email marketing campaign.

Blogger.com: Create a personal or professional blog that keeps you connected to your target audience groups. Demonstrate your interests and expertise, or share your insight. Allow readers to comment and get a conversation going on a compelling topic.

Google Buzz: Encourage customers to join your communication network and keep them informed of your business enhancements, new products, new staff, or solutions to customer concerns you’ve developed. This integrates nicely with Gmail and posts can be added and received directly from within Gmail.

Google Reader: A browser-side application, Google Reader conveniently aggregates all the online journals, blogs and websites you read to keep yourself up-to-date with industry news, events and your competition. New content from your favorite sites is delivered to your reader automatically. The reader also integrates easily with iGoogle.

iGoogle: Customize your own Google homepage with iGoogle. Select your interests, a theme (look and feel), and choose your geographic location to get weather and news updates about your area. Add access to your favorite websites like Google Reader (get blog, news, and website updates delivered right to your homepage), YouTube, Facebook, CNN and much more. Add amusements like PacMan or the Daily Crossword.

Google Product Search: A data feed directly to your products. There is no charge for uploading your products or for the additional traffic you receive. Your products will appear within the Google Product Search engine and may even appear in Google.com depending on their relevance. A word of caution: data feeds should be properly managed and maintained to remain effective.

Google Checkout: A fast, secure checkout process that helps increase sales by bringing you more customers and allowing them to buy from you quickly and easily with a single login. Users register with the Google Checkout service and then are able to shop conveniently online with the sellers who are using the service.

BONUS:

Google CheckOut Store Gadget: In less than five minutes this gadget allows you to create an online store using Google docs to add and manage your inventory. Use it with Google Checkout.

Google Analytics: Become a data-centric organization and use real-time web analytics to understand how visitors are interacting with your web content and how you can set goals, measure activity, create strategies, and improve results. Special tracking code is provided that you will have your web developer add to each of your web pages.

Budget is always going to be a factor so decide exactly how much money you are able to allocate to mobile advertising and consider, at the outset, how much visibility and reach your options will give you. It is essential to track and analyze your campaigns if you are truly going to understand the return they provide. That means you have to know what you are tracking and effectively coordinate offline results, such as phone calls and sales force in the field, with online results (forms or online orders).

If you are new to mobile advertising get your feet wet with ‘no to low cost ‘options before graduating to the more expensive programs that really require you to manage your campaign and your budget closely. Sign up for a local business listing in Google and Bing to start with. They’re free. Check out Industrial Web Search for a more targeted approach that gives you visibility and reach exclusively to an industrial audience, whether their searching on their desktop/laptop or handheld mobile device, starting at under $500 inclusive per year (no click costs).

Many of the larger ad-serving services like the Quattro Wireless Network, Doublick DART, and AdMob appear to specialize in targeting consumers more than B2B. Adhesion by Crisp Wireless is the “first mobile ad placement technology for Smartphones.” Microsoft’s Search Marketing offers value but once again you must carefully manage your campaign to control costs. I also came across ExpediteSimplicity, which is a text-based SMS (you know, the same text messaging that your teenagers are addicted to!!) advertising platform. I have no experience with this company but would be curious how many industrial B2B marketers have had success with text ads sent this way. So let me know what you’ve experienced!!