What You Need to Engage with Your Potential Buyers Online

No matter if you are trying to become a brand influencer, offering freelance services or have a service company to run, you must face the competition out there.

Your potential customers are facing information overload and it is not about who shouts the loudest when it comes to digital marketing.  Instead of trying to copy what your competition is doing, you will need to develop your own messages that your niche can relate to.

Your Unique Selling Proposition

The first thing you need to work on to break into a competitive market is your unique selling proposition.

• Why should people choose you instead of another person?
• What are the unique values you are offering they cannot find on other sites?

Your USP needs to be relevant to the niche you are targeting, your mission and vision statement and be clear, obvious, and straightforward. You have to start your branding campaign by communicating this value statement to engage with your market.

Your Sales Funnel

Without a plan, and a roadmap, you will not be able to make the most out of your business.

Creating a sales funnel, a sales pipeline or conversion funnel, as some people like to call it, is essential, so you can measure each stage of engagement.

Sales funnels will not only increase your conversion rate but also make your life and digital marketing easier to manage.

Designing a sales funnel can be confusing, and you might want to create a map first, so you can visualize all the stages.

Social Media Strategy

It is also crucial that you pay attention to your social media messages and make them consistent with your brand identity.

Consistency is the key, so always use the same colours, style, and post approximately at the same time.

Posting every day for a week and then not posting for a couple of months will not do your brand visibility any good, and your followers will soon disappear.

Your Brand Identity

You also need to clearly define your brand identity and stick to the same values all the time whenever you are creating content for the digital world.

It will help if you use a mind map or simply write down what you stand for, so you can tailor your messages to the identity you have created.

Your potential customers need to recognize your brand every time they come across it, and develop positive associations with your business.

Smart Goals

One of the main mistakes people make when it comes to setting up an engagement strategy and market penetration plan is that they focus on the tasks instead of the goals.

Thinking backwards and tracing your steps back is a good approach.

Set yourself smart business and marketing goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound, and you will find it easier to measure your results.

When it comes to advertising online, for example using PPCnerd makes it easy to automate Adwords, set specific goals and measure everything.

Your Brand Voice

It is crucial that you find your brand voice, reflecting your brand identity.

• You might add some humour or make complicated problems appear simple.
• Alternatively, you can become the expert, the helpful person who answers people on social media and gives out free advice.
• You can also be the urban brand with modern values, but this needs to be reflected in your website design, all the content you have out there, and even the images that go with your social media posts.

Your brand voice needs to be consistent, just like your messages and your values.

Answering the Most Important Question

The goal of every customer engagement campaign should be to answer the most important question your potential clients are asking: “what is in it for me?”

People don’t have time today to beat around the bush, and they want straight answers as soon as possible. Check out your website and find out whether or not it offers the answer on the main page and your landing pages.

If not, chances are that you will need to change things around and improve your communication, even if you have to add an intro video.

Breaking into a new market or standing out from the crowd is one of the main challenges of today’s online brands.

Engaging with your market is an art, and you should develop your brand image, voice, and identity before creating a digital marketing strategy, so you can deliver consistent messages and avoid confusing your audience.

Image Credit Joao Tzanno@jtzanno       Image Credit Austin Chan@austinchan

Are you engaging your buyers online effectively?  This post gave me tremendous food for thought.  I think consistency is my weakest point at this stage because I’m still a one-woman-band. It’s high time I did a SWOT analysis and figured out who I should bring on board to help me build my brand.  What’s your next move?