It’s really noisy out there.
In the 1970’s, we were exposed to an estimated 500 ads a day. Now, experts say we see up to 5,000 ads today. How is anyone supposed to see our carefully crafted content when everyone is trying to get their attention at the same time?
Any marketer worth her salt will tell us to focus on our niche. Digital experts will nudge us to spend our meager advertising budgets on social media or Adwords. And everyone knows the real money is in our email lists.
Even though we know how to do this stuff, it’s still challenging to connect with potential customers. Here are a few simple ways to nudge folks into taking the action we want.
Entice Them to Click To Our Site
We want people to see our ad on someone else’s website and click over to our amazing site. That only works when we give them a reason to leave one site and surf over to ours instead. Our ad needs to be enticing enough to choose us over them.
We pay for the privilege of advertising on other business’s sites. That includes links in articles, texts ads, and banners. Bannersnack has customizable templates for any industry. The key is to craft a message designed to catch the eye of our niche. This is a great example because it’s aimed for the Black Friday shopper but leaves the reader wondering how low the price really is.
Remember, the goal is to get them to our site. It’s not about a hard sell or explaining why we’re so awesome. A banner only has one job – get them to click on the box.
Ask Them Questions on Social Media
While our end game is to convert a social media follower to a customer, that generally doesn’t happen after seeing one post. Our goal is to provide content that engages users and nudges them to keep coming back until they finally buy something from us.
Asking questions is a great way to get a conversation started. In 30 Social Media Prompts to Get the Conversation Started, Eric Siu suggests both general and meaningful questions:
-What five things couldn’t you live without?
-What’s the hardest part of growing your business?
-Who would win in a fight? Batman or Superman?
-What’s your dream vacation?
We can also ask specific questions about our service or take a poll. The idea is to spark a conversation and be interesting enough to keep them coming back for more.
Encourage Them to Read Our Blogs
Not many people want to hear our sales pitches, no matter how amazing they may be. I did sit through an entire air fryer infomercial because it was the only channel available at my parent’s house. But unless we’re trapped at our parent’s house, we’re probably not going to listen to anyone’s “must see” deal.
Yet, our blogs are an entirely different platform. Our readers are already interested in us and our products. Only our most loyal supporters read our blogs, so it’s like talking directly to our biggest fans. But we’ll never get them to take any action if we don’t offer something of value. Instead of using this important platform to help us reach our sales goals, we can reimagine our blog as something new and useful.
Selz, an eCommerce platform, restructured their blog and created FounderU. It’s filled with articles on how to sell beauty, digital, eBooks, artwork, crafts, and coaching. And because they built something valuable to their clients, their users will happily read about new features because they’ve positioned themselves as a partner, not just a service.
Nudging Folks in the Right Direction
Excuse the animal analogy, but it’s a lot like herding sheep. We can use our shepherd crooks to try and keep all the sheep headed in the direction we want. But there will always be some wayward lamb doing her own thing…
A lot of thought goes into finding the right motivation to get someone to do what we want. And there is no perfect solution or exact right process to get everyone to take action. Instead, it takes a lot of little nudges here and there to encourage folks in the right direction. So instead of thinking of doing one thing to steer our “flock”, start with a plan that has layer upon layer of tiny nudges along the way.