Part Three: What to Produce?
The previous post in our Marketing Tools series helps you find your “who.” Identifying your audience based on your customer data equips you, in turn, to produce targeted media that fits specifically with your audience and your goals.
Media that speaks to your Who
In preparing to reach out to your market, you’ll face a constant choice when it comes to media. You can create marketing media because “that’s what you’re supposed to do,” or you can invest time and effort to define your “who, what, where, and when” so that your media accomplishes your “why” efficiently and effectively, with no wasted effort.
To find your “what,” you’ll use your “who.” If you have established a buyer persona, consider his or her motivations, problems, and corresponding questions. Just like real people, customer personas have multiple and interdependent characteristics. Define and document what your different buyer personas really want, and you’ll be surprised by the topic ideas that arise. For an example, one of your buyer personas might harbor the following:
Motivation
“I want to complete my work as quickly as possible.”
Problem
“My computer is running slowly.”
Potential Question(s)
“Should I get a repair, or is it time for a new computer?”
“How can I nail down severity of the problem without having to pay a diagnostic fee?”
If you’re a computer repair specialist, you’re all over questions like these. But how should you present your expertise? A blog post? A video? Remember, one factor among many is that, in this case, the buyer persona’s computer is faulty. During work time, one of the first things I do when my computer is running slowly is pick up my smart phone and catch up on reading or email. If I were to look for help regarding my computer, it would be through my phone. So, in this case, we’ve gathered data and defined a best practice: questions about computer repair are answered more efficiently through mobile-friendly mediums.
The Tool: Customer Journey Mapping
How do you bring someone from “my computer is running slowly” to “I need someone to fix it.”? And then, “I want [you] to fix it.”?
Customer journey mapping is similar to a sales funnel; you want your audience to become (1) interested, then (2) engaged, then (3) invested, then (4) loyal. Apply the “motivation, problem, question” principal to each of these stages and then plan the perfect media to help them through the journey. That’s what customer journey mapping for media is all about. Base your research, decisions, and plans on foundational inquiries like these:
– What questions are buyer personas asking at each stage?
– Within which media channels are they looking first to find their answer?
– And how can I format my content to that channel?
– How can I make my content recyclable so I can tweak it to supply multiple channels?
As topic ideas, ideal media channels, and other conclusions arise, make sure to write document them in a directory based on their location within the customer journey.
For a different look at several models through which you can map your customer journey and nail down your perfect media channel, check out George Stenitzer’s Sharpen Your Content Marketing: 4 Ways to Model the Buyer’s Journey. He has gathered several templates for mapping customer journeys, depending on your “why” and your “who.” My favorite, template number four, includes samples of different media channels that often correspond with the different stages of the customer journey.
By Keech Media | Written By Michael Finnern
