The CEO of WSI has been presenting this slide at Google Summits and Bing Breakfasts for the past couple of months. It is a very powerful slide and will be featured in Forbes magazine in coming months to help explain what advertisers can know about their prospects. The digital age has changed the insights and activity of marketing forever and it is no longer good enough to know that your prospect is a female, age 42, in Nashville, TN when we can know so much more!
Every business, whether big or small should take time to do extensive research for them to identify their prospects. It’s one of the fundamental aspects of marketing and it should not be overlooked. However, not all businesses and products undergo the research stage. To help you with this research we have prepared an e-book “How to Create Buyer Personas” which you can download here.
If you’re serious about building a successful company, researching for the right audience and doing lead generation correctly is a must. Here are some pointers you may need to help you locate and know more about your prospects.
Know your prospect’s intent.
The first thing you have to ask yourself is how will your customers benefit from your products and services. From there, you’ll have an idea why prospects would want to find your company and purchase the product you’re selling or avail your business’ services. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and ask yourself why do you need to buy this product, do surveys and psychological research on the attitudes of people when buying.
Identify your prospect’s demographics.
Doing research is more convenient and easier in this era. With the help of technology such as the computer, internet and social media, we can have sufficient data with just a click of a mouse or a tap of our fingertips. Almost everything you need can be found in the web – every marketer has to dig deep in order to gather statistics and data that can help them identify their target audience. Facebook, to state as an example, is a great tool to search for lead generation and prospecting as this social media networking site holds data from real people (users), demographics, date of birth and a few more bonuses such as a person’s interests, likes and hobbies based on their profile.
Are your prospects among the population who have the buying power?
Your market research may or may not involve the type of jobs you’re prospects are probably involved in. Of course, if you sell high-end products, your main target would be professionals, business owners and people who are in the white-collar field. It really pays to know more about your audiences and how much spending power they have and if they can afford your products and services.
LinkedIn is a growing professional social network site that can give you metrics and ideas on how a particular profession possibly earns from job postings, news and trends. You can also ask them for surveys to help you widen your perspective and do innovations.
Identify your prospects’ location.
It may look and sound that you’re stalking them although it’s partly true. Being able to locate a huge group of your prospects grants you a huge advantage in plotting your marketing campaign – both online and offline.
You can focus your pay-per-click ads and choose a particular community or place which you aim to show your ads to. You can also do an ocular visit and held an event to further promote and bring your products and services to your market.
Their feedback matters.
You can monitor your brand’s feedback by setting an notification through Google Alerts. Moreover, you can create your own brand’s hashtag (#WSIFeedback) for your customer’s and client’s use when they like to share their thoughts about your product or services to their network. Also, encourage your customers to leave feedback on your Google+ Business page profile or any review sites to boost your brand’s online presence. In return, make sure to carefully listen to their feedback to make innovations or improve your services.
Know more about their browsing patterns.
There are many avenues to market your products and services online; may it be on search engines or social media, make sure you’re equip and are in the loop on how they managed to land on your website. If a particular prospect failed to convert, you can always use remarketing and retargeting techniques to aggressively make them remember how awesome your products are.
If you are interested in learning how WSI Websense can help your lead generation program to find your prospects through digital advertising, give us a call at (888) 871-4576.
