The Marketing Dance – Getting In Step With Your Customers

Conversion marketing is a conversation or dance between you and your customers.
Conversion marketing is a conversation or dance between you and your customers.

The Marketing Dance is the back and forth between marketer and customer. It is a conversation between 2 consenting adults with what we would hope is a common goal.

How you perform in these precious few moments of intimacy, will determine whether the song plays out as Stairway to Heaven – an 8 minute epic journey that builds to a crescendo of immeasurable grandeur, followed by the perfect date – or that awkward moment of silence where one party politely declines the untoward advances of the other.

The Start of the Dance

The dance begins with the request. The marketer bows gently, takes the customer’s hand and asks “may I have this dance?” Or more typically, BUY THIS NOW!!!!

It’s easy to produce a disconnect at this crucial time, and usually it’s the fault of the clumsy marketer who hasn’t thought carefully enough about the feelings of their intended partner.

Marketing Dance Lessons

Let’s take a moment to analyze this moment of interaction from inside the heads of both participants, and maybe we’ll unveil some secrets about how to be more appropriate on the dance floor.

Lesson 1 – What we think they think

First there’s the customers impression of you when they first arrive on your landing page after clicking on your upstream ad – or in this analogy, once they’ve accepted your request to dance. So what is going through their head? A lot of companies have a tendency to be overly optimistic at this point and assume the customer is thinking this:

  • These guys are awesome! I recognize the name and have heard great things about them.
  • This is exactly what I need.
  • I’d let this company watch my car while I run to get change for the parking meter, they’re so trustworthy.
  • I’ll take a 10 user license right now!

Ok, so that’s a slight exaggeration, but like I said, a little optimistic.

Lesson 2 – What they really think

A more realistic series of thoughts passing through your customer’s mind would be:

  • What is this?
  • How can it help me?
  • Why would I trust them with my money?
  • How do I participate?

Lesson 3 – How to dance correctly

Taking these simple yet extremely valuable questions, we can formulate a plan of attack to ensure the first dance leads to a trip to the punch bowl instead of the loser’s lounge. If your landing page can answer those 4 questions you will convert better, it’s that basic. The trick is to uncover tactics for answering those questions.

For some quick ideas you should download our 101 Landing Page Optimization Tips white paper which covers many of the tactical methods used to answer these questions. (Tip: focus on the “Fundamentals”, “Trust” and “Call to Action” sections).

Over the next few posts, I’m going to introduce you to a more in-depth methodology for this and it all starts with the 4 Truths of Conversion Marketing…

The 4 Truths of Conversion Marketing – How to Dance With Your Customers

By reverse engineering the questions your customers are posing, we arrive at a set of fundamental truths that can be used to develop a targeted approach to landing page conversion marketing.

Truth 1 – The customer knows nothing

Few customers actually know nothing, but it’s a good assumption to make as it allows you to start from an unbiased perspective.

Truth 2 – People want something that makes their life/job easier or more interesting

You need to be able to quickly and effectively educate your visitors about what your product or service can do for them. The key here is to focus primarily on benefits rather than features. Head & Shoulders would be nowhere if they’d come out trying to explain the scientific properties of their shampoo’s ingredients. But suggest that the product can improve the health of your scalp or fix your itchy head and people will relate to that without having to figure out how the features would help them.

Truth 3 – People are skeptical

Subtle trust cues can be used to help allay the fears of your potential customers. Professional design and usability best practices can go a long way to remove the initial instinctive gut reaction that occurs at first contact.

Truth 4 – A customer that can see how to participate is more likely to try

If a customer is ready to purchase, they should be given the white-glove treatment and gently and clearly guided toward the point of conversion. Let them put the coin in the slot, and make the slot very obvious.

Oli Gardner

To be continued…

In our next few posts we will be digging deeper into the 4 Truths of Conversion Marketing. We’ll also be building out a landing page conversion scorecard that provides you with a checklist of rules to apply in order to answer the 4 questions of the marketing dance.

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About Oli Gardner
Unbounce co-founder Oli Gardner has seen more landing pages than anyone on the planet. He’s obsessed with identifying and reversing bad marketing practices, and his disdain for marketers who send campaign traffic to their homepage is legendary, resulting in landing page rants that can peel paint off an unpainted wall. A prolific international keynote speaker, Oli is on a mission to rid the world of marketing mediocrity by using data-informed copywriting, design, interaction, and psychology to create a more delightful experience for marketers and customers alike. He was recently named the "The 2018 Marketer to Watch," in the under 46 category, by his mother.
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