 Have you ever seen an advertisement and felt like it was meant for someone else and not for you? You must have felt alienated like you were unimportant. Sadly, societal bias and stereotypes based on race, ethnicity, and religion are all too common and this reflects in the marketing.
For instance, males are shown more in adverts than women are. On the other end of the spectrum, women appear more in revealing adverts than men. Very often brands fail to include all members of the society yet expect everyone to purchase their products or services the same. How to make the best use of inclusive marketing Inclusive marketing is more than just including faces of minorities in adverts or changing the colors of your products. This is not all that is needed to get people to purchase products. So where do you begin? Culture! That’s where. Dedicate your resources and research on understanding the political, social, and economic views of your target market. Understand their challenges. This will mean immersing yourself in their world and putting yourself into their shoes. This in turn will equip you with the information necessary to create adverts that appeal to customers and that will offend them. Get the right team And the right team represents the different cultures and ethnicities in the greater society. Look at it this way, can a man sell beauty products? Sure he can! But would it be better if there was a woman on the team? Similarly, can women sell shaving products? Of course! But would it be better if there was a man in the team who shaves on a regular? This same concept should be considered with different ethnicities. A Mexican knows more about his people and understands their perceptions more than a black man. Similarly, a black man knows more about the black community and its challenges more than a white man. You get it! Understanding the role of women Women for instance make up the female economy. Last year alone, women spent over 24 trillion dollars. What’s more, it is expected that as more and more women enter the workforce, this number will continue to grow. Savvy marketers are aware of this and are now representing women more in their marketing campaigns. This can be an excellent way to ensure your marketing budget goes even further. Many businesses are now realizing the potential and are changing their marketing tactics to appeal to more women. Inclusive marketing and its effects on consumer behavior Consumers are much more likely to buy products from brands that make them feel recognized and appreciated as a valuable part of the community. For instance, black consumers are more likely to buy products from a brand that shows black people in their adverts. With inclusive marketing, your campaigns can have more impact and persuade more people to choose your products. A great example of inclusive marketing is Rhianna’s Fenty Beauty. It markets to different races and ethnicities in over 137 countries. One of her adverts even showed a Muslim girl with a hijab. Ultimately inclusion is for all When it is all said and done, inclusion is not about creating ads that target a certain ethnicity or group of people. It is about creating a successful campaign that takes into consideration the feelings, emotions, and views of everyone in society. The goal is to make everyone feel appreciate without alienating some. Inclusion marketing is an ongoing process of evaluating and re-evaluating societal concepts.  Understanding the psychology behind which customers make buying decisions can give you a great edge over your competition. You can then use consumer psychology to promote your brand and to increase conversions.
By knowing what goes through the mind of customers through different buying stages, you can anticipate their behavior and provide them with what they need. This in turn can go a long way towards building your brand and securing loyal customers. Let’s take a closer look at 6 psychological strategies to boost your sales. The likelihood of impulse purchases We have all been there where we’ve convinced ourselves that there will be no more unplanned spending only to see something that we liked and completely neglected our resolutions. We went ahead and bought that item. Businesses can take advantage of the obsessive-compulsive behavior in humans to increase sales by promoting impulse buying. For instance, one clever way you do this is to use the word “now” in your advertisement. This creates urgency in the minds of the potential customers and causes them to think that if they do not act now they will miss out on any deals. Asking for small requests Keep in mind here that we are focusing on asking customers for a small request. The importance of this is that if customers agree to do something small for the business, they are more likely to agree to something else. This is called the “foot in the door technique”. By asking potential customers to sign up for a new trial, or for an email request, they are more likely to agree to a larger request such as making a purchase. Look at it this way… instead of going from step 1 to step 10, you take the customer through the various small steps until they finally purchase your products. And after all, there are 5 steps to making a purchase. These are recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase, and post-purchase evaluation Visually stimulating marketing Naturally, our brains are better able to process video as compared to texts. This is not surprising in this age of social media as research has shown that posts that include video are 650% times more likely to result in reader engagement than those that only have text. Secondly, it is important to understand how the different colors affect the human psyche and ultimately buying decisions. Colors play a significant role in impulse decisions and purchases so including the right colors in your products can make all the difference. Another way to use visually stimulating marketing is by the use of language. Savvy marketers will use words such as guaranteed, 100% original, certified, loyal and authentic in their ads. This immediately causes a sense of trust and can prompt choppers to make impulse decisions. Evoke emotions the right emotions your customers Humans react strongly to feelings such as joy, sadness, and excitement. The clever marketer can use this to their advantage by crafting ads that stimulate such strong emotions in favor of the business. This can result in impulsive purchasing. Secondly, self-esteem is important to everyone. By boosting people’s self-esteem, you can increase sales and promote impulse buying. For instance, marketers can help customers feel worthy and important. One easy way you can do this is to promote memberships and then offer privileges to members. Final word Marketing is all about understanding customer psychology and what drives them to make purchases. The savvy marketer can then use this information to trigger impulse buying. Done the right way, it can greatly increase sales and conversions and improve the bottom line.  Ecommerce has opened new markets to businesses. However, this has also brought about certain challenges. For one you need to know to whom you are selling otherwise your marketing efforts will not amount to much.
But how do you define your target market? Well, one way is to create a target audience profile. This lets you identify the needs of your customers, what products they are searching for and what content and messages will best resonate with them. What is a target audience profile? Before we understand what a target audience profile is, let’s first define a target audience. This is a group of potential customers who display similar characteristics in terms of buying behavior and product interest. A target market profile is a list of their characteristics and demographics such as age, gender, or location. By creating a target market profile, you are better able to develop marketing campaigns that are best suited to their needs. Instead of just marketing your products or services wildly, you can create content and promotions that best appeals to the target market. This will help boost conversions How to profile your target market Contrary to what most people think, creating a target market profile is quite simple. This is how: 1. Start by broadly describing your customersThe first step is to start with a broad classification of your customers. Ask yourself who your customers are and why they may be interested in your products. What problems does your product solve for your customers? Having understood this, you now have an idea of who your customers are and where they may be located. Another way to gather information is to use customer reviews. You may also use the data that you’ve collected from previous buying behaviors. 2. Define demographicsSo you’ve broadly classified your audience as those who would find your products helpful and useful. The next step now becomes identifying their demographics. This will make it much easier for you to pinpoint exactly what they need. Some demographics such as gender-based on the type of products that you sell are easy to identify. For instance, if you sell hair products then your customers are more likely to be women. You will require a bit more research and data evaluation to find out demographics such as location, preferred social media sites, and age. 3. Identify their needs and pain pointsHaving defined their demographics, it is now time to take a look at your product or service. Put yourself in their shoes like you were buying the products. What about the product do you like for you to choose to solve a particular problem? Also, what about the product don’t you like and would discourage you from buying it again? Find out the pain points that customers buying such a product are experiencing and how would they wish to solve the problem. With this information, you can not only market your products correctly, but you are also able to develop and make changes to the product to best solve the customer’s problems. 4. How will customers reach you?At this point, you have made the necessary steps to only identify your target market but also create products that customers will need. However, it will all account for nothing if you have a great product yet customers do not know about it. So how do you help customers find you and your products easily? Firstly, find out where they spend most of their time. i.e. which social media platform do they mostly use. Also, consider which website they visit and which blogs they like to read. This will enable you to find them and grab their attention. Conclusion It is critical to profile your target markets. In this way, you can create tailored marketing campaigns that appeal to the needs of the customers. Without identifying your target market, promotions and ads are likely to fall on deaf ears.  If you want to reduce the bounce rate on your website, then you have to boost customer experience on your site.
The high bounce rates are simply proofs that visitors and customers aren’t comfortable with the experience they are getting. So it doesn’t matter if what you are selling on the site is exactly what they need, provided the experience is bad, they’ll bounce and look elsewhere. When the experience is so good, engagement is almost inevitable and they keep coming back for more. For most customers who endure the bad experience and make still shop, you can be rest assured they won't be returning. Below are 5 Ways you can Boost Customer Experience on your Website so without further ado, let’s jump right in! Make the Site Mobile Friendly t's not enough for a site to be compatible with mobile devices, it has to be user-friendly on the devices. Some sites when loaded on mobile devices, aren't fully functional or hiding some details. Then you get that message asking you to load on a desktop for a better experience. Now that's a terrible rerouting for mobile users who make up to 50% of website users. People shop with mobile phones on-the-go, in the restroom, while watching TV, while eating, and doing just about anything that can permit them to still use their phones. You don't want to lose these people because your website is struggling to fit into their devices. Avoid Intricate Themes and Plugins Some of the high-quality themes and plugins you add to your online shopping site make the site lag and this can be so annoying. Some themes delay the loading pages, and while navigating through the site, there are hitches due to some videos or other large-sized web design features. The entire design experience compounds into an ugly one for both mobile and desktop users. Go simple with the design of the user interface, the goal is for products to get the needed engagement and not for aesthetic allures. No one wants to hang around a site where it’s difficult to navigate around. Some simpler designs look beautiful regardless. Make the Site Intuitive and Easy to Navigate with Site Search If your site is counter-intuitive, you might want to create a demo to show users how to find their way around the site. That’s a recipe for failure and higher bounce rates already. The site should be intuitive so whatever the user is thinking is always the right thing. This aids navigation around the site and boosts the experience positively. Using site search can also help users find products or whatever they need seamlessly and faster. The stress of scrolling and looking for certain needs on the site is evaded with a functioning site search. Less is Always More with Content and Post Don't clutter your site with wordy content, most site visitors know where to go when they need to read lengthy posts. They are on your site for a specific purpose and that's for shopping or finding products that they can peruse and make recommendations to their colleagues. So, find a way to cut the fat out of your content and posts. Make the posts simpler to understand by using relatable and transitional words. Trim the longer sentences by getting rid of redundant words and replacing them with the use of power words across all your posts. And you should know that the attention span of humans is getting shorter by the day. Ensure your contents are well written with the right elements to grip readers' attention and make them commit to the site with their allegiance. Incorporate Live Chats This can be the best experience for most customers visiting your site. With a live chat feature using a chat BOT, questions can be answered instantly when they ask for it. Granted, sometimes it can be annoying to have these chat BOTs popping up when navigating around the site but they certainly come in handy when there’s a need. Think of all the time it’ll take for a customer to send a mail inquiring about something important about the brand and then getting a reply probably after some minutes or hours. That can be avoided with a live chat BOT that supplies all the answers the customer throws at it. If the BOT feature is too expensive, a customer representative can be designated to Mann the site and respond whenever a customer asks a question. Customer service sometimes is the best experience for customers. |
AuthorJennifer McArdle is the owner and founder of McArdle Media. Archives
December 2022
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