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.

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.

Identify Performance-Based Metrics that Help You

Globalspec’s recent survey Trends in Industrial Marketing 2010: How Manufacturer’s Are Marketing Today doesn’t reveal any surprises but it points to the continuing trend to move marketing initiatives from offline where“25% are decreasing trade magazine advertising and 24% are decreasing use of printed directories,” to online where the “majority of manufacturers (51%) are increasing the online portion of their marketing budget over last year and 68% are increasing spending in online social media channels.”

The report reveals that the favored social media sites are LinkedIn and Facebook. It should be noted that Twitter’s popularity with many sectors of the industrial marketplace is on the rise, as indicated by the participation of a large number of industrial manufacturers and other industrial businesses who communicate via this channel. It appears that “email marketing using in-house lists” remains the online favorite, with 65% of respondents reporting this as their preferred online marketing channel. This is following by websites and online directories at 58% and search engine optimization at 50%.

With the top three marketing challenges in 2010 being “too few resources, not enough quality leads and a need to improve marketing ROI” industrial marketers need to start relying on the right kind of performance-based metrics, those that reveal the types of information that will help them to make the necessary adjustments that will improve results over the long run.

It is far too frequent a practice to be complacent with regard to online marketing assets like websites, landing pages, newsletters, banner and text ads, and email creative. When applied accurately, performance-based metrics provide insight into such things as:

• user/respondent behavior
• effectiveness of creative/message
• types of respondents
• where respondents are coming from
• cost of lead acquisition
• cost of sale
• return on advertising spend
• lead time to sale
• % of overall revenue
• Branding effectiveness
• And much more

Offline results must also be factored into what occurs online, which means you have to initiate consistent offline tracking mechanisms as well. If you don’t measure at all, or you don’t evaluate the statistical information that is important to your goals and business, you are reaching for something in the dark. Google analytics is free. There really is no good reason not to implement it and set your conversion goals. If you are unsure about how to implement it or use it effectively then hire a professional who can guide you. It will be money well-spent.

The internet provides many opportunities to generate leads and sales. But it isn’t magical. The concept of “build it and they will come” doesn’t exist here. It is not a “field of dreams” but rather an avenue of opportunity. Learn what your choices are. Budget appropriately. Enlist the help you need. Create a long term strategy with short term and long term initiatives that can be rolled out according to a set plan. And by all means, measure and make adjustments as needed – to your website, to your copy, to your images, to your text ads or banner ads, to your email and perhaps even to your mindset.

The internet is a liquid environment that is evolving at a fast pace. Uncover where your target audience groups are spending time, the language they use to communicate the kinds of things you offer, and what their specific needs are today as well as their anticipated needs three months from now, six months, or even a year from now. Then develop marketing assets that incorporate everything you know now about them; and be prepared to make the changes over time to reflect the ways in which they change, including changes in what they need, where they spend time, and how they communicate. You don’t have to “risk it all” by reaching in the dark. Performance-based metrics provide the light you need.

Manage Online Campaigns with the Right Performance-Based Metrics

Heidi Cohen, one of my favorite digital marketing experts and ClickZ contributiors, recently published 25 Digital Media Questions Marketers Need to Answer. This excellent article is a must-read and offers invaluable insight to help you develop ways to embrace the new challenges in online marketing.

Cohen identifies the three marketing hurdles digital media must overcome as:

1. Expand Reach
2. Improve Advertising Effectiveness
3. Drive Engagement

It’s not that these hurdles are necessarily new but the approaches to overcoming them must be performance-based and demonstrate a clear understanding of the behavior of your target audience groups. Heidi writes, “Tina Sharkey of BabyCenter pointed out, it’s important to be present when and where prospects and consumers are discussing needs related to your product offering.”

Without a doubt you need to discover where your target audience groups are spending time online discussing either your products/services or the types of products/services you offer. To improve overall advertising effectiveness, Cohen suggests “behavioral targeting where relevant ads pop in a non-targeted context.” The idea is to avoid ad fatigue by reaching at least some portion of your target audience group in an environment that doesn’t offer hundreds of ads selling what you’re selling. It really is important to be represented in both contexts, targeted and non-targeted, because online branding often leads to offline sales further along the timeline.

Read Heidi’s article. It provides you with 25 great questions to ask concerning:

• Audience
• Format
• Branding
• Social
• Revenues
• Costs

The key to any successful online initiative is first to clearly establish your conversion goals and identify what needs to happen for you to achieve them. Next, as Heidi points out, you need to identify the performance metrics that provide you with the information you need to accurately track your results. By making the necessary adjustments to your campaigns over time based on the right information you can tailor your campaigns to produce the results you desire or discontinue them if need be.

What the study uncovered:

“80% directly search for and visit the website for a supplier/manufacturer
70% visit publication websites, including business newspapers
68% land on a manufacturer website through a link on a publication’s website
58% navigate to manufacturer websites as the result of an ad within a publication”

With business professionals now relying predominantly on the internet for information sourcing it is more important than ever to ensure you are well-represented. That means having an information-rich website that organizes information to target each audience group specifically. Support your efforts to get visitors to your website by maintaining an interesting and topical blog and a monthly newsletter. Attach links to articles and blog posts to the social networking sites like Twitter to draw readers back to your information and to let them know you are a great resource for the kind of information they are seeking. And make sure you can found in other places where your targeted groups are spending time.

Some ideas of where your target audience may be spending time:

• It’s a great idea to submit an article to a well-known publication if you feel confident enough to pitch the editor of the section into which you fit. Not only does it offer you a very valuable “inbound link” to your website but it also aligns you with the top industry sources.
• Another way to be included on the web pages of a well-known journal or information site is by placing banner and text ads. These can be costly but may prove to offer you valuable prospects in the long run.
• Check out your trade organization’s website. See what kind of advertising programs are offered that may fit your budget and objectives. There is usually a substantial discount offered to members and a variety of advertising options from which to choose.

Take advantage of the internet by actively pursuing opportunities to be found by your target audience groups. A multi-channel approach casts the widest net and still gives you the control to select where you would like to be found. Then invite your audience back to your highly focused and well organized website where the information they seek can be accessed with ease.