As a full-service digital marketing agency, we spend a lot of time speaking with clients about defining their audiences. But many companies who have done thorough work defining the personas of their buyers still don't understand how audiences find them. There are two main ways for potential customers to intersect with businesses in the online space.
Certified Organic
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a powerful tool that can help your site up the rankings with search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. SEO efforts lead to organic (unpaid) traffic coming to your website.
SEO is driven by keywords, the relevance and popularity of your content, the amount of times other trusted sites link to you, and myriad other factors that contribute to each search engine's tightly guarded algorithm. It's their secret sauce.
Since SEO efforts don't cost advertising dollars, just the time spent honing your strategy, customers who find you organically are highly profitable.
Organic traffic can also reach you through your social media profiles. Again, the best way to acquire these kinds of visitors is by providing a reliable source of valuable content, content that answers the questions, satisfies the curiosity, and solves problems for your target audiences.
Creative Campaigning
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the paid alternative to organic search strategy. Basic search engine marketers can easily identify the large umbrella keywords that may be of interest to your customers. For example, if you own an eatery in Hollywood, you might think it makes perfect sense to run an SEM campaign for "Restaurant Los Angeles". However, the competition for those keywords is going to be steep and you are unlikely to draw profitable attention. But if you target "romantic dinner" you might have more luck - assuming you have a restaurant with the appropriate ambiance.
You should have robust reporting in your website's Content Management System (CMS) that guides your keyword research. Dig deep to find valuable and unexpected keywords that will speak to your audience.
It's proven true in the world of search that people who search alike also purchase alike. If you have collected a list for email marketing - and you should! - then you can upload that list of contacts into Facebook Ads Manager and create look-alike audiences. Look-alike audiences help you reach qualified potential customers that match the characteristics of your existing clientele.
Understanding how audiences find you is important, but ultimately you and your digital marketing agency should be investigating how you can help them find you. Make sure you're surveying existing customers to understand their online shopping habits. Make sure you're tracking the sources of all of your conversions. And, ultimately, you will need to make a decision about whether to maximize the channels that are already proving successful or to attempt exploiting an avenue of untapped resources.
This kind of decision-making can be guided by the digital marketers at Informatics. Our process driven and outcome obsessed philosophy helps clients understand their business and customers better, identifying key areas for profit growth. Contact us today to make the most of your digital opportunities.
