Digital marketing has so many moving parts. It can be hard to know where to start and what's the best approach to get results. Our blogs this month are reviewing all the steps necessary to crush your digital marketing goals. If you missed last month’s post, it gives a high-level look at the necessary planning to get your digital marketing off the ground.
In this blog, I'll focus on your messaging. How can you use words to connect and motivate customers?
Perform Some Soul Searching
We get it. You wanted words on your website, like yesterday. But the old saying ‘you never get a second chance to make a first impression’ is true. The way to help clients create powerful websites is to identify what differentiates you from your competitors and then focus on what would prompt a prospect to do business with you.
This means talking less about what you do, and more about how you help your customer. This sounds easy, but it’s not. The problem is you are too close to your business. An outsider can help you look at your business in an entirely different way.
That’s where we can help.
As a certified StoryBrand agency, we’ve adopted the StoryBrand framework as our proven process to help our clients find the right words to sell more. We’ve previously written about the StoryBrand framework. Here’s the short version: this approach uses a “storytelling narrative” to create a more memorable and longer-lasting brand impression with your audience.
Consider Your Audience
Most marketers know the importance of developing buyer personas to understand their audience. If this phrase is new to you, it means creating a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and existing data. Your buyer personas include demographic information, behavior patterns, motivations and goals.
The more you know about your persona, the better.
We like to give our personas a name and a photo and as we work on the website or specific piece of content, we’ll sometimes pause and ask ourselves:
Would Crystal think this is helpful? Would James click on this CTA?
Whether you call them website visitors or end-users, remember that they are humans. So, a persona with a name and a photo can also remind you to skip the industry jargon and overused business-speak.
Your website needs to communicate your message simply and clearly. This means your internal team might have some heated discussions because not everything can be included. Getting everyone to agree isn’t always easy but the StoryBrand framework helps keep everyone focused.
How do you decide what information is featured on the homepage? Cut everything nice to know and only use what your customer needs to know. According to StoryBrand’s research, customers often land on a website and cannot understand what is being offered. At that point, with a single click, they can leave your website and land on a competitor’s.
Wouldn’t you rather have a simple message that entices them to stay on your website?
Update Your Content Constantly
There are two reasons you should add new content to your website; appeal to people at each stage of the buyer’s journey and rank higher on search engines.
1. Appeal to all Stages of the Buyer’s Journey
It’s rare for a person to wake up, open their laptop and click on the first website that pops up to make a purchase. People don’t act that fast. Here, we’ll walk through the three stages of the buyer’s journey and explain why you need different content for each stage.
During the awareness stage, they might land on your website because they are eager to learn about their issue. During this stage, blog posts, whitepapers and Ebooks, tools and videos can provide answers to their questions. A few days later, this same person will be a little more specific in their search. This is called the consideration stage because the person is now looking at ways to solve their problem. Content such as comparison guides, case studies and free samples will appeal to this stage.
Finally, after identifying the problem and researching possible solutions, they are ready to make a purchase. For obvious reasons, this last stage is called the decision stage. If you offer free trials, coupons, live demos, or a chance for a free consultation, you could motivate the person to make a purchase.
While you could add content for each stage when you first launch your website, it’s much better to add this content slowly. That way you can address your customers’ evolving needs.
2. Rank Higher on Search Engines
Today’s search engines are more sophisticated. They no longer reward websites simply based on the number of keywords or the length of your content. Instead, search engines reward websites that are updated frequently. Google comes right out and states that “the freshness of the content plays a bigger role in answering queries…”.
Google also looks for content that demonstrates expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. If your content provides the best answers for users, Google will rank you highly.
Have a Consistent Message
There are days when it certainly seems like we live online; we Slack our co-workers, use social media to stay connected with friends and family and buy everything from burritos to body wash via the internet.
But what happens when you or your co-workers venture out into the world, and someone asks 'what do you do'? Will each person give a different answer? If your company completed the StoryBrand framework, the answer is no!
The StoryBrand framework ensures your digital, print and face-to-face marketing all have the same message. At the end of a StoryBrand messaging session, we go beyond just the website. We’ll create an easily understood elevator pitch that everyone can use plus, a tagline for business cards, brochures, signage etc.
If you'd like to learn more about this topic, please contact us! We'll help you refine your message so you get results!
