Target Audience Versus Target Market: How to Leverage Both for Referrals

Do you know the legend of William Tell? In the early 1500s, the emperors of Austria were seeking to take over what is now known as Switzerland. In a cruel act of dominance over one particular Swiss village called Altdorf, an Austrian governor (Gessler) placed his hat on top of a tall pole in the marketplace, and he demanded that the villagers bow to it whenever they passed by. During a visit to Altdorf, William Tell and his son refused to bow to Gessler’s hat, so they were arrested and sentenced to be executed. Since Tell was a well-known mountaineer and expert marksman in the region, Gessler devised an especially clever punishment for him. He promised that Tell and his son would be released if Tell could shoot an apple off his son’s head with a crossbow—in just one attempt. Obviously, such a feat requires immense amounts of targeting skill.

Mistargeting your fans and followers on social media doesn’t have the potentially catastrophic consequences of Tell’s task. But in many cases, targeting the right message to the right customer at the right time can be a matter of life and death for your business.

In late March of this year, Facebook announced a redesign of its news feed that placed a greater emphasis on images. At the same time, they also announced a new feature that allows brands to target their posts based on people’s interests. Rather than be confined to the limitations of who actually likes their page, company status updates appear in the news feeds of users who are interested in a brand’s product, but may not have heard of the brand.

Facebook aside, these new features bring up an extremely important concept for any referral marketer to keep in mind: target market versus target audience.

A target market is a segment of consumers who are primed to make a purchase and understand the value of your product. This audience is defined by demographic data such as age, location, ethnicity, and so on.

A target audience is a bit different. These people are influencers on social media sites, so you really want them sharing and promoting your products—regardless of their purchasing intent. With enhanced targeting features on social networks, subtle changes in language and content can make a huge impact on this group.

Segmenting your target audience should heavily focus on interest and influence. Going back to Facebook, a post to your target market (let’s say B2B company owners in their mid-30s) should be product driven and highlight the utility of your software based on need. A post aimed at a target audience, however, should be driven more by content and thought leadership, prompting engaged influencers to share your brand throughout their personal networks.

These same techniques can be applied when choosing which landing page to drive a demographic to and creating your initial ask. Target audiences should be driven to a blog post or other relevant page that gives you an opportunity to engage them in your content and prompt them to share it. A post directed at your target market, however, can be driven to a landing page geared more toward the actual sale—perhaps one that details your referral program.

Of course the goal of any social media marketing campaign is driving sales, but in many cases (especially in regard to referral marketing) one share or post from a trusted online source that’s familiar with your brand can mean huge dividends in referrals and newly acquired brand ambassadors.

Identifying and segmenting a target market versus a target audience requires a good deal of analysis regarding where, how, and why customers are interacting with your brand. But with the right software backing up your referral marketing program, your brand will become as good a marksman as William Tell, able to target posts and truly engage a broad spectrum of social media users with a single shot.

Have you segmented your target audience versus your target market? Share your best practices!

LinkedIn Gets Visual: How to Leverage Visual Profiles for Leads and Referrals

In another big move as a part of LinkedIn’s transition from résumé service to professional social network, the company recently announced the release of new visual profiles.

According to LinkedIn, profiles can now be illustrated with photos, videos, presentations, and other graphics, recognizing a shift in social media engagement from text to images. In addition, other users can comment, like, and share your professional portfolio across their networks. And creating a visual profile is as easy as clicking Edit on your existing profile and following the prompts for the Summary, Experience, and Education sections.

This is great news for users who are looking to network for job opportunities. But given LinkedIn’s huge potential for generating high-value leads, this update is also extremely useful for companies that wish to leverage the network for referrals.

Although company pages play a big role in providing social proof and awareness of your brand, it’s important to keep in mind that the quality, consistency, and relevancy of employee profiles also help drive traffic and sales.

For example, employees who post well-designed and highly sharable infographics on their professional profiles will not only increase their credentials as a designer, but also engage potential leads for their employer as people recognize the utility and relevancy of your business. Ultimately this will drive motivated leads to your website, resulting in sales and brand ambassadors.

Infographics are a particularly good example of how visual profiles can increase online engagement with your brand. A recent case study from Submitinme (SIM) found that infographics have 300 percent more visibility than display ads do. And they’re shared heavily in social profiles, emails, and so on, resulting in conversions on your website. This proves that visuals can be a huge factor in effective referral marketing strategies.

There are three main takeaways:

1. LinkedIn’s effectiveness at driving leads for B2B brands combined with the highly sharable nature of visual content can result in a huge boost in traffic and the number of potential brand ambassadors.

2. LinkedIn’s transition to a more social platform means that potential customers or brand ambassadors will view not only your company page, but also your employees’ profiles. This means that all employee profiles should be updated with relevant content, especially images, that will bring more traffic to your website. Employee profiles can have a significant impact on your brand’s image. Don’t neglect them.

3. Visual images can be used in combination with mentions, which means that a social media strategy on LinkedIn is not only possible, but also very effective for B2B brands in particular.

Some more big news from LinkedIn—how will your brand leverage visual profiles?

Referral Marketers Rejoice: Tumblr Adds Social Sharing to Its Mobile App

While Tumblr is a powerful tool for businesses to leverage when looking to engage fans online, the microblog’s mobile app has always been lacking in its integrations with other social media sites.

But no longer! As of late, Tumblr has rolled out a number of awesome new features that indicate the company has finally realized the true power of sharing on mobile platforms to drive traffic and referrals to online brands.

According to Tumblr’s blog, the updated iOS app allows users to:

  • Share posts via Twitter, Facebook, and more
  • Save stuff for later using Instapaper and Pocket
  • Email an entire post with our beautiful new template
  • Close photos by flinging up or down!
  • See GIFs animate while you scroll*
  • Search your Following list (it’s now alphabetized and grouped by first letter!)

* iPad 2, 3, and 4; iPad Mini; iPod Touch 5th Generation; iPhone 4S and 5 only

Tumblr has always allowed social sharing on its desktop platform, so what’s the big deal about moving the features over to mobile?

It’s a well-known fact that images are the most effective driver of user engagement on social networks. Studies have shown that on Facebook, photos get 7 times more Likes and 10 times more Shares than links do. Consider the fact that you’re able to embed links into the images, and you have a powerful combination of social sharing and engagement that drives traffic back to your referral program’s landing page.

Because of Tumblr’s emphasis on sharing images, the app is perfect for showcasing new products or highlighting cool components of your referral marketing program. Businesses can also use the app to bring a bit of personality to their online brand, leading to a more personal engagement with your brand and ultimately more brand ambassadors.

Also, Tumblr’s focus has always been centered around users with similar interests, meaning the images you post can be targeted to your followers on the platform. More targeted posts equals more sharing and a stronger referral program overall.

So where does mobile come in?

In 2012, mobile engagement propelled Tumblr to an incredible 20 billion pageviews a month. This means more and more customers are turning to their phones when using the app, which brings a lot of potential benefits to your brand.

Mobile devices are not bound by any physical location, and about 30 percent of all the time spent using mobile devices is focused on social networks. So a potential customer may be out shopping and playing around on Tumblr when she stumbles across a cool image from your blog and then arrives at your brand’s landing page—primed to make a purchase.

And when it comes to word of mouth, mobile also brings the goods, with 24 percent of users recommending a brand or product to others as a result of a mobile search.

So this is big news for not only Tumblr, but also brands looking to extend their reach to mobile platforms and drive referrals.

What are your thoughts on Tumblr’s mobile updates?

6 Tips for Humanizing Your Brand to Create More Effective Social Media Advertising

With more and more businesses recognizing the value of online referrals, it’s easy to overlook why the advertising technique is so effective in the first place—it’s social! Every day friends and colleagues interact with each other on social media sites in ways that weren’t possible even two years ago. But guess what? They’re interacting with your brand as well.

So you must keep in mind that trust is a huge component in bringing sales to online businesses. Customers want to really see these brands and understand the principles that should drive them from their current positions as occasional audience members to loyal brand ambassadors. Basically, customers want brands to be human.

Humanizing your brand is a necessary step to ensure your company’s survival in a social media environment. It’s the key to building relationships with your customers and creating a powerful base of brand ambassadors. But where do you begin? Here are six ways you can start humanizing your brand today:

1. Develop an Online Voice

Company-to-consumer advertisements are no longer effective in the 21st century. Advertising is now a two-way conversation between brands and online audiences. As such, it’s important to ask yourself: What does my brand sound like to real people? Customers should think of your brand as a friend, not a company. It’s this relationship—and loyal customers’ relationships with offline friends and family—which will prompt them to become brand ambassadors. In recent years the folks at Skittles have done a wonderfully creative job of establishing their online voice. Check out our previous blog post for a great case study on their transformation.

2. Tailor Your Message to Your Audience

Is your brand advertising to a serious B2B audience? Or maybe your customers are a lighthearted B2C community? Whoever it is, be sure you listen to what’s being said about your brand on social media, and then develop a cohesive strategy to communicate your true personality right back at ’em.

3. Encourage Feedback and Content from Your Online Community

Host contests for potential customers to share photos and stories with other fans and followers, or develop strategies to highlight customer experiences on your page. But most of all, you want to make sure that your customers are active participants with your brand, not passive listeners. Content can be a huge driver of conversions and sales—so why not tap into what your customers are already posting and saying online?

4. Post Personal Photos of Your Brand Being Human

What better way to humanize your brand than to show the actual humans who are responsible for creating and maintaining it every day? Social networks allow brands to show off their best qualities, and hopefully one of these qualities includes the people who stand behind your brand. Post photos from a cool team trip or just random happenings around the office. It will make your brand more relatable and trustworthy to online customers.

5. Stop Selling, Start Engaging

It’s pretty easy for customers to know when they’re being sold something, and that’s the last thing they want to see when they’re talking to friends and family on Facebook or Twitter. As outbound advertising becomes less effective, the role of social marketing becomes even more important. Maintain an authenticity around your brand—you’ll receive better exposure, a better reputation, and more referred customers.

6. Have a Plan!

This seems like an obvious one, but it’s surprising how many brands blindly jump into social media without a cohesive plan of action. Take a step back to make sure you understand your audience first. What makes them tick? What type of language are they using? How often and where are they posting content? Of course, you shouldn’t spend too much time in the weeds collecting data. Social media moves quickly, so getting your referral marketing strategy up and running is critical for your brand’s success.

The advertising world changes rapidly and businesses, like people, must keep up with the latest trends. Brands are human, after all, and your marketing strategy should reflect that. So remember that your customers want to engage with you online, and your goal is to give them the right environment in which to do so!

How are you humanizing your brand?

Referrals Are the Most Cost-Effective—and Trustworthy—Ad Strategy in 2013

Your customers may trust your product, but your advertising strategy may be a different story.

In the new world of online advertising, customers are empowered by their ability to discover and interact with brands on social media and share recommendations across a massive network of friends, family, and industry peers.

Why rely on a company’s ads when they can pick and choose from hundreds of products based on recommendations from people they trust?

According to a recent Nielsen study, only 36 percent of consumers trust outbound ads on social networks. And people’s trust in traditional forms of advertising (e.g., TV, radio, print, and so on) has dropped by as much as 24 percent since 2009.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, 92 percent of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family members more than any form of advertising—either online or off.

Data on the value of referrals has been around for a while, but tangible data on the actual ROI of referral advertising has been hard to come by—until now. A white paper by MarketShare provides concrete evidence that word of mouth directly drives sales and amplifies other forms of advertising to a significant degree. The research compared media ad spends, online word of mouth mentions and sentiments, Facebook metrics, and other factors, and it came up with some exciting—although not surprising—findings.

While traditional advertising can potentially build brand awareness, it doesn’t necessarily translate into sales. Nor does it resonate with customers in the same way that inbound referrals from social media do. With traditional outbound advertising, you’re essentially throwing money at a wall and hoping something sticks. Not a great way to manage your money.

Referral marketing, however, has been proven to be the most effective means of acquiring new customers—and keeping them. Referred customers are likely to spend 13.2 percent more and have a 16 percent higher lifetime value. In other words, you’re not only generating more revenue, but also creating brand loyalty that extends that boost in revenue beyond a one-time sale. For a B2B SaaS company dependent on a low churn rate, a steady stream of referred customers can make all the difference in the world.

So word of mouth is not only the most trusted form of advertising, but also the most valuable and cost-effective strategy for building your brand and driving sales. It’s no wonder McKinsey called word of mouth “the most disruptive factor” in marketing.

Disruptive? Maybe. Effective? You bet.

How are you promoting customer referrals online?

Advertising: Do You Buy It? (Infographic)

It should come as no surprise that the average consumer’s trust in advertising is staggering. But stagger as it may, consumers are still listening, and consuming branded content like never before. The question is: Have we evaluated the outlets that show the greatest promise to build consumer confidence and boost our bottom line? Let’s take a closer look at how consumers perceive advertising, and how we can better earn their listening ear.

advertising-infographic

5 Ways to Reduce Friction and Get More Customer Referrals

Friction comes up a lot in our lives: in relationships, work, and politics—it’s pretty common, and oftentimes unavoidable. But in the case of managing a successful referral marketing program, friction can mean the difference between having loyal customers versus having brand ambassadors. Thus, reducing the amount of friction that your customers encounter should be a top priority.

In an earlier post, we defined friction as “psychological concerns stimulated by a given element in the sales process.” But in this case, we’re talking about converting a new sale into a powerful brand ambassador.

So how can you guarantee a frictionless process for your customers? Here are the five best practices to implement now:

1. Create Clear, Optimized Calls to Action (CTAs)

The value of customer referrals is no doubt clear to your brand, but it may not be so obvious for newly engaged customers. So when you’re prompting visitors to sign up for your referral program, the text should be short, relevant, and actionable. If your landing page copy doesn’t hold a visitor’s attention and quickly convey the value of your offer, it can seriously hurt your ambassador conversion rate.

And when we say actionable, we mean just that: Give your customers something to do! Include phrases like, “Register Now!” or “Sign Up Here” to make sure customers get the picture immediately. There shouldn’t be any confusion on the part of your customers as to why they should sign up.

2. Shorten Your Referral Conversion Forms

A complicated conversion form is the quickest way to lose potential brand ambassadors right when they’re ready to sign up. Your referral program may offer the greatest reward structure in history; but when faced with a 15-field form to complete, your customer will probably think, Is this really worth my time?

Keep things relevant. You don’t need to know your customers’ favorite foods to get them signed up, so why create the extra step? Nailing the perfect balance of quantity versus quality in terms of fields on your conversion form can be tricky. But taking the time to test and optimize your form will pay dividends in new signups and new sales.

3. Create a Specific Referral Landing Page

Don’t distract customers from your referral program with other offers or information. A customer that arrives at your referral landing page is there for one reason: to convert into a brand ambassador. Remove any other CTAs, offers, or navigations from the landing page to be sure that a customer is focused on signing up for your referral program and nothing else.

4. Keep Conversion Forms above the Fold

“Above the fold” means making sure that potential brand ambassadors don’t have to scroll to the bottom of the page to sign up. Your form should be as easy to find as it is to fill out.

5. Keep It Simple!

A surefire way to bring on more brand ambassadors is by making sure that your copy about the referral program is easy to understand and your conversion form is simple to complete. If you can’t understand how to sign up through the landing page, then you can be sure your customers can’t either. When in doubt—test, test, and test again!

What are some ways you reduce friction in your referral conversion process?

Writing Headlines That Drive Brand Ambassador Conversions

If your referral rewards program is the body of your social media strategy, then a headline is the friendly face that will draw in customers.

Put simply, an effective headline is your best shot at getting customers to continue reading down the page and learn more about the benefits of your referral rewards program. But a headline can do more than grab a customer’s attention—it can also communicate the full value of your referral program in just a brief statement and start building powerful brand ambassadors.

Pretty cool, right?

You may recognize the following list from an earlier post called “5 Components of an Optimized Referral Partner Landing Page.” But let’s review four things you should keep in mind before you put your fingers to the keyboard:

Appeal: How appealing is the offer to a potential brand ambassador?

Relevance: How relevant is the offer to your target audience?

Clarity: Is it easy for a potential brand ambassador to understand your offer?

Credibility: How legitimate is your offer? Customers will be turned off by pie-in-the-sky promises like “Make $10,000 a month from home!” Convey the value of the referral reward program to your customers, but keep it in line with the actual benefits.

We posted another article about crafting effective value propositions and calls to action (CTAs) to drive brand ambassador conversions. So you should have all the tools you need to get started. But if you’re stuck with a bit of writer’s block, here are a few ideas to get you going:

A question headline is a good way to frame the program in the minds of your customers. If you can get them to answer the “why” from the onset, they’ll be primed to convert to brand ambassadors. Keep it simple; your headline should ask a question that a customer can immediately answer. A good example of this is “Want to get rewards from the brands you love?” Uh, of course I do! Well then, it’s time to sign up! Ultimately, this technique will only work if you know who your customers are and what they’re looking for. So be sure you’ve done your homework on these two areas.

A benefit headline announces the advantages of your rewards program right off the bat. To pull this one off, you need to know three things: your target market, their current situation, and your proposed solution. In the case of a referral marketing program, you might try something like, “Get rewarded for sharing with your friends!” This is simple, but it gets the point across. Be clear, be concise, and get your customers primed to convert.

A command headline tells potential brand ambassadors what they need to do. All of your language on the landing page should be actionable. But letting customers know the how of your rewards program at the top of the page will clear up any potential confusion and keep them reading for more information. For example, you could try something like: “Sign up now and get rewards today!” What should a customer do? Sign up now!

These are just a few headline suggestions for you to consider. But using such formats can do wonders for improving your conversion rate and converting customers into brand ambassadors.

How do you craft effective headlines?

The 5 Ps of Effective Hashtag Marketing

Over the course of seven years, Twitter has evolved from a simple microblogging service to an indispensable tool for referral marketers. With only 140 characters, a business can reach thousands of supporters across broad swaths of demographics. But one tweet only goes so far.

The true utility of Twitter lies in hashtags—a feature that brands and customers alike can use to engage in conversations about any topic imaginable, no matter how specific.

Leveraging hashtags to increase conversions via Twitter is easy—just remember the 5 Ps of effective hashtag marketing:

1. Playbook

As with any social media marketing campaign, hashtags require some planning before you dive into the mix. Ask yourself, What do I want to gain from hashtags and how can I get there?

First, do some research. Track conversations and topics relevant to your product and find out what your customers are talking about today. B2B brands selling referral marketing software will be trying to reach a significantly different audience than, say, a B2C subscription box company.

Second, if you discover that your target customers are talking about social media trends, for example, then you’ll want to develop hashtags that are relevant to that topic. Considering hashtags as an extension of your SEO strategy and building off your existing keywords is a great place to start. But keep in mind: inconsistency between hashtags and your products may cause some confusion about what you’re actually bringing to the table.

2. Popularity

While you need to make sure your brand remains relevant in ongoing conversations, you must also be sure that you’re staying relevant to your brand. It doesn’t make sense to join a conversation on dating advice if you sell software.

Ultimately this goes back to the playbook. If you’re looking to gain more followers, using a general hashtag like #ReferralMarketing may be a good place to start. However, you’ll be competing with hundreds of thousands of other Twitter users.

Conversely, using a hashtag that’s too specific to your niche, such as #B2BReferrals, will target those customers who are the most likely to convert to sales. But then you run the risk of reaching an audience that’s too small to make a splash in the vast ocean that is Twitter.

Your best bet is to research what your audience is discussing and then leverage it for relevancy. There’s a fine line between niche and irrelevancy; make sure you’re on the right side of that line.

3. Persistence

Yes, a hashtag is a conversation starter. But it’s hard to get a conversation going when you’re in a room with millions of other people. Going off on your own with an inventive hashtag can be a huge boost to brand recognition—if it takes off. But you’ll need more than one tweet to get there.

Maintain relevancy to your topic and use the new hashtag consistently. Tagging influencers and satisfied customers and then looping them into the conversation is a great way to get the ball rolling.

4. Promotion

Remember, you’re not talking to yourself on Twitter, but to millions of people simultaneously. No matter how creative your hashtag may be, adding value to your tweets will motivate people to join the conversation. So think of hashtags like you would referral marketing: generate a valuable conversation surrounding your chosen topic and then watch the retweets and followers roll in.

Consider running a contest and reward users for participating in your campaign. Use a strong call to action that drives potential customers to retweet your message or a link to a cool article or blog. Above all, make sure you’re adding value to the Twitter conversation, not noise.

5. Personality

In the world of marketing, it’s easy for users to forget that brands are made up of actual people, not dollar signs. Social media platforms buck this idea and allow a company to showcase the person behind the product.

A hashtag is a great opportunity to engage customers in a two-way conversation. Ask questions, give answers, and encourage communication between your brand and its followers. Not only will you see higher engagement and conversion rates, but you’ll also have fun in the process.

Hashtags are a tough feature to crack, and one or two words can mean the difference between successful customer engagement and getting buried under an avalanche of tweets. But with the right strategy, they can bring tangible sales to your overall social media efforts.

What are some of your favorite hashtags?

5 Tips for Drafting Effective Referral Value Propositions

Why should your target customer purchase a product from your brand rather than from a competitor’s?

The answer may be obvious to you, but conveying the value of your products to potential customers is one of the most important components of a successful brand. This statement is also true for an effective referral rewards program. Getting people to arrive at the landing page is only half the battle. The real effort begins when it comes time to prompt customers to sign up.

To help you get started, here are five tips to writing a killer value proposition for your referral rewards program.

1. Be in tune with your audience. There’s something to be said about a value proposition that speaks to you on a personal level. And that something is an effective way to ensure that you’re getting the highest engagement possible from your referral program. However, unless you have a clear idea of whom you’re targeting, your proposition will be lost on your customers.

So here are some questions you should ask yourself before your fingers hit the keyboard:

  • What types of rewards are our customers interested in?
  • Where do they live?
  • How do they talk?
  • Are we writing to B2B or B2C customers (or older customers versus younger ones)?

These kinds of questions are an excellent foundation when you start tailoring your value proposition to a specific audience.

2. Stay relevant. The copy of your value proposition creates a make-or-break moment when readers decide whether or not to sign on. Establish relevancy by reminding your customer of their connection to your brand, and be sure to restate the reward right away to drive the value home.

3. Be brief. Since most people are super busy these days, they don’t like to get caught up doing one task for too long. So you need to find a way to summarize your message into one compelling statement. Normally 20 words or less is a good target to shoot for. And keep your message on point. Succinctly answer this question for your customers: “Why am I reading this?” You’ll find a much higher proportion of readers following through on your referral program if you do.

4. Include an effective call to action. If your readers are engaged enough to arrive at your landing page, then chances are they’re serious about wanting to learn more about your rewards program. It’s critical that you ensure they have some way to follow up on the offer and pursue a defined goal. That means your call to action should be short and actionable. Words such as get or receive will inform site visitors that there’s an offer on the table. Convey the benefit of the rewards explicitly. And make sure your call to action is easily identifiable. You can include a large button or some other engaging image to help with this. If you’re working with text only, then you might include a link anchor or use boldfaced words.

5. Talk about the value, not the offer. A 30 percent discount is nice. But that offer isn’t compelling enough to gain real traction with a referral program. Your product holds the value, and conveying that to your reader is more effective than throwing deals at the wall and hoping something sticks. Ultimately a rewards program’s value lies in the relationship between your customers and their friends and family. Focus on the why of the program, not the what.

Writing an effective value proposition for your referral rewards program is crucial when it comes to incentivizing more referrals. Just keep it short, sweet, and targeted, and you’ll be ramping up referrals in no time.