Evolve the way you do things with evidence based marketing
To build your audience, understand your value proposition & evolve your digital marketing, you need to understand the importance of evidence based marketing.
Gone are the days of traditional marketing where decisions were made on what was thought to be a ‘good ad’ or ‘something that people may like’.
We live in a digital age, a new era, where not only technology has changed but also the way we do things.
We see, read, listen, watch and interact differently. In order to truly make a dent in this new world, marketing decisions need to be backed by cold hard facts.
It’s true – at the heart of every marketing campaign, strategy and decision there is 1 common denominator whose importance is becoming more and more prevalent with time… metrics.
This is where evidence based marketing comes into the equation.
Evidence based marketing
If you think of every great brand that has ever existed, you’ll notice that each and every one of them had great stories to tell.
The stories they told travelled through all different mediums, from print and TV to online videos, apps and social media campaigns.
However, every story they told continues to fascinate and captivate their audiences, strengthening the ties and relationships that those fans have with these brands.
How? Through marketing based on fact.
Evidence based marketing is all about looking beyond the apparent.
Seeking to see each customer as a person.
The way that we do this is through the use of research trends, analytics, customer behaviour, statistics and much more.
All of these things help us to see past the apparent and understand each customer for what they are – a human that has interests, hobbies, preferences, affinities, family, friends etc.
The abundance of evidence & information helps us to gain a deeper understanding of customers and what they want.
When we know what our customers want, we can personalise our marketing strategies and campaigns to create a winning marketing plan that delivers on exactly what they want in a way that resonates with them.
Why it’s the solution
Can you answer the following question without having to take time to think about it?
“Why do people buy from you?” If you had to take some time to find the answer to that question, then chances are you haven’t discovered your value proposition.
Knowing why people buy from you is crucial
By understanding your value proposition, you are able to identify your buyer persona which holds all the information about your buyer that you need to know, such as:
- Who your buyers are
- What their pain points are
- What problems they have
- What they are looking for
By having the answers to the above, you’ll be able to formulate a map which will help you to understand what type of content your customers need and in order for them to engage with you.
Once you have your value proposition and created a customer map, you then have the firepower to create and deploy a content marketing plan that is aimed at giving your customers exactly what they want in a way that they understand, through their most comfortable medium.
However, evidence based marketing doesn’t stop at the deployment of a content marketing plan.
In order to maximise the benefits and continue being an evidence-based marketer, you need to always be testing and building your audience persona.
Testing for The Win
Your value proposition is never simple. Why? Because along with your audience persona, it is constantly changing.
You need to realise that on the other side of the screen there is another human being, whose interests and opinions change, it’s just part of being human.
In that, you need to constantly be testing and evolving your audience persona.
If you think about it – you’re not the same person you were a few years ago, right? You’ve changed, sparked new interests and learned new things.
Your audience is no different
You need to keep learning about them and testing accordingly.
Defining your audience persona won’t happen overnight.
It’s not as simple as taking a quick glance at your analytics and drawing some conclusions.
It happens over time when patterns start to emerge.
You learn about your audience, who they are, what makes them, and what makes them buy from you.
At the end of the day, you need to create content for humans and to do that you must not assume.
You must have cold hard facts that point to understanding what your customers want, only then will you be able to create content that people will want to engage with.
To succeed in evidence based marketing, you need to practice it, not just for 1 day, but for life.
It will change, it will grow, and it will take time, but most of all it will allow you to effectively engage with your fans and add customer value through the communication engine that is your brand.
Isn’t that what we all want in digital marketing?