Awareness and Attention Getting the attention of your target audience is the first step. Digital marketing tools allow business owners to go beyond the traditional advertising model (direct mail, print ads, TV & Radio commercials) and actually engage with the target audience before they take action and become customers. For example, using social media to promote your product or service is a great way to attract consumers' attention. You can use reels, videos, and lives to bring "creative disruption" to your target audience. This will help you to inform them about your products and services, as well as the benefits that they will enjoy when they purchase your solution. This is a great opportunity to educate your target market about the problem and the solution. They may not realize that they have one, but strategic campaigns can help build interest & desire. Interest Interest is a key stage in the education of future customers/clients/patients. This stage allows you to reach out to your target audience and increase awareness by appealing to their curiosity. This stage is when your customer shows curiosity about your product or service once you've captured their attention. Interest will lead your ideal prospect to search for more information regarding a specific product or service, most likely using search engines. This research can be very important depending on the item's value. Their research should reveal customer ratings and reviews, personal recommendations, and availability. You can educate and inform your ideal prospect with digital marketing tools such as Instagram, Facebook Live, podcasts, YouTube videos, or via Facebook Live. These tools can transform "aware prospects" into "interested prospects". Desire As you continue to engage with your ideal prospect your goal should be to go beyond the product-brand pairing and create an emotional connection between your product or brand. This is one area where digital marketing tools go above and beyond traditional marketing media to make this connection and build desire in the minds of your target audience. With an emotional connection to your solution, you are able to build a relationship with prospects that can help you lead them through the action or conversion stage to become customers and advocates of your brand. You will benefit from providing value ahead of time. You will reap the benefits long-term if you solve your customers' problems and answer their questions. In order to connect with customers, you must show genuine knowledge and understanding of them and the problem they are seeking to solve. Action (Purchase) If the prospect has come this far, there is interest and desire, the next step is to engage the prospect to act on their desire. You must learn to anticipate objections with satisfying answers and make a call to action (CTA). Traditional advertising and marketing start making offers for a product or service without much time spent on building interest & desire. Your sales calls and ad spend will be much more effective if they first lead the prospect through the stages that include interest & desire. Retention A digital marketing strategy should be created and implemented to create long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationships. Post-purchase customer care is as important as the support that you provide during the selling process. After a customer selects you as their supplier, don't just let them walk away. Instead, continue to build upon the relationship and offer feedback, follow-up support, and reviews.
