Digital marketing has evolved and humanized well beyond information shopping. Each visit to your website and social media platforms is a real, unique visitor that engages at a different level than the next. Through each touch point, a user forms a picture in their mind that influences their buying decisions. Common touch points and buying decisions help form your business’ buyer personas.
A humanized marketing approach doesn’t start or end with digital, but involves adding human elements across all stages of your customer’s journey or product lifecycle.
Discovering “why” is the real goal for marketers in humanizing data. Understanding why the data goes in a given direction provides both the ability to target markets based on interest and provide relevant, valuable content to your audience when they want it and how they want it.
Here are the steps for connecting the data to the “why,” and ultimately to the humanized message.
1. Develop your means of retrieving data: surveys, human-interactions, interviews. We developed a buyer persona survey through Survey Monkey that connects with our marketing management system for a seamless population of information.
2. Ask questions. Bring that data together with an evaluation of user behavior (touch points on website and social media, click patterns) and buying behaviors (purchase history). Some of the human elements to analyze are: detailed demographics, fitness and nutrition goals and struggles, children’s interests, preferred method to receive online content, etc.
3. Talk to people. It is necessary to interact with consumers if we want bonds to be created with them. While a majority of e-commerce and digital sites don’t have the ability for human-to-human interaction, take advantage of this opportunity at your club as the foundation of true marketing.
4. Analyze your data and map out a plan based on your findings. How? Identify problems and opportunities that your audience needs help with, then create content and tailor messaging that addresses solving those problems for that audience.
Taylor Antolino is the marketing director for Newtown Athletic Club. Email her at taylora@newtownathletic.com.
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I liked item 3. Talk & Interact with people. You need to get a pulse and information from your customers in order to improve your relationship with them. It’s important for the business and create a positive environment.
John Antolino