Ad awakening, cool content ideas, Reddit rescue

#1
Why ideal client avatars are garbage

Coming in hot is Brand Scientist Nmadinobi Chloé Nwangwu's insights into why ideal client avatars are garbage. And I gotta say, I agree with her take. This 4-parter pokes holes at traditional personas that tend to hang hope on demographics and psychographics. In fact, when we ignore behavioural factors, we may actually be adding to the noise we're trying to cut through. While contributing to cognitive bias "responsible for the underrecognition of certain kinds of people and communities".

If you've been looking for the intersection of marketing smarter and elevating visibility of underrepresented folk, this series is for you!

My question to you: do you have a document that captures who you want to attract and why they should pick you? I promise this document is more important for your business growth than your content planner.

I know, I know. Reddit makes me feel a lot of things too. But it's saved my butt 3 times in recent memory*, so I'm softening to it again.

MarketingProfs highlights some audience research gold nuggets in the rise of Reddit as a search engine. Taken from an Adobe Express survey are interesting notes such as:

Top searches: authentic product/service reviews
Top categories: tech, news, personal finance

Looping back in Nmadinobi Chloé's concepts of really understanding the folk we want to attract, Reddit can be an illuminating resource to see how your services fit into your ideal audience's world. Will the answers be sometimes devastatingly frank? Ohhhh, you bet. But ya know what? Us brands gotta step out of our carefully crafted bubbles sometimes and see our ecosystem through our prospects' eyes. What they actually think literally matters more than whatever we're trying to portray.

Also, Reddit content is crawled by Google, so there's SEO opportunity as well!

My question to you: do you proactively seek out your prospects' objections, confusion, and misconceptions so you can address them in your marketing?

#3
The 95-5 rule: the reminder we all need regarding B2B ad conversion

LinkedIn's 95-5 Rule article reminds us to chill with unrealistic expectations that ads will result in sales in roughly 2 weeks.

In short: 95% of your audience is not ready to buy ("out market"). Leaving 5% "in market", ready and poised to do so.

So just focus on the 5% right? Ehhhhhh. Still gotta get them from not knowing you even exist to considering you're worthy of being chosen over all the other solutions out there.

Before ya dismiss this as LinkedIn trying to sell more ad space, it actually does track to what we know in buyer journeys and marketing/sales funnels.

My question to you: have you considered adjusting your ad budget to include building up awareness and consideration campaigns?

#4
Your ordinary is your audience's extraordinary

Offering B2B service means we're a very passionate, nerdy lot. Sometimes we get so caught up in what's new and exciting in our fields, we forget that the "ordinary" might be super duper interesting to prospects. Your ordinary is your audience's extraordinary

Rachel Karten (referencing a conversatio nwith Dan Titmuss) explores this concept with examples embedded throughout the article. Bookmark this to spark conversation at your next content brainstorming session!

My question to you: what if you approached video content as fun behind-the-scenes shenanigans instead of highly produced mini commercials?

Soooo... what if what you offer isn't something people will publicly admit they need?

Do you offer B2B services around themes that are sensitive in nature or highly innovative?

If so, how in the heck do you get engagement when folk won't publicly show interest?

As in, they’re not comfortable:

→ Commenting on your posts.
→ Resharing your content.
→ Booking a call.

Why would they?

What you talk about isn’t something they’ll publicly admit is a problem. So there goes all the "identify hand raiser" tactics in traditional marketing.

Or maybe you're so innovative they don't understand and thus perceive you as "risky". It's hard to move away from status-quo for a reason.

Whatever the case, they don’t trust your team enough to book a discovery call, or your calendar would be full right now.

This is why I feel strongly that the mindset of “social media engagement = our marketing worked” is myopic and harmful.

My concern is amazing teams are limiting the positive impact they can achieve, because of an over-reliance of prospects making the first move. Or, confusing comments and likes as proof they're ready to explore. If you work in:

- Crisis management
- DEI
- Environment
- Ethics & Compliance
- Healthcare & Life sciences
- HR
- IT & Security
- Nonprofit
- Social impact

…it’s time for marketing that meets prospects where they are. Some things off the top of my head:

→ Inviting 1:1 conversation in the DMs.
→ Collaborating with brands they trust more than yours.
→ Using "private" channels like email, podcasts, and blogging.
→ Focusing on their world instead of your solutions.

If you want to learn how to do this with care while driving growth... reply to this email with the word 'CARE'.