Apr 29, 2014

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Get Rid of Marketing Misspend Once and For All Do you know how your customers make a decision to purchase what you offer? (Tweet this) More importantly, do you spend time thinking about it? For a high return on marketing investment we need to think about what the customers need to make the purchasing decision. The information will depend on the level of investment they are making; you research more for a house than a chocolate bar. The information will also depend on why the customer wants to purchase it; do they buy for need, for status, for enjoyment? Once we know how our customer approaches their purchase, we can think about creating content that guides them to the decision. (Tweet this) From this base, we can then choose the right social media tools; we can write and distribute the best content marketing and connect our marketing activity to the needs of the consumer. The questions we need to ask ourselves are 1) How do people approach purchasing from our business sector? More research, more recommedations, more word of mouth, more impulsive etc etc 2) How can we develop a marketing strategy that reflects that approach and guide consumers through that purchasing cycle? And finally.... 3) How can we show them we are the right people to use? (Trial, no quibble returns, taster etc etc) 4) How can we move them from research to purchase? Do we offer a compelling call to action? We tend to think that people have A need - Google it - and buy...and for some distress purchases that may be the case! But in reality, for many of our businesses there is a longer purchasing cycle whether we recognise it or not..... So if I were to ask you how much time have you given to how your customers decide upon their purchase and how much time has been invested in choosing the right tools and creating the correct content.... ...what would you say?
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Now YOU can have control without taking control In business you can often feel unless you do it yourself then it won't be done right. Business can turn you from a normal, accomodating person into a control freak....maybe not all the time but certainly at those stressful moments. When I was in my early twenties I was promoted to Managing Director. It was a huge responsilbility and my boss - who had been promoted to Group - gave me some wonderful advice... "Anna, when you lead a business you are not the captain, you are the navigator. Don't try and control everything...learn to navigate....steer people...and they will take the business where it needs to go" It is true for business, it is true for social business. You only gain a degree of control by NOT wanting control (Tweet this) You don't grab control, control is given by people who respect you. (Tweet this) So how do you earn respect? You need a clear vision which people understand. You need to choose, build and mold the right team. Then you need to step away....become the navgiator not the captain. When we try and impose ideas in social marketing or within our business..we repel rather than compel people to want to follow our ideas. Often we shy away from the navigator role as it feels uncomfortable. To be a good navigator you need to truly understand what your business is, where you want to take your business and how the business will get there.....and that is scary as we might be wrong! But we forget.....wrong is not final if we remain flexible to changes along the way. Strong navigators keep the end destination in mind but are willing to change course when necessary. (Tweet this) The question is do you try and captain rather than navigate your passengers to the destination they want to go?

Anna Farmery

Social Marketing Architect, Speaker, Author and in spare time completing PhD on the future of the social business model

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