How to Turn Website Visitors Into Sales Opportunities
At The 2020 NAMM Show, Digitopia CEO Frank Cowell kicked off the first session at the NAMM Idea Center with a fast-paced download on online marketing. Cowell related that many business owners feel they’re drowning in a sea of competition and marketplace saturation. He shared strategies to cut through the online chaos and counteract customer confusion, starting with an understanding of how not to approach online marketing.
7 Biggest Digital Marketing Mistakes
1. Most digital programs are broad and generic. You have multiple audiences who each need specific messaging.
2. Most digital programs are not designed with profitability in mind. Profitability actually starts the moment you start marketing. It’s a mindset shift that everyone needs to take when you engage in any marketing effort.
3. Most digital programs only address “ready now” buyers. Oftentimes, ads, content and information address visitors who we think are ready to spend. But most customers aren’t in the buying mode and will leave your website without making a purchase. This presents an opportunity for you to build brand and stand out.
4. Most digital programs have one-dimensional advertising campaigns. Many times, it’s about the product. There’s nothing that suggests you understand the different personas you’re engaging with and what they care about.
5. Most digital programs lack a nurturing strategy. Once you capture people, what are you doing to nurture them? How do you exist in their lives to provide ongoing value, so when they’re ready to buy they’ll think of you and your brand?
6. Most digital programs’ SEO efforts ignore conversion. Sales conversion is usually an afterthought. Search engine optimization generally ignores the path to conversion and focuses on increasing traffic.
7. Most digital programs’ social media efforts are an afterthought. Social media today is still a major mystery to most businesses. Many aren’t tying in social media to the buying path and use a shotgun approach.
Cowell emphasized that successful marketing results are not achieved overnight. They require strategy, hard work and long-term fundamentals.
Apply Hypersensitivity to Your Programs
Cowell advised picking just one specific audience to serve well and giving them maximum value. Identify the one thing that they’re struggling with, want to learn or desire and how you can show up to help them solve or acquire what they want. Create experiences where all assets and activities align to solve one pain point for one unique buyer persona. You can create multiple experiences by moving to the next audience but only after you’ve mastered the first audience and have them converting to sales. Takeaway: Get specific this year! Narrow your audiences down, and go deep with those audiences.
Calculate Your Basic Business Math
According to Cowell, the key is to understand and design your marketing programs based on the acceptable cost of customer acquisition (COCA). If you have a lifetime value (specific dollar amount) on your product, know how much you can spend to acquire that customer and be profitable. Everyone running a business and in marketing needs to know that number. Push the envelope on your COCA. The growth-driven mindset (which is Amazon’s strategy, according to Cowell) is looking at the most you can spend to acquire a customer versus driving the acquisition cost down. Takeaway: Based on the lifetime value of your customer, know what you can afford to spend in marketing, and make it a profitable situation. (Contact Frank Cowell for the deck on Basic Business Math).
Infuse Relationship Psychology Into Your Buying Funnel
Cowell counseled to do your best to understand where people are at in their buying journey with your brand. “Don’t just close deals; elevate relationships,” Cowell said. First, develop cornerstone content that educates people about your brand, then empower them by providing a resource or tool that lets them take action on their own. After that, find ways to inspire them. You can never have enough inspiring stories because people need to see themselves in those stories and with your brand and product. After showing them the inspiration proof, they’re a ready to receive an offer. (Ask them, “Would you like that, too?”) And don’t stop there. Take it one level further and delight them and make them a fan. Many businesses are missing this top level because they go looking for new customers after the sale. Takeaway: Make the relationships the priority, and take care of existing customers first. Turn them into fans.
Deploy Dynamic Retargeting Campaigns
An inexpensive and easy thing to do is retargeting advertising. Once someone visits your website, he or she will see your ads when they browse elsewhere online. Also, depending on what they’ve consumed and where they’re at in the relationship with your brand, change your advertising so that it will dynamically adjust. Otherwise, it sends the message that you don’t care and only want them to buy something (by showing them the same ads repeatedly). Takeaway: Make sure your retargeting is dynamic.
Deploy Consistent, Value-Based Topical Nurturing Tracks
When you get people into your database but know they’re not ready to buy at that moment, make sure you stay in touch with them every seven to 14 days. Make sure your communications are on topic and not just promoting your business. Inspire through proof and leverage third-party content. Send YouTube videos to people to inspire them. You don’t have to create all the content yourself. Takeaway: Follow up with people and inspire them.
Use SEO as ‘Feeder Content’ to a Lead-Generation Funnel
Simply answer the questions your potential customers and visitors have. Really focus by writing a list of questions and develop content to answer each one. If you link this up to the experience you’ve created, you have a feeder system into that experience. Takeaway: Take the time to know what your customers care about and speak to that.
Get Your Entire Company Involved
Everyone in your business should be thinking about how to engage your customers and provide value to your buyer personas. Takeaway: Your entire staff should make customers their first priority.
Download the Digital Marketing Blueprint for Your Business
Cowell provided a tool for identifying all of your buyer persona-focused campaign’s content, offers and engagement activities in one-easy-to-understand view. Takeaway: Download it at digitopia.agency/blueprint.