Keeping Food Markets Working

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This manual has been produced by the Keeping Food Markets Working (KFMW) programme of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition with funding from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development of Canada, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The views expressed herein are the responsibility of GAIN and do not necessarily reflect the views of the supporting organisations. Any errors are our own.

COPYRIGHT © GAIN, 2021 This training module and its contents are protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights. These rights are and will at all times remain owned or controlled by GAIN. © Copyright GAIN – Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition. All rights reserved.

The GAIN name and logo are registered trademarks. Your access to or use of the materials within this training module does not entitle you to copy, reproduce, modify, disseminate, publish or otherwise exploit the GAIN name and logo except with the prior consent of GAIN. Any use of the GAIN name and logo without GAIN’s prior permission is prohibited. If GAIN has approved your use of the GAIN name and logo, such use will be subject to GAIN’s Standard Terms and Conditions for the Use of GAIN Name and Logo and GAIN’s Guidelines on the Use of the GAIN Logo. For more information on the GAIN name and logo, please contact GAIN. Some materials in this training module are published with the permission of the relevant copyright owners. All rights in such material are reserved and you must seek the permission of the copyright owners before you copy any such material. If you feel any information in this training module infringes the copyright of any person or organisation, please contact GAIN. 2 I Digital Marketing Manual for SMEs

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Table of Contents Digital marketing manual for SME’s involved in healthy food products................................................................................................................................ 6 1. Module One: Introduction to Digital Marketing:...................................................................... 10 2. Module Two: Target Customer Profiling:.................................................................................. 10 3. Module Three: Unique Selling Proposition (USP):.................................................................... 10 4. Module Four: Social Media Marketing:.................................................................................... 10 5. Module Five: Conversion and Referral Strategy:...................................................................... 10 6. Module Six: Customer Retention Strategy:................................................................................ 10 7. Module Seven: Marketing & Promotional Materials:................................................................. 10 8. Module Eight: Proposed joint ventures & partnership:.............................................................. 10 Final evaluation: Completed digital marketing canvas:..............................................................10

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Providing targeted support to help sustain core food systems, workers, and markets during COVID-19 emergency.

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Introduction In response to the corona virus pandemic, GAIN developed the Keeping Food Markets Working (KFMW) programme to provide targeted support to help sustain core food systems, workers, and markets during COVID-19 emergency. The programme has the overarching goal of mitigating the risk of economic collapse of food systems in order to sustain the availability and affordability of nutritious and safe foods, and contribute to lowering the burden of ill-health, particularly for the most vulnerable.

Within the programme is the Building Resilience of Nutritious Food SMEs in the Food System project.

Through this, GAIN is supporting Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that produce nutritious foods to weather the current crisis and to guard against future shocks in seven countries in subSaharan Africa and Asia.

To contribute towards this supporting SMEs to weather the pandemic and walks towards resilience, GAIN has developed a digital marketing training content to be delivered, through joint trainings, to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) involved in the production of nutritious foods. This document is to be used by GAIN to accompany the delivery of a joint training workshop on digital marketing for SMEs within its networks.

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What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing is any form of marketing that exists online. It encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media platforms, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers.

While traditional marketing might exist in print ads, phone communication, or physical marketing, digital marketing can occur electronically and online. This means that there are far more possibilities for brands to reach customers, including email, video, social media, and search engines.

Digital marketing is about creating messaging, getting it in front of your target audience, measuring the effectiveness in terms of conversions or sales, and revising and optimizing your campaigns based on the feedback.

Digital marketing is vital for your business and brand awareness. Many brands have a website. And if they don’t, they at least have a social media presence or digital ad strategy. Digital content and marketing are now so common that consumers expect and rely on them as a way to learn about brands.

To be competitive as a business owner, you’ll need to embrace some aspects of digital marketing.

Because digital marketing has so many options and strategies associated with it, you can get creative and experiment with a variety of marketing tactics on a budget. With digital marketing, you can also use tools like analytics dashboards to monitor the success and ROI (Return on Investment) of your campaigns more than you could with traditional promotional content — such as a billboard or print ad.

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Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media platforms, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers.

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What is digital marketing strategy?

Strategy means thinking about why you’re doing something before you do it. Starting your digital marketing strategy is as simple as starting with why you want to do it, deciding what you want to do, how you’re going to do it, what you expect to happen, and when and how you’ll measure your success.

Reasons Why You’ll Want To Create A Digital Marketing Strategy: • Brand awareness. You want more people to know about your brand (or your products and services).

• Acquisition or lead generation. Reach people who’ve never bought from you before and bring them into your buyer’s journey.

• Growth from existing customers. You want people who’ve already bought from you before to buy more frequently or buy a different kind of product.

Developing your Digital Footprint A digital footprint is the impression you create on the internet through your online activity, which includes browsing, interactions with others, and publication of content.

Developing a positive digital footprint will include: • Researching your company name on different search engines & setting up an alert for future notifications.

• Having different email addresses, so professional and personal accounts are not automatically associated with one another.

• Setting up a company profile aligned with the vision and mission of the company on the key platforms as highlighted below.

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Set a measurable goal Looking at the types of goals we’ve set out below, pick one to concentrate on. Understanding the goal you’re trying to hit is the first step to reaching it.

Website: Focus on having a well-designed website that is modern, updated often, mobile friendly, has a solid-engaging landing page.

1. Tell your story visually. Recognize the critical importance of having quality video and static images.

Use keywords for finding your business on your landing page.

2. Utilize keywords (1-2 words), but also long-tail keywords (phrases 3 words or longer). To see what search keywords are trending and compare keywords, go to Google Trends.

3. Contact and Business Information: Make sure you have your full contact information and hours of operation on your website. This should be more than just a “fillable” form that someone has to complete to have you contact them.

4. Here are the top five platforms that allow you to build a free website with no technical skills required & bring your vision to life. With a free website setup, you can launch a professional, customized site within hours.

• https://www.wix.com/ • https://www.squarespace.com/ • wordpress.com • networksolutions • weebly.com Social Media: Utilize social media platforms and get your product in front of the identified target audience.

• Getting started suggestion—start with Facebook, then if desired also include other platforms.

Facebook is the most important and you don’t have to be on all the channels. One good channel is far better than being on three or more and not having the branding and image maintained correctly. However, this would depend on the profile of consumers that you are targeting as we will see in the next lesson.

• When using Facebook, follow the 4-1-1 Social Media posting rule. Focus on content marketing strategies that provide “value” to your consumers, not just push a product onto them. What this means is out of every six posts, four of the posts should be about one type of content (such as educational or entertaining, content that is new and interesting), one post will be a soft promotion (news, event happening, or shared content, un-gated content), and one post can be a hard promotion with a call-to-action (contest, self-serving post).

• Standout from the clutter of content – Tell a story. Remember consumers want authenticity. Tell your story, provide real-life experiences. Don’t treat the message as an “ad” or you may be simply ignored. Tell something unique about your brand, yourself. Think of a story or the experience you can share through the “ad.”

• Use video to tell a story—customer testimonials, product demonstration videos, video behind the

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scenes, tutorial videos, event videos, thought leader videos, etc. Depending on the industry and type of video content, video can increase conversion 200% to 1500%.

• Note that organic reach on Facebook has diminished. Research from several sources report that organic reach can be as low as 2% to 10%. It does not work to just post and hope someone reads it. Paid Facebook advertising is very important, but again, with your message-Tell a story. At least, “boost” your post to a defined target market. Better yet, create Facebook ads and utilize this expanding opportunity to reach consumers for minimal cost in most cases.

Digital Listings: Claim all digital listings-search your small business online and locate any listings that “pop-up”, then go through the process of claiming your business, most of which are free. (Yelp, Google, Foursquare, Bing, Citysearch, Yext, Yahoo!, Angie’s List, etc.)

1. Google your business to see what kind of reviews pop up.

2. Set up a Google business account and be proactive in filtering your reviews. Check out what is being said about your business using such filters as “Google News”, Twitter search and Netvibes.

3. Decide what digital content channels and social networks will contain most of your business information.

4. Have a discussion with your business staff about how everyone can contribute or be designated to play a critical role in your company’s digital information outlets.

5. Create a strategy with a set plan of what you want to accomplish for the voice of your content brand. Make sure the strategy you choose has room for change and adaptation to new trends and technologies.

6. If your content is already on the web, go over it with a fine-tooth comb in order to consolidate and organize the information.

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Who are you targeting?

This module will describe the customers the product should be targeting. It will define their demographic profile (e.g., age, gender, location), psychographic profile (e.g., their interests) and their precise wants and needs as they relate to the client’s product offering.

Tool – Consumer Persona One of the most important parts of any business is understanding who your customer is. Customer profiles are “customer types,” which are created to represent the typical users of a product or service and are used to help make customer-focused decisions. Customer profiling is a way to create a portrait of your customers to help you make marketing decisions concerning your organization and products.

Through these 5 basic steps, your company will be well on its way to obtaining that customer profile that will be a great help as your organization grows and evolves.

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1. Understand your products, services, and the way they are being used.

The first and most crucial step in creating an accurate customer profile is fully understanding your own products, services, and your mission as an organization. The process is ongoing, but it is essential to understand who you want your customer to be and how that relates to the ways your products and services are developed and packaged.

The way you position your services and/or products affects the type of people that decide to use them and must be monitored accordingly to ensure that your services and products are of the highest value to your customer. By examining the customer’s use of your products and services, you’ll be able to see how your customer’s use of your offerings changes over time and how you should respond to these changes. In other words, your business offerings shift to better suit your customer’s needs.

Also, keep in mind that your brand’s mission also affects the type of customers that do business with your company. Your mission needs to be able to alter to match your customer’s needs and interests as time progresses and trends or habits change.

2. Get feedback from your customers.

To create the most accurate customer profile possible, you need to survey your audience consistently to get their feedback on your offerings as well as their perception of your company. Tools like Survey Monkey, Checkbox or Survata are helpful and affordable for businesses of all sizes looking to survey their audience. In order to have good participation, it is good to have incentives for participation.

Be sure to make the survey enjoyable, as well. Customers won’t finish the survey if they start to feel overwhelmed or feel like whatever incentive you’re offering isn’t worth the hassle.

3. Identify the customer based on demographics, psychographics, behavioural and environmental factors, and more.

You’re on your way to finding your targeted customer audience, but you will need to identify them at a deeper level as well. As the title for this section suggests, find out their interests, gender, job role, location, and more. The more information you can gather on your customers, the more accurate you’ll be in winning the customer to do business with you instead of your competition.

4. Keep your customer profiles up to date; consistency is key.

Once you gather all the information you can, document your findings in a database with an easy to read template. Remember that the template you make for each of your customer types should be the same. Having sections for demographics, behaviors and habits, psychographics, and environment (societal surrounding) would be a good start for your customer profile template. That way, when any updates need to be made, the files will be easy to find and the sections can be updated with little chance for error.

PLATFORM

USERS

AUDIENCE

INDUSTRY IMPACT

BEST

FACEBOOK

2.2 B

Generation X and older millennials

B2C

Brand awareness Advertising

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Know your audience Get to know your audience. If you don’t understand enough about who you’re trying to reach, you’ll struggle to deliver a message that’s relevant enough that resonates with them. The good news is that you don’t need to hire a customer research agency to do this for you. The easiest way to make sure you don’t come up with a watery ‘general’ campaign is to make your buyer personas — fictionalized, general descriptions of your key customer groups.

• Think about who your customers are and group them into 3 or 4 brackets.

• Take each of those and create a character from each.

• Give him or her a name, a photo, a personality, and a few favourite hobbies.

Different consumers are targeted by different social media platforms. Using the information below, determine the best online platforms for engaging with your target consumers:

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The most important part of any business is understanding who your customer is.

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How different are you?

This module will assist learners in crafting and communicating a strong value proposition that will distinguish the client’s product from the competitors’ products.

Tool – Value Proposition Canvas Your USP is what makes your business and its products/services different. It’s what you offer that noone else does in your market - whether that’s higher quality, better nutrition, a lower price, a better customer experience or new technological innovation.

If you can’t identify your USP, you will have a hard time convincing prospective customer to buy from you, instead of your competitors.

Understanding your target audience Developing a USP begins with your target audience. What do you know about your target audience and why they buy items from the market you are operating in? What needs do those items meet for them? In other words, are they looking for a time saving, some expertise, a trustworthy supplier, or something else?

By consulting customers, colleagues and friends, you should be able to make a list of all the reasons someone might choose to buy your product or service.

What is your competitive advantage?

You should be able to pull out one or two things that you believe your business is good at. Make a list of your competitors and see which needs they are meeting.

Next, evaluate how well they meet those needs. Just because someone currently has a good position in a market doesn’t mean that they’re delivering on their promises. If you can do better, that’s a strong basis for market entry.

Look at industry trends At the same time, you need to look at those needs that aren’t being met by anyone, and also think about the key trends in your industry. In the food industry, for example, it is becoming increasingly important than ever for brands to be transparent. From clean label ingredients to ethical and responsible ingredient sourcing, consumers demand for a transparent supply chain and product label has never been higher.

Consider current trends and those issues that will be most important in five years’ time. Now see if you can extend your advantage into these areas.

How to communicate your USP Your USP should drive the development of your business and your marketing strategy, whether you are creating a website or a logo, or embarking on an online advertising campaign. Always ask yourself if your image and activity clearly communicate the benefit you are offering.

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Crafting and communicating a strong value proposition that will distinguish the client’s product from the competitors’ products from the competitors’ products.

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It’s not advisable to change your unique selling proposition too often, but it is important to keep it fresh. Watch out for any shifts in trends or competitors that could undermine your USP. Testing and refining your USP Come up with a strong statement that conveys your USP. Talk to five or ten potential customers to get their feedback on the different ways you are positioning your brand. The results of these interviews should help you to choose the best positioning statement: 1. what business you are in; 2. who your target customers are; 3. the single most compelling benefit you offer - the unique selling point that sets you apart from the competition; 4. how you deliver on what you promise.

Know your brand Your brand is how and why your customers choose you over your competitors. You can think of it as your company’s personality. So it’s something that’s worth defining clearly —what do you stand for?

What are your strongest character traits? And how does that translate into your presence—from the images you use on your website to the language you use in your emails? The best way to answer these questions is by getting out and speaking directly with your customers. You could assume what your brand stands for, but the best way to check is by understanding how your ideal customers talk about your brand. Talk to your customers!

Watch you competition Your competitors are not just those who offer a like-for-like product or service. You can think of your competition in 3 ways: • Direct competitors - those brands that offer the same products or services as you.

• Indirect competitors - brands that may offer different products but compete for the same space or budget as you.

• Comparators - these might have a similar look and feel like your brand or be other brands that your target customers use frequently too.

The Value Proposition Canvas The value proposition canvas is a valuable tool that you can use to test and evaluate your USP. It is an efficient tool for understanding how customers make decisions, and therefore helps you create offers that they will find appealing.

It helps you to look at your product or service from a customer standpoint so you can ensure that it matches their needs, wants and expectations. This helps you create effective marketing messages, align your team’s perception and communication of the product or service, and convince investors of its potential.

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How different are you?

This module will help the learners develop and strengthen their online presence positioning themselves to connect with their target consumer. Through social media platforms, you will be able to connect with your audience to build your brand, increase sales, and drive website traffic.

Tool – Social media mapping Social media marketing, or SMM, is a form of internet marketing that involves creating and sharing content on social media networks in order to achieve your marketing and branding goals. Social media marketing includes activities like posting text and image updates, videos, and other content that drives audience engagement, as well as paid social media advertising.

Social Media and Marketing: Start with a Plan Before you begin creating social media marketing campaigns, consider your business’s goals. Your business type should inform and drive your social media marketing strategy. Here are some questions to ask when defining your social media marketing goals: • What are you hoping to achieve through social media marketing?

• Who is your target audience?

• Where would your target audience hang out and how would they use social media?

• What message do you want to send to your audience with social media marketing?

Social media marketing can help with a number of goals, such as: • Increasing website traffic • Raising brand awareness • Creating a brand identity and positive brand association • Improving communication and interaction with key audiences Ready to get started with marketing on social media? Here are a few social media marketing tips to kick off your social media campaigns.

• Social Media Content Planning — As discussed previously, building a social media marketing plan is essential. Consider keyword research and competitive research to help brainstorm content ideas that will interest your target audience. What are other businesses in your industry doing to drive engagement on social media?

• Great Social Content — Consistent with other areas of online marketing, content reigns supreme when it comes to social media marketing. Make sure you post regularly and offer truly valuable information that your ideal customers will find helpful and interesting. The content that you share on your social networks can include social media images, videos, infographics, how-to guides and more.

• A Consistent Brand Image — Using social media for marketing enables your business to project your brand image across a variety of different social media platforms. While each platform has its Digital Marketing Manual for SMEs I 27

unique environment and voice, your business’s core identity, whether it’s friendly, fun, or trustworthy, should stay consistent.

• Tracking Competitors — It’s always important to keep an eye on competitors—they can provide valuable data for keyword research and other social media marketing insight. If your competitors are using a certain social media marketing channel or technique that seems to be working for them, consider doing the same thing, but do it better!

• Measuring Success with Analytics — You can’t determine the success of your social media marketing strategies without tracking data. Google Analytics can be used as a great social media marketing tool that will help you measure your most triumphant social media marketing techniques, as well as determine which strategies are better off abandoned. Attach tracking tags to your social media marketing campaigns so that you can properly monitor them. And be sure to use the analytics within each social platform for even more insight into which of your social content is performing best with your audience.

Using Facebook for Social Media Marketing Facebook’s casual, friendly environment requires an active social media marketing strategy. Start by creating a Facebook Business Page. You will want to pay careful attention to layout, as the visual component is a key aspect of the Facebook experience.

Facebook is a place people go to relax and chat with friends, so keep your tone light and friendly.

And remember, organic reach on Facebook can be extremely limited, so consider a cost-effective Facebook ad strategy, which can have a big impact on your organic Facebook presence as well!

Using Twitter for Social Media Marketing Twitter is the social media marketing tool that lets you broadcast your updates across the web. Follow tweeters in your industry or related fields, and you should gain a steady stream of followers in return.

Mix up your official tweets about specials, discounts, and news with fun, brand-building tweets. Be sure to retweet when a customer has something nice to say about you, and don’t forget to answer people’s questions when possible. Using Twitter as a social media marketing tool revolves around dialogue and communication, so be sure to interact as much as possible to nurture and build your following.

Using LinkedIn for Social Media Marketing LinkedIn is one of the more professional social media marketing sites. LinkedIn Groups is a great venue for entering into a professional dialogue with people in similar industries and provides a place to share content with like-minded individuals. It’s also great for posting jobs and general employee networking.

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Encourage customers or clients to give your business a recommendation on your LinkedIn profile.

Recommendations make your business appear more credible and reliable for new customers. Also browse the Questions section of LinkedIn; providing answers helps you get established as a thought leader and earns trust.

Using YouTube for Social Media Marketing YouTube is the number one place for creating and sharing video content, and it can also be an incredibly powerful social media marketing tool. Many businesses try to create video content to have their video “go viral,” but in reality, those chances are pretty slim. Instead, focus on creating useful, instructive “how-to” videos. These how-to videos also have the added benefit of ranking on the video search results of Google, so don’t under-estimate the power of video content!

Using WhatsApp for Social Media Marketing The new WhatsApp Business is a free to download app and is built with the small business owner in mind. The app makes it easy to personally connect with your customers, highlight your products and services, and answer their questions throughout their shopping experience. WhatsApp Business allows you to create a catalogue to showcase your products and services and use special tools to automate, sort and quickly respond to messages. WhatsApp can also help medium and large businesses provide customer support and deliver important notifications to customers.

Using Pinterest for Social Media Marketing Pinterest is one of the fastestgrowing social media marketing trends. Pinterest’s image-centered platform is ideal for retail, but anyone can benefit from using Pinterest for social media purposes or sales-driving ads.

Pinterest allows businesses to showcase their product offerings while also developing brand personality with eye-catching, unique pinboards. When developing your Pinterest strategy, remember that the social network’s primary audience is female. If that’s your demographic, you need a presence on Pinterest!

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Content Marketing Definition This is a marketing program that centers on creating, publishing and distributing content for your target audience – usually online – the goal of which is to attract new customers. While inbound marketing can be looked at as a methodology, content marketing is a more specific inbound strategy of writing content that your audience will find valuable.

The channels that can play a part in your content marketing strategy include: • Blog posts: Writing and publishing articles on a company blog help to demonstrate industry expertise and generate organic search traffic for your business. This ultimately gives you more opportunities to convert website visitors into leads for your sales team.

• EBooks and whitepapers: EBooks, whitepapers, and similar long-form content help further educate website visitors. It also allows you to exchange content for a reader’s contact information, generating leads for your company and moving people through the buyer’s journey.

• Infographics: Sometimes, readers want you to show, not tell. Infographics are a form of visual content that helps website visitors visualize a concept you want to help them learn.

Paid Social Media Marketing Sponsored post Image courtesy of @__tarara on Instagram on previous page Paid Social Media Marketing is a highly cost-effective way to expand your reach. Paid Advertisements allow you to get your content and offers in front of a huge audience at a very low cost. Most social media platforms offer incredibly granular targeting capabilities, allowing you to focus your budget on exactly the types of people that are most likely to be interested in your business.

Paid ads on Facebook: Here, users can pay to customize a video, image post, or slideshow, which Facebook will publish to the news feeds of people who match your business’s audience. Facebook provides comprehensive tools to allow you to target your audience and design effective adverts with analysis to show the reach and popularity of the content among the target group.

Twitter Ads campaigns: Here, users can pay to place a series of posts or profile badges to the news feeds of a specific audience, all dedicated to accomplishing a specific goal for your business. This goal can be website traffic, more Twitter followers, tweet engagement, or even app downloads.

Sponsored Messages on LinkedIn: Here, users can pay to send messages directly to specific LinkedIn users based on their industry and background.

Marketing Automation Marketing automation refers to the software that serves to automate your basic marketing operations.

Many marketing departments can automate repetitive tasks they would otherwise do manually, such as: 32 I Digital Marketing Manual for SMEs

Content marketing centers on creating, publishing and distributing content for your target audience – usually online – the goal of which is to attract new customers.

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• Email newsletters: Email automation doesn’t just allow you to automatically send emails to your subscribers. It can also help you shrink and expand your contact list as needed so your newsletters are only going to the people who want to see them in their inboxes.

• Social media post scheduling. If you want to grow your organization’s presence on a social network, you need to post frequently. This makes manual posting a bit of an unruly process. Social media scheduling tools push your content to your social media channels for you, so you can spend more time focusing on content strategy.

• Lead-nurturing workflows. Generating leads, and converting those leads into customers, can be a long process. You can automate that process by sending leads specific emails and content once they fit certain criteria, such as when they download and open an eBook.

• Campaign tracking and reporting. Marketing campaigns can include a ton of different people, emails, content, webpages, phone calls, and more. Marketing automation can help you sort everything you work on by the campaign it’s serving, and then track the performance of that campaign based on the progress all of these components make over time.

There are various platforms that offer automation services. For example, Hubspot offers Automation Software with demos. https://www.hubspot.com/products/marketing/marketing-automation Online PR Online PR is the practice of securing earned online coverage with digital publications, blogs, and other content-based websites. It’s much like traditional PR, but in the online space. The channels you can use to maximize your PR efforts include: • Reporter outreach via social media: Talking to consumers of your product on Twitter, for example, is a great way to develop a relationship with them that produces earned media opportunities for your company.

• Engaging online reviews of your company: When someone reviews your company online, whether that review is good or bad, your instinct might be not to touch it. On the contrary, engaging company reviews helps you humanize your brand and deliver powerful messaging that protects your reputation.

• Engaging comments on your personal website or blog: Similar to the way you’d respond to reviews of your company, responding to the people who are reading your content is the best way to generate productive conversation around your industry.

Sponsored Content/Influencer Marketing With sponsored content, you as a brand pay another company or entity to create and promote content that discusses your brand or service in some way.

One popular type of sponsored content is influencer marketing. With this type of sponsored content, a brand sponsors an influencer in its industry to publish posts or videos related to the company on social media. Another type of sponsored content could be a blog post or article that is written to highlight a topic, service, or brand.

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Getting Started Choose the social network where your buyer personas are, and always optimize and test your content.

If you’re new to social platforms, you can use tools like HubSpot to connect channels like LinkedIn and Facebook in one place. This way, you can easily schedule content for multiple channels at once, and monitor analytics from the platform as well.

• You may want to create a post around a new offer or simply word it to attract users to your page.

• Do a ‘dry run’ - try out your offer or call to action as an ordinary post and see what style and wording attract the most likes, shares, and comments before putting money behind them.

• Start with a simple image or video posts and track how many clicks and follows you get, before moving into the more complex and expensive formats, like a multi-image carousel or canvas ads.

• Online platforms such as Canva provide simple tools that can allow you to design effective online posts with good visuals. https://www.canva.com/en_gb/

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Your online strategy is only as good as your consumers ability to find you.

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How do you turn a prospective customer to a paying customer?

This module will guide the learner in thinking around techniques to turn prospective customers into paying customers. This will include introductory offers, online promotions and use of influencers and micro-influencers to drive trial and referrals.

Tool - Consumer Journey Conversion Optimisation Your online strategy is only as good as your consumers ability to find you. By optimising your content so that consumers can find you when they are searching for products in your category you will be able to get their attention and expand your reach.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) allows you to improve your site by increasing its visibility for relevant searches among your target consumer segment. Here is a demonstrated example of interacting with SEO: How to Do Keyword Research for SEO Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing search terms that people enter into search engines with the goal of using that data for a specific purpose, often for search engine optimization (SEO) or general marketing. Keyword research can uncover queries to target, the popularity of these queries, their ranking difficulty, and more.

Why Is Keyword Research Important?

Keyword research provides valuable insight into the queries that your target audience is searching on Google. The insight that you can get into these actual search terms can help inform content strategy as well as your larger marketing strategy.

Keyword research tells you what topics people care about and, assuming you use the right SEO tool, how popular those topics are among your audience. The operative term here is topics -- by researching keywords that are getting a high volume of searches per month, you can identify and sort your content into topics that you want to create content on. Then, you can use these topics to dictate which keywords you look for and target.

Below is a layout of the keyword research process which will help you come up with a list of terms you should be targeting. This way, you’ll be able to establish and execute a strong keyword strategy that helps you get found for the search terms you care about.

Step 1: Make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business.

Think about the topics you want to rank for in terms of generic clusters. Then come up with about 5-10 topic clusters you think are important to your business, and then you’ll use those topic buckets to help come up with some specific keywords later in the process. Put yourself in the shoes of your buyer personas -- what types of topics would your target audience search that you’d want your business to

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get found for? Under food and nutrition, for example, you might have general topic buckets like: • Nutrition for a growing child • Healthy porridge ingredients • Nutrition for pregnant mothers.

This data allows you to gauge how important these topics are to your audience, and how many different sub-topics you might need to create content on to be successful with that keyword. To learn more about these sub-topics, we move onto step 2 ...

Step 2: Fill in those topic clusters with keywords.

Now that you have a few topic clusters you want to focus on, it’s time to identify some keywords that fall into those buckets. These are keyword phrases you think are important to rank for in the SERPs (search engine results pages) because your target customer is probably conducting searches for those specific terms.For instance, if you took that last topic cluster for a food and nutrition company -“nutrition” -- I’d brainstorm some keyword phrases that I think people would type in related to that topic. Those might include: What ingredients are needed for a simple nutritious meal 1. Best food for breastfeeding mother 2. Which is the best food for baby 3. Best porridge ingredients 4. Benefits of peanut powder And so forth. The point of this step isn’t to come up with your final list of keyword phrases. You just want to end up with a collection of phrases you think potential customers might use to search for content related to that particular topic cluster.

Step 3: Understand How Intent Affects Keyword Research and Analyze Accordingly.

User intent is now one of the most pivotal factors in your ability to rank well on search engines like Google. Today, it’s more important that your web page addresses the problem a searcher intended to solve than simply carries the keyword the searcher used. So, how does this affect the keyword research you do?

It’s easy to take keywords for face value, and unfortunately, keywords can have many different meanings beneath the surface. Because the intent behind a search is so important to your ranking potential, you need to be extra-careful how you interpret the keywords you target.

Let’s say, for example, you’re researching the keyword “how to start a food blog” for an article you want to create. “Blog” can mean a blog post or the blog website itself, and what a searcher’s intent is behind that keyword will influence the direction of your article. Does the searcher want to learn how to start an individual blog post? Or do they want to know how to launch a website domain for blogging?

If your content strategy is only targeting people interested in the latter, you’ll need to make sure of the keyword’s intent before committing to it.

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To verify what a user’s intent is in a keyword, it’s a good idea to simply enter this keyword into a search engine yourself, and see what types of results come up. Make sure the type of content Google is closely related to what you’d intend to create for the keyword.

Step 4: Research related search terms.

This is a creative step when doing keyword research. If you’re struggling to think of more keywords people might be searching about a specific topic, take a look at the related search terms that appear when you plug in a keyword into Google. When you type in your phrase and scroll to the bottom of Google’s results, you’ll notice some suggestions for searches related to your original input. These keywords can spark ideas for other keywords you may want to take into consideration.

Step 5: Use keyword research tools to your advantage.

Keyword research and SEO tools such as Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Ubersuggest can help you come up with more keyword ideas based on exact match keywords and phrases match keywords based on the ideas you’ve generated up to this point.

For more information, Linkedin offers comprehensive and engaging certified courses on SEO: LinkedIn SEO Courses .

Neil Patel website is an additional resource on SEO 7 Week Action Plan Consumer Engagement Having optimized your website and social media content, the next next step is to deliver a great customer experience to every person who visits your website, online store and social media pages.

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The flywheel model is a comprehensive, unified way of representing the forces affecting your company’s growth. It focuses you on delivering a better customer experience at every digital touchpoint with your customers by considering how you’re attracting, engaging, and delighting people and turning them into promoters for your brand.

People don’t have the same trust that they had with businesses back in the day. But one thing that remains true is that people trust their peers—their friends, coworkers, family members, and partners.

So, when you think about digital marketing, you’ll want to consider how you’re turning strangers into people who will advocate for your business and products.

They’ll then provide you with new customers down the road, and your flywheel will spin faster. And you’ll do this by delivering a relevant, helpful, and great customer experience.

Key Elements to Consider The following elements provide key items to consider when designing an effective consumer engagement strategy online.

Attract

Image: kalimoni greens website The design of an online store is crucial, because if it is unappealing customers will simply click away.

You have to be aware that a user ‘s purchase decision is usually made just after 3 seconds on your website – so it is the first impression that counts. If customers do not like it, they won’t buy anything and won’t ever come back.

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Image: green spoon website A store’s website is its representation. That is why it has to be beautiful and professional, especially if products being sold are eye catching. If a client seeks an outstanding dress and comes across a neglected and dull website he will back off. Customers having thousands of online stores to choose from, they will pick the one whose design is the most modern and aesthetic. And the reason for this is simple: a beautiful store is considered more reliable and trustworthy.

Engage Form good relationships with your prospects. Don’t just treat them as deals. Enable buyers to engage with you by providing content that connects with the theme in the following ways.

• Relevant: Ensure that your content is updated regularly and use the same words people are searching to find your product or service. Make you pages relevant to the needs of the consumer.

• Easy to read: Ensure that the content is well presented and easy to read. Use a clear font and have headlines to allow the consumers to skim through easily. Include videos and images to make the content appealing.

• Credible: Demonstrate your expertise by providing accurate and credible information. Link to relevant sources where necessary. By associating your content with credible experts in the field you grow the positive perception of your brand.

• Honest: Avoid making in accurate or deceptive claims about your products. Present clear and

honest information to build trust with your consumers.

• Well-built: Make sure that your site is easy to navigate. Make sure the links to your sub-pages are logically named, and minimize add-ons like auto-playing videos or pop-ups asking for email addresses. Create a seamless experience for your online customers allowing them to easily find what they are looking for.

• Optimized for mobile: More people now search on mobile over desktop, so sites which are more mobile-friendlier are more accessible to your average consumer allowing them to quickly access your content and make purchase decisions.

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Delight Always remember: there is no better promotion than satisfied clients. Make the experience of buying from you remarkable but only in a positive way. This means that if you want to attract clients, you need to reply to all their comments and inquiries promptly.

A research study conducted by McKinsey revealed that 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated. It takes up to 12 positive customer experiences to make up for one negative. Thereby, make sure that all your clients are satisfied with the service you provide.

Find simple and practical ways to make the interactions pleasant and meaningful to them.

Add value by providing value-added services and making the experience of interacting with your store seamless and predictable.

Consumer Journey

A customer journey map is a visual representation of all of the ways your customers come into contact with your brand on their way to making a purchase. In other words, it illustrates the touchpoints your customers have with your company both online and offline.

• • • •

Awareness Consideration Purchase Service

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• Loyalty • Advocacy Awareness: Awareness is that point when the customer realizes they have a need or, perhaps, a problem to solve. They start to do some research. When they find your company, it’s your chance to set their first impressions.

How will your business make its first impression? Some ideas for content at this stage to develop your brand story are things such as blog posts, social posts, educational content, and research studies.

Consideration: Once the buyer knows what they need, they start considering their options, though they’re not quite ready to commit. They’re comparing prices, companies, and trying to decide which company is the best choice. In this stage, you can reach them with comparisons and reviews, video, expert guides, and case studies.

Purchase: Once the consumer has considered the options they are ready to make a purchase decision.

At this point, your content will be specific to your brand, with product demos, customer testimonials, and reviews of your product line. Give them helpful information that informs their decision.

Service: Once the decision is made the consumer’s interaction with your customer service process will make a great impact on whether they chose to make a repeat purchase and refer other customers to your online shop or company products. Ensure that service is pleasant, seamless and any customer service issues are addressed promptly.

Loyalty: Once your company supplied what it promised, and your customers are happy with their purchase they move on to the next stage which is loyalty. At this stage you can help build loyalty through user guides and newsletters. This is also a good time to implement customer appreciation promotions and discounts to invite repeat purchases or purchase of other products in your product line.

Advocacy: A loyal customer should be turned into an advocate by creating mechanisms to allow them to refer to the product to other potential customers. This can be done through a referral scheme where they earn discounts for referring new customers. Loyal customers can be encouraged to share social media posts about your product and give product reviews and testimonials.

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How do you keep your customers?

Trying to secure new customers is more expensive and time-consuming than getting existing customers to buy more often. We will therefore train learners on customer retention strategies that will allow you to increase profits through loyalty and retention programs.

Tool - ATEAR Your retention strategy is how you maximize the profitability of each customer. Customer retention is the collection of activities a business uses to increase the number of repeat customers and to increase the profitability of each existing customer.

Customer retention strategies enable you to both provide and extract more value from your existing customer base. You want to ensure the customers you worked so hard to acquire stay with you, have a great customer experience, and continue to get value from your products.

In short, acquisition creates a foundation of customers while your retention strategy is how you build customer relationships and maximize revenue for each one. But how much time and resources should

you devote to your retention program? The answer to that depends on your store.

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1. Just starting: When you’ve just started your store there is one thing you should be focused on: getting customers. At this point your acquisition efforts should completely trump retention. Focus on strategies and tactics that will help you grow your customer base.

2. Gaining traction: You now have customers and you are getting sporadic sales. At this stage you can begin to introduce retention elements to encourage each customer to buy more. My recommendation would be to start with retention email campaigns that focus on encouraging a past customer to purchase from you again.

3. Consistent: You aren’t quite an e-Commerce juggernaut, but sales are growing. This is the point where you should begin to think about mixing in more retention with your acquisition efforts. You can look at starting a referral and/or a loyalty program as well as getting more serious with marketing automation.

4. Established: You are now an established e-commerce store. A common problem for retailers of this size is finding ways to continue to grow. An acquisition may be leading to a lot of one time purchases, but a retention strategy can get customers to buy more often which increases their lifetime value. At this stage, you should be serious and deliberate about your retention efforts.

5. Well-established: At this stage, your store has made it past the initial gauntlet. You’ve achieved many early successes and you have a lot of processes and automation in place. Now is the time to focus heavily on retention.

Strategies to boost customer retention We’ve explored why developing a strategy to retain our current customers can be just as valuable as finding ways to acquire new ones. We’ve also looked at what we should measure in order to stay on track. Now, let’s outline some tangible ideas you can apply to improve customer retention.

• • • • •

Use customer accounts Improve your customer service Start a customer loyalty progra Send engaging emails to customers Offer a discount or credit to return

1. Use customer accounts Customer accounts can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, accounts can make repurchasing easier by giving customers instant access to previous orders as well as pre-filled shipping information.

On the other hand, customer accounts are often seen as too big of a commitment for new customers.

Because of this, many people choose to checkout as a guest if given the option. So how can you effectively implement and encourage customer accounts while not hindering conversions of first time 48 I Digital Marketing Manual for SMEs

customers?

The trick is to provide the option to create an account after the first order has been placed.

If your customer accounts are optional, you can send customers direct invitations to encourage them to activate an account after they’ve completed a purchase.

2. Improve your customer support Support systems help you effectively communicate with your customers and provide them with the right level of support. A support system can help both pre- and post-sale by enabling you, or a customer service rep, to clearly communicate with the customer.

Having a live chat or help desk tool available can turn a customer question into a sale or a customer complaint into a resolution, whether they come in on site, through email, or via social media. Very often, an effectively resolved complaint or problem can turn an unhappy customer into a loyal, repeat

customer. And that’s to say nothing of the value of customer feedback, which can help you improve Digital Marketing Manual for SMEs I 49

your products and your overall shopping experience.

Data suggests that while delight has its place, customers see fast, friendly, and consistent customer service as the gold standard. If you help customers avoid problems and get the most out of your products, you’ll be doing both of you a favour.

Depending on your niche, product mix, and margins, sending a small gift to your best customers can be a great way to remind them to return while adding the element of surprise and delight which can increase customer satisfaction. Giving an unexpected gift also plays to the law of reciprocity, which refers to our tendency to respond to a positive action with another positive action.

3. Start a customer loyalty program.

Loyalty programs, sometimes referred to a customer retention program, are an effective way to increase purchase frequency because they motivate customers to purchase more often in order to earn valuable rewards. This becomes a profitable exchange for both you and your customers: they get more value each time they shop, and you benefit from their repeat business.

You can encourage customers to continue investing in the program by giving them welcome points when they create an account. When they see how easy it is to earn rewards, they’ll be excited to come back to your store to do it again.

Creating a loyalty program can be as simple as rewarding customers on their second purchase, or after a set dollar figure. Your store reports make it easy to see who your best customers are by dollar value and total number of orders. Additionally, you can opt for automated loyalty apps which can reward 50 I Digital Marketing Manual for SMEs

your customers for a variety of actions they take in your store.

4. Send engaging emails to customers If purchase frequency is the backbone of customer retention, email marketing is the backbone of customer engagement and your retention toolkit.

Emails give you the opportunity to continue building a relationship with your customers before and after their initial purchase. It’s critical that each message you send adds value to your customer’s experience. If it doesn’t, you run the risk of losing them.

A great way to get started is with follow-up emails. A week after a customer’s first purchase, send them an email that acknowledges and thanks them for buying. This type of acknowledgement helps customers feel good about their decision to buy from you, and makes your brand more approachable.

You can make this initial email even more impactful by recommending products that complement their initial purchase. Finally, you can even start including customer reviews as well. These endorsements will increase both the value of each recommended product and the customer’s desire to buy.

If you have a product that is perishable, consumable, or otherwise needs to be refreshed over time, knowing your products’ lifespan and sending well-timed emails can be the perfect way to bring back dormant customers. This tactic can be particularly effective because ideally, you’ll be delivering the right message to the right person at the right time.

In all of your post-sale marketing communications, remember to remind customers of why they bought from your brand in the first place. Getting them to come back rests on your ability to show them why an additional purchase is worth their time and money.

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5. Offer a discount or credit to return While discounting should be used with caution, discounts sent to a first-time buyer are a great way to drive repeat purchases. Sending a discount code for their next purchase with a first-time order is a great way to nudge them to come back. For this reason, discounting can also be an effective way to bring back customers that haven’t purchased in a while.

You can strengthen that nudge by giving them more than the standard 10% off. When you think of that 20% off as an investment in boosting your repeat customer rate, it sounds a lot more reasonable.

You may also want to experiment with offering credits to use at your store (i.e. $10 towards any purchase) versus a percentage discount (i.e. 10% off any purchase).

6. Keep customers to grow your business Your current customer base is the best asset your store has. Customers already know your brand, they know your products, and they appreciate your service. Focusing your time and energy on improving the experience for this group as opposed to always trying to find new customers can be a powerful way to supercharge revenues for your store.

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How do you develop marketing materials that connect with your customers?

Your marketing materials are the collateral you use to promote your business to current and prospective customers. This section of the strategy will identify and develop the most relevant marketing materials to allow them to connect with their target audience.

Tool – Digital Ad Sample How to Design Online Ads 1. Understand the Goal All business owners know their company needs marketing to get in front of potential customers and create revenue, but many fail when it comes to strategizing. A general ad campaign that hasn’t been tweaked for local markets or tested is unlikely to generate the kind of demand you seek. The Wall Street Journal reported that when small businesses hire large online marketing firms to create a campaign, they miss out on local reach and get disappointing results.

Additionally, they also match landing page messaging to creative messaging, which leads to higher conversion rates. Consistent messaging throughout the purchase cycle is a key best practice to keep in mind for any marketing plan.

2. Define a Plan of Action Your business needs to define a game plan for your overall strategy and for each type of campaign you plan to deploy. The messaging and language throughout should be consistent and scale to local campaigns, which will allow you to target specific demographics in a meaningful way.

3. Create Effective Calls to Action To reap the full benefits of your online marketing strategy, your ads should have a specific call to action. Effective calls to action should be: • Visually appealing. The design should catch users’ attention and compel them to click.

• Brief. Keep the message direct — preferably fewer than five words.

• Action-oriented. Set expectations, and make it clear what their click accomplishes.

• Focused on value. Be sure to state exactly what visitors will get if they click on the CTA (call to action). “Click here” tells the user nothing, whereas “download your free ebook” sets expectations and expresses value.

Be sure to keep calls to action consistent with your brand. Exciting, youth-oriented brands would not benefit from subdued CTAs, while larger tech firms shouldn’t try to overdo it with overzealous verbiage or flashing buttons.

4. Make it Mobile Friendly Considering that there are now more mobile devices in the world than people, you cannot have an online marketing strategy without factoring in mobile. 51 percent of consumers said they are more likely to purchase products and services through a mobile-optimized site. Additionally, 90 percent of mobile Digital Marketing Manual for SMEs I 55

searches result in action in a day, and coupons delivered via mobile have 10 times the redemption rate of traditional coupons. Mobile ads make it convenient for users to take action, especially when the marketing is localized and it’s easy for them to pursue your offer.

5. Focus on Your Audience Remember, it isn’t all about you. Businesses that struggle to create effective online ads do so because their strategies focus on telling potential customers what the company does, rather than how it can help them. Instead, focus your messaging around users and what problem or challenge you’re solving in their lives. Try different calls to action based on improving your users’ experience, and tailor your marketing to where customers are in the buying process.

Components of Effective Digital Advertisements Effective digital advertisements should translate into greater awareness for your brand. The following are key components to be included in the advert.

Brand logo placement. Your company or product logo should be the most identifiable part of your brand. It’s often the most recognizable element used to communicate with target audiences.

This sometimes means that a logo is the only element that a lot of consumers may associate with your business. However, a brand is the sum of all of the elements that come into contact with your marketplace. These touch-points include the: • logo • colour palette • font use • marketing materials • website, storefront • advertisements Ensure that the design of your logo is relevant to your target consumer segment. Brands may need to evolve to continue to effectively reach your target market. The challenge is to introduce these elements without losing the brand equity you’ve established Strong visuals and animations. Your online advertisements need to be done with strong visuals and

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animations. Pictures should be clear with bright and appealing colours. Video clips should be short with clear sound and visuals. The length of the content should be short and should capture the viewer’s attention within the first few seconds Clear Product Placement Ads that display a product image seem to have an edge when compared to ads that do not. Product placement should be clear with no other distracting elements that could confuse the customer. It would

be helpful to share demos of the product in use to allow consumers to have a better understanding of how the product would fit into their lifestyles. Product image ads averaged 6% higher conversion rates than those that did not show the product. This was further compounded when ads showed products “in use”. These performed 5% better than those that merely showed the product.

Colour The background colour of an ad had a major influence on its effectiveness. In a study to determine the impact of colour on online advertising the same ads were placed but only the background color was changed. RED outperformed all others. Orange came in at a respectable second place. The Digital Marketing Manual for SMEs I 57

colour adjustment had a significant impact on the click through rate. Other colours and combinations of colours were also tested. Here are the results:

5: Don’t Forget the Human Touch Ads that featured a person or people also experienced a lift in their performance when measured against those that did not. The human brain is wired to respond positively to images of happy healthy people.

Types of Online Advertisements Display Ads Display advertising can be a great means to get your brand in front of potential buyers when they’re browsing their favourite sites.

You buy display ads through ad servers that use data on someone’s recent search and click history to automatically determine the website and user to show a particular ad to. In the simplest of terms, display advertising refers to the use of ads—from text to video to audio—on a website.

Image: example of a display ad Display advertisements serve as a way for businesses to monetize their website traffic, as advertisers pay to have their promotion displayed alongside the content on the page.

The most common type of display ad is the banner ad within a website.

• Wide reach - Google’s Display Network can reach over two million websites.

• Easily targeted - by both context (ads are intended to appear on related sites) and audience (who’ve shown an interest in what you’re selling).

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• Eye-catching - you can create simple text or image-based ads, use video, or build interactive ads in a variety of sizes and shapes.

• Lack of control - you have to trust your ad server to choose where to place your ad, plus you have ad-blockers to contend with. In terms of costs, you’ll usually pay either: 1. Per thousand impressions 2. Cost per acquisition 3. Cost per click Sponsored Social posts Having a great social media presence is a prerequisite for this one. If you’re already writing brilliant content that shows off what your brand is all about, paying to promote posts can get those posts into the news feeds of people who aren’t following you - yet.

You’ll want to find the social networks that your target audience uses. For example, if you find that 80% of your target audience is active daily on Instagram, you’ll want to focus your social media energy on your Instagram channel.

Creating an Effective Online Advertising Getting Started • Write your ad.

• Who’s your customer? You have one line to catch their attention and get them to click your link in a sea of similar-looking links.

• Set your maximum daily budget.

• Keep in mind that popular keywords cost more per click than less common terms (because other companies are bidding for them too).

• Use your platform’s conversion tracking.

• If an ad isn’t driving the traffic or sales, reword it, and test, test and test!

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All business owners know their company needs marketing to get in front of potential customers and create revenue, 60 I Digital Marketing Manual for SMEs

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These can help reach new customers or better monetize existing customers through developing mutually beneficial partnerships and campaigns to build trust and increase reach.

Tool – Relationship Mapping Joint Venture Marketing Joint venture marketing is an agreement between two companies in which both organizations combine marketing strategies in order to increase their share of the marketplace and increase their revenues.

Although a joint venture sounds like a partnership, differences exist. When companies engage in a partnership, they combine all facets of their business and run the institution as one large company.

However, with joint venture marketing, the emphasis is only on a combined marketing plan designed to help both companies reach their financial and marketing goals.

How it Works To initiate a joint venture, both companies enter into a contract that spells out the goals of the joint ventures and the responsibilities of both parties. After the agreement is drafted and both parties have signed, each company is able to claim their share of the profits from the venture and both organizations share mutual control. A venture agreement might be terminated if the contract has language that allows it to expire within a specified amount of time or a mutual decision is made to terminate the agreement.

Advantages 1. Increase advertising audience. Companies involved in joint venture marketing agreements increase their advertising audience, enabling them to reach more customers with their marketing message. In addition, companies might combine assets and resources such as employees, databases, and market research and products lines.

2. Risk Management. Joint venture marketing agreements also do not carry large risk because both companies share in the success or failure of the marketing campaign and therefore, both organizations will work hard to ensure the venture succeeds.

3. Pooling in time, energy and capital resources. This is the practical aspect, especially if your budget is limited and you’re tied to many more responsibilities. For the budget aspect, having a partner can sometimes give a cushion or lessens the blow to your venture if ever something goes wrong More than that, your investment in terms of time and energy should be considered too. If your slate is close to full already, then can you even efficiently handle a project and make it successful? Admit it, we do need a hand if we want to lighten the load.

4. Up-scaling a project. Ventures and partnerships can use the people involved in a venture to make the offering bigger, more credible and reputable thus increase the value to both your company and the end consumer.

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5. Adding to the quality of the material More than that, having someone onboard also helps in developing the product itself. Ebooks, membership sites, creating podcasts, interviewing people all of these things can take up too much time and energy for just one organisation.

JVs help because you have a partner (or team) to distribute tasks with, plus actually contribute when it comes to the quality of the content that you’re developing.

Finding Ideal Partners And Establishing A Joint Venture In general, a company that has a product or service that is complemented by another service can benefit from a joint venture.

Business owners should have a clear understanding of their business’ capabilities and benefits before they search for the ideal complementary partner. As such, you should already have a product or service ready, or at least have a thorough idea of what it is you’ll be making or providing.

If you know who your ideal customer is, then you should also look for people who are serving those audiences to be your partner. Look at people who have courses or training or are mentoring others in your specific area of operation, and go where they go to start building those relationships. That could be online, in classes or at events.

Planting the seeds of a relationship early on, even before you develop your product, can make it easier to form a joint partnership later. Having these relationships can also help you develop a better product from the get-go that is better served for a complementary partnership, and a product that is something your audience is actually looking for. In this sense, building early relationships with a potential partner in a joint venture acts just as much as a means to test out product concepts as it does to create built-in joint venture marketing opportunities.

So where, specifically, can you find potential partners?

There are plenty of digital platforms on which you can build relationships with experienced people in your field. Look in Facebook or LinkedIn groups, and find people who are sharing valuable content.

Look for people who are traveling around and being movers and shakers in your industry.

Building these relationships can start off with something as simple as commenting on a shared blog post or participating in an online discussion. Keep in mind that while these people might be considered leaders or experts in their domain, that doesn’t mean they are experts in every aspect of it. You can start making suggestions of your own based on your own expertise, and demonstrate to them that you have valuable knowledge and experience that is complementary to their own, especially if it falls outside their realm of expertise.

You can provide value to people no matter who you are and who they are—it’s just a matter of knowing how your skills and knowledge complement each other. Demonstrating your ability to add value to another person or business is key to forming these relationships.

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Once you have built up a level of familiarity through online interactions, you can ask to “meet up” over Skype or another platform to talk business. Ask them about what they’re working on and what they’re excited about. If they mention something you believe you could help with, you could either offer your services or names of other people who can also be of assistance. This gets the spirit of partnership established at an early phase in your relationship.

Keep in mind that every person and every partnership is different. Some form quickly and naturally, while others take a bit more time to develop. If you are able to meet people in person at live events, you will likely find it easier to form natural partnerships with people. It might even take no more than a single conversation to get a partnership going.

But in general, you will find yourself more successful at forming these partnerships if you are able to leverage your wins, giving examples and numbers associated with past partnerships and how they benefited your partners.

Key Elements of a Joint Venture • At the most basic level, joint ventures begin when one party has a product and the other has an audience, with both parties standing to gain something through joint promotion.

• Sometimes your partner will want you to promote their product as well as them promoting yours. It is important to carefully consider this type of cross promotion before you actually engage in it. You must, for example, be able to recognize if their product is a good fit for your audience as it currently exists.

• You don’t have to do total cross promotion. It can be a one-way street with regard to promotion.

As long as you have certain standards about what you are excited to promote and what your audience is interested in, you don’t have to worry about alienating your audience.

• Once you have agreed on what your partnership will look like, you will pick a date for the promotion and create a promotion schedule. When will the emails be going out? What will the character of the campaign be?

• Based on your discussions with your partner, you can begin building the backend of the promotion. This means scheduling a webinar, building a landing page that has functionality to get visitor emails and building a JV kit. This kit should contain email swipes, a summary of your promotion and affiliate links.

• Make the process as simple as possible for them. This will make it more likely that they will continue to partner with you in the future if you have promotions that would benefit from a joint venture.

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Relationship Mapping A relationship map provides a clear overview of the actors already involved in the enterprise and the relationship types. It also helps to identify actors that are not yet involved with the enterprise, but may be relevant in the future.

Cooperating with different actors is one of the most important factors in the success of an enterprise.

Relationship mapping creates understanding of the relationships and roles in a network and awareness of potentially beneficial new actors.

This enables you to manage cooperation to gain access to skills, experience and financial resources through effective partnerships

FINAL EVALUATION: DIGITAL MARKETING CANVAS The Digital Marketing Canvas is a framework for developing your company’s digital marketing strategy – including what actions, campaigns and tactics you’ll be using to reach your target buyers. You should create the canvas with members from your marketing, sales, development, product, design and customer success teams to get a well-rounded view of your product or service’s unique value and how you can best communicate that to your target buyer throughout the customer lifecycle.

The Digital Marketing Canvas will help you define a strategy that: • Attracts, convinces, converts customers to your product or service • Details the actions and channels you will use to reach your target customer • Segments your marketing campaigns to provide value at every stage of the customer lifecycle

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