Internet Marketing- It's Still Marketing

What are your customer's key phrases trying to tell you?

 

Anyone looking to sell their product or service online will find that their research will always start with a key word or key phrase analysis. A good key phrase analysis can tell you not only the key phrases that your potential customers are using to describe your product/service, but also what key phrases your competition and industry are using. Depending on your particular business, a key phrase analysis will also give you niche key phrases, which are those key words that are used by your potential customers that are not highly targeted by the competition.

But can a key phrase analysis do more?

Yes, it can. Here is an example. I recently asked a group of business professionals, some of whom understood the basics of search engine marketing and search engine optimization, to look at the following key phrases, and to tell me what the differences were between them.

• accounting software
• microsoft accounting software
• microsoft dynamics gp
• microsoft dynamics gp for manufacturing

The general response to my question was that some key phrases were more specific than others. Which is true, but what does that mean? Does it mean we should only target the more specific key phrases?

The real difference between these key phrases is intent. How specific these key phrases are gives you some insight into the intent of the searcher and where they are in their buying process.

Are they just browsing to see what their options are to address their need? Do they already know approximately what they want, they are in the market to buy, but have not yet made a final decision? Or do they know exactly what they want and are just trying to decide where to buy it?

If you are ready to jump to the conclusion that if we have an idea of which searchers are in the market now, then lets target just those key phrases, then you would be making a grave mistake. There are a few important things to remember when considering the intent of searchers and potential customers.

1. No one group of customers is more likely to buy from you than another.

   Many would argue that the person who knows exactly what they want and are in the market now are more likely to buy now. To some extent may be true, but are they more likely to buy from you? These are also the people who may be more likely to be distracted by competing offers. However, the person who is just browsing and seeking to answer questions may become more likely to take action when they find their questions easily answered and are delighted with the experience they had with a company (or a company's website).

2. Not everyone is your customer.

   As you start looking at how people go about buying your product/service you may discover that your business is not configured to please all of the people all of the time. Knowing who you want to attract as a customer, and who you do not want to attract should be the main focus.

3. Everyone has a different mode of shopping.

   By ignoring those that are in the mode of ‘just browsing' or ‘knows approximately' you could be cutting off your pipeline in 3, 6, even 12 months down the road. When in doubt of this rule, see rule #1.

   The ideal way to use your key phrase analysis is when it is part of building your customer personas. The new age of marketing (as I like to call it) is going to require marketers to build persuasive systems that account and plan for the different buying modes of potential customers. Personas are customer descriptions that should be used as representatives to the different shopping modes that people use to engage your business. Your personas should answer the ‘what if's', ‘maybe's', and ‘most likely to' questions that you have about your customers.

 

If content is king, who are its subjects?

 

I know... it is a phrase that has been beat to death and held up as a banner to internet marketers everywhere. It is the elephant in the room wearing a tu-tu, so I felt I had to address it at least once.

Mark Jackson sums the meaning behind this phrase very well in his Search Engine Watch article last year, but I would like to take it one step further and focus on his first point- engaging your reader.

During a phone call this afternoon when the all-too-famous phrase came up I could not help but add that "Relevant" content is king. When you consider that engaging your reader is probably the single most important thing your content can do for you, relevance is king. And you can only be relevant when you know who you are writing and speaking to.

For example, imagine yourself talking to someone who is between 25-30, lives in New Hampshire, and makes between 30-41k per year about your product or service. You can list all the great features, how it would benefit them, even tell them they can get a discount for ordering today. You would probably be pretty general and tell them everything you can, because you are not sure about what will stick with them. Some companies are so paralyzed by this fact that they can not decide what to put up on their sites, and so they never change their content.

Now imagine that you are talking to your aunt, or co-worker about your product or service. You know something about them, the conversation is geared to their way of thinking and you can address their motivations in relation to your offering. You know what is important to them, and that is what you speak to.

As a youngster I was a Girl Scout, and yes, I sold the cookies. All the Girl Scouts get the same cookies, and they all cost the same price. So one day as I was hitting up my family to buy cookies from me, my aunt responded to me, "And why should I buy these cookies from you?" I remember being dumbstruck, not because I was surprised she asked the question, that is just how she was, but because I did not know what so special about my cookies from anyone else's. So I went with the one advantage I knew I had with her. "Because I am your niece and you love me." She bought 5 boxes because I knew what would motivate her to buy from me and not the neighbor (that and I knew she could not resist the Sandies).

So how can you get to that level with the visitor on your website? How can you possibly know what will motivate that person to buy from you and not your competitor? How can you anticipate what questions they are asking, and know if you are answering those questions?

This is where personas come in. A persona should be much more than a character that represents the different user types for design. When used as stand-ins for the possible modes of behavior that people will interact with you and your business online you get an idea of what motivates them. When you can understand the different modes of behavior of your customers, you can anticipate their motivations and questions, and ensure that your website content engages them by answering those questions in a way that they prefer.