Insights

If you have something great to say, why aren’t people listening?

Picture of Michael Jenkins
Michael Jenkins

Overview

Are you putting the wrong message in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Don’t you hate it when you know you’ve got a great message and no one seems to be listening?
The answer could be as simple as, you’re telling the wrong people. At the wrong time. Or telling it in the wrong place.

Spending money in the wrong places is one of the biggest mistakes we see people making.

In a world overflowing with information and constant digital noise, it’s disheartening when your message goes unnoticed or fails to resonate with your target audience. You may have something truly valuable to share, but if people aren’t listening, your efforts can feel futile. But fear not! In this insightful blog post, we will explore the reasons behind this communication conundrum and provide strategies to ensure your message captures the attention it deserves.

Communication is a fundamental aspect of human interaction, and effective communication goes beyond simply conveying information. It involves crafting a compelling narrative, understanding your audience’s needs and preferences, and delivering your message in a way that resonates with them. The power of communication lies not only in what you say but also in how you say it.

In this article, we will delve into various factors that may hinder effective communication. We will explore the importance of understanding your audience’s demographics, psychographics, and communication preferences to tailor your message effectively. Additionally, we will discuss the role of storytelling and emotional appeal in capturing and retaining attention.

We will address the impact of communication channels and mediums on the reception of your message. In today’s fast-paced digital era, the choice of platforms and the way you package your content can significantly influence whether people listen or overlook your message.

By understanding the dynamics of effective communication and implementing the strategies outlined in this article, you can increase the chances of your message being heard and appreciated. So, let’s embark on this journey of unraveling the mysteries of communication and discover how to captivate your audience and make them truly listen.

The right people often get the wrong marketing

People with great stories to tell should have a ready-made audience.


People who should be turning customers away are struggling to get anyone to notice what they’re selling.

Because they don’t understand how people make decisions online. Or because they put all their eggs into the wrong communication basket.

By understanding online behaviours, you can significantly raise your profit – by selling more, or reducing the cost per sale.

Consider these options:

1) Existing channel, systems and performance audit


2) Understand the buyer journey


3) Develop and commit to a strategy


4) Fine tune the messaging and the channel selection over time

Are you selling in the right places?


Have you done a recent channel audit? Would you perform better if you were telling your sales story on facebook? Or LinkedIn? Or in display? Are your back-end systems able to tell where your traffic is coming from?

Do you have an attribution strategy in place (do you know where people are getting there information about you, before they come to buy)? Would you be better placed to put all your communications on one channel?

CASE STUDY

How the right channel helped a waste removal company clean-up

Cleanaway supplies skips and cleaning bins to construction sites and industrial clients.

They were losing market share to competitors.
By analysing the customer order, we realised customers were ordering bins and skips later in the day (to arrange a bin for the next day) and first thing in the morning. By site managers on site.

We changed the strategy to a mobile-based strategy – running ads timed for these critical times (and not weekends) – and optimised the website for mobile applications so customers could easily click through and place their order from their mobile.
From the site.
And turned a losing argument into a winning campaign.

Where is the customer looking before they look to buy?

Do you understand the path a customer takes to buy your product? Where are they most likely to become aware of your offer? Where do they look to get information on you? Or your competitors?

One of the best tools you can have – you can create it yourself or have a proven and experienced digital agency help you – is a buyer journey.

Whoever creates it for you, make sure you consider:

Which channels are most effective for that type of customer?

What’s your budget?


How long do you expect that budget to perform for?


What exactly do you need or want the customer to do at each point?


Does your website have content you could be using to attract more attention?


Do you know how far towards the sale they are at each point?


Are you changing your messaging to accommodate people who are closer to a sale?


Could you be doing anything to bring them closer to the sale?

The long haul works

Commitment works. If you’re setting out to create a campaign that will attract people, engage them, keep them engaged and eventually get your money out of their pockets, it becomes easier if you give the strategy you develop enough time to work.

We work with our clients to set realistic expectations. While it can be relatively easy to get you onto the front page of a search result, translating that to sales needs to allow for a number of factors, each of which can lengthen or shorten the sales path depending on timing, channel selection and budget.

A good digital agency will step you through each point, helping you understand where each piece fits in the puzzle and giving you reasons to feel confident of staying with the strategy you go with.

Once you’ve started a campaign, and you’ve agreed a strategy and pressed the big GO button, you should start to see changes in your results.

You should continue to see changes, positive changes, in your performance.
Once you get some momentum into your sales engine, keep the momentum up by making sure you’re continuing to talk to the right people in the right place in the right way at the right time.

Remember, people change. Expectations change. The words that work one week may not work the next. But a good channel management professional will be able to keep you on top of the adjustments you need to make.


If you’ve done the hard work up front, the campaign should simply need evolving. You’ll be gaining invaluable data and contacts each time anyone visits or interacts with your messaging. Each piece of that data should help you create a campaign that can keep working over and over and over, with just some regular fine-tuning to ensure there’s always plenty of traffic on the highway to your bottom line.

Your audience is a moving target.

You need to continually check to make sure your marketing is hitting the right people at the right time.

A good SEO agency can help.

If you want proven, effective solutions to your challenges, talk to an agency that gets digital marketing, and has 10 years of industry-leading experience in the field. Call Shout today.

Shout logo in grey

As Founder and Director of Shout Web Strategy, Michael Jenkins is at the forefront of digital marketing. Since it’s inception in 2009, Shout has built a strong reputation as one of Australia’s leading strategic SEO agencies, assisting online businesses to formulate, implement and track successful marketing strategies. Michael is a respected thought leader and digital strategist, specialising in online strategy, corporate SEO, Google retargeting, email and conversion rate optimisation, and online reputation management. Follow Michael on Google+, connect with him through LinkedIn or visit the Shout Web Strategy website.

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