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.

One of the easiest ways to make posts is by repurposing articles, news stories, and blog posts by mentioning them and attaching them to Twitter. Be sure to optimize the titles for the audiences you want to attract. And by all means, open up the floor for discussion. The surest way of gaining some audience traction in Twitter is to engage your target audience groups in a stimulating discussion about topics that affect them directly. Demonstrate to them that you know what is important to them and that you offer valuable and insightful views and information. If you find the conversation is getting pretty specific about their needs, then invite them to continue the conversation by phone.

Having customers link to your Twitter account means nothing if you fail to tweet. The value of the tool is the access it provides you to individuals and businesses who can benefit from what you offer – your insight as well as your products and services. Take advantage of the opportunity to let people know what a great resource you are. Keep track of the topics you initiate and see them through. If they are not stimulating any conversation, pick a new topic. Look to news sites and business reports for ideas. And keep tweeting!

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.

With all the help, tools and advice Google provides webmasters and website owners to understand what needs to be done in order to rank well in its search engine, I personally have never felt its policies for tweaking its algorithm have been a mystery. For the most up-to-date information I read the Official Google Blog, where posts are intended to provide insight from its team of Googlers, (as the brains behind its technologies are dubbed), into its products, technology and the Google culture.

The NY Times author also suggests that perhaps another idea for oversight would be “to give some government commission the power to look at those tweaks.” Gulp! Can you imagine having to take your innovations to a governmental body that has absolutely no technical expertise about what you do so they can decide whether your technology is fair to your competitors? Depending on what industry you are in, perhaps you already do that!! As I see it, competition is the inspiration for innovation. If you take that away what need is there for change?

Oversight is a good thing. Regarding search I feel it is easily accomplished. Type something into the search box. If you only find Google services on the search results page then something is not right. But the fact that Google Maps provides me with the address I searched is to be expected. Google Maps is the integrated maps tool for Google just as Navteq is the integrated maps tool for Microsoft Bing. I typed in “share product videos online for free” in Google to see if YouTube ranked on top. It did not; however, Shutterfly, Adobe and then Google.com/options ranked in the top three. If you follow the Google link it takes you to a page listing all of its products, not just YouTube.

Just as the NY Times author states, “Requiring each algorithm tweak to be approved by regulators could drastically slow down its improvements.”  Look at the slowing effect other regulators have on their respective industries. Is it even a sensible notion? Who would be on the commission? Would all search engines receive the same oversight? What would such oversight mean to the end-user?

Google has assembled a highly intelligent and creative team that is given the time and mental space to think and innovate. It is not Google’s “unfair play” that should threaten its competitors; it is its culture of innovation that is based on responding to the perceived needs of its users. And it appears to understand those needs with a high degree of accuracy. We can all learn a lesson from Google about the power of understanding our end-users in order to serve them better and win their loyalty!

In an industry like search, I believe end-users (customers, consumers) are the greatest regulators of fair play. Give them a product they like and they’ll use it as long as it serves them the way they need to be served. Try to trick them or compromise their experience in any way and “click” they are gone is less than 60 seconds! And when they tweet about their bad experience on Twitter, and others start to chime in, the search property is forced to be accountable if they don’t want to permanently lose end-user loyalty.

Industrial manufacturers and resellers are the biggest industrial users of Twitter right now. Unfortunately, they are using it too often as a “flyer” to promote what they offer. The power of Twitter lies in your ability to engage your target audience groups in a conversation about topics important to them. “One off” tweets that do not generate discussion are tantamount to two four year olds engaged in a parallel conversation where statements are made but nothing comes of them: “I have a race car. Look.” The other four year old looks and says, “I had cake for lunch.” Both pieces of shared information are soon forgotten. You get the idea.

So what do you do now? Here’re some ideas:

Identify a topic of importance to your target audience group. Ways you can do that:

• Ask your sales team to relate concerns raised by customers.
• Read the trade news for issues that concern them.
• Read their company news for issues that concern them.
• Select a topic from your company news about something you offer or have introduced that helps their business to do better.

Make a list of possible Tweets. Imagine how the conversation online might go and prepare thoughts and responses in advance. It may not go the way you plan but you will have thought about it and researched it thoroughly so you will be prepared to guide the conversation more effectively.

If you haven’t done so already, invite customers to Follow you. If you really want to spark interest and build your Followers, announce the discussions you have begun on your home page, in an email, or some place you know you can reach your target audience groups effectively. Learn how to integrate Twitter into your site here.

Start tweeting, beginning with the most provocative tweet designed to get the conversation going. Keep tweeting on the same topic with your participants so that it makes it to the Trending List (seen in the right column on Twitter).

If your efforts are working but you still haven’t made it to the Trending List, sign up for a Twitter ad campaign once the ad service becomes available to everyone (I’ll let you know so keep checking back). Select keywords that will structure your campaign around the relevance of your established topic.

To support your ad campaign, select from your existing tweets relevant messages that will be promoted during the campaign. Simply click on any of your tweets that are already an organic part of Twitter to make them a Promoted Tweet.

Users who are not yet Following you can learn about your topic from related hashtags in their own timelines or by searching relevant terms that have to do with your topic. Once a user interacts with your Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends they can opt to Follow you, Retweet it, or Reply.

Twitter’s Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends can also be used effectively with regard to trade show or other sales and promotional event appearances or sponsorships your company is planning. One final point, remember to closely monitor, measure, evaluate and make adjustments as needed to ensure the best results.

While you are waiting for Twitter to invite everyone to start advertising on their ad platform, adjust your approach to how you tweet and what you tweet about. Whether it’s a policy issue, a new product your introducing, or an upcoming trade show you will be participating in, actively engage your target audience groups about what interests them. Twitter can be an effective channel to keep your company name in the thoughts of your existing and potential customers by demonstrating your knowledge of and interest in topics important to them.

Additionally, I encourage you to communicate with Twitter at this time about the specific needs of the industrial business to business (B2B) marketer. Typically last to embrace new media technologies, industrial marketers are not generally considered during development phases of ad platforms so their unique needs are seldom addressed. By voicing your requirements now, you may avoid having to conform to a system that was designed to meet the needs of business to consumer (B2C) enterprises.