When I say “Avatar” what are you thinking?

Avatar the file
Were you thinking of the film?

Were you thinking of your best customer and what it is that makes them stand out from the crowd?

Or were you thinking of blue people from Avatar, the James Cameron film that used a mix of CGI and actors it starred Sigourney Weaver?  For computer gamers, an avatar is the name given to character or profile icon in gameplay or on some social media site.

 

 

An Avatar is Gold  

Tube Station People
An Avatar stands out from the crowd

For marketers like myself, an avatar is the gold standard in market research; it is a creative exploration of the ideal customer, part fiction and part reality.  The point is we are looking for something that makes the ideal client stand out from the crowd.

We are looking for real differences, some that are visible and others that hidden. These are the aspects of personality or history that shape who they are.  What they love or hate, where is their passion, what is it that they secretly desire. What is painful, what makes them happy.

Then Misuse of Pain

band-aid-1135397_1280There are some industries that just use the pain of fear of loss as a driver to make a sale, think of insurance or hair loss. The advertising copy highlights the pain, rubs salt into the wound by describing the loss or creating a dark picture, for it to be relieved by providing a solution or plaster.

To my mind it is cynical and part of the darker side of the marketing industry. It is unnecessary as there are deeper and more positive points of different that can make our customers feel good about themselves and the business which is bringing it to their attention.

The Ten Point Exercise 

There are many processes that can be used to find your avatar, start with your customer list, what do you know about them.

So here is the exercise, these ten questions have been taken from the master of the process Dan Kenedy and his ultimate sales letter.  While highly gifted in his writing copy he was good at finding pain and making it hurt.  Without holding that against him, the 10 point exercise below is a good tool to work through and define your avatar.

If your business is broad you can have a few  Avatars but more than six  can be difficult use.

The point is with a well-developed avatar you focus your advertising on that person, making it clear in the copy that you are talking to them.  While this excludes some people, it makes the subject feel very welcome creating a bond or synergy.

To give an example of how it might help. We are looking for points of difference that allow potential customers to align with your business.

They may be animal or sports lovers; they may be politically motivated; they could be divorced, and over 50, they may follow popular media like soap operas.  They could play golf or like outdoor pursuits.

The first point of contact with any media is the headline; this is the line of text the tells that it is for them. So when they see a headline that says. ” How to find love in your  50s”. That will attract the older person to a dating site.  The most famous headline for golf training was.

“Amazing Secret Discovered by One-Legged Golfer Adds 50 Yards to Your Drives…”

If you play golf, you will want to know how. I suggest you google it.

So here is the list

Dan Kenndy’s “10 SMART MARKET DIAGNOSIS AND PROFILING QUESTIONS” 

1. What keeps them awake at night, indigestion boiling up their esophagus, eyes open, staring at the ceiling?
2. What are they afraid of?

3. What are they angry about? Who are they angry at?

4. What are their top three daily frustrations?

5. What trends are occurring and will occur in their businesses or lives?

6. What do they secretly, ardently desire most?

7. Is there a built-in bias to the way they make decisions? (Example: engineers = exceptionally analytical)

8. Do they have their own language?

9. Who else is selling something similar to them, and how?

10. Who else has tried selling them something similar, and how has that effort failed?

The above process will uncover a story or persona that is the guide for your writing and attracts the right people into your world.

 

 

 

The Posh Hotels and Re-marketing Pixels

Posh Hotels and Remarketing Pixels
The posh hotel where no one speaks?

How are posh hotels and remarketing pixels connected?

Imagine you walk into a posh hotel; the decoration is gorgeous, really sumptuous. The reception is empty so you walk by and head to the bar area. There are fabulous sofas and coffee tables with magazines and attractive settings. You cannot see any staff, and that’s ok because you are not a customer. You are not talking to them and hopefully, they are not talking to you. You explored a bit further and decided to leave.

Could that happen?

Would a posh hotel allow you to wonder around and the staff not take any action to encourage you to become a customer? I doubt that would happen and yet online it happens all the time.

The Remarketing Pixel

There are thousands of some beautiful websites out there in web land and like our pretend hotel they make no attempt to connect with prospects. There are many options to connect, from email systems, quizzes, and surveys.  However, there one option that requires minimal effort and is so underused. It is the google and facebook remarketing pixels. These littles bit of code collect details of your website visitors storing that information in a list that you can access through advertising.  It is a powerful marketing advantage and costs nothing to set up.

In my work I see a lot of websites, in fact, this post was prompted by a local company that has just had a site makeover. It is good looking site and just as in my hotel example does none of the above.

The Facebook and Google tags matter 

Why does it matter? Have a little journey with me, how often do you look at a website and buy something on a first visit? We all troll Amazon for interesting things to put on the wish list. I visit other sites all the time and very seldom do I buy on the first visit. I am sure you do the same.

What does that tell you?

Your customers do the same thing.
That is why it’s critical for us when marketing any business to have these things in place. These simple scripts put on your site allow both Google and Facebook to build lists of people that are interested in your products
Using the advertising platforms of Facebook or Google, adverts for your service can appear on the Facebook newsfeed or various websites throughout the internet.

What is £5 per click or 40p?

Obviously, you’ve got to pay money for the advertising. However, these clicks cost so much less then if you were directly trying to attract those customers. As an example, one of my professional service clients could be paying over £5 a click if they were looking to advertise their services directly. Using a remarketing, they’re paying less than 40p to 45p per click. That is the value of building a remarketing list.

Why Wait? Do it Now.

The reason it is so important to do this now is that if you want to use this list at some point, they have to be built you can’t just turn it on. Because it will take a few months or maybe even a year to make a list. What you’re doing today is preparing the ground for that potential future advertising.

Now if you are in a rush and want to build lists quickly, there are options,  but that’s a different conversation and a subject for a later article.

Artificial Intelligence and Local Search

Artificial Intelligence and Local Search Is there a battle between Artificial Intelligence ( A.I) and local search, are we looking at war?

We have been watching the development of A.I. on the silver screen for more than 30 years. Starting with Hal in the space odyssey, through the Terminator franchise and up to the more benevolent Jarvis, Tony Stark’s AI assistant in Ironman.

 

We have been waging an undeclared war!

The reality for the digital marketing and local search is that we have been waging an undeclared war with AI for longer than we realise. Most internet users are just not aware of it.

Over the last five years, the battle of search Engine Optimization (SEO) for a page 1 position in Google. Or to secure audience visibility in the Facebook newsfeed have become an arms race of best practice.

All online platforms like Google and Facebook use secret algorithms to make positional decisions that affect the success or failure of your business marketing efforts. These platforms have been using a range of systems including artificial intelligence as a core part of the decision process.

The current thinking is that a phrase or sentence trigger the A.I. systems producing a more accurate search results than a simple keyword selection.

A.I. is now in the hands of the consumers!

Artificial Intelligent search However, more disruption is coming. Artificial Intelligence is now in the hands of the consumers, and that will change how search results are derived and presented. We know from our mobile phone use how integrated it has become. We can see it all around us; the phone is the default personal assistant and web search tool. Current data suggests that between 50 to 70% of all searches are from a mobile device. It will continue to rises as the technology of these devices develops to rival the desk machines within years.

This advance in technology has also opened a new option, “the vocal search.” People can now speak to their phone. Cortana and Siri are AI systems that learn about the user and seek to deliver the requested information. This speech recognition is standard on Windows 10 machines, and I know from our family experience our teenager prefers to speak than type.

Artificial Intelligence and Local Search

You may have read all about mobile search before, but vocal search? How does it affect your local search performance? These A.I. systems learn about their users; the program can access a range of data from the phone. So when a user asks for a dentist or plumber or an Indian restaurant. The request may come in the form of a sentence or phrase. The system will already know the user location, age, and sex and delivers relevant results.

Winning the A.I. war in Local Search. Take Action

As a business owner, you need to take notice of this development as local search has become more competitive. Much of this due to the influence and shift to mobile devices and small screens, as a response there is less space on page one. You can find out more about these changes at the link above.

The battle will be won with data, rich content and reputation management.

Data: This is about the accuracy of information across multiple platforms. It is important for the search engines that they can see and validate your location and contact information.

Rich Content: Back to building a destination on the web. Because the new vocal search is liable to be a phrase or sentence matched. The more varied content will have more opportunity to be found.

Reputation Management: This is social signals and local customer engagement on social media.

While this may seem to complicate the marketing world, it is driven by competition, progression and the change of consumer behavior.

The winners will take it all…

However while we are in this place of transition, there is a lot of opportunity for those companies that embrace Artificial Intelligence and Local Search by looking to enhance their local search opportunity.

For more information about managing your reputation and building your local search check out the frequency marketing dashboard.

Start with a free local search snapshot report.