For new businesses and startups hoping to navigate the choppy waters of digital marketing a firm grasp of today’s marketing terms will be key. An understanding of their “what” and “why” will allow you to boost your marketing tactics and aid your effort to attract, convert, and hold on to today’s consumers.
Here are four essential terms to include in your marketing vocabulary as you move forward.
Buyer Persona
What: Your buyer persona will outline the profile and characteristics of your ideal customer. Of course, there’s very little room for cherry picking when it comes to this information. To accurately gather the details needed to most effectively market to this group, you’ll have to structure this profile based on researched data.
For startups, begin with one persona and then add on more as you grow and learn more about your product/service. So for instance, if you’ve started an online grocery store, you might want to target to “Kathy” a 39-year-old business woman who is always on the go and likes convenience. Then, you could add someone like “Dan” a 54-year-old stay-at-home dad who doesn’t have a lot of time to spare.
Why:
Buyer personas will help you to properly align the particular attributes of an audience to your marketing concepts.
Online Presence
What: Your business’s online presence refers to all of the information about your business that is present online. That data can range from tweets and Facebook posts to online reviews and contact information. Today’s internet savvy user wields these tools to make their purchases and final decisions about a brand. What’s more, depending on what they see, users will share whatever information that they find with friends so that they can help them to make better choices as well. Meaning, depending on what’s out there, your online presence will make or break you.
Why:
Websites alone aren’t enough to sustain brands anymore. This is especially true when you consider the various tools users are accessing to buy products and service. Today’s world is a connected realm of information— reliable and not. This “interconnectedness” is keeping consumers informed about their purchases and making the difference in their final decision.
The growth of the crowdfunding industries in all types of industries is a great example of this. They’re harness applications and sites like Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and even Pinterest to determine where they’ll spend their money next. In fact, a recent study revealed that four out of five users visited Yelp to review a business before making purchases from them. As such, businesses have to make sure these tools are rife with positive and insightful information about their brand.
CTA
What: A CTA or Call To Action prompts an immediate response or action from a customer. So for instance, at the end of a commercial, you might ask your viewers to “Call now.” or “Click here for 40% off”. You might even simply ask users to share a post or go to a website. CTAs are necessary for startups to use because they can coax consumers into taking a desired action and give them some direction on how to do so. Startups, especially, should test different CTAs in their marketing campaigns to find the one that is most effective.
Why:
You can have the most alluring online presence and still not do well as a startup if clear call to actions are not present in your marketing efforts. Remember, your consumers won’t follow through with an action if they don’t have some direction. Consider the most subtle CTAs that you see nearly every day on sites like Amazon. Their “Buy Now,” and “Check Out” buttons are CTAs that guide millions of users into purchases every day.
Growth Hacking
What: Every business wants to find the shortcut to faster growth. With the right growth hacking techniques, a brand can boost business growth and bolster themselves to success. Growth hacking employs a process of rapid trials and testing in marketing channels as well as in product development to identify a business’s growth potential and speed it up. Growth hackers typically narrow their focus on low-cost marketing alternatives such as social media and viral marketing, instead of traditional print media, radio advertising or billboards.
Why:
Growth hacking is a pretty popular strategy amongst startups, who have the goal of rapidly growing their brand at its early stages. The technique can improve performance metrics and encourage expansion. For startups looking to expand, consider growth hacking techniques such as crowdfunding, blog posts and social media campaigns.