A new plan to help you define, refine, and maximize subscriber engagement and audience targeting for stellar results.
Increase Visibility
The data and capabilities to reach your subscribers when they’re most likely to open your emails.
Boost Engagement
Increased visibility leads to higher open rates, higher click-throughs, and overall higher engagement.
Power Revenue
And when engagement increases, so do the odds of meeting and exceeding your revenue goals.
Building on the foundation of FeedBlitz Core’s suite of email marketing features, FeedBlitz Accel offers access to brand new features and updates on a few classic FeedBlitz Core features.
Features to make connecting with your audience at the right time even easier:
Inbox Activity Detection: Trigger a one-to-one email send when your subscriber is active in their email app. Grab their attention by emailing your subscribers when they’re most likely to open, i.e. when they’re in the inbox.
Enhanced reporting: The real-time data FeedBlitz clients love is getting a boost with time zone, subscriber domain, and recipient region-specific reports. Gain clarity on the best time to hit send with engagement insights by the time of day, recipient domain, and subscriber time zone.
New Sending Windows: Shake up your single campaigns with new sending flexibility. Increase open rates by pacing your campaign send over a set time frame or send based on subscriber time zone.
Audience Shaping for RSS to Email Campaigns: Continued innovation in RSS to email mailing with audience filtering. Shape the audience of your RSS to email automated campaigns by applying groups, engagement filters, and segmentations.
Advanced automations to help you save even more on time and resources:
Automated RSS to Email Follow-ups: You’re already automating your campaigns, now it’s time to automated your follow-ups. You automatically send new content, and now you can automatically send follow-ups to those who didn’t initially engage.
Campaign-Based Automated Triggers: Extend your favorite list-based triggers to individual campaigns. Automate your subscriber management based on interactions with individual campaigns.
Automated List Hygiene: Ensure a healthy, engaged mailing list, automatically. Set parameters to automatically remove (or move) unengaged subscribers from your mailing list when the metrics are matched.
Setting you up for next-level revenue potential:
Conversion Tracking: Connect activity on your site to individual email subscribers. Another brand new feature, set goals and better target your audience by linking engagement on your site to particular email subscribers.
And as a bonus feature, all FeedBlitz Accel clients will have access to FeedBlitz’s Transactional API. Turn FeedBlitz into your own SMTP cloud service and send your most vital emails backed by FeedBlitz’s industry-leading deliverability.
Ready to find out what your email marketing can really do for you? You’re clear for lift-off.
Rich media – including videos, gifs, audio recordings, and infographics – is a popular tool used to convert users on landing pages and in digital advertisements.
Does it have the same impact on conversion rates and revenue on product pages? That’s the million-dollar question for many e-commerce website owners and marketers looking to increase the conversion rate of their own product pages.
So if you’re asking yourself, “should I make room for rich media on my product pages?”, you’ll find your answer to that question and more below.
Why Is Rich Media Important?
Rich media is any feature or website element that encourages users to interact with it. This type of content is often used on landing pages, in digital advertisements, and on product pages.
The most widely used example of rich media on product pages is video.
In e-commerce, rich media enables the viewer to interact with the product before they convert. This includes visualizing product installation, seeing the product in use, and even learning tips and tricks for best product usage.
This isn’t a new trend. YouTube videos for e-commerce have been around for years. However, the importance of rich media in product selling only seems to grow.
Beyond engagement, product videos and other forms of rich media can build trust with potential customers. After all, to see is to believe. Product videos may help to ease users’ concerns or even highlight features that get potential customers more excited over the product. This essentially means you can sell more with your videos.
Perhaps most importantly, especially as it relates to the topic at hand, is that Google is increasingly prioritizing webpages with video content. In fact, Google may even turn webpages with video content into rich snippets. With an average conversion rate of 58% as compared to 41% for non-rich results, it’s easy to see how your website may benefit from more video content.
Common Product Page Conversion Methods
The use of rich media on product pages isn’t the only conversion method that website owners may use.
A few other methods include:
Trust badges, like an icon from the Better Business Bureau
There are plenty of ways to boost conversion rates on your product page. We recommend split testing to truly determine how effective each of the above methods is with your audience.
Rich Media: Does It Boost Revenue For Product Pages?
We know there are many benefits, as outlined above, to including rich media on product pages. We also know that rich media advertisements tend to see higher conversion rates and revenue than their non-rich media counterparts. In fact, rich media ads have been shown to outperform standard ads by up to 267%!
To truly understand whether rich media has an impact on product page performance, though, we need to perform analysis across multiple websites.
What Our Data Shows Us
For our analysis, we selected six top name-brand websites from the baby sleep sack industry. Of these six websites, we chose the top-performing pages from each as of August 19th, 2022. The goal of this analysis was to determine if videos helped boost estimated traffic revenue, among other related metrics.
In addition to rich media, we’ve also included other factors that may impact the web page’s performance.
Rich Media, Product Schema and Quality Information: Kyte Baby
On the Kyte Baby product page for the Sleep Sack in Sage 1.0, a video is available.
The website ranks for 310 organic keywords with 2.4 thousand organic traffic visits per month. As for organic traffic value, or the revenue attributed to organic traffic visits, this page nets $21 per month.
Let’s consider what else the product page might do well.
First and foremost, Kyte Baby does have product schema implemented. Product schema, or product structured data, enables Google to display product listings in a richer way. With product schema, Google can enhance both product snippets in rich results and merchant listing experiences.
This includes displaying price, availability, and even ratings and reviews:
In addition, the Kyte Baby product page also contains a high word count (1,284 words on the page, NOT including the 6,524 reviews for the product). This offers ample opportunity to optimize the listing for search engines while providing all necessary information to customers.
Product Reviews Add Over 1000 words to Love to Dream’s Product Pages
The second product page on our list, Love to Dream, also featured a video on the product description page during the time of our analysis. The video appears to have been removed more recently, though our analysis only focuses on the time when the video was present.
The URL ranks for 579 organic keywords, it draws in 3,000 in average monthly traffic, and it has an organic traffic revenue of $977.
Similar to Kyte Baby, Love to Dream does have product schema implemented. The Love to Dream product page has a fairly low word count (653 words), though product reviews are also found on the page which adds an additional 1,134 words to the listing.
Aden + Anais: How A Small Product Image Gallery and Low Word Count Hurt Performance
The first on our list not to include a video on the product description page, the Aden + Anais Boutique Cotton Muslin Light Sleep Sack features a minimal gallery with just two images.
The product page ranks for 98 organic keywords with an average monthly organic traffic of 122. The estimated net dollars in organic traffic revenue is $39, which means this product page is the second lowest performer on our list.
Aside from the minimal image gallery, the page contains a minimal word count (346 words) which doesn’t include the word count from the 63 reviews.
One thing to note here is that the reviews average 3.1 stars which may account for the poor performance we’re seeing. A low average review count is likely negatively impacting conversion. After all, 93% of consumers say online reviews impact their buying decision. On top of that, most won’t engage with a business or product rating below 3.3 stars.
Sleeping Baby’s The Classic Heather Zipadee-Zip Swaddle Transition® product description page has a modest gallery (just five images including a size guide) with no video or other rich content available.
With 23 organic keyword rankings, 11 in average monthly organic traffic, and an estimated $3 in organic traffic revenue, Sleeping Baby is the poorest-performing product description page in our analysis.
This is an anomaly among our analyzed pages as product schema is implemented, the page has a decent word count (401 not including product reviews), and it has over 2,400 reviews. All other things being equal, you might expect better performance results. As we know, though, Google is likely considering dozens of unseen factors.
Magic Merlin: How Few Reviews and Sparse Product Descriptions Directly Affect Product Page Rankings
The product description page for Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit in Cream has a gallery of varied images, including those with text-to-outline key product features. The page does not include a video or other forms of rich content. The product description page does have product schema implemented.
With 63 organic keywords, 90 average monthly traffic visits, and a traffic value of just $6, Magic Merlin is our second-to-worst performing product page in our analysis.
When considering other factors that may play a role in poor performance, consider that there are only 112 words on the page and there are no reviews of the product.
Of the six listings we’ve analyzed, Magic Merlin is the only one to receive a passing score for Core Web Vitals. These are a set of factors that Google considers when evaluating the page’s overall user experience. Specifically, Core Web Vitals measures:
Largest contentful paint: How long it takes for the main content of a web page to load.
First input delay: The delay in time from when a visitor first interacts with the page (e.g. clicks a link, scrolls through a carousel) to when the browser is able to react.
Cumulative layout shift: A measurement of the shifting of website elements (e.g. font, buttons, images) while the page is still loading. This can disorient visitors.
So while Magic Merlin performs well in user experience, we can see that other factors (e.g., no rich content, low word count, no reviews) may play a larger role.
Dreamland Baby Co.: Rich Media and Product Schema are Necessary For Product Pages
Last on our list is Dreamland Baby Co.’s product page for the Dream Weighted Sleep Sack.
The product page has a gallery of 15+ images, but no product video is included. The product page ranks for 538 organic keywords with 3.8 thousand in average monthly organic traffic and an estimated net of $640 in traffic revenue.
Dreamland Baby Co. seems to turn the previous results on their head, as it outperforms the two listings with videos present when it comes to organic keyword rankings and monthly organic traffic.
To stir further intrigue, Dreamland Baby Co. does not have product schema implemented so it’s not benefiting from any enhanced Google search results listings. It does contain a decent word count on the page (1,029 words, not including the word count from the 3,000+ reviews).
Insights on Rich Media and Product Pages
If rich media was the be-all-end-all for product page conversion, you would expect to see sites like Kyte Baby and Love to Dream outperform the other ones on our list. That’s not the case, however.
Kyte Baby and Love to Dream were the third and second best-performing web pages, respectively. Dreamland Baby Co., a web page without a video and even without established product schema, performed the best among all six websites analyzed when looking at overall organic keyword universe.
Why might that be?
With a whopping 3,000 reviews, Dreamland Baby Co. obviously has high engagement and high customer satisfaction. These likely play a factor in its success within the organic search results.
While video can be a useful conversion tool to build revenue, they are best used on pages that are already well-constructed and functional. A video cannot make up for a failing Core Web Vitals score or poor SEO practices such as lack of product schema. Shift your focus to your web page’s structure first and foremost before adding extraneous content such as videos.
FAQs
Do you still have questions about rich media on product pages? Here are some answers to frequently asked questions.
Where should I include rich media or videos on my product pages?
When it comes to displaying rich media and other videos on your product pages, the best place is in the image gallery or carousel. This will ensure the content is above the fold and in a place where customers may think to look for them first.
What is rich product content?
Rich product content includes any descriptions, images, or video that is used to help both search engines and individual readers get a better understanding of the product and its uses.
What is e-commerce rich content?
E-commerce rich content is an umbrella term that includes any sort of rich media for an e-commerce page. This can range from your basic product images to more complex offerings like video and augmented reality.
What are the benefits of rich media in content?
Rich media has a variety of uses in content. As a start, it can provide a valuable graphical supplement to any points you want to make in your copy. Some content is better illustrated in rich media form than it is in text. In addition, having rich media allows your piece to have a broader appeal than if the piece was just text.
Do product videos help boost conversions?
Product videos are elements that may help boost conversions if all other factors are already implemented, such as product schema and a passing Core Web Vitals score.
How long should my videos be?
A good rule of thumb is to keep the video under two minutes in length. This will ensure the viewer’s attention doesn’t stray.
Do I need to optimize my videos or rich media?
There are a few general video optimization rules to follow. These include using a video streaming service for quality and speed and only loading your video once all other content elements on the page have loaded.
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Conclusion
There is no doubt that rich media, especially videos, can elevate your product pages. That assumes, however, that all other important elements and factors of a product page have been implemented and considered.
For the best results, you should add videos to product pages that have already been optimized for user experience and SEO. This includes considering your score on Core Web Vitals and whether you have product schema set up for search engine optimization.
Have you seen growth in conversions since adding rich media to your product pages?
When sending out automated emails to your list, how personalized are they?
I’m not talking about things like $firstname, or order by $date for free shipping – but actual personalization based on their behavioraltriggers.
Let’s dig a little bit into the numbers behind this. According to the latest Blueshift Report, trigger-based marketing emails outperform batch and blast emails by 497%. Along with that, automated emails delivered 29% of all email marketing purchases with fewer than 2% of email sends.
Recently, behavioral email marketing showed high promise of sales. Think of this as something that’s bringing the above benefits together, helping companies increase ecommerce sales by simply using behavioral triggers via email, sometimes with automation. Built off the concept of behavioral marketing, this method helps get a pulse of your audience so you can interact with them in a way that makes sense.
Let those numbers sink in a minute.
The potential for making the most of behavioral email marketing is wide open, and yet, according to Econsultancy, only 20% of marketers are using behavioral targeting.
Why is that? Let’s take a closer look at the core issues and learn how to get started with behavioral email marketing.
Send Emails Based On Customer Actions
Now, not all of these points will be email “action-worthy,” so it’s up to you to figure out what actions the user takes (or doesn’t take) that are worth sending an email. You may have even seen this kind of behavioral targeting email marketingat work when you sign up for a service, but don’t complete your profile or verify your email address. If the company is smart, they’ll send you an automated email reminding you to do so.
But re-targeting the user in this way isn’t the only way to leverage behavioraltargeted emails. You can also send out targeted messages, for example, when a customer:
Submits a form to download your white paper, video, case study or other free item.
Views certain content on your web page. If they spent some time browsing the FAQ, you can set up a behaviorally targeted email to check in and see if they have any specific questions.
Leaves an item in their cart without checking out. You could send them a reminder email with a small discount, remind them of limited stock (or that their cart will expire) and so on.
Remember, with behavioral email marketing, it’s the customer at the wheel — not you. They’re making choices while interacting with your content. Behavioral marketing is designed to act on those choices with the kind of engagement that increases conversion rates, grows profits, and vastly improves customer retention.
Once you start collecting and analyzing the information that you gather on your customers, new opportunities for behaviorally targeted emails will percolate to the surface. You’ll start getting all kinds of great ideas on how to guide users back into your service. To help get you started, here’s an overview of email marketing formats I consider some of my favorites:
The “Getting Started” Email
Also known as an “onboarding” email, this message is usually sent after you create an account or register for a service. It’s designed to get you clicking and interacting with the service as quickly and fluidly as possible. Here’s an awesome example from Stocksy, a stock photography site:
Notice how they’ve carefully curated images in emails on a specific theme – then encourage you to click through and check them out for more design inspiration. Here’s another example from Airbnb:
If you’ve been browsing trips to wine country, this targeted email can help make your tour much more palatable through the offer of discounts, local guides, special attractions, and more.
The Notification Email
The notification email is generally just a canned response from your account or user management software that tells people their username and password, and maybe has a link to some documentation to get started. That’s where most of the getting started automating of the process ends — which results in a lot of confused or frustrated users.
Instead, encourage them to take the first step toward trying out your product by offering more of a guided, hands-on tour. If you have a SaaS, walk them through using it by helping them to create their very first _____ — such as a website, playlist, or campaign. This sort of guided, pop-up tour will help them feel more at ease, and can also give you even more valuable data for your behavioral targeting email marketing goals.
The Icing on the Cake Email
These are the unexpected but highly welcomed emails that encourage better customer retention. Here’s a great example from Shopify that lets users extend their free trial of the service:
Another example comes from TurboTax, which is designed to pique the user’s curiosity about how much their tax refund could be, before they ever see a check in the mail:
It also promotes the benefits of using the TurboTax service, but without being overly “sales-y” or pushy. Rather, it shifts the focus onto the customer and their end goals – which revolve around getting the biggest refund possible at tax time.
The Reward Email
Everyone loves getting an unexpected reward — even if it’s a digital “good job!” Here’s an example of an email from Withings, which is a Fitbit-style product that helps inspire healthy habits by tracking your activity. Here, you can see a user has won a badge for taking 8,000 steps in a day, and unlocked the Marathon reward. They can also share their progress on Twitter or Facebook.
The Recommendation Email
Oftentimes, great customer service from a company is enough to get you to recommend them. But what if the brand sweetened the deal? Bombas, which sells socks online, provides free socks, with no limit, to people who tell their friends about them. Those friends get a discount on socks, and the referrer gets more socks. And we all know you can never have enough socks.
Transactional Emails
Did you know that transactional emails (receipts, shipping notifications, etc.) are opened up at 8x the rate of regular emails? With this in mind, it’s worth going through the ones your company sends and doing away with those dusty old “order confirmed” messages, to make every note you send one that not only thanks the customer for their order, but does so in a way that’s more akin to having a conversation than making a statement.
This Slack notification for the user to get involved with the app on mobile does just that by having a link to their blog in the footer:
It’s not invasive, but the user knows the brand has more in store. Those are the kinds of placements in your trigger emails that will keep leads engaged.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is behavioral email marketing?
Behavioral marketing refers to the response to each lead’s behavior with the kind of engagement that boosts conversion rates, revenues, and customer retention.
How can I create emails based on user behavior?
Think of this email in the formula of an “if-then” clause. For example, if a customer abandoned their cart, email them to remind them of the quality products they’re leaving behind. Try including a coupon, because that prompts leads to convert as well.
What is behavioral targeting in email marketing?
Behavioral targeting in the email marketing world is sending out specific emails to consumers based on their past behavior. For example, sending a different email to someone who brought a product from your online store versus someone who filled their cart, but never checked out.
What are the 4 types of marketing emails?
The 4 main types of marketing emails are as follows:
Email newsletters, sharing company news and relevant product updates.
Acquisition emails, designed to introduce customers to your sales funnel for products or services.
Retention emails, designed to keep customers engaged in your sales funnel.
Promotional emails, which highlight deals or other specific opportunities to purchase/engage with your brand.
What makes an email unprofessional?
Aside from standard issues like typos, broken images, or formatting issues, some things that may flag an email as unprofessional include:
A bad template that is difficult to read.
Using bait-and-switch headlines to trick people into reading.
Having an overly long email before getting to your CTA.
Sending too many emails in a short period of time. This may get your content marked as spam.
What are the 3 most important things for an email?
While the answer may vary here based on market and customer base, 3 things that are universal are:
Adding a personalization element to the emails whenever possible.
Be sure to sound human, not like a sales robot.
Having some form of CTA or CTAs to move the reader into the sales funnel.
Should I target every consumer with behavioral email marketing?
You’ll want to create a few samples to send that depend on the scenario and behavior of the lead. Having an email tailored towards a user’s experience will feel more genuine, guiding them to convert.
Behavioral marketing refers to the response to each lead’s behavior with the kind of engagement that boosts conversion rates, revenues, and customer retention.
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Think of this email in the formula of an “if-then” clause. For example, if a customer abandoned their cart, email them to remind them of the quality products they’re leaving behind. Try including a coupon, because that prompts leads to convert as well.
Behavioral targeting in the email marketing world is sending out specific emails to consumers based on their past behavior. For example, sending a different email to someone who brought a product from your online store versus someone who filled their cart, but never checked out.
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The 4 main types of marketing emails are as follows:
Email newsletters, sharing company news and relevant product updates.
Acquisition emails, designed to introduce customers to your sales funnel for products or services.
Retention emails, designed to keep customers engaged in your sales funnel.
Promotional emails, which highlight deals or other specific opportunities to purchase/engage with your brand.
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Aside from standard issues like typos, broken images, or formatting issues, some things that may flag an email as unprofessional include:
A bad template that is difficult to read.
Using bait-and-switch headlines to trick people into reading.
Having an overly long email before getting to your CTA.
Sending too many emails in a short period of time. This may get your content marked as spam.
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While the answer may vary here based on market and customer base, 3 things that are universal are:
Adding a personalization element to the emails whenever possible.
Be sure to sound human, not like a sales robot.
Having some form of CTA or CTAs to move the reader into the sales funnel.
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You’ll want to create a few samples to send that depend on the scenario and behavior of the lead. Having an email tailored towards a user’s experience will feel more genuine, guiding them to convert.
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Conclusion
The bottom line is getting more behavioral triggers in your marketing strategy is going to make it better. Trigger-based campaigns offer the appropriate material and messaging to the subscriber at the right time, matching where they are in the funnel.
At the core, trigger email marketing operates by nurturing subscribers depending on their interaction with your brand.
You can keep your lead’s attention by sending timely, relevant emails.
This can show more prospect engagement, more clickthroughs, increased customer purchases, retention, and an overall positive experience.
Marketers who aren’t getting on the behavioral email marketing train are missing out, so get started by following the best practices I recommend.
Get creative with your triggers and see how your tactics convert more leads.
Which behavioral triggers have you found to be the most effective in your marketing campaigns? Let me know in the comments!
About the Author: Sherice Jacob helps business owners improve website design and increase conversion rates through compelling copywriting, user-friendly design and smart analytics analysis. Learn more at iElectrify.com and download your free web copy tune-up and conversion checklist today!
Marketers who use YouTube are usually keen to reach the widest audience possible. After all, the more YouTube views you get, the more exposure.
While they’re not the only metric that determines the success of your YouTube marketing, generating a decent number of views for your videos is something that you should definitely try to achieve. After all, there’s no point uploading a video if nobody is going to watch it, especially your target audience, right?
Perhaps you’ve got doubts about YouTube, and I understand that. I mean, who wants another platform to master creating content for? However, it makes absolute sense for your business to get on YouTube if you haven’t already.
YouTube attracts 2.6 billion global monthly users. Now, I can’t guarantee your success, but with such a vast audience from all walks of life, it’s likely that some of your target market will visit the platform. You might as well meet them there.
If you need some more convincing, what about this research? Google found that 40 percent of consumers bought a product they found on YouTube.
However, just posting content isn’t enough; if you’re not getting YouTube views, you’re wasting your time. Without views, you’re missing fresh opportunities to engage with your audience (incidentally, this article has some tips if you want some quick wins to increase engagement).
In this post, we’re going to take a look at tactics that you can use to get more views on YouTube.
We’ll cover some of the fundamentals to help you over the long term and some unique tactics that you can implement to generate quicker results with your target audience.
By the end of this post, you’ll have a high level of confidence in knowing what needs to be done to generate more YouTube views.
What Counts as YouTube Views?
Before moving on, there’s something I must clarify: what counts as a YouTube view?
Here’s what you need to know: YouTube views depend on someone watching a video for at least 30 seconds.
Rewatching a video also counts towards YouTube views, provided the video is watched for 30 seconds.
Now that you’re clear on that, let’s move on to some tips to start attracting viewers.
Great Video Content Gets More YouTube Views
It’s the golden rule on any platform, and applies here too. If you want more YouTube views, then you must publish great content.
Sure, you could just upload a video that doesn’t offer any major takeaways and press ‘publish’. That would get your content out there, but it wouldn’t be share-worthy, so why bother?
What makes excellent content?
First, you need engaging and exciting visuals, like high-quality footage or creative animations. Whatever you choose, make sure it’s eye-catching and holds viewers’ attention. For help with creating professional-looking videos, there are plenty of tools available, like InVideo.
Second, consider your audio quality. No one wants to listen to a video with muffled or distorted sound. Make sure your voice is clear and easy to understand and that any background noise is kept to a minimum.
Finally, think about the overall story you’re trying to tell with your video. Is it informative? Entertaining? Inspiring? What do you want to convey? Whatever it is, make sure your video is well-organized and flows smoothly from beginning to end.
If you can do that, generating more views for your videos becomes a heck of a lot easier. For one thing, the better your videos are, the more likely people are to share your videos on social media.
Since I don’t know your business or your audience, I can’t tell you precisely what you should be doing to create amazing videos, and I can’t promise you thousands of YouTube views.
I can tell you this: awesome content provides exceptional levels of value.
It’s important that you don’t get caught up in the wrong things when looking to create great content to get more YouTube views.
People often worry about content length and production quality.
Sure, the content length might matter to a certain extent. However, are you really going to stop watching a 1-hour video if it’s providing immense value? Probably not.
Value trumps everything for search results, especially high production quality, and if you offer quality, people keep watching. Here’s an example:
The video below ranks near the top in YouTube search results for ‘how to build a website,’ runs for over two hours and has attracted 2.5 million views and counting.
So remember, content length isn’t something that you should obsess over on this social network.
Step 1: YouTube Views Don’t Depend on Video Production
An increasing number of companies are investing in YouTube. Often, these businesses create highly produced, glossy videos, but you don’t necessarily have to take the approach.
You see, if you’re publishing quality content, YouTube is generally pretty forgiving: your videos don’t need to be perfect. When your videos start to get some traction, that’s the time to think about investing in fancy production and camera equipment to help you get more YouTube views.
However, to begin with, just make sure that you cover the basics. For example, if you’re creating a:
‘talking head’ video, ensure everything is well-lit and the audio is clear.
screen capture video, ensure that the resolution is high and the audio is easy to hear.
slideshow, create something simple and visually engaging. Use strong images and minimal text on your slides. You can use a tool, like Haiku Deck, for this. A custom thumbnail also helps people remember your brand.
Step 2: For More YouTube Views, Focus on Value Above All Else
Remember, providing value should be your guiding principle when it comes to getting YouTube views.
If you want to learn how to provide value, you have to learn more about your audience and, more specifically, what they like. You may be wondering how you find the type of content that appeals to your target market. It’s simple: Just look at content in your niche.
There are a few approaches you can take.
The first is to take a look at blog posts that have done well in your niche. Then, create incredibly informative videos based on those blog post topics.
You can find such blog posts using Buzzsumo. Just enter your keyword, press search, and you’ll get a wealth of ideas.
Alternatively, you can look at other YouTube videos that have done well in your niche and create better videos. If your competitors have a YouTube channel, look at the type and frequency of content they are putting out.
If you’re an expert in your niche, then it shouldn’t be hard to create high-quality videos when using other videos as inspiration.
However, if you find yourself struggling, take a moment to assess what could have been done to improve the other video. For example:
Did it ignore something that was actually important?
Did the video fail to explain certain sections fully?
Did the video fail to provide actual results/case study information?
Was the pace too slow or too fast?
Was there too much information on the screen, or not enough?
Could diagrams have been used to illustrate a point better?
Maybe you could’ve included some data?
Check out the comments section, too. Other viewers’ opinions are often extremely revealing, and they’ll say if they felt the video was lacking something and could have been better in some way.
Say I’m in the business of teaching people ‘how to build a pond’ or building it for them, and I’m looking to do some content marketing.
I can just type ‘how to build a pond’ into the ‘YouTube Search box,’ and let the YouTube algorithm and Autosuggest do the rest.
Not all of the ideas are relevant, so I might select the first option and see what else comes up as a result of ‘Autosuggest.’
If I go with the option of ‘how to build a pond in your backyard,’ I’m presented with some helpful ideas.
I can then repeat that process, using other keywords, if I want to come up with even more video ideas.
It might also be a good idea to cycle through the alphabet after having chosen a ‘base’ keyword.
This time, I type in ‘how to build a pond a’
As you can see, plenty of video ideas here look relevant. I can use those to create super niche video content that resonates with a certain demographic in the social media platform.
If you have an existing audience on YouTube, consider asking your audience what they’d like you to cover next.
More often than not, your audience provides you with ideas that you can use.
The great thing about these video ideas is that by acting on them, you can be sure that there is an audience for them.
If you have done a good job of creating great content that meets people’s needs, you’ll find that organic views will be easier to come by. This is because a recent change to YouTube’s algorithm means authoritative content, viewer satisfaction, personalization, and the video’s performance are all important ranking signals.
Therefore if your videos produce a great user experience, there’s a good chance that they perform better in the rankings, too.
Step 3: Optimize Your Videos to Get More YouTube Views
Optimizing your video can help ensure it appears when and where it should; this includes the search listings and the ‘related video’ suggestions.
If you want to optimize your video, there are four things that you must take care of.
Title
Tags
Description
Thumbnail
It’s easy to over-complicate this and over-analyze everything, but keep it simple and focus on the four areas above.
Step 4: Write Better YouTube Titles
For the title, it’s essential that you don’t use clickbait-style headings. Inevitably, if the content of the video doesn’t reflect the title, you’ll get a ton of disappointed viewers.
If you’ve created your video around a keyword, ensure that your title clearly explains that your video covers the subject in question.
For example, if I created a video based on the key phrase ‘how to bake a chocolate cake for beginners,’ my title might be…
How to Bake a Chocolate Cake for Beginners – Spent $5 and 5 Minutes cleanup
Note: If you want to write great titles, you might want to work out what your audience doesn’t like or its fears about the topic.
In the example above, people might worry that it costs a lot to bake a cake and that cleaning up is a pain. The video becomes much more enticing if I address that in the title.
Step 5: Use YouTube Tags
For the tags, provide some keywords related to your video’s topic. If we continue with the ‘chocolate cake’ example above, our YouTube tags might look something like this:
Try not to use more than 10-12 tags per video. You’ll lose your target audience and dilute search results data.
Picking the right tags helps your video appear in the ‘suggested videos’ section when someone is watching a related video.
Now, let’s take a look at the description.
Step 6: Create an Accurate, Optimized YouTube Description
When writing the description, it’s vital that you don’t try to ‘outsmart’ Google. In other words, don’t stuff keywords, and don’t rely on any ‘tricks,’ that you might come across.
You could end up over-optimizing your video, which can have the opposite effect.
Your aim with the description is to clearly detail what the video is about and what people learn from watching it.
If you look at the top results returned for a YouTube video search, you can see that there is a wide variation in terms of what the descriptions look like.
That’s because, as mentioned above, user experience also plays a big role in ranking the video; While your description is important, don’t get too stressed out about getting it ‘right.’
That being said, key areas to focus on include putting your link at the top of the video, getting a keyword in the first 25 words, including it 3-4 times, and trying to stick to that 250 word count range.
Here’s what an example description looks like.
However, as I said, the top-ranking videos all tend to have varying styles that they use for their description. You don’t necessarily have to follow what is above.
Just provide the story behind your video, what it covers, and what people will learn as a result of watching.
Note: If you want to do something that will improve user experience, consider providing ‘timestamps’ in your description so that people can quickly get to interesting sections of a video.
Step 7: YouTube Thumbnail Optimization
For the thumbnail, there are a number of approaches that you can take. I’ve covered how you can create engaging YouTube thumbnails in this post. A custom thumbnail becomes part of your media platform branding.
For the most part, you can experiment with the following.
Use images of people in your custom thumbnail
Edit your thumbnail to include text overlay using a keyword based on the topic your video covers
Include an image that reveals an interesting section of the video – for example, the end result of a ‘how-to video.’
You will tend to find that you’re able to generate the best results when you combine some of the above.
Here’s an example of how you can use an interesting image and relevant text overlay.
As you can see, the custom thumbnail isn’t overly dramatic. It includes some text, related to the video keyword and an image of an interesting section of the video.
Here’s an example of using the image of a person, with text overlay and even possibly the ‘end result’ that is to be achieved, too.
You’ll want to experiment here, of course. But those two examples and the tips provided should be enough to let you know what tends to work well.
Step 8: Experiment With Ads to Drive YouTube Views
Ads might sound like a little bit of a cop-out here. I get it; you might not want to pay to play the YouTube views game.
However, running YouTube Ads is one of the best ways to generate the right views for your videos.
YouTube Ads let you target your ideal audience and make sure they find out about your video.
It takes a lot of the guesswork out of the whole process on this social media platform.
Running ads allows you to get real-time feedback on how good your video is, speeding the process of working out whether or not you have an engaging video on your hands.
If you find that people are watching your video to the end and sharing it a lot, then you know you’re on the right track in terms of the strategy that you’re using to actually create videos.
Enter a keyword that explains what your video covers. Then, write down other relevant keywords that are provided by ‘autosuggest.’
As you can see below, if I enter ‘how to bake a cake,’ I’m presented with relevant keywords worth targeting.
I’ve highlighted some that are potentially worth my while.
Note: The assumption here is that I’m teaching people how to bake a simple cake. That is why I’ve chosen those somewhat basic keywords.
If I want even more relevant keywords to target, I just select one of the ideal keywords and then press the ‘spacebar.’
And I’m presented with even more keywords to target.
As I mentioned above, you can also cycle through the alphabet to find other relevant keywords.
Then, I just need to note these keywords in a Google Doc and input them when setting up my ad targeting.
Step 9: Promote Your YouTube Video Everywhere
Just because you’ve created a YouTube video doesn’t mean that you can now only promote it on YouTube.
Post links for your YouTube content to your other digital assets, including your email list, your Facebook page, and other social media sites.
If you know of some influencers who might find your video useful, you may even want to let them know via email that you’ve created something they might enjoy.
Don’t be afraid to let the world know that you’ve got something new to offer.
Step 10: Increase YouTube Views By Building a Subscriber Base
You’ll also want to focus on building a subscriber base to get more YouTube views on future content.
If you can get subscribers, your videos will automatically get a good chunk of views as soon as you post them. If these views represent a good user experience, your video might also do a better job at ranking, too.
Aside from creating good content, there are some key steps that you can take to get more subscribers.
At the beginning and end of your video, mention that subscribing helps get the video out to more people in your social network.
By actually saying it, people may be more inclined to take action.
You can also make an effort to create content consistently.
Creating more videos will ensure there are more ways for your content to be found. This, of course, can help improve your subscriber count.
It also gives people a reason to become subscribers, as they’ll want to know when you publish new content.
Note: If you can create ‘Evergreen content,’ then the content you create will pay dividends for a long time, as it will still be relevant for people in the future.
This means that the video will drive YouTube views and subscribers, long after its creation.
FAQs
How Can I Get More Views on My YouTube videos?
The most essential parts are promoting your videos, building a subscriber list, and creating high-quality content. What makes high-quality content varies from niche to niche, so you need to know your audience needs before getting started on YouTube.
Can I Optimize My YouTube Videos?
Yes, and you absolutely should! To begin optimizing your videos, use descriptive and keyword-rich titles, include tags, optimize your thumbnail image and create transcripts of your videos.
What is YouTube SEO?
YouTube SEO is the process of optimizing your videos so that they rank higher in YouTube’s search results. Just like traditional SEO, several factors contribute to your ranking, like adding keywords to your titles and descriptions.
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The last part is crucial here: automating repetitive tasks.
The goal of marketing automation is to cut down on time, improve efficiency, and run processes automatically that would otherwise suck your time and kill efficiency.
Marketing automation uses software to automate monotonous marketing work. Marketing departments can automate repetitive tasks such as email marketing, social media posting, and even ad campaigns.
They further describe it as taking repetitive tasks like email and social media and automating them to save time and money. It’s more than efficiency – it’s about a more personalized experience as a customer.
The point is to automate tedious digital marketing tasks that take you away from other things that need your attention.
Zapier is probably my favorite tool to use for developing incredibly fast, easy integrations and automations.
It connects to hundreds (if not thousands) of applications that you likely are using.
For example, you can connect your calendar to Slack, your social media to a workflow, or even import your Lead Ads data into your favorite email program.
The options are nearly limitless, and the ease of use blows other products away.
For this automation campaign, we obviously want to import our Facebook Lead Ads data into a CRM or email platform to save time and automate digital marketing for the process of new campaigns.
To get started, select Facebook Lead Ads from the “Workflow Ideas” section:
Next, click “Make A Zap!” to get started:
Now your selection of Facebook Lead Ads should show up as a “Trigger” on your new Zap:
A trigger is simple:
It basically means that when someone fills out your lead form, it will trigger the following actions that you set.
It’s the spark or catalyst to your automation campaign.
Whenever an action happens on your lead form, the reaction you set will occur.
Next, be sure to connect your Facebook account information to get started:
Then you’re going to want to select the specific Facebook Page that you will be using for advertising.
On top of that, you need to select the specific form that you want to use for this automation campaign:
Next, you need to move on to the action step:
This is where you will determine what happens with the lead-form data from your Facebook Ads.
For example, you can select your favorite CRM like HubSpot or Salesforce.
Simply use the search bar to find the application you want to use:
For this example, we can use MailChimp since it’s likely to be the most common platform for emailing and nurturing leads.
Next, you need to select the action that will be triggered by the Facebook Lead Forms:
For this example, we want to select “Add/Update Subscriber” because this will automatically populate leads from Facebook into a new list.
You’re pretty much done after this, but you can further customize some of your options.
For example, I recommend using the “Send Welcome Email” option for new leads:
This will send your new leads an instant welcome email, automating the whole process even more.
Now instead of setting up Facebook Lead Ads, reviewing them in Facebook, downloading them, and uploading them into your platform to set up for a new campaign, you’ve automated it.
Your next step is to simply sit back and watch the leads come in and receive your emails without lifting a finger!
If you want to do this for your CRM (like Zoho, HubSpot, etc.), simply repeat the process but choose your own CRM instead of MailChimp as the “Action” step.
And if you want to use this for non-Facebook leads, you can set it up for tons of form applications on your website like Gravity Forms and more!
Pro tip: I also recommend putting these new leads into their own group. Make multiple automated processes on Zapier for each individual Facebook Lead Ad.
Automatically Share Curated Content on Social Media
Another one of my favorite unconventional marketing automation campaigns is to automate social media marketing for the process of sharing content.
Social media can quickly eat up your time throughout the week.
And most people spend way too much time on social media every single day:
And it’s not just your everyday social media user that can’t seem to put their favorite platforms down, either.
Marketers, on average, spend many hours every week on their social platforms of choice. If you want to know what’s getting done during these periods, they’re retargeting ads most of the time:
And if we’ve learned anything about social media from direct usage, it’s probably how utterly time-consuming and distracting it can be.
Be honest with me: how often do you get caught up on Twitter or Facebook and look at the clock to see that 25 or 30 minutes have gone by?
It happens to me more than I’d like to admit.
And that’s why I use this marketing automation tactic.
I used to spend way too much time on social media. It was taking me away from the business aspects that really needed my attention.
Now, instead of wasting my time on social, I’ve automated the process and can spend more time with clients, where real ROI is produced.
To do this for yourself, you’ll need to make a Feedly account.
Feedly is a great tool for curating content from your favorite industry blogs and thought leaders.
I use it every day to find the latest trending content!
I follow industry experts and get their content delivered via email daily:
And, like Zapier from before, you can automatically send that curated content to your social platforms.
So, instead of wasting time reading through the curated content and crafting a tweet, you can automatically do it.
Simply posting every new blog post on your Facebook won’t develop your status as a topic expert.
Sharing other topically-relevant pieces from experts will.
To get started, open up Zapier and search for the Feedly integration:
Next, select the Buffer integration that will show up below the “Explore Workflow Ideas” section:
If you’re not familiar with Buffer, you should get familiar with it.
It’s a tool that will allow you to schedule tons of social media posts in advance for every social platform you have.
Can you imagine not having to go to each platform and share the post individually?
I can, and it’s amazing.
Instead, Buffer will share the same post to all of your channels at the times you provide.
Next, make sure Feedly is selected as your “Trigger:”
Now, simply connect your Feedly account to get started:
(Disclaimer: you need a Feedly Pro account to use this integration. Thankfully, it’s only $7 a month or $62 for an entire year)
And remember, sometimes you have to spend money to make money.
Look at the opportunity cost:
The average marketer spends five to six hours a week on social media.
That means you’re spending 260 hours a year on social media.
Multiply that by your current wage/salary, and that’s how much money you are spending on social media marketing (and that’s without even counting ad spend!).
Now, does $62 seem like a bargain? I bet it does.
Plus, it saves you from having to spend hundreds of hours.
Now that you’re convinced, let’s go back to the setup process.
Select the category from Feedly that you want to share content from.
To set up categories on Feedly, simply search for an industry publication to follow, then click “Create A Collection.”
This will create a new “category” for you to pull posts from for this automation.
Next, simply select “Add to Buffer” as your action!
And that’s it.
Now you don’t have to curate a single thing on your own. Feedly will automatically pull in new content based on your selected categories and who you follow.
Then, it will send those articles into Buffer and add them to your queue.
Just kick back and let the posts share themselves.
That’s nearly 70% of your sales that you risk losing out on without automating for e-commerce via emails.
Someone took the time to peruse your product and place it in their cart. There is definite interest there.
Don’t let the sale slip away.
With simple Shopify settings, you can easily send cart-abandonment emails.
To get started, log in to your Shopify account and head to the admin section.
Click on your settings tab.
Then, click on “Checkout:”
Scroll down to the “Order processing” section and make sure to select the following option:
It’s that simple! Now you can automatically send these people emails that will directly take them back to their abandoned carts to hopefully get that conversion the second time around.
When you’re looking for automation tools, be sure to take your time and do your due diligence. Try to get reviews and impressions both from sources in your own network as well as industry experts you trust. If there’s an opportunity to take advantage of a trial, feel free to do so. However, in order to have the most success here, you need a clear picture of how you plan to use automation and what your tools are. This will help you find the best fit to manage your needs.
In marketing, what should I automate first?
This question is ultimately dependent on what marketing channels your company uses and what goals they have. If your goal is to try and use automation to scale your operations, you may want to start with one of your largest marketing areas, like email. If your goal is more about freeing up time for a limited marketing staff to work on essential tasks, choosing a smaller area of your marketing, like social media, may make more sense.
The difference between marketing automation and campaign management?
Marketing automation is the use of technology to streamline processes that are tedious or take up time to reach desired results. This is different from campaign management that focuses on the process of designing, tracking, executing, and analyzing marketing campaigns.
Why should small business owners should automate digital marketing?
Not only can you reach more prospects effectively, you can automate tasks like email marketing, social media, and website updates to focus on other business tasks and new ideas.
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Conclusion
As marketers, we’re constantly stretched for time.
We’ve got things to do, people to see, and customers to convert.
There’s not always enough time in the day to complete everything on your list.
Rather, there’s not enough time in the day to complete everything on your list without a little help.
And that’s where marketing automation comes into play.
You just don’t have time to nurture prospects on your own, like you did in the startup stages.
But, you still need personalization and well-timed messaging.
Start by automating your lead flows. When a form is completed, send those new leads into your CRM or email platform to automatically start new campaigns.
Then, automate your social media marketing strategy. Stop wasting precious hours on social media and start automating your sharing process with tools like Feedly and Buffer.
And remember, always use shopping cart abandonment emails to have a second shot at converting customers.
Finally, make sure to block out a few minutes in your schedule to pat yourself on the back for saving so much time.
Feels good, doesn’t it?
What marketing automation campaigns have you found success with?
Creating a customer journey map is enough to make even the best marketers freeze in their tracks and realize how little they really know about their prospects.
This map makes it easier for sales, marketing, and executive teams to make more informed decisions while humanizing your audience and making them easier to target.
The first step in a customer journey map is the core demographics, such as:
Gender
Age range
Job title
Job responsibilities
Salary
Region
Company size
You’ll likely find most of this data in your CRM. If not, a survey can give you a clear picture of who your audience is and what they do.
I recommend “humanizing” the persona by giving them a name and image. This brings out more of our emotional, empathetic side versus looking at the potential customer as a number to slot somewhere in a sales funnel.
Different Stages of the Customer Journey
When mapping out the customer journey, there are different stages that businesses need to be aware of. By understanding these stages, companies can create a more seamless and effective map that leads to conversions and customer satisfaction.
Let’s take a look:
Awareness Stage
The customer journey map begins with awareness, which means when the prospect becomes aware of your product or service.
They may see an ad, read an article online, or hear about your business from a friend at this stage.
Comparison Stage
This is when customers look at the various options and compare them side by side. Typically, they look at features, prices, and reviews to decide which product is right for them.
The comparison phase is crucial because it’s where customers make their final decision. If you can influence them during this part, you can increase your chances of making a sale.
Decision Stage
The decision stage is the final stage of the customer journey map when the customer either makes or does not make a purchase. Many factors, such as price, product quality, and customer service, influence the decision stage.
Now that you have the basics, let’s see what this looks like in practice.
Customer Journey Map Example
For our customer journey example below, we’ve chosen to work with Lucy, a marketing director in her late 40s.
Her job primarily entails lead generation, sales management, and gathering competitive intelligence.
She organizes and prioritizes campaigns; she’s a pro at gathering competitive intelligence and uses it wisely to reinforce the brand while cementing customer loyalty in a highly competitive marketplace.
Due to the increase in popularity of social media, Lucy’s looking to streamline the interaction process on social media without losing the “personality” of the brand.
She’s in the market for a solution and wants to make a confident decision quickly.
With this in mind, our persona map looks something like this so far:
Now we’ve got a persona, what about the buyer’s needs?
How To Understand the Buyer’s Needs
Buyers are eager to tell you what they need. All you have to do is ask.
Basic lead follow-up and nurturing questions can reveal quite a bit. Additionally, simple polls and surveys can often show a great deal about where the buyer is in the process (and whether they have an urgent need for your product or service versus basic curiosity).
Even if we don’t know specifically what they need, we can make a few general statements and apply them to our persona.
Returning to the example above, ask yourself, what would someone in this job typically need from our solution?
For starters, the buyer likely needs the product to be well-documented. She’ll be managing dozens, perhaps hundreds, of staff members, some of whom may be more technically savvy than she is.
Some staff may pick it up quickly; others may need more time. We’ll add the needs and the persona’s place in the decision-making process (one persona can have multiple roles in the decision process; they can be a user and initiator, for example)
Is the solution adaptive and flexible to accommodate the buyer’s existing platforms and tools?
Does the purchaser have procedures and requirements to add to the mix, like cloud-based access and specific security protocols?
These factors can influence and even conflict with what the primary buyer wants.The internal stakeholders often make decisions like these, which lengthens the required time and features.
Dealing with Common Roadblocks in Customer Journey Maps
During the customer journey, constraints, concerns, frustrations, and issues often affect the buying decision. These roadblocks will prevent your customer from taking action, so you need to outline those in your map.
You can brainstorm these obstacles and add them to your customer journey map to ensure that your sales team knows how to address the most common objections before becoming major pain points.
You also have to decide where this buyer falls on the decision-making scale.
Will they be using the product, influencing the decision-maker, or perhaps just initiating contact with the company? Could they be a mix of all of these?
On your map, note these roadblocks and the buyer persona’s place in the decision-making cycle.
Following our example, we end up with something like this:
Here, we’ve managed to discover (and brainstorm) the buyer’s potential:
Needs
Concerns
Frustrations
Urgency/Timeframe to Buy
Place in the buying cycle
Requirements
As the list above shows, all the kinds of sales-propelling information needed to acknowledge objections, concerns, and frustrations while concentrating on needs, requirements, and urgency.
We’ve learned core demographics about our buyers and key information that may prevent them from taking action or details that could move a sale into the next stage.
Our customer journey map is less of a neatly-organized, bulleted list and more like a mind map that’s always being adjusted and revised. It may not be as tidy, but it’s closer to the actual customer experience and, therefore, far more useful
In other words, our customer journey map puts you in the buyer’s shoes. The buying decision is rarely a simple one, and the model we’ve designed allows a more accurate look at how people think when planning a purchase.
Create a Customer Journey Map for Each Type of Customer
Now, you must go through this entire process with every type of buyer your company encounters. Each type of customer will have a different buyer path, objections, and challenges. For example, in retail, you’ve got suppliers, wholesalers, resellers, and a whole avalanche of personas out there.
Need some inspiration? Here are some customer journey map examples:
You can break customer journey maps into smaller parts for more complex situations and focus on different areas, like the e-commerce checkout process.
Another approach is to create a customer journey map for specific features like Spotify did.
Spotify wanted to track playlist-creation touchpoints through a third-party app to understand customers’ emotions better.
By using customer journey mapping, Spotify found its users were reluctant to share their playlists in case others judged their musical tastes. Additionally, Spotify found some users didn’t know about the feature.
Spotify responded to this by improving its user interface and in-app flows to refine the customer experience and improve touchpoint relevance along the way.
The above are just two customer journey map examples; buyer journeys are also a key part of PPC campaigns.
The Customer Journey and Your Marketing Strategy
As a business, you want to ensure that your marketing strategy aligns with your customer’s journey. Here are some steps to help you do that.
First, you’ll need to identify your customer’s various touchpoints with your brand. This could include everything from visiting your website to speaking with customer service.
You can use marketing attribution (the process of measuring which specific marketing activities are driving results for your business) to help you identify these touchpoints.
Next, you’ll consider the customer’s emotional state at each journey stage. What do they need? Answering these questions will help you create a more effective customer journey map.
Finally, don’t forget to consider the overall purpose of the customer journey map and how it ties in with your market strategy. What do you want your customers to achieve? Once you have a clear goal, you can start mapping out the steps needed to get there.
Customer Journey Maps and Content Creation
Creating content for each stage of the customer journey is an effective way to guide your prospect all the way to the purchase point.
By providing helpful, informative, and engaging content, you can keep your customers engaged and nurture them to become lifelong fans of your brand.
I’ve listed some content ideas for each stage of the journey.
The Pre-purchase (Awareness) Stage
The pre-purchase stage is all about education. Your potential customers are trying to learn more about their options and what would be the best fit for them. They’re looking for unbiased information to help them make a decision.
That’s where your content comes in. Providing them with helpful information that answers their questions helps them narrow down their options and make informed decisions.
Types of content you could create include:
Blog posts
Social media content
Ebooks
Case studies
The Consideration Stage
During the consideration stage, your customers make up their minds about which product or service to choose. They’re looking for reassurance that they’re making the right choice. How can you help them along? Try content like:
Product comparisons
Ebooks
Blog posts and videos explaining more about the product
Email marketing (Focusing on the product/service your lead is interested in).
The Purchase Stage
Your prospect is about to make their decision but might have some doubts. What content can you give them that may get them over the line and turn them into a fully-fledged customer? Try:
Product information guides
FAQs
Pre-sale support through email, chat, and social media
Email marketing
Finally, remember to look after your customer post-purchase. Ensure your client gets the best from the product/service with how-to guides, product updates, and access to customer service support.
FAQs
What Is a Customer Journey Map?
A customer journey map is a diagram that shows the steps a customer takes during their journey with a company. It includes all touchpoints where the customer interacts with the company, from first contact to post-purchase follow-up.
What is Customer Journey vs Customer Experience?
The customer journey represents all the summed up actions and interactions that a customer has with a given brand. The customer experience represents how a business interfaces with customers at every touch point. So customer experience plays a big role in the customer journey, but the two things aren’t the same.
What Are the Most Common Customer Journey Stages?
While your team may add additional steps depending on your market and audience, the most common customer journey steps are:
Awareness
Consideration
Purchase
Retention
Advocacy
What Are the Five Reasons to Use a Customer Journey Map?
Five reasons to use a customer journey map include:
1. Improved communication with customers.
2. Better understanding of customer needs.
3. Identifying potential problems before they happen.
4. Taking a proactive approach to customer service.
5. Saving time and money by resolving issues quickly.
What Should A Customer Journey Map Include?
First, it should clearly outline the various touchpoints a customer has with your brand, from initial awareness to purchase and beyond.
It’s also important to consider the emotions and needs of customers at each stage of their journey. What are they trying to accomplish? What are their pain points? Addressing these questions will help you create a holistic view of the customer experience.
Finally, don’t forget to include data! Collecting data points at each stage of the customer journey will give you valuable insights into your customer demographics and how best to market to them.
A customer journey map is a diagram that shows the steps a customer takes during their journey with a company. It includes all touchpoints where the customer interacts with the company, from first contact to post-purchase follow-up.
The customer journey represents all the summed up actions and interactions that a customer has with a given brand. The customer experience represents how a business interfaces with customers at every touch point. So customer experience plays a big role in the customer journey, but the two things aren’t the same.
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While your team may add additional steps depending on your market and audience, the most common customer journey steps are:
Awareness
Consideration
Purchase
Retention
Advocacy
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Five reasons to use a customer journey map include:
1. Improved communication with customers.
2. Better understanding of customer needs.
3. Identifying potential problems before they happen.
4. Taking a proactive approach to customer service.
5. Saving time and money by resolving issues quickly.
First, it should clearly outline the various touchpoints a customer has with your brand, from initial awareness to purchase and beyond.
It’s also important to consider the emotions and needs of customers at each stage of their journey. What are they trying to accomplish? What are their pain points? Addressing these questions will help you create a holistic view of the customer experience.
Finally, don’t forget to include data! Collecting data points at each stage of the customer journey will give you valuable insights into your customer demographics and how best to market to them.
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Conclusion
Don’t panic. Prioritize.
Focus on your most profitable customers first and find the unifying threads that tie them together, then build on that persona. Once you have those, start working down the list until you have all your customer journeys mapped.
Sometimes they make decisions that go against the grain of even the most well-developed persona. It happens.
However, when you have a better idea of who your customers are, you can build more effective conversion funnels that make it easy for buyers to take the action you want them to take.
Are you planning to create a customer journey map? What is holding you back?
Are you wasting time and money because you don’t really know your customers? Creating products that your customers don’t want just doesn’t make sense. In any business, before you can meet your customers’ needs, you have to know:
What are their problems?
What solutions do they want?
How can you introduce those solutions to them?
So, do you know your customers’ needs? If not, now is the time to analyze who your customers are and how you can give them what they want, before they seek answers elsewhere.
Luckily, doing this is easier than you may think. You can gain practically everything you need to make your customers happy by using survey questions for market research.
While there are several ways to gather customer information, customer surveys work and are one of the most effective methods to use when collecting this kind of data.
Surveys are great information-gathering tools, but to get accurate results, you have to ask the right questions in the right way.
We’ll look at the kinds of questions to ask. These questions will unlock your customers’ innermost thoughts, get you the answers you want, and even help you segment your customer base.
First, here are some general guidelines to help you prepare result-focused survey questions for market research:
1. Remember KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
When it comes to surveying, simplicity is key.
Most people are pretty busy, so they don’t have time to answer overly complex, lengthy surveys.
This is why you have to make the questions easy to comprehend. Additionally, verify that your market research survey questions are easy to access and answer.
Brevity is important. A lengthy survey likely means high abandonment rates. High abandonment rates mean you may not get the best results because they create:
A poor survey experience.
Responses with incomplete information.
Less representative final data.
You want people to respond excitedly to your questions, right? A 40-minute survey won’t support that.
Here’s a great example screenshot of a short survey:
Instead of using a detailed questionnaire, go with plain, easy-to-understand survey templates, andrather than asking complex questions, ask simple questions with a well-defined approach.
Asking complicated questions may confuse or even frustrate respondents. When that happens, two things are bound to follow: they will either not answer the question at all, or, if they do, they will give you unclear, inaccurate answers.
By complicated questions, I mean:
Trick questions: These are purposefully deceptive and complex so respondents often answer in a specific way.
Long questions: These are long, convoluted questions that provide so much information that it becomes difficult to comprehend and answer accurately.
Confusing questions: These are simply questions that don’t make sense to the respondent.
Avoid these at all costs to engage participants and obtain accurate results.
When writing survey questions for market research, the main goal is to keep things as direct as possible.
Do you know the variations of the phrase KISS? “Keep It Simple and Straightforward” and “Keep It Short and Simple” also apply here.
To get respondents to answer your questions, keep it simple, short, and straightforward.
2. Avoid Too Many Polar “Yes/No” Questions
Polar questions have only two possible answers: yes (confirmatory) and no (negative). They’re also known as yes/no questions.
Why should you avoid asking only polar questions?
Well, the simple reason is that when you ask a yes/no question, that’s all you will get. Respondents don’t have the chance to tell you what’s on their minds (which may be other possible answers that you hadn’t considered).
Closed-ended questions may lead respondents toward a particular answer which can easily create bias. This won’t unlock your respondents’ authentic answers.
Survey questions that pull respondents toward one answer can disrupt the objective of the survey. When using questions in a survey, make sure the options for responses are as unbiased as possible.
An alternative to yes/no questions is multiple-choice questions. You can ask survey participants to select one answer or “all that apply.”
Here is an example of a polar question:
Here is an example of a multiple-choice question:
Just keep in mind that multiple-choice questions may not always provide the best information, as they are still somewhat closed-ended.
However, multiple-choice questions do give respondents the chance to choose from various choices, and you may find that their preferredchoice is different from what you anticipated.
To get additional information, you can always provide a space for unique answers and call it “Others – please specify” or something similar.
When asking a multiple-choice question, remember to include all the possible answers you can think of that respondents may want to choose.
You should consider using polar or multiple-choice questions in a survey when you want to:
Offer a set number of responses to choose from.
Collect unambiguous answers.
Receive simple responses to simple questions.
Create a short, quick survey that takes respondents less time.
Polar and multiple-choice questions make it easy to capture and analyze data. In other words, you’ll be able to generate more quantitative data that gives clear-cut numerical results. You’ll know exactly what respondents answer with because you’re the one that wrote the responses.
What’s more, you can give customers some freedom by asking one or two open-ended questions after polar or multiple-choice questions to gain more clarity. This leads us to my next point.
3. Write a Couple of Smart Open-Ended Questions
Open-ended questions are a type of survey question for market research requiring the respondent to write a comment, an essay, or other types of free-reaction text. They produce qualitative data, which is a little more difficult to analyze at the end of the survey than quantitative (numerical) data. These responses will give you a lot of juicy details, though, so it’s well worth the effort.
You don’t need to make all the questions open-ended, but you should aim to include at least one or two. This will free your respondents to blurt out what’s on their minds without holding back.
Below are two thoughtful, open-ended questions culled from a recent survey by an e-commerce company:
When asking an open-ended question, you need to be careful, as some respondents may get carried away and provide you with long blocks of text.
To prevent this, provide a text box where they can write their answers, but limit the number of characters the text box can accept. That way, they’ll provide you with only the most important things they have to say.
4. Ask One Question at a Time
How do you feel when someone asks you a string of questions?
“How did you find our products? What results have you gotten by using our products? Which of our products do you find most beneficial and why?”
You probably feel like the desperate interrogator wouldn’t let you finish your sentence. That’s exactly how your respondents feel when you ask a chain of questions at once.
In addition, multiple questions make it hard for people to give precise responses, making it difficult for you to interpret those answers.
One approach to solving this issue is to aim for questions that encompass multiple things you want to ask. However, avoid this if the question becomes too long or confusing. Otherwise, providing space to respond between each question is likely your best bet.
3 Example Survey Questions That Will Help You Know (and Solve) Your Customers’ Biggest Problems
Next, we will be looking at some specific survey questions for market research that can get you helpful answers.
These investigative questions will help you discover your audience’s biggest problems. They’ll also help you know what product to create and what to share with your customers in your newsletters, walk-through guides, blogs, etc.
The truth is, as a business, your job is to solve problems and meet people’s needs. This could be by rendering a service, creating a product, or sharing helpful information and fresh content, just as we do here at the Neil Patel blog.
You cannot solve any problem without getting to know it first; thus, asking these questions is critical.
With that in mind, here are some pin-pointing, open-ended survey questions for market research that will elicit helpful answers from your audience:
1. What’s Your Biggest Challenge in ___?
Are there challenging situations that customers are facing right now in your specialization? Your customers are the best people to give you this insight.
The answers to this question will help you understand the greatest problem your customers need help with so that you know where to focus your company’s energy.
Sometimes, you may receive diverse answers from respondents; however, with the data gathered, you will find the most significant common challenge among them.
2. What Are Your Most Burning Questions About____?
You’ve been doing all the interrogations so far. Now, it’s time for customers to take their turn. Sometimes the most useful information you’ll gather comes from customers’ questions rather than their answers.
The trick is to get them to ask only their most burning questions about the niche or subject you’re dealing with.
So, that means you might have to limit the number of characters in the text box or just tell customers to ask only their most important questions.
By the way, if you do share information with your audience (through blogs, videos, podcasts, newsletters, eBooks, eCourses, etc.), the questions your customers ask here will help provide you with a bunch of content ideas you can use for a long time.
Their questions may even generate ideas for services to add to your service list, products to create, and other ways to improve your existing offerings.
But, if you want to lay it on the line, you can really tap into their wits. That’s the job of the next question.
3. What’s Not Out There? What Product, Service, Tool, or App Would You Like to See?
If you use only your own ideas for products without customer feedback, you may end up creating the wrong product. This is a product that won’t sell a piece, won’t make you a dime, and won’t solve a single problem.
Luckily, customers can help you avoid this dilemma. You can be explicit by asking this question to define what people want and need.
Surveys can make or break your start-up because they are all about how well you comprehend what your customers want to tell you. Not using them can mean taking a shot in the dark about whether a product will succeed. A product misfire can sink a company in its early stages. Even at the enterprise level, a product that doesn’t meet company needs can have severe consequences.
The answers you get here will help position you advantageously to create products that matter, thereby giving you an edge over your competitors.
2 Example Survey Questions That Will Help You Know How to Best Reach Your Audience
While the questions above will get you helpful customer-centric answers, it’s not all about knowing what your customers want. You also have to find out who they really are and how to reach them.
Here are some questions to help you do that:
1. What Level of Expertise (Beginner, Intermediate, or Expert) Do You Have in ___?
You may think you know who your audience is, but do you really? Without a basic knowledge of who you’re reaching out to, you may not be able to solve their problems.
This question is especially significant if you are responsible for training people (through in-app messages, blogging, video content, webinars, online courses, information products, etc.).
Knowing your customers’ level of expertise will help you comprehend how much support they need and what sort of content you should create for them. Also, you can easily determine which features a product needs based on customer experience and knowledge. Customers with less expertise may need features that those with more expertise don’t want.
All this information improves the customer experience and helps you better serve your target audience.
2. What’s Your Preferred Method of Learning (Reading, Listening, Watching, Practicing, or Other)?
Even if you create the best podcast that’s ever existed, it won’t matter if your customers prefer to receive information via written online content like blogs. You have to know how to reach your customers where they are.
This question is important for narrowing down where your audience exists, but it also helps you gain insight into alternative possibilities. Perhaps you’ve been focusing on helping your audience learn by listening when they really want to learn by watching.
Use the responses to this question to analyze where you’re meeting your audience’s preferences and where you may be falling short.
How to Build Survey Questions for Your Audience
So far, you know that survey questions should be:
Simple.
Honest.
Understandable.
Unbiased.
You also know that a healthy mixture of closed-ended and open-ended questions will give you the most accurate results. Also, it’s not a good idea to ask too many questions in a row before allowing respondents to answer because it can make the survey a little overwhelming.
With all this in mind, you are ready to build out your survey questions for market research.
The first thing to consider is what you want to gather from your survey results. What do you want to know, and how will this help you give your customers what they need?
Survey language is critical here because you want respondents to recognize what you’re asking so that they can give you the most accurate answers.
Second, think about your audience. What sort of experience do you want them to have while taking the survey? Respondents who can effortlessly complete a survey will likely give you better responses with more meaningful insights.
In addition to others mentioned in this blog, some survey design mistakes to avoid include:
The third factor to focus on is the format. If respondents have trouble navigating the survey or selecting their answers, this will lead to a bad experience and poor survey results.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long should my survey be?
When crafting survey questions for market research, aim for less than 30 questions. The survey should take participants about 10 minutes or less to finish to avoid bad-quality answers or abandonment.
Where can I build an online survey?
Figuring out how to design survey questions for market research is so much easier when you use online resources and tools. For example, QuestionPro makes it simple to build, design, and distribute surveys to all of your participants.
What is a good sample size for a survey?
Statisticians agree that a good sample size should land around 100 participants or more if you want significant results. Nevertheless, aim for about 10% of the target population (or 1,000 participants max) to get the most accurate findings.
What types of questions should I ask on my survey?
You’ll need to use various question types to engage respondents and make the survey easier to complete. Ask a blend of yes/no, multiple-choice, and open-ended questions for the best survey outcomes.
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Conclusion
A great product and excellent customer service begin with getting to know who your customers are and what they want. For this to happen, you have to compile customer information, and surveys are one of the best methods to collect precisely what you need.
When reaching out to gather customer information, it’s essential to get it right from the beginning. The types of questions you ask play an important role in creating a successful survey.
You won’t get good responses when you ask bad questions. Pay attention to how you’re framing questions and what possible answers respondents may give to gain the highest-quality results from your survey.
If you take the time to write good survey questions for market research, you’ll be on your way to getting handy customer information that can help you drive your business in the right direction.
The next time you conduct a survey, try the tips above, ask the right questions just as I’ve pointed out, and you’ll be on your way to uncovering your customers’ deepest desires.
Do you use market research surveys? If so, what type of questions do you usually ask? Let me know below!
In a world of increasing competition, understanding your target market is vital.
Conducting thorough research of past, current, and prospective customers helps you uncover insights to improve your product or create more effective marketing messages.
Those insights don’t have to be hard-won, either. Thanks to new tools and data sources, businesses no longer have to rely on traditional methods like surveys and focus groups.
Ready to learn what your audience really wants? These are the 15 best market research tools to use.
Benefits of Leveraging Marketing Research
There’s a reason the global revenue of the market research industry has more than doubled since 2008 and is now valued in excess of $76.4 billion. It comes with a heap of benefits. Any business wanting to improve its product or launch a new marketing campaign will be at a significant disadvantage without market research.
If you’re asking yourself “what is market research?,” look no further. Market research keeps your target audience at the center of every decision. By understanding their needs and desires, you can tailor everything from your product to your marketing to your customer. In doing so, you’ll reduce the number of bad customer experiences—one or two of which are enough to make 64% of customers switch to a competitor.
Market research tools can also help you discover new business opportunities and threats. New markets become obvious when speaking to customers and understanding their behavior. The same applies with competitors and external threats that could threaten your business if you don’t act. It can also be used to help create customer personas, which only add to the effectiveness of your marketing. Customer personas are fictional takes on your ideal consumer created by your team to describe the characteristics and buying motives of specific customer categories.
Ultimately, using market research will give you a huge competitive advantage. That’s because of the benefits above and because 6 out of 10 marketers are using consumer research to drive decisions. Do you really want to be on the outside looking in?
As a start, you can use these tools to spy on the competition and see where your brand stands against them. There are also tools to help you collect that all-important market research data.
How to Use Marketing Research Data in Your Marketing
You can leverage market research data in several ways, but using it to inform and optimize your marketing strategy, from campaign creation to execution, is one of the most powerful.
For instance, market research can ensure your new product launch goes off without a hitch. Almost half of all product launches are delayed, and 20% fail to meet targets. By understanding exactly what customers want, a successful product launch simply becomes a case of delivering it.
Market research can also help you focus your marketing efforts on areas where you have a competitive advantage. By understanding what customers are really searching for, you could identify untapped markets with very little competition in terms of paid ads or SEO. Focusing your efforts here, rather than on saturated verticals, will send your ROI soaring.
Finally, you can use market research data to optimize your marketing efforts after launch. Analyzing social media and other types of user engagement data can highlight how effective each message is so you can do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
You don’t have to spend a dime to get the benefits of marketing research. There are plenty of free market research tools out there. I’ve highlighted five of my favorites below.
1. Google Trends
Google Trends shows you what people are searching for on Google. It was introduced in 2006 and tracks the popularity of topics over time by location. You can see exactly how popular searches are for Taylor Swift in the U.S. this year. Or how searches for Brexit have declined in the U.K. since 2019.
At the time of writing, Google processes 99,000 searches every second. That’s over 85 billion searches every day, making it the largest and most valuable search data source in existence. Google Trends gives you access to that data in a categorized and aggregated way.
Enter a trend and Google will show you how trendy that term is with a line graph and give you a score out of 100. You can also compare different terms.
Pros
easy to use
visually appealing
huge amount of data
Cons
doesn’t show the exact search volume
related topics aren’t always relevant
2. Facebook Page Insights
Facebook Page Insights is a fantastic and free market research option if you use Facebook to market your business. If you don’t use Facebook for marketing yet, you probably should. With 2.9 billion monthly active users, it’s one of the best social media platforms for marketing.
The tool provides insights into your audience, post performance, and the health of your pages. You can use the tool to see who likes your page and why, which posts get the most engagement, and learn how to increase the reach of your content.
Think With Google is one of the search giant’s lesser-known tools, but that doesn’t make it any less powerful. It’s a free-to-use resource library of facts and figures based on Google’s own data and other research that can supercharge your marketing efforts.
If you want a broad understanding of what’s going on in the world, Think With Google is a great starting point. Search the platform, and you can uncover marketing trends, understand the latest consumer behavior and find the insights you need to drive your marketing strategy.
The site is split into four areas (Consumer Insights, Marketing Strategies, Future of Marketing, and Tools) which you can use to find the insights you’re looking for.
Pros
huge resource of statistics and studies
easy to use
great for marketing research
Cons
limited to marketing studies
4. Answer The Public
See a familiar face? Answer The Public is now part of the NP family, and makes a great free asset for your market research needs. It’s one of the simplest options out there for getting a deeper understanding of what people are talking about.
Simply enter in the topic you want to research, the region you are looking at, and you’ll get a whole set of adjacent topics and questions that people are searching for about the subject. On top of that, Answer the Public puts these in flat data sets or handy data visualizations for you to share with your teams.
Struggling to come up with content ideas? Answer The Public gives you a bunch of baseline ideas, pulled right from the minds (and searches) of your audience.
Pros
Easy interface to get you insights fast
Data visualization to make sharing insights easier
Incredible insights on how a subject is approached in search.
Cons
Limited users and searches with free plan — but upgrading gives you that and a variety of other features, including comparing data over time and search listening alerts.
Price
Free with limited uses, paid plans range from $79 to $199 per month.
5. U.S. Census Bureau
The U.S. Census Bureau website lets you search U.S. census data for free. The Bureau of the Census conducts over 130 surveys a year (which are used to allocate billions of dollars in federal funds), making it an in-depth source of reliable data.
You can filter by several variables, including age, location, and income. It also provides visualization of some data sets. One interesting way to use this data set is to filter the results using your business’ NAICS code to see where and with whom your industry is most popular. This is a great way to discover new target markets.
Pros
one of the biggest demographic resources online
easy to search through reports
Cons
limited to the U.S.
older census reports can become outdated quickly
Price
Free.
11 Best Paid Marketing Research Tools
Free market research tools are a great way to dip your toes into the industry. However, there will always be limitations when you don’t pay for the data. If you’re serious about market research, you’re going to want to pay for premium access. These are the best paid market research tools to use.
1. QuestionPro
So far, we’ve only discussed secondary data sources. A primary data source would involve gathering results directly from people through surveys.
QuestionPro is a great option, with over a billion questions answered, offering a range of free plans and professional research licenses.
These plans are great for making, distributing, and analyzing surveys. Importantly, all users can get 24/7 LiveChat support, which is a huge asset. Surveys can be sent through a variety of means including email, links, social media, embedded text, etc. Analysis can be done in-app or through an export.
Pros
easy to start using, especially with built-in templates
a generous free plan
24/7 LiveChat support for all
Cons
mastering the software takes time
user interface prioritizes function over aesthetics
Price
The Basic plan is free, while the Advanced plan costs $99 per month.
2. SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is one of the best and most popular tools to use, with over 20 million questions answered using the platform each day.
The company’s enterprise-grade platform makes it easy to create, send out, and analyze surveys. Surveys can be sent via a link, email, social media, or embedded into a web page. You can browse through individual responses or use the tool’s custom reports and charts to visualize data.
Pros
easy to use
good template selection
great free plan
Cons
analytics could be improved
lack of customer support
Price
Basic plan is free. Standard plan costs $99 per month.
3. Statista
Statista is a hub of visual data, market research reports, and statistics. It collates data from several reputable sources, turning most of them into graphs and charts that are easy to digest. Because Statista’s data is continually updated, you can keep coming back to the same chart year after year to see how trends are changing.
The site has data on almost any topic you can imagine, making it a great way to discover consumer behavior and market trends, no matter your business.
Getting started with Statista is as easy as searching for a particular topic. The site’s search functionality is excellent and will return hundreds of reports and dashboards that you can use to influence or support your marketing efforts.
Pros
one of the best statistical resources online
great UX
easy to search for data
Cons
free plan is limited
visuals aren’t the best
Price
Basic account is free. Premium account costs $59 per month.
4. Typeform
Typeform is another survey-based market research tool and an alternative to SurveyMonkey. It benefits from a more user-friendly design with a bunch of pre-made templates, making it easy to create forms and online surveys that you can send to customers. Typeform drives more than 500 million digital interactions every year and integrates with hundreds of other apps.
You can format questions in multiple ways, including multiple-choice, scale ratings, and open-ended answers—perfect for collecting quantitative and qualitative data. You can even use conditional logic to change the structure of your survey based on a respondent’s answers.
The respondent experience is also different. Unlike other survey tools, respondents are only shown a single question at a time. This makes for a more user-friendly and less intimidating experience that can increase the number of responses.
Pros
easy to use
respondent-friendly
strong data visualization
mobile-optimized
Cons
lack of customer support
data reporting isn’t amazing
Price
Limited free plan available. Premium plans start from $25 per month billed annually.
5. ??Buzzsumo
Think of Buzzsumo as the content marketing and social media market research tool. It analyzes over 8 billion articles and 300 trillion social engagements, so you can see which topics or types of content receive the most engagement, what’s getting shared on social media, and find influencers who can help increase the reach of your content.
This makes Buzzsumo an incredibly effective market research tool for any marketer looking to put together a content marketing strategy. There’s no need to second guess what’s going to rank well and receive engagement when you can use Buzzsumo to see what’s getting traction at the moment.
There are several ways you can use Buzzsumo. The easiest way is to use the tool’s Content Analyzer to search for a topic and see which articles have the most engagement. You can also set up alerts to monitor mentions of a particular optic or keywords.
Pros
accurate social share counts
great for competitor research
Cons
doesn’t include every social media channel
filtering could be better
Price
Free plan available. Premium plans start from $99 per month.
6. Qualtrics
Qualtrics is an all-in-one market research tool. From creating advanced surveys to segmenting markets and analyzing data, Qualtrics does it all. Create your own survey to gather data or upload an existing data set and Qualtrics will run statistical tests and apply visualizations to help you gather insights.
There’s no need to spend time finding respondents for your surveys, either. You can use the platform to find a representative sample of your target audience and have them fill in your survey.
There’s even on-demand training to help you get the most from the platform.
Pros
easy to build surveys
excellent data reporting
Cons
software has a steep learning curve
limited customization of surveys
Price
Plans start from $1500 per annum.
7. Qualaroo
Qualaroo is an advanced customer survey tool that helps you ask the right questions at the right times. What separates Qualaroo from other survey tools is that you can embed surveys into your site, allowing you to catch users in real-time, with context. That makes their responses significantly more valuable and insightful.
Creating surveys is easy thanks to a wide range of templates and customization options. Analyzing and reporting results is also a breeze courtesy of the platform’s AI-powered analytics tool. There are also tons of other features like dozens of answer types, branching questions, and automatic language translation.
Pros
easy to create and deploy surveys
analytics reduces reporting time
easy to learn
Cons
pre-built templates can be generic
dashboards could be improved
Price
Plans start from $80 per month.
8. BrandMentions
BrandMentions is another social media monitoring platform similar to Buzzsumo but with a greater emphasis on social media. It estimates it currently analyzes billions of social media mentions for over 10,000 companies.
You can use the tool to quickly understand social media users’ opinions on practically any topic. Simply search for a keyword, and BrandMentions will display the most recent social posts as well as the context in which it was used. So not only do you see what people are saying, you understand the broader sentiment around the topic.
The tool also shows a range of other metrics, including how many people view the topic each day, how many people engage with the topic, and which days the topic trends on.
Pros
great for social media research
can also be used for brand monitoring
intuitive UX
Cons
can be time-consuming to automate reports
only analyzes social media data
Price
Plans start from $99 per month.
9. Gartner
Global research and advisory firm Gartner is a heavyweight when it comes to market research. The company has three core services (trusted insights, strategic advice, and practical tools). We’re only going to focus on its trusted insights offering here.
Trusted insights offer an incredible amount of detailed, verified, and peer-driven research. It’s a fantastic way to identify trends in your industry, spot gaps in the market, and discover other insights to power your business.
These reports are at another level compared to other research teams. Gartner boasts over 2,000 research experts and several proprietary research methodologies to deliver objective and unmatched insights.
Pros
unmatched insights
unbiased data
Cons
very expensive
Price
Plans start at $30,000.
10. Tableau
Tableau is a business intelligence suite centered around data visualization. You can connect to almost any data source and Tableau will transform that data into beautiful visual reports that make it easy to analyze and share with stakeholders.
You don’t need to know any code to use Tableau, and the tool makes it easy to be as broad or granular as you like with data analysis. Import data from tons of different data sources, like PDFs, spreadsheets, and Google Analytics.
Tableau is a trusted market research tool for some of the country’s biggest companies, including Verizon, Lenovo, and Charles Schwab.
Pros
best visual data reporting tool
acts as a central repository for data
analyzing data is easy
Cons
can be slow to upload large data sources
requires you to source your own data
Price
Tableau Explorer starts at $42.
11. Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is one of the best tools for doing SEO and PPC-focused market research. Full transparency, this is a tool I created, but I would think it’s pretty awesome even if I didn’t make it.
Put a phrase into the search bar and it will provide you with a list of other relevant keywords people are searching for, along with search volume and a difficulty score. You can also enter your own domain or that of a competitor to identify areas for improvement.
It’s a great tool for identifying the size of a potential market, how competitive that market is and what chance you have of ranking in it. You can also use it to get the low-down on a competitor and find out which audiences they’re targeting.
Pros
great UX
one of the best market research tools for digital marketing
wide range of affordable plans
Cons
limited to SEO and PPC data
Price
Ubersuggest has a free plan that allows for 3 keyword searches a day with limited insights.
Paid plans start at $29 per month or $290 for lifetime access.
Market Research Tools Frequently Asked Questions
What are the primary market research techniques?
There are five main techniques for conducting primary research: surveys, one-on-one interviews, observational studies, focus groups, and field trials.
What can I discover with market research?
The best insight from market research is the discovery of a relevant and actionable insight about your target market you can use to improve your offering or influence your marketing efforts.
Are market research tools worth the cost?
If you are on a budget, there are plenty of free market research tools available. However, the best market research tools cost money and provide access to more data and additional capabilities that can increase the effectiveness of your market research.
Why is it important to do market research?
Market research uncovers important information about your business and target market that can highlight opportunities for your business that would otherwise be missed.
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What’s your biggest challenge in___?
What level of expertise do you have in ___? (Beginner, intermediate, or expert?)
What’s your preferred method of learning (reading, listening, watching, practicing, others)?
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Conclusion: Market Research Tools
Market research tools are an invaluable way to find out exactly what your target audience is thinking. Whether you use free market research tools or paid market research tools, you can uncover plenty of insights that can have a transformative effect on your business.
Their authors all likely hit a wall somewhere in their content creation process.
Even I had to fill my blogger toolbox with writer’s block tools.
So, how do I manage to crank out four to five high-quality blog posts every week?
I developed a creative inspiration formula.
I’ll show you how I use Ubersuggest to generate content ideas to break my writer’s block.
I believe it will work for you too.
You’ll be able to content batch dynamic ideas to keep your brand’s content fresh and exciting.
More than just your audience will enjoy the end result.
Your team will feel inspired to think big, win big, and crush writer’s block.
What Is Writer’s Block, and What Causes It?
Do you want to know my nickname for writer’s block?
I call it the creativity killer.
You want to write but don’t know what to write.
I call it this because it puts you in a creative slump. Thankfully, you can reverse-engineer your way to a great writing breakthrough.
You’ll know when you’ve hit a block.
You may be feeling uninspired. Maybe your message is unclear.
Stress can also block your creative flow. This can come in the form of self-doubt or lack of motivation.
You may even be plagued by perfectionism.
Or your foundational knowledge of the topic isn’t sound.
But you’ve got to break through the wall at some point.
Understand what led to the block. Once you can put your finger on it, you can get that spark back.
How Writer’s Block Impacts Your Business
Overcoming writer’s block is a delicate process, but it shouldn’t interfere with your business.
You don’t have to wait to let the sentences form in your mind to get started.
Allow your research and notes to guide you.
Planning helps you commit to communicating with your audience.
Your audience wants to hear from your content to take their next informed steps. You don’t want to negatively impact your brand by failing to post regularly because of writer’s block. It’ll cost you both organic traffic and brand awareness.
HubSpot reported your blogging frequency should be at least two to three posts a week, no matter your blog length or content goals.
You’ve gained your audience’s attention through what you have to say—and they value you.
While trying to up your page views and domain authority, don’t lose their attention over one tricky topic.
Be patient with yourself and work through your process if you want to stay connected with your audience and maximize the visibility of your business.
So, mix up your approach. Try something different.
Have you thought about using an AI writer or other tools to overcome writer’s block?
Can Tools Help You Overcome Writer’s Block?
Push through that empty page with tools to overcome writer’s block.
I know, like you know, that there’s nothing more frustrating than writer’s block. But a checklist of tips and tools to overcome writer’s block will help you solve the problem quickly.
One of the best ways to overcome writer’s block is to start with an “I can” vs. an “I can’t” attitude.
That includes thinking outside the box and seeking out tools to help come up with the words and ideas you need to move forward.
Overcome writer’s block with resources like question forums. Everybody knows Quora, so get some answers and ideas from a community of users likely in your niche.
Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is also helpful in gathering expert advice and quotes on topics. You can set a query to help you expand on topics and even draw inspiration from the responses you receive.
Need a writer’s block tool that’ll help beat a time crunch? Try Copy.ai, an AI writing tool. Just enter a few sentences or phrases about your topic, and it’ll generate copy you can use to help crush your content project.
Think of AI writers as your copywriting assistant. Even if you’re writing for SEO, AI writing assistants take your topic and turn it into content that converts.
Perhaps your topic isn’t working, or your keywords need beefing up.
To optimize your copy, use Ubersuggest. You can expand keyword long-tail phrases, drawing from sources like videos or images. You can even shape your content with the built-in AI rewriting tool. All you have to do is enter text into the tool and it rewrites it into fresh and unique content.
AI rewriting tools can write quickly, generating high-quality content for your company. This is a great starting point to ensure you’re hitting the mark for your audience within your niche and industry.
Using Ubersuggest to Overcome Writer’s Block: How It Works
Using Ubersuggest helps you reorganize your idea(s) to overcome writer’s block.
As a savvy content marketer, you know when it’s time to get innovative.
One way is to give direction to your writing.
Let me show you how to use Ubersuggest—an SEO content marketing tool—to help you break past your block.
Say you can’t think of what to cover about the topic.
Head to Ubersuggest and enter your target keyword(s) or topic into “Content Ideas.”
We’ll plug in the keyword “mobile-friendly website” as your topic is optimizing a mobile-friendly website.
We can then look at the top-performing URLs alongside your query.
Let’s see the keywords they used to help them form the piece by zooming in on the site with the most backlinks.
Look at the keywords generating these visits.
We can draw from these results that many brands don’t have mobile-friendly websites and want to know how to make changes for the better.
Based on the demand from the audience, here are angles to take with your post:
Include subtopic listing strategies for making WordPress websites compatible with mobile.
Add the coding changes needed on your website’s CSS style sheet to make your website mobile-friendly.
Write a step-by-step on making websites mobile-friendly.
Scroll down to find more relevant keywords worthy of writing as a subtopic in your post.
You can also gather any other keywords you didn’t consider to get in front of your target audience.
Finding other related keywords with this quick content research session will help you reach your audience and rank well in Google.
You just defeated writer’s block with your golden ticket of an outline.
If you find your page headings or titles are really not the direction you want to go, rework them with the AI rewriter on Ubersuggest.
These are the components of your post that will help navigate your reader down the page. So, the flow matters for you to express your ideas and for your audience’s comprehension. To top off your work, use the tool to shape your meta descriptions.
Now your reader and search engines will know what your content is all about.
Some of the greatest writers, like Hemingway, wrote daily to stay on their toes with topics.
A writing routine can help you with this. Try different exercises like picking a topic randomly and giving yourself timed writing assessments.
A simple way to find inspiration is reading. The more you read, the more new concepts, ideas, and words you’ll have. Use these as writer’s block tools.
As you get the words on the page, think of questions your users might ask along the way. You are responsible for being the subject matter expert. Use their potential questions to spark ideas and shape how you communicate with your audience (including a FAQ section on your post).
Suppose you need to brainstorm. Set time aside before you start writing for content ideation or research. This way, topics you aren’t familiar with will be easier to navigate.
Maybe you’re experiencing mild writer’s block. You know, like when you aren’t landing that punchy line.
Write down what you’re trying to say in a paraphrasing tool like QuillBot. Allow the tool to form your words in a different way to help you land a phrase well for your audience.
This is how you can train your writing muscles for success and beat writer’s block.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is writer's block?
Writer’s block is the overwhelming feeling of not knowing how to express yourself to move forward in the writing process. Everyone experiences it differently, but there are many tools to overcome writer’s block, like Ubersuggest’s AI rewriting tool.
How to overcome writer's block?
Ways to overcome writer’s block—other than free writing for creative flow—include:
Changing your work environment
Getting energized (i.e. take a break or have a cup of coffee)
Read quality content
Use an AI copywriter
Use a keyword or content generator
What tools can I use to beat writer's block?
Tools to overcome writer’s block include:
Quora: A Q&A forum
HARO: A service providing expertise and quotes from industry leaders on yo,ur research query
Writer’s block is the overwhelming feeling of not knowing how to express yourself to move forward in the writing process. Everyone experiences it differently, but there are many tools to overcome writer’s block, like Ubersuggest’s AI rewriting tool.
You’ll likely get past the block by embracing new ways to overcome writer’s block, like an AI writer or Ubersuggest.
Don’t give up or stress about writer’s block when you have tools to overcome writer’s block (that don’t include going to buy a coffee and sitting at a coffee shop all day for inspirational vibes).
You can use tools to seed writing ideas and prepare you for future writing pieces.
If you’ve experienced writer’s block, how do you fight it? Have you tried Ubersuggest or other tools to overcome it?
You’ve got your product and a whiteboard full of random phrases and ideas being tossed around.
Some names sound ok, maybe a few seem like a good fit, but no one on your team can agree on a winner.
So how do you choose the right name for your product?
Here’s where keyword research comes into play!
By understanding what people are searching for, you can optimize your product name to better meet their needs.
Not only that, you’ll also increase the odds that they’ll find and buy your product.
Stressed? Don’t be.
I’ll show you the ins and outs of product naming to make the process a breeze.
What Makes a Good Product Name?
In general, you want your product name to be easy to remember, easy to understand, and easy to say!
Think about it.
If I can’t even pronounce your product’s name, how am I going to remember it?
And if I can’t understand what your product does through its name, I’m probably going to go see what the competition has to offer instead.
So before you release a product, it’s always a good idea to research online marketing challenges that could arise.
If you don’t, it could limit your team’s ability to make the right branding strategy. On the other hand, using SEO hacks to discover your next brand name works surprisingly well!
When someone searches for something online, their intentions become clear through the words they use.
Looking for reviews? You’ll probably add the word “best.” Searching for someplace to eat? The words “near me” might be used. Search engines like Google have gotten great at inferring user intent based on the queries they enter and the context around them.
The point is, you can also search your own product’s name or product category and see what keywords the top ranked results share. Those first few results likely have things in common. Are your potential customers looking for a product that has certain qualities, like increased speed or strength? That might be a sign to incorporate similar words into your brand.
Don’t make the mistake of only looking for intent in the top search results. At least for Google, you can check out related searches and what “people also ask.” Both of these provide insights into what your customer base is thinking when it comes to your product.
Here are a few branding tips to think about when you name your next product:
Make it Relevant
Ask yourself, what category does your product fall under? It’s likely a term that people also search for when looking for similar products.
That’s why you should include as many of your category names in the name of your product whenever possible.
Product names are also usually cited as anchor text in online articles, so including a category in the name can lead to more qualified clicks to your page. This is just one way of leveraging SEO to build your brand.
A clever example of this is the brand name for a project management tool for businesses called MOE Assist. This play on words hints at “more assistance” for projects by using MOE Assist.
Use Search Engines/Tools
Have trouble coming up with keywords in your field?
Ubersuggest is a useful keyword generation tool for honing in on the perfect name. It’s easy to use with a smooth interface and offers a ton of extra information about every keyword. Ubersuggest offers suggested keywords to use instead, as well as related words, SEO difficulty, and volume and more.
One cool bonus feature of Ubersuggest is each keyword search result comes with a list of content ideas that could give you a boost in SERPS (search engine results pages).
YouTube is also an excellent resource, as it is the second largest search engine in the world. To find popular keywords on this platform, use YouTube’s search bar to enter in your brand name ideas. YouTube’s auto-suggest feature will activate and show you a drop down list of related searches.
Google Ads can help as well, providing access to data on individual keywords, their search rates and suggested alternative words.
Stay Positive
You’ve probably heard of the phrase “guilty by association.” Product names are bound by the associations they elicit.
How many people would buy an Apple product if the company was named after something sour, like a lemon?
Words and meanings can shift across international lines. If you plan on selling your product all over the world, think about how your name will resonate in different cultures. You’d be astonished to find out how many corporate brands alter their product names in different regions. For example, in China Heineken Beer is instead called Xi li, which translates to “happiness power.”
Don’t be Ambiguous
Sure, that random word may sound catchy, but if it bleeds into another category then you end up diminishing your ranking on the organic SERPs. Ambiguous words are open to more than one interpretation. Let’s say you are starting a make-up company and use the word “Compact” in your name. While it can mean a make-up holder, it’s also used for all sorts of products trying to market a small size.
Keep your product names category-specific and direct.
Product naming may not be rocket science, but it does take time to learn how to do it right! Learn more about why SEO is so important for your brand.
Scout the Competition
It can never hurt to take a peek at the competition. Look at the reviews left for your competitors. It will tell you all about their strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of their audience. What are the most common complaints you see? You can use those reviews to differentiate your own product from the competition.
Dive deep into their publicly available data, like social media accounts and websites. What unique features do their products have?
Product Naming Success Examples
Look no further than two of the biggest tech giants, Microsoft and Apple, for examples of great success stories in product naming.
Well, around the time that Windows launched, all graphical user interfaces (GUIs) were being described as “windowed systems.” Rather than becoming yet another windowed interface, Microsoft flipped the script by claiming the window name for themselves.
In turn, this positioned Windows as the category definer instead of a reinforcer, with other companies now using Microsoft’s branded name to describe their interfaces.
Another great example of successful product names is Netflix. Simple, direct, and includes the category in the title: what more could we ask for?!
By combining the first half of the word “internet” with a slang word for movies, Netflix says what it is with minimal effort.
Find What Your Audience Wants and Thinks
You can save time and money by learning from your target market what they want, rather than guessing.
If you have a client email list, send them a survey and ask them a few questions to get to know your audience better.
Once you have results, look for repeating themes and common answers. Use these responses to reword your product name appropriately.
Don’t have an email list? Use your social media accounts instead!
Get insights on your followers by looking at what they kept watching and what they clicked on. Post mini-polls to gauge interest. Find audience members who are more engaged with your page and send a direct message.
Asking a few questions from engaged followers can give valuable feedback from the people most interested in your products.
Future-Proof Your Product Naming Strategies
You’ve jumped through all the SEO hoops and finally have a product name worth using. Secure that name for ages to come!
To avoid any future SEO or social ramifications, double-check to see whether someone has already taken your planned social media profile name.
If you don’t want to be associated with somebody who has a negative reputation, this is critical, particularly if there’s already someone out there with the same account name as your product.
Future-proof your product names by claiming social media accounts with your product’s name on all the main platforms. In addition, check web domains with your product name as well. If they are available, buying them is a good way to protect your brand name’s reputation.
FAQs
How important is my product name?
Your product name is vital to the success of your product! 77% of consumers buy products based on the name instead of the product itself. The name is one of the first things that potential customers will see. Product names without any association to the product’s category can make it hard to find on search engines. Names with negative associations to other words and social media accounts can hinder sales.
How do I know I am naming my product something people want?
By researching your audience through surveys and data analytics, you can help ensure that the product name you choose is something that people want.
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Conclusion
The creation of catchy and unique product names doesn’t have to be hard.
Remember to pick a brand name that is relevant, has positive associations and is unambiguous. If you can include a category title in your product’s name, all the better.
