Why you need to start thinking like a marketer to get more sales...

There are a few things that I know I’m incredible at:

1)       Being a mom of girls – I have 3, each with their own personalities, and everything I’ve been studying over the years about emotional intelligence, connection and leadership has prepared me for being loving and nurturing to the three most incredible females I’ve ever met.

2)       Disruption – whether it’s shifting someone’s perspective of how they see themselves in the world around them, or even disrupting my own day to chase something down I know I need to figure out, disruption is something innate. And having the ability to disrupt is not an easy task. It’s combining creativity with logic and always looking for patterns in the most minute of details while also keeping a big picture overview of the plan.

3)       Reading people – those close to me have heard me say or have said it to themselves…the FBI should have found me when I was younger and pushed me in the direction of joining them, as I have an uncanny ability to read people and understand them at a deep level. It’s a combination of body language, tonality, and also fast research that helps me pull pieces together and understand the perspective they are coming from. It’s not something I ever meant to get good at, but it started out of an insatiable curiosity to understand other perspectives within themselves and the world around them. So being curious, led to more experiences, more questions, and more research…and to sum it all up – people are complex, and multi-faceted. If you’re a person who loves people and looks to understand them, just know it’s a never-ending process, and curiosity is always king. Asking good questions, finding ways of relating to others, and using your curiosity to understand people and communicate well with them is where it’s at.

4)       And finally, marketing – specifically digital marketing. Digital marketing is a whole other breed of marketing, because the interesting thing about how people see and buy products online is much different than how they do this in-store. You really have to understand your target audience as a business owner, how people make buying decisions, and how to reverse engineer the entire buying process from purchase all the way back to first awareness to scale any company, corporation, brand, or small business. Without this, you’re wasting time, money, and even potentially hurting your reputation.

Which brings me to why you want to start thinking like a marketer (if you’re not already doing so) when it comes to growing your business in the online space. And we’ve all found this out the last few years, if you’re not growing your business online, it’s time to start.

Because online is where people are buying. We know this is the way of the future, and if the thousands of store closings worldwide aren’t enough evidence to prove that to you, then maybe this will.

According to an article published by Zipdo, when it comes to stats and digital marketing in 2024, here are some things to consider:

• 72% of consumers prefer to learn about products through content versus traditional advertisements.
• The digital marketing spends for 2023-2024 is set to reach $146 billion.
• 895 of all companies include content marketing in their digital marketing strategies.
• After viewing a mobile advertisement, 72% of users will visit a store within 5 miles.
• 61% of buyers and consumers will research online before they purchase a product.
• 28% of buyers claim that social media had the biggest influence of their buying decisions (that’s why we have influencers and UGC creators).
• Online ads represent a massive 53% of global ad spend as of 2020 (probably even more here in 2024).

The consumers have spoken, online is their go-to when it comes to the decision-making process of what they buy, and when they buy.

So, if you’re selling to humans (even if your product is for human fur babies), then the buying decision goes through them.

The goal for any business, and the lifeblood of any business, is in the number of sales they can make from the consumers.

But how well a company markets to a consumer online, will without doubt, get them:

• Brand awareness
• Interest
• Consideration
• Decision (or conversion)
• And if done well…loyalty beyond just the sale.

When you think like a marketer, your goal is to think about your customer. What they want, what they need, why they want/need something, what their desires are, what are their expectations, what are their goals with a purchase, and now you even want to consider what they don’t want or what experiences they don’t want to have (in order to create the opposite experience that entices them towards you rather than repels them away from you).

To sum it all up, to think like a marketer, you need to think about how to:

✔️Attract your target audience

✔️Education/Inform your target audience and build curiosity and trust

✔️Convert them from just an online looker to someone who is ready to buy and ready to buy from you (thus turning their nose up at your competitors and coming to you instead)

✔️And how to continuously engage that customer into your sales pipeline and complete that sale, whether it’s online, in store, or pigeon carrier (not that that is a thing, but you catch my drift).

In every stage an ideal customer/client goes through when it involves your company and brand, you need to think like a marketer, whose job is to think like their consumer.

Now the fun begins when you decide what type of marketing you want to do in the online space. There are so many different variations, each one with its own unique processes, and creative solutions. But the one thing that stays constant is the job of the marketing.

For example, say you own skincare company whose target audience is women between the ages of 30 – 45. Your products solve three different top of mind skincare issues for women in that age bracket and let’s say that is preventing aging of the skin, keeping skin hydrated and glowing, all while protecting the skin from harmful UV. And in addition, your skincare line is specifically designed with nature’s most pure, potent and rare botanicals and ingredients that are not only hard to find, but they are also hard to come by, making your skincare line luxurious and expensive.

You want to fully understand the women you are selling to, beyond just their age bracket. You want to understand…

🛍️ Their buying behaviors

🔍 The places online they are most often searching for solutions

📸 What words, photos, videos (and who is in those videos) that will get them to stop their scrolling and pay attention to what you’re offering

🤔 Whether or not they are discerning buyers, or fast shoppers

💆 What they desire in a skincare line

🌿 What they appreciate when it comes to products and ingredients

🌟 Who they admire for celebrities/influencers

😞 Their past experiences with skincare lines that were negative and that which was positive

📚 And much, much more.

Once you get that all nailed down, you start approaching everything you do to grow your company, your corporation, your brand, and your business differently.

You may find that your target audience is swayed by watching influencers and content creators who look like them, act like them, and have similar interests to them, and so you create a robust influencer marketing campaign and hire only those influencers and creators that will most likely resonate with that target audience.

Or you may find that while your target audience is all about luxury when it comes to the products they buy, they may like to make more informed decisions, and fully understand the ingredients in your products, how they will work with their skin, if there are any side effects, and however the rare ingredients are collected, that it is done in a safe, human and environmentally friendly way.

So, you create an omni-channel marketing strategy that not only focuses on brand awareness, it focuses on the company’s mission to use the rarest of ingredients, but also focuses on safe and effective ways of collecting those ingredients, and also how the company focuses on humanitarian and environmental issues, to support social impact initiatives.

It all starts with knowing people, and being curious about how they view the world and how to connect the dots when they first meet your company/brand/products to when they decide to purchase from you.

You get good at that; you get better business results.

Want more insights on how to approach your next digital marketing campaign? We’re industry agnostic here at Influence Builder, and we focus more on helping you get into the heads of your target audience and ideal consumer. Feel free to reach out to Influence Builder via DM or email at info@influencebuilder.com. We’d love to support you!

Danielle Fitzpatrick Clark is lovingly referred to as America's Favorite Digital Disruptor. She doesn't just live, breathe, and sleep digital marketing, she embodies the constant shifts and pivots needed to create long-lasting businesses and brands in the online space. She's a 2x 2023 LinkedIn Top Voice (Digital Marketing & Influencer Marketing), Award Winning Podcast Host (Globally ranked top 3% most listened to podcast), International Speaker & Author, and a Top 20 Women Disruptors To Look Out For In 2023 nominee.

Her company Influence Builder is all about bringing the human element to the online tech and digital space. Specifically focused on helping the lesser-known experts, influencers and thought leaders, Influence Builder shows them how to break out of the noise, create powerful platforms, and thriving businesses so they can spread their mission and message to the world. This is the bridge where disruptors disrupt and build with authentic influence. Contact Danielle and her team about how they can grow your platforms, your audience, and your bottom line at info@influencebuilder.com.