Getting Away from the Noise.
Marketing has a bad reputation. It should. Most marketers look for tools to reach more and more customers and grow their audience but do they really know who they need to reach and why anyone would be interested in what they are offering or broadcasting? New technologies allow us all to reach a broader audience online and digitally. Acquired lists can expand the audience, but they only enable reach, not real relevance and connection.
It’s insane that people focus on reaching more and more potential customers without any sense of what they really value, need or want
There’s way more to marketing, connections and engagement. It’s really about listening. An audience of any kind wants to be reached when they value what they hear, when it empowers them to know more in their world. Building this connection is way more than list acquisition and targeting.
Understanding What People Want.
Behavior-based marketing — understanding the sociological dimensions of people, their business needs, their role, the problems they face and need help with — builds a knowledge-base of who marketers need to focus on and why.
We have to go beyond our assumptions about how our brand, our product or solutions are right for our customers. We have to understand the dimensions of their decision-making, their issues and obligations that drive how they choose to solve problems and prioritize value. This is the most important aspect of all marketing, advertising, design and engagement.
Learning About Behavior.
Time. It takes research, understanding and perhaps getting it wrong to get to the point of seeing what is really valued. Developing personas that accurately reflect how choice is made, what associations make value clear, all come from listening, paying attention and then engaging.
We all need to slow down with the incredible technology and see how we can better use it with a deeper understanding of our audience and customers to grow our marketing programs in a positive and effective way.
Listen to Discover What’s Important.
1 – Look beyond surface demographics and see who your audience is
2 – Define their role or persona in an organization and what their challenges are
3 – Prioritize their decision-making system and where you fit in
4 – Look at your products relative to competitors and rank them
5 – Discover the key triggers that let them know you’re paying attention
6 – Use campaign analytics to discover what matters to them
7 – Educate and sell with the knowledge they need and value