Do you recognize them? These are three common mistakes marketers make (and here's how to fix them)
Influencing behavior in the target audience is the ultimate goal for every marketer. Or even better: ensuring that the desired behavior leads to the purchase of your product or service and that the new customer becomes an ambassador or fan of your brand. That is the goal!
Actually changing behavior is very complex and happens both consciously and unconsciously. Moreover, behavior is not exact science, but social science. And yet we do use exact science to measure behavior. Thanks to all kinds of data sources, marketers can now measure online behavior precisely, how a prospect moves through the funnel and when a prospect changes to lead and to customer. With the abundance of information, there are also a number of risks lurking.
Three common mistakes made by marketers can be found below. And, of course, there are practical solutions to them:
1. A click is not a lead
"The goal of our campaigns is to generate "xxx" clicks to the download page." A fine goal of a campaign. But then noise arises: "Everyone who has done the download then enters "the bin of leads."
Because, for each individual visitor, downloading a document means something different. Not everyone wants to get a call from a sales representative right after a download, receive a LinkedIn invitation or an email with "a unique one-time offer especially for you." Some do, some don't.
What we know is that many purchases require multiple contact moments before any degree of interest or persuasion is established. The greater the "risk" of the purchase, the more contact moments are needed and the more information a person needs to confidently proceed with a purchase.
The solution? Be patient. Don't conclude too quickly. And put your energy mainly into providing informative content on an ongoing basis. This will give the customer the feeling that you provide customized content. The customer will eventually know where to find you.
2. A web visitor is not always the user of your product
"A website visitor who clicks multiple times, returns daily, downloads an informational brochure and views the pricing page on each visit. That must be a warm lead, right?" No. Not necessarily.
There is a big difference between users, influencers, decision makers and buyers.
A present for Kees
Consider a toy store: It may happen that Grandma is the buyer ("I'll bike into town for the gift"), Grandpa helps decide ("A €20 gift is more than enough"), Mom and Dad are the influencers ("Will you send Kees's wish list to Grandpa and Grandma?") and the child Kees is the ultimate user of the toy.
Four people who may have all looked at the same product on the website, but for different reasons: the location of the nearest store (grandma), the price (grandpa), the redirect link (mom & dad) and the product page (the child).
Therefore, always keep in mind who you are targeting with the content, make sure you have a variety of content, and recognize which person needs what kind of information to arrive at a purchase.
3. Beware of assumptions
Suppose you have a great campaign to promote your webinar. 100 people come to the sign-up page, but only 25 sign up. Only 25% conversion! Panic! This is going wrong! A meeting is scheduled: "The sign-up page is not good, the form is too complex, the text is not clear, the chosen target audience for our ads is wrong."
All assumptions: beware of them. The outflow can have many reasons, and not all of them are to the detriment of your brand or because the marketer did something wrong. Accept that as a marketer you can't influence everything, such as the moment or situation of the person you reached. Is someone sitting at home on the couch, on a crowded train, in the middle of an online meeting, doing the dishes or reading the page during the kids' playtime and forgetting to complete the form).
Some people who come to your page may not be willing or able to proceed to your desired criterion behavior (such as clicking/subscribing/downloading). Sometimes someone may already have enough with reading the short intro and call you the day after, when they have more time or can talk freely. See all traffic as something positive, of course make sure your retargeting is in order, and focus not only on the desired end result but also on the results lower down the funnel
Digital content strategy with the NXTLI Dashboard
Jeroen Westermann is Content Strategist at NXTLI. With the NXTLI Dashboard, developed by NXTLI, we provide insight into the results of a brand, club, person or organization on its digital channels. We connect this with value and with commercial results. Based on this we create content strategies and develop digital campaigns that accelerate and optimize growth. Interested in how this can work for your organization? Contact me via email.
