How to Transform Your Website With Your Personas and Goals In Mind

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Here at Sage Lion Media, we specialize in transforming our client’s websites to optimize their buyers journeys and encourage a seamless experience for their customers. Whether you are a non-profit news site, like our client The Wildlife Society, or an e-commerce brand, like our client Wilderton, we have the tools to transform your website and take it to the next level.

The Wildlife Society is a non-profit organization that supports wildlife professionals and students in their journey towards improving the future of wildlife, conservation, and the environment. When they approached us for a website update, their primary goal was to promote their memberships and annual conference. However, their existing website was cluttered with outdated information and difficult to navigate due to the sheer number of web pages. Despite the large scale of the project, we have a proven process that works for any website.

Our process consists of 5 key objectives: 

1) Establish buyer personas

We always begin our content transformation process by defining the personas and pain points of our clients’ customers. Buyer personas are a way to understand who your ideal customers are and how to market to them by analyzing psychographic and demographic data. Through building a buyer persona, you will better understand the customer’s pain points (or the problem your customer has that your product or service can solve) and what triggers them to purchase or sign up for your service.

It is typical to make more than one persona since there is never just one standard customer you are trying to target. Having personas made before writing the new website content allows us to better understand who we are speaking to and how we want to speak to them.

2) Define the brand tone

Next, we use the buyer personas as a guide to defining the brand tone. In this step we aim to understand the do’s and don’ts of how we want to speak to and market to each persona at each stage of the buyer’s journey. The content, tone, and goals will differ significantly at the awareness stage compared to the consideration or decision stage. Understanding this journey will help organically guide your customers through the website and ensure you have content that speaks to each part of their journey. 

3) Map out the customer journey

Once we understand the personas and how we are speaking to them, we then create a map outlining how we move each persona through the website through each step of the buyer’s journey. Establishing goals, calls-to-action (CTAs), and landing pages is critical at this stage. To do this, we look at each stage of the buyer’s journey and move each persona through the website to reach a goal.

4) Perform an audit

Content transformation doesn’t always mean you have to start from scratch. Auditing the content on the current website before you start the process of writing new content is extremely valuable. Through the audit, we can identify pieces of content that can be repurposed, updated, or deleted. Here we also identify gaps in the content and propose new landing pages that need to be created based on the previous step. Having an audit will create an organized outline of what needs to be done for the new website.

5) Fill in the gaps

Lastly, we create the missing content. After you have audited the website, we will clearly understand where the gaps are.. In this step we establish a site-map, clearly define the roles of the team, and begin writing content with the personas, brand tone, and customer journey clearly defined and in mind.

Is your website in need of a content transformation? Contact us today for a consultation and take one step closer to your new website.

5 Reasons to Set Up a Loyalty Program for Your Outdoor Brand

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No matter what your product or service is, outdoor companies face a ton of competition within the industry. As an outdoor brand, it is essential to find ways to keep your customers engaged and build brand loyalty among your competitors. Loyal customers do not just care about a great product but also how the brand engages with them and rewards them for this loyalty. Building loyal customers also encourages repeat purchases and referrals to friends and family. One of the best ways to reward your customers and build loyalty is by setting up a loyalty program. 

Loyalty programs have tons of benefits for your brand and your customers. According to Invesp, 76% of consumers think that loyalty programs are a part of their relationship with brands, 50% of consumers will change their purchasing behavior to reach a higher tier within a loyalty program, and 64% of retailers believer their loyalty program is one of the best ways to stay connected with their customers. Building a customer loyalty program is a mutually beneficial way to build brand loyalty, grow your brand, and create a community while rewarding your customers for sticking around. 

“76% of consumers think that loyalty programs are a part of their relationship with brands, 50% of consumers will change their purchasing behavior to reach a higher tier within a loyalty program, and 64% of retailers believer their loyalty program is one of the best ways to stay connected with their customers.”

Invespcro.com

Still not convinced? Here are 5 reasons why you should consider setting up a loyalty program:

1) Increased Repeat Business

Brands who have loyalty programs tend to have increased repeat business because their customers are being rewarded for their purchases. Offering incentives such as free or discounted products, exclusive access, and special offers will encourage customers to continue to shop your brand rather than shopping around for the best deal. 

2) Enhanced Customer Retention

Customers who feel valued tend to stick around and continue to do business with your brand. Although your brand may always want to be growing and gaining new customers, customer retention is just as important, if not more. As your brand continues to have increased repeat business, your customer retention is also going to increase making a group of brand loyal customers. Loyal customers often refer their friends and grow your brand through word of mouth marketing. Since this is part of customer retention, we suggest also setting up a referral program to go along with your loyalty program to continue to incentivize and reward your customers.

3) Improved Customer Engagement

When you create a loyalty program, you have the opportunity to create a new email segment consisting of your most loyal customers. We recommend creating one list consisting of all your loyalty members and additional separate lists if you have a tiered loyalty program. Segmenting your loyalty members will improve email engagement because these customers are typically seeking deals, exclusive offers, and other announcements. Being part of this segment is another incentive to join the loyalty program since they will receive exclusive emails as part of their membership. 

4) Receive Better Reviews

One way we’ve seen brands give customers opportunities to receive more reward points is by rewarding them for leaving reviews. Think of it this way – your customers enjoy your products enough to join your loyalty program so they will enjoy it enough to leave a positive review. Positive reviews help attract new customers, increase overall revenue, and convert prospective customers who need a little extra convincing. Overall, this will eventually lead to more loyal customers and members of your loyalty program. 

5) Increased Revenue

By increasing repeat business, incentivizing your customers, and having valuable customer engagement, businesses can see a significant boost in revenue due to their loyalty program. Customers participating in the loyalty program often spend more to reach the next reward or become a part of a higher tier, leading to larger average order sizes. 

Are you interested in setting up a loyalty program for your brand? Set up a consultation with us to discuss different plan options and get started on building yours today. 

3 ways to use sweepstakes to build an engaged audience

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Sweepstakes are more than just a giveaway

Running an effective sweepstakes is one of the most powerful marketing tools to help you build an engaged audience for your outdoor brand. In today’s day and age, having a large audience or contact list is not enough. New privacy restraints from companies like Apple have caused major data discrepancies in the email marketing sector for marketers and brands alike leading to unreliable reporting due to incomplete data collection in your CRM, such as lower email open rates. The solution? Understanding your audience and speaking to them directly. 

Across industries, we see sweepstakes being launched to hundreds of consumers where companies are only requiring names, email addresses, and sometimes extra things like social media follows to enter. While collecting emails on your entry form grows your contact list, the quality of your audience will likely diminish to individuals just seeking free products and will be unlikely to engage with your emails or convert to a customer in the future. When you create your entry form for your sweepstakes, we encourage you to ask 2-5 questions that will give you better insight into who your audience is. 

While collecting emails on your entry form grows your contact list, the quality of your audience will likely diminish to individuals just seeking free products and will be unlikely to engage with your emails or convert to a customer in the future.

Understanding your audience is important so you can effectively curate your marketing efforts in ways that will resonate with your audience and improve the chances of success and engagement. Once you start speaking to your audience directly, you will show them that you understand their problems and improve your KPI’s while doing it.

Here are our top three ways to build an engaged audience through your sweepstakes:

1. Psychographic Data

The first key to success with sweepstakes is to collect psychographic data about your audience. The easiest way to do this is to ask 3-5 questions as part of the form needed to enter the sweepstakes. We urge you to be intentional in the questions you ask your audience so the data will be useful in the future. We recommend starting with basic demographic questions such as name, age and location. Next we suggest asking questions that will help you understand your audience and inspire future content. Our client Pond King, a pontoon boat and pond management company, asks questions about fishing habits, what activities they enjoy doing on the water, and purchase intent in the future. Since asking these questions, we have created valuable content and segments that have helped us understand their audience and boost engagement. 

audience graphic

2. Personalized Content

Once you have launched your sweeps and begun collecting psychographic data, it is time to build personalized content to help you stand out and improve your marketing performance. In today’s digital age where consumer’s inboxes are flooded with marketing emails, consumers appreciate a high level of personalization in the content they receive. Examples of personalization in email marketing can include: using the customers name in the subject line, sending them content that responds to the psychographic data you have collected about them, and tailoring your marketing emails to products or collections that interest them. Overall, personalization in email marketing will lead to increased engagement, higher conversion rates, and greater customer loyalty. 

3. Iterations

Building an engaged audience takes time and iterations. Once you’ve begun collecting psychographic data and personalizing content, you must analyze the data and feedback from your marketing campaigns and adjust as needed. This may mean refining your questions in your sweepstakes, adjusting your buyer personas to include new information, or building new informational landing pages that you can run advertisements to. The sweepstakes is not only meant for your current customers but also to attract new ones and build your customer retention. 

marketing metrics

Running an effective sweepstakes for your outdoor brand requires being strategic in the creation of your sweepstakes. The best strategy is to ask meaningful questions to your audience to collect and utilize psychographic data. Personalizing your outdoor marketing content to the consumers needs and desires will create loyal and engaged customers that feel understood and attract new ones that will feel more connected to your brand. By following these best practices, you can improve your marketing performance and have a better engaged audience. 

Are you interested in launching a sweepstakes? Contact us today for a consultation. 

How to Build a Buyer Persona and Why They Matter

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Even the best marketing strategies and tactics can only get you so far if you do not know who you’re marketing to. Creating a buyer persona is an integral part of marketing. Buyer personas help outdoor marketers and businesses understand the needs, desires, and habits of their customers while also predicting what triggers them to buy their product or service. 

What is a buyer persona?

The point of a buyer persona is to better understand who your ideal customer is and how to market to them. A buyer persona is your ideal customer avatar that represents one of your key target audiences. We recommend making more than one persona since often your data will be composed of a variety of people. Your personas will be created by assessing the demographic and psychographic data that you have accumulated since the start of your business. 

Follow this blog and learn the 6 steps to building your buyer persona.

1. Demographics

First let’s think about demographics. Demographic data is collected information used to inform researchers and outdoor marketers about the characteristics of your outdoor customers. While this may be surface level information, it is integral to understanding your audience and building your persona. Demographic data can help you answer the following questions: How old is your audience? What part of the world or country do they live in? How much money do they make per year? Do they have a family? Are they single or married? These high level questions are the first step in identifying the persona you will be building. 

Demographic data has helped us understand key features of this persona including income range, age, family, education, and location. We recommend choosing a photo for your persona that will embody these characteristics so you can better visualize who you are speaking to. 

2. Psychographics

Psychographic data is collected to better understand why the population buys and does the things they do through collecting data about their lifestyles, behaviors, and habits. Psychographic data is harder to get but is extremely helpful in building and validating buyer personas. The best way to collect psychographic data is to ask your audience directly through surveys and forms throughout your website. Psychographic data helps us build a bio for our personas as seen in this example:

Creating a bio for your persona unpacks the lifestyle, hobbies, and the interests of your outdoor customers and helps marketers understand the language to use while writing things like website copy or ads. 

3. Build a User Story

Once you understand who your persona is, build a user story for them. A user story describes what the persona is ideally looking for without necessarily identifying how your product or service can help. Building a user story helps outdoor marketers understand potential pain points and goals that their products or services can help ease or how they can fit into the personas lifestyle. 

user story example

The user story can be brief but should have enough information to help frame the goals and triggers of the persona. 

4. Identify Goals and Triggers

The goals of the persona should take into account the lifestyle and values they hold. Are they on a budget and looking to save money? Do they want to spend more time with family? Do they have time for a high maintenance project or product? Look back at your profile, bio, and user story to estimate what these goals will be. 

Triggers are the things that push your persona to finally purchase the product or service. Maybe they’re looking for a replacement for something they’ve had for years or are seeking a solution to a new problem they’ve been having. Understanding your persona’s triggers will come in handy when the customer is getting close to a purchasing decision. If you touch on their pain points in your ads or website copy, they will feel more inclined to buy. 

5. Understand Your Persona at Each Stage of the Buyer Journey

The buyer journey is broken down into awareness, self-educating, consideration, rationalizing, and decision. As your persona moves throughout these stages of the journey, the way you should interact with them will vary. In the awareness stage, they may not even know they have a problem or that your company exists. In this stage it is important to show them your brand and products without pushing sales too much. Once they realize your product and brand is right for them, your interactions are going to eventually lead to a sale. To understand this journey, map out potential questions your persona may have as they move through each stage and create landing pages and ads that help move them to the next stage.

6. Build the Persona

Once you’ve completed each of these steps, download our buyer persona template and fill out the document to build your persona. 

Creating buyer personas is the first step in transforming your outdoor content and marketing efforts. Humanizing your data this way will help your outdoor marketing team stay on track and be consistent with your messaging across all channels and generate more sales for your brand.

Are you interested in starting your content transformation? Contact us today for a consultation. 

How To Leverage Video In Your Sales & Marketing Campaigns

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Generating views for videos can be quite hard for any company. Some have never tried to develop a video marketing campaigns for their users at all. This is an untapped gold mine for a lot of businesses. And deserves the attention of anyone looking to generate leads on the web. Your video marketing campaign(s) should be centered around your viewer and use the following for engagement techniques.

Video marketing campaigns is the next frontier for data mining

Unique & Creative Content

Any video marketing campaign should start out with a vision of how you want your viewers to interact with your brand. Whether you are looking to be informational, demonstrational, or abstract, you should put yourself in the shoes of your viewer. To better understand how they will digest your content. The creation of engaging content can be extremely powerful for developing your customer base and creating brand recognition.

Personalization

Personalization in video marketing campaigns can be leveraged with various data points. Mainly your user’s current or past web behaviors. This could be a first name, the name of company employees, and any other data point you could think of. This kind of personalization engages the viewer and demonstrates a perceived knowledge of their business and/or industry. Personalized advertisements make us feel like something was created specifically for us.

Longer Videos

While our attention spans may be shortening, longer videos are engaging users at high rates. If complex topics require time to explain, the explanation should get the time it deserves. The viewer will quickly understand the value of a long-form explanation.

Someone sticking around for a longer video is more likely to convert into a customer as well. Or at the very least, tells us they’re an engaged & valuable contact.

Interactive 360 Degree Video

VR experiences and augmented reality continue to improve and enter households across the nation. The possibilities are endless for demonstration videos, action videos, walkthroughs, and so much more.

Many users who find these videos entertaining say they would be willing to interact with brand videos if they were deployed. Major brands continue to enter this space and you could potentially benefit from the production of these types of videos.

Searchability – Search Engine Optimization

Videos contain metadata related to the topics found in the video. If you produce a long-form video, your video could be packed full of valuable keywords. This provides positive ranking effects on your website.

Businesses live and die on Google therefore it is important to have a plan for getting ranked on search engines for the keywords related to your product or service.

Using any or all of the above will help you create clients or customers that stay engaged with your product or service. Choose the ones that you think you can engage with and provide the best value, or contact us for a consultation today.

SEO vs. SEM: How the Outdoor Industry is Paving the Way

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Depending on what you may have read, what others have told you, and your own past experiences, you may have formulated thoughts on SEO or SEM and how they can impact your bottom line. Built and managed the right way both of these avenues can lead to huge potential ROI. We have seen the greatest success in running these campaigns side by side and can attribute that success to a few factors which we will discuss below.

Long road for SEO

SEO & SEM: What’s the Difference?

SEO is the practice of implementing content and technical changes on your website to send Google and other search engines the right signals for the keywords you would like to rank for. SEM involves paying for clicks or visibility in front of the audience of your choice. This can include ads on Google, Facebook, Amazon, LinkedIn and more. While SEO is a much more organic play with factors involving domain age and links from other websites pointing to your site, SEM is much more predictable. You have much more control of who sees what and how they interact with your media with an SEM campaign.

Combining SEO and SEM for a Marketing Powerhouse

If you are able to rank organically on the first page of a search engine results page, you are in the mix and should be driving valuable traffic to your website. If your traffic is not converting, it may be time to look at building a brand story. Once you’ve established this traffic, you could look at turning on ads for the keywords you are on the first page for. The real estate you cover on the page will keep your product or service at the top of the viewer’s mind. Even if they scroll past your paid ad, they are more prone to visit your site via the organic listing because they’ve seen you before. This leads to higher click through rate for your organic traffic and costs you nothing. As long as you have a proper margin established with your product you can find out exactly how much each lead will cost you and audit viability on various keywords as you move through the process of research. The key is finding and building out keywords without as much competition. They may not carry the volume, but they will convert at a much higher rate. This typically comes in the form of more specific keywords built into your paid ad campaign.

What if I Have a New Website?

New websites are much harder to rank organically than sites that have been around for years. Brand new websites look fishy to Google from the start and it is important to get off on the right foot as Google and other search engines crawl and index your website. It takes time to build up content and begin to establish yourself as a knowledge resource with Google. The more content you create and the more people who link to that content creates more trust with Google and other search engines. This process takes time, and depending on the competition you are trying to enter the space with, you could be looking at years to see the results you are truly looking for. Paid ads become an efficient and measurable way to generate leads in this lead time. Some people have referred to this as the “reverse SEO” strategy, but we call it common sense. You can’t sit on your hands watching your rankings move from page 9 to page 2 with no direct increase in leads or sales for months and not get antsy.  Creating, refining, and executing an advanced SEM strategy can generate the leads and cash flow you are looking for initially while you execute your SEO strategy. Once you reach the first page in organic listings, you could scale back your ad spend and evaluate maximization of your ROI. Having the right partner to create and manage your SEM campaign can be the difference between success and failure.

There are many ways to integrate SEO and SEM into the same strategy, creating a cohesive and engaging process for your audience. Combining these two important marketing tactics can revolutionize your leads, conversions, and sales. Contact Sage Lion Media to learn more.

5 Top Video Marketing Recording Devices for 2020

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As we approach 2020, it is important to stay on top of changing industry trends to ensure you are staying at the forefront of video marketing content. Users love being fed fresh, high-quality content and we have put together our top 5 video recording devices coming in 2020.

Portal+ from Facebook

With innovative and fresh ideas constantly coming out from the Facebook team, it is hard to discount the power this social media behemoth has. Facebook portal is primarily used for parents and other family members who are far away, but there are many more uses for this tool than chatting with family. With AI technology in their camera, it tracks you as you move around the room. This could be an excellent tool for someone looking to present via facebook live. Product demonstrations and tutorials could move out to your user base with buttery ease and you’ll look great doing it because the quality is HD, depending on connection.

Mirrorless

Mirrorless cameras continue to shine in the space and only continue to improve in quality and processing power. The Sony Alpha line dominates the space. And further adjustments to the device have only made it better. Having the ability to interchange your lens for different types of shots sets this camera (and the DSLR) apart from other options. Mirrorless cameras are light and easy to manage. You may run into trouble with previewing low light shots since the mirrorless camera cannot receive as much light as a DSLR or regular 35mm camera.

DSLR

The acronym DSLR has stuck with the video marketing community for years. This once innovative technology continues to improve in processing power and speed. Unlike its mirrorless counterpart, DSLR cameras work in very much the same way as 35mm cameras. With mirrors being used to reflect the light. This helps your efforts considerably in low light situations. DSLRs are also able to preview images in much better quality because of the advanced mirror system found within the body of the camera. Both mirrorless and DSLR options have the ability to interchange lenses on the fly. Envision yourself capturing a wide angle shot for creative effect, and then utilizing a superzoom lens for more detailed, close up shots of your product or service.

GoPro Hero 8 Black

GoPros have been part of industry standard since 2004 since the product’s launch. Constant improvements have continued to section this device off as a powerhouse for action video recording. With features like automatic image stabilization and 360 degree video recording, the GoPro Hero 8 is sure to have something that will please you and your consumers. The camera continues to add features and functionality to improve you video recording experience and quality overall. Addons like microphones, lights, and preview screens improve upon this experience. We are always excited to see what the GoPro team comes out with next.

Smartphone

Our handheld devices are powerhouses of technology so it makes sense to utilize these tools as well. Your phone is typically always on your person, so a quick video, live recording, or picture can happen at a moment’s notice. As the hardware and quality improves in our devices, so does the potential for video marketing. If you add on features and tools like image/video production applications, external tools like image stabilization and clip on lenses, you are sure to have a polished product come out on the other end.

Stay on top of trends and changes to the outdoor industry in our blog found here. The space is constantly changing. You should have a guide to help you clear out the unnecessary information. And keep you in front of your consumers with the best tech available.

Do’s and Dont’s of Content Marketing in the Outdoor Industry

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Much of our approach to content involves building a story for your outdoor brand. There are a few key foundational ideas in building this story which led us to produce a list of do’s and dont’s of content marketing in the outdoor industry.

Have a Content Marketing Strategy

A content strategy unifies your content marketing efforts across many avenues. While developing this strategy is definitely important, sticking to it is even more so. A well-built strategy will have exact deadlines and be closely monitored to quickly determine when things have moved out of the timeline. Often, communication can break down across team lines. But having a comprehensive content strategy ensures everyone is writing for the same goal. No matter the topic or client.

Make Your Customer The Hero Of Your Content Marketing

Painting your user as the hero places them as a protagonist. Maybe your customer sees you as Yoda, but more importantly, they see themselves as Luke Skywalker. Understanding the desires of your potential consumers, and positioning yourself as a guide with solutions is key to content creation that converts.

Have a Content Marketing Checklist

Creating and sticking to a content marketing checklist ensures your valuable content is being spread across vital channels quickly and efficiently. For example, as you post your blog to your website, you can have it auto-upload to your facebook wall or story. Confirm it was posted properly, and check it off the list.

Track All the Data

The amount of data we are able to collect using Google is staggering, so customizing it and honing it down to 2-3 key performance indicators can keep you out of the tall grass when looking at the data itself. Determining the metrics you want your users to hit helps you to understand what it is you want your customers to do when they interact with your website or product.

Don’t Get Tunnel Vision

We get so consumed in our own brands and own identity that we forget to see what others are doing. This may be in the form of competition research or simply browsing the web. Analyzing specific assets you like on other websites and finding ways to incorporate them into your strategy (the right way) can set up your business for success. A tool like evernote can easily snap, store, and organize all of your findings into something manageable and shareable. Paying attention to outdoor industry trends leads to more creativity and fresh ideas.

Don’t Talk About Yourself

Explaining your offering and gloating are two different things. You should stay far away from gloating about your brand. One, it doesn’t paint the user as the hero (as mentioned above). And two, it really doesn’t do much for the user if you aren’t engaging and offering a solution. Stay away from words like “we” or “our company” and try to limit the “since 19xx” quotes.

Don’t Be Too Hard on Yourself

Content strategy is complex and always changing. You should not get down if your blogs are not converting like you originally thought. Look at all of this as a work in progress to educate yourself and your potential customers. Authority is built over time. Taking the step to simply DO it is just half the battle. Keep it up!

5 Reasons to Increase Your Content Marketing Efforts

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We all build content intended to convert traffic into leads and then into customers. Each company with a desire to be successful wants to establish itself as a knowledge source in the space. We write blogs such as this one to try to establish some of that trust and authoritativeness, as well as expertise.

Most companies know they need to increase their content marketing efforts, but many don’t know where to start. Here are a few reasons to start today.

Brand Reputation

As you produce more and more content, you become a one-stop resource for your users. The typical user wants to learn about your company and investigate your service or product. Building content intended to inform, engage, convert and create trust with your users is how a successful company gains a supportive following. An excellent experience centered around your content will keep them coming back for more.

As your brand reputation and awareness increases, so does a return on the investment. Content is becoming the way you establish and nurture the relationships with your customers.

Conversions

Conversions are the lifeblood of your business and the overall reason to engage in paid media advertisements, content marketing, and SEO. However not all conversions are created equal. There may be leads that need to be nurtured over time to produce the kind of traction you are looking for. 

Purpose-driven content builds a user flow you want your users to follow when they engage with your product. Giving direct calls to action and trying to inform the periphery about your product while not having to be as hands-on can help you produce better results more quickly. A good content marketing plan puts the tools in the hands of your users to spend money with you in some way. Whether this is through donations, product purchases, or newsletter sign-ups, we know how to convert your readers into paying customers with outdoor content marketing.

SEO

SEO is an attempt to build out web pages with the intention of ranking higher on Google. The first step to a comprehensive SEO campaign is research. Identify what people are searching for to find your product or service. If you build your brand according to the building a story brand guide, and include specific keywords you think will convert users, you will start to see more organic traffic rolling in. 

Organic traffic should be easier to convert since these potential customers are actively seeking a solution. We all go straight to Google to find the services and products we need. The user interface and user experience on your website will eventually become your success or downfall.

Cost Effectiveness

An engaging content marketing plan for the outdoor industry is extremely cost-effective. Many companies build their services or products on paid advertisements. But this route can just lead to frustrations down the road if you don’t keep it up. If 70% of your traffic comes from paid ads, you are heavily relying on those paid ads to perform.

We understand you are an expert in your field. And every piece of content you produce is going to develop the trust with your users to understand your business. Content is a much more natural way for you to engage with your users.

Many times paid ads are built to convert quickly. You have an ad running, and a landing page used to collect information. But giving them the option to deep dive into your content will leave them feeling knowledgeable. And if they would like to reach out, making it an easy and positive experience is imperative to converting that traffic.

Traffic

Using content marketing to generate trust with your users leads to higher traffic and more eyes on your product or service. Therefore, creating unique, insightful and engaging content will improve the “first impression” your new users receive. And then greatly contributes to nurturing your returning visitors as they progress through your website. 

Google understands how users interact with your website. Establishing your brand as an educational resource in your space keeps them coming back for more. If you pair this with a monthly newsletter for people to sign up and receive updates, you will have an easier time offering valuable resources to your website traffic over time.

What To Do If You’re Struggling With Top Of The Funnel Strategies

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If your company is struggling at the top of the funnel, we’ve got 5 tips that will attract prospects to your website and convert qualified leads into sales.

Your outdoor company has built a beautiful website and the sales team is ready to answer any questions prospects have. But they’re waiting…and waiting…and waiting.

The sales team has received a few calls and emails but only a handful are qualified leads and they’re not converting. What’s an outdoor marketing team to do?

What Is A Marketing Funnel?

The marketing funnel is the process of turning prospects into customers. Today, we’ll just go into the three most common stages of the marketing funnel. But if you’re interested in turning your loyal customers into brand promoters, check out this blog post.

Top of the funnel strategy

All versions of the marketing funnel start with awareness. Prospects need to know your company exists and understand your services or products before they can become a customer.

The next stage is consideration. This is where prospects turn into qualified leads. These prospective customers are more invested in learning about your outdoor company. With the right lead nurturing, they can be converted into customers.

The final stage of the marketing funnel is conversion. The prospect has gone from visitor to qualified lead, to customer.

Deeper Dive Into ToFu Marketing

Marketers love seeing more visitors on their website and views on their blogs. Attracting visitors to your website is what top of the funnel (aka ToFu marketing) is all about. And if you want to turn visitors into loyal customers, you need a strong top of the funnel.

Customers at the top of the funnel are just beginning their search to address a problem. They know they need something new but aren’t sure what they’re looking for. An example of this would be, planning to go fly fishing in Montana but not sure where to find the best rivers for cutthroat. These prospects are just browsing the infinite web to gather information.

Marketers can use ToFu marketing strategies to bring awareness to prospects as they search for solutions to their problems.

The key to top of the funnel marketing is driving quality traffic to your site and nurturing them into a lead.

When marketers focus more on the amount of traffic they get to their site, they end up having a low conversion rate. They can also frustrate their sales team when they hand off “leads” that aren’t truly leads. Just because someone has landed on your site, doesn’t mean they’re ready for sales to give them a call or send them a personalized email.

Top of the funnel marketing is all about bringing awareness to your brand and guiding potential prospects in the process of solving their problem. When we work with clients on ToFu marketing, we approach projects looking for short-term wins and long-term gains.

Short-Term Wins

We live in a world where people want results instantly. We want our clients to see leads right away so we develop a strategy for short-term wins. When it comes to top of the funnel marketing, our focus in the short-term is keywords, meta descriptions, and a PPC strategy.

Man placing hand next to the keyboard of a laptop

Focus On Keywords & Meta Descriptions

Building content around keywords can drive prospects to your website. When people search for yourkeywords, make sure your meta descriptions are accurate and the content is relevant so you don’t increase your bounce rate.

Have a Pay-Per-Click Strategy

The easiest way to attract people to your website is to use broad keywords in pay-per-click campaigns. They may not always turn into leads but this will raise your brand outreach with more eyeballs on your website. It’s much easier to rank for broad keywords than long-tail keywords.

Long-Term Gains

As those begin to gain traction, we transition into long-term gains. And long-term gains is all about quality content. The key to top of the funnel content is to convert and nurture using the content you feel solves their specific pain point.

Social Media Is Your Friend

Facebook is still the ruler of social media but with their on-going algorithm changes there is a constant battle of iteration and decision making which tends to lead us into analysis paralysis. Quickly adapting to these changes will ensure your campaigns are fine tuned for any issue that might arise. Social media is a low-cost to entry spot for brand awareness. Social media is a long-term gain because it takes time to build up your page. You need engaged fans and valuable content like videos to become a trustworthy source of information. Social media isn’t free but targeted ads can be a low-cost way to build brand awareness and drive traffic to your page or website.

Create A User-Friendly Website

This might sound obvious but it must be said. I’m sure you’ve found yourself on a website that took forever to load, was hard to navigate, or wasn’t mobile-friendly. And what did you do? Immediately leave. It’s important for companies to invest in their website so it not only looks professional but encourages users to stay on the site.

Camera set up overlooking canyon

Generate Valuable Content

What is the first thing you do when you need to solve a problem? Ask Jeeves. I mean Google! And from there, Google can take you down a spiral of blogs, videos, podcasts, and more to help you solve that problem. No matter what product or service you’re selling, adding relevant content to your site will help not only attract people to your site but generate qualified leads. If you are a lodge that takes anglers on fly fishing excursions, then create blogs that talk about the best rivers for cutthroat trout or a video on how to release a deep hooked fish. Providing solutions helps outdoor companies build trust with prospects.

Slow & Steady Wins The Race

Why would you ask a prospect to buy your service or product the second they subscribe to your email list? Remember that top of the funnel marketing is all about awareness. Prospects are just learning about your company so it’s important to nurture your leads. Send them a welcome email with links to blogs or videos that might help them solve their problem.

Generating Qualified Leads At The Top Of The Funnel

Building a strong marketing funnel takes work at the top. It’s important to spend time educating prospects and building awareness if companies want to generate more qualified leads. Your company can be positioned to keep your funnel full with our 5 tips that focus on short-term wins and long-term gains.