Your content marketing only works when your audience responds phone number list to it. It's a 'no-duh' statement - we all know that. So beyond buyer personas, how can you really, really understand what your audience wants and how you can help them?
We asked the phone number list 2015 Content Marketing World presenters and a few CMI friends to share how they really focus on their audience (in addition to creating personas). Almost all of their answers fall into a few broad categories: Connect in real life, monitor social media, and dig deeper into your data. Read on for some phone number list of their insightful commentary to help you connect with your audience with razor-sharp precision.
Go out the door
Get out of your office and make sure your phone number list marketing team is still meeting with customers. Marketers should set aggressive quarterly goals for meaningful customer discussions (standing at a trade show booth doesn't count). Just as you can have goals for content production and qualified leads for marketing, make sure you have goals for phone number list customer engagement.
Talk, Look, Think
Actually, I'm not a big fan of the phone number list characters. But I love spending a lot of time with real customers, hearing their frustrations, talking to them about the industry and its challenges, seeing what speakers are talking about on stage, watching the blogosphere and social media to see what resonates and is under discussion. , and generally being part of the phone number list world of our customers. I also enjoy doing the work myself - being my own client and feeling the same pain as our clients. These experiences give me a much better sense of the field than a character.
Ask and follow
Two words: ask them! We always ask our phone number list customers what we are doing well and what we can do to improve. We engage with our prospects through online chat, outbound calls, and targeted campaigns to understand the challenges they face and how our software can help them.
We keep track of this information in tools like Marketo and Salesforce - and share the phone number list information via Chatter and internal wikis so everyone in the company is up to date and informed.
Don't make this mistake
Messaging segmented by responsibility and role (personas) reminds me of a behavioral science term, a fundamental attribution error. It is a calculation in which humans overestimate the phone number list effect of a person's disposition on their behaviors, good or bad, while underestimating the influence of situational factors.
Think of when someone cuts you off on the phone number list freeway. You might immediately assume the person did it because they're a jerk. But a whole host of situational factors could be behind dangerous driving, right? In all likelihood, the phone number list situation dictates behavior, not disposition.
Dig deeper into the data
Learn from your metrics. Don't just look at your open and click-through rates, determine the phone number list click-through ratio for each article in your newsletter or offer in your promotional campaign. Of those who opened, how many clicked on item A? Item B? What if you send the same or a similar topic to those who clicked on post A? Were they more likely to click on the phone number list relevant topic or another topic in your next email?
Dig down almost to the phone number list individual level to find out what your subscribers want from you. And don't forget to look at the negative metrics too. An increase in churn rates could mean that you are phone number list on the right track, either with too much frequency or with insufficient value (relevance).