HOW DO I FOUND OUT WHO MY CUSTOMERS ARE?
WHAT IS INBOUND MARKETING?
Inbound marketing is the new way of doing business. Rather than being interruptive and sending messages to the masses, inbound is customer focused. The marketer needs to empower potential customers and consider whether or not they way want to hear from them. By creating a beneficial experience for people you will be able to lead them through the 4 stages of inbound marketing.
ATTRACT --> CONVERT --> CLOSE --> DELIGHT.
Each stage warrants different forms of content and executing will lead to success. The basic idea is you need to create appropriate content based on what you want the prospect to do. Visit your site? Fill out contact for? Sign up? etc.
HOW DO YOU BUILD PERSONAS?
The key to developing great content is understanding your audience. This means knowing their demographic, what their goals or challenges are and what they do for a living. Good ways to figure this out are by creating a checklist and analyzing your “ideal” customer and existing customers.
Find out:
1) Role
2) Goals
3) Challenges
4) Watering Holes
5) Shopping Preferences
What does your ideal customer fit into this as? How do your current customers fit into here?
WHAT IS THE BUYERS JOURNEY?
Now that you know who your audience is, it is time to bring them through the buyers journey. You do this by providing the prospects useful, relevant information. The buyers journey consists of the awareness, consideration, and decision stage. The type of content you want to give to your audience varies form stage to stage
AWARENESS --> CONSIDERATION --> DECISION
In the awareness stage, educational content works best. You want to educate and fulfill the query of your prospect. You want to make them aware of your credibility.
Examples: Analyst Report, Research Report, eBook, Editorial Content, Expert Content, Whitepaper,
For the consideration stage you want to offer solutions but not sell your own brand. This will build the relationship and doesn’t come off as a hard sell.
Examples: Expert Guidelines, Live Interactions, Webcasts, Podcasts, Videos, Comparison White Papers
In the final stage, the decision, your content will focus on all the reasons your brand is the best solution. You want to focus on your own brand and close the deal!
Examples: Vendor Comparison, Product Comparison, Case Studies, Trial Download, Product Literature, Live Demos