Online Marketing Messages to Address Needs

How to – find the right needs for your audience, cater marketing messages to the right audience, then use great writing tactics to entice them.

 

Connecting messages to needs

Going beyond a basic feature or aspect of your business and connecting to what your customers need in the long term will have long term payoffs. If you can identify that your product or service fulfils long term needs that customers may not have been aware of then you are also educating them, potentially making them more valuable and loyal to your cause! Tying this in with what we’ve discussed in our SEO articles, if you are expanding on the basic benefit of your offering by introducing other relevant subjects and outcomes on your webpages you are also doing favours for your organic traffic! With that in mind, here are some methods for catering your message to give customers (and by extension, you) more!

So, what does my target need?

Let’s reuse what we’ve already learnt in previous articles to substantiate an informed, lasting decision.

In searching for your audience’s trend and keyword activity in Google, you can gain an idea for what people are looking for. This should be your first step in identifying needs related to certain products / services that you are working on or already have. Is “cheap” or “quick” often associated with your category search? This may not always give you an immediate answer but in any case should help cancel out needs you don’t have to address.

Once you’ve done this initial research, it’s time to dig a little deeper and use your existing channel learning to frame what previous experiences have taught you. This involves utilising online and offline communication results to form ideas on what your audience needs.

Finally, one of the most important steps involves a competitive analysis. Using what you’ve picked up on from above (and the competitors you already know of) search Google and determine how effectively your close competitors are addressing needs. Most often this will come up at the top of their explanation of a particular product or service, what you want to do is take note of the needs they are paying most attention to and how they are doing it. No, we don’t want to ‘copy and paste’ what they’re doing, but you absolutely do want to decide how your service can instil an edge on theirs in the eye of the consumer. Remember, valuable consumers may see your webpages and your competitors’ in the same search, so make a plan on how you will stick out.

Benefits of emotional vs. technical language

It is very tempting to simply list each nook and cranny of a product or service, but this may actually make it harder to stand out and will ultimately affect the memorable aspect of your website. Technical elements are good when you are reselling (ie passing on an external product that the audience already recognises clearly), which can help the customer make quick comparisons and speed up their purchase decision. However, introducing personality and beneficial outcomes to your services can be powerful tools to make your audience picture themselves post-purchase, and give a sense of reality to your product. In essence: use your customer’s imaginations to your benefit!

Here are some tactics to use whilst writing that can adhere to the needs of your audience and help you connect with more persuasive language.

Emotional – reader fears or foresees the consequences of not enlisting your help, or anticipates feeling better about themselves or helping others by using your product.

Example: “Web marketers that are not frequently researching new advice and ideas run the risk of losing many key website visitors and customers to those that do.”

Case study – using previous (and ongoing) satisfied customers as evidence

Example: “Psych Press’ SEO advice has been hailed as always helpful in various ways by service firm SEO marketers themselves.”

Credentials – Using your expertise and statistics as evidence

Example: “We use the advice we give in these articles ourselves, since writing these articles earlier this year we have experienced over 3 times as much organic search growth.”

Comparison – What other services tend to do or have done in the past and why you’re better

Example: “There are many fantastic web marketing advice columns out there, although their suggestions often don’t cater to the niche needs of those in small Australian businesses new to web-marketing or allied health clinics.”

Put them in the picture – tell a story using the reader or their business as an example

Example: “We’ve all been there, you have a very limited time and budget to work with to get more customers to your website, and you’re not sure where to begin…”

Humour and Social Language – Helps build trust by relating to the audience and showing you’re real people, also helps balance out Emotional or Comparison communication tactics

Example: “Opportunities to persuade and educate your audience are everywhere. Take the above examples which give a great idea, but are also a ‘subtle’ hint that if you’ve read this far you should probably give Psych Press a call!”

 

Hit List

        In my written pieces the customer needs are clearly identified

        Each written piece has a target and a tactic of how to satisfy needs

        I have run the writing past other people and have done a keywords check

For those in HR / Small business

When connecting your services to a need, it is worth considering going beyond price needs even when you know that your users are searching based on price. Eg. “Feeling better and living better each day is a worthwhile investment” instead of “We give you top quality for your dollar!” connects on a much deeper need whilst still addressing cost. This idea can be applied to needs other than price such as – time required, distance to travel, trustworthiness etc.

Unsure about how this can boost your traffic?

Remember, we don’t only help out when it’s time to put together materials for a job or event ad, we also use our arsenal of web-marketing skills to help your website or any other net-based projects you’re working on! For more info on what we can do for your next challenge be sure to email [email protected] or call 03 9670 0590.