lectures material on segmentation, positioning and targeting for e-business management students

1. GETTING TO KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER: SEGMENTATION,TRAGETING and DIGITAL PERSONAS
lect. Monika Skarzauskaite

2. Topic of your course work
Deadline for the topic is 27th of March.

3. Online Marketing Research Framework
1. Getting Customer Insights
- know your user and what their pain points are
and you can develop content and social media activities that speak to them. Tools – user
personas, social technographics
2. Understand Why People Go Online - people go online for two simple
reasons: to answer a question or get an update.
3. Keywords brainstorming
4. Keywords research - user persona helps guide what content needs to be
created to earn this engagement. Also links and optimizing each page for search is critically
important for climbing in the rankings. Tools: Google Keyword Tool, Google
Trends, Compete.com, Open Site Explorer, SEOmoz toolbar
Doing our homework upfront helps ensure we don’t custom
build an online brand experience that nobody will interact
with.

4. Why start with customer need rather than jumping
straight to keywords or content creation?
Content Strategy
You want to provide content and tools that are as relevant and useful as possible to
your target audiences.
Targeted Keyword Discovery
Ideally you’ll want to do keyword research based on what the audience wants, not
solely on what content the site already has (or plans to have sans audience
targeting), which may be limited. You may find there are needs that your site is not
meeting.

5. Why to think like a customer?
Lots of risks online
Customers more keen to
criticize
Understanding their needs
Customers can voice their
dislikes
Marketing is evil

6. Write the answers to the these questions down:
WHAT IS SEGMENTATION?
WHAT ARE MOST WELL-KNOWN CRITERIA FOR
SEGMENTATION?
WHAT IS TARGETING?

7. STP process
Segmentation > targeting > positioning
Market segmentation is the process in marketing of dividing a market
into distinct subsets (segments) that behave in the same way or have
similar needs. Because each segment is fairly homogeneous in their
needs and attitudes, they are likely to respond similarly to a given
marketing strategy
The process of segmentation is distinct from targeting (choosing which
segments to address) and positioning (designing an appropriate
marketing mix for each segment).
The overall intent is to identify groups of similar customers and
potential customers; to prioritise the groups to address; to understand
their behavior and to respond with appropriate marketing strategies
that satisfy the different preferences of each chosen segment.

8. What will be you biggest marketing challenge
this year?
(segmentation is on the rise AGAIN)

9. Majority of the companies use the most basic segmentation
methods (demographics for B2C and firmograpics for B2B)
Frequency of occurrence of criteria used among respondents using segmentation

10. STP TECHNIQUES:
1. Customer profile characteristics (demographics)
2. Current and predicted value
3. Customer lifecycle groups. Since our knowledge of
online marketing is so strong there are great
opportunities for targeting through behavioral email
marketing and website personalization.
4. RFM analysis
5. Customer
multi-channel
behavior
(channel
preference). Grouping customers according to channel
preference.

11. (1) Demographics
• Most traditional segmentation
• For B2C e-retailers this will include age, sex
and geography. For B2B companies, this will
include size of company and the industry
sector or application they operate in

12. (2) Current and predicted value
Essence – quantifying customer value
How can it be calculated?
Useful way of thinking about customer value is three groups
(identified by Peppers and Rogers):
1.
2.
3.
Most-valuable customers (MVCs)
Most-growable customers (MGCs)
Below Zero Customers (BZCs).
When considering loyalty-based segmentation, it’s useful to compare current against
future/strategic value

14. Example: Otto

15. (3) Customer lifecycle groups
Many companies are surprised to find that customers have a life
cycle, similar to the more familiar product life cycle. Most marketing
strategies address a single phase of the life cycle, such as the customer
acquisition process, or after sale support. But customers require care
and attention during every step.
Why?
the key to marketing has traditionally been to “cover all the bases”—in
other words, to get in at all customer touch points. this can be a
dangerous concept. think back to your last interaction with a company
that “covered all the bases.” Was it an overwhelming
experience, borderline annoying? this is quite possible, especially if
that company tried to cover everything all at once.

16. Customer lifecycle with most relevant
touch points

18. (4) RFM analysis
RFM stands for
• Recency - How recently did the customer
purchase?
• Frequency - How often do they purchase?
• Monetary Value - How much do they spend?

19. http://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=OYohJxp2l9k
very simple explanation
http://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=n5lXj4sPGGc
in-depth explanation

20. cons
1. method is descriptive only, and does not provide a
mechanism to forecast behavior as a predictive model
might
2. when used to target customers for promotion, it assumes
that customers are likely to continue behaving in the same
manner. That is, it does not take into account the impact
of life stage or life cycle transitions on likelihood of
response.
3. when used as the primary targeting method, it may lead
to overmarketing to the most attractive RFM segments
and to neglect of other segments that would be profitable
if developed properly.

21. (5) Customer multi-channel behavior
No matter how enthusiastic you are
about online channels, some customers
will prefer using online communications
channels and many others will prefer
traditional channels.
Just one aspect of this is determining
which customers prefer email and then
upweighting email activity more for
them, while reducing frequency and
using more traditional communications
for those who prefer these.
A Channel: a customer contact point, a
medium through which the firm and the
customer interact (Neslin et al., 2006).

23. Consumer segmentation shows that the best customers for a
retailer's brick-and-mortar stores may be very different from
its best online shoppers. According to the bar chart displaying
Nielsen PRIZM segments, Wal-Mart's most loyal fans are
found in midscale and working-class exurban segments and
the company should prospect for new customers in the dark
blue areas in the map on the left. To expand the customer
base for walmart.com, however, the company should focus on
younger, metro segments. And to increase the most loyal
customers—who shop at both Wal-Mart and walmart.com—
the company should design cross-channel marketing and
merchandising initiatives.
Sources: Nielsen PRIZM, Mediamark Research & Intelligence

24. PERFORMANCE METRICS AND SEGMETATION
FOR DIFFERENT ONLINE BUSINESS MODELS
1.
2.
3.
4.
eCommerce and Retail sites
Lead Generation sites
Advertising and Media sites
Customer Support sites

25. (1) eCommerce and Retail sites
These sites optimize heavily around not only getting the visitor
to place an order, but also to increase average order size through
promotional cross sell techniques.
Segmentation dimensions for such sites could include:
– Performing an offsite product search within a search engine (knowing
the keywords)
– Onsite product search
– Product page views
– Cart additions/abandons/removals
– Shopping cart process stage abandons
– Check outs
– Selecting varying shipping & handling rates
– Response to order confirmation upsells
– Entering promotional codes

26. EXAMPLE
Segmenting visitors into “browsers” and ”vbuyers” based on past
purchase history is another key segment for many online
retailers.
Allows to identify content preferred by the more valuable
“buyers” segment and to place more attention to those pages
and content while simplifying the navigation to these pages you
effectively improve the overall customer experience.

27. (2) Lead Generation sites
On sites where complex and prolonged sales take place offline, optimize the
marketing mix around behaviors that eventually lead to he closed sale. Such
behaviors along the way may include:
–
–
–
–
–
Viewing product demos or product-related webinars
Viewing product pages
Filling out lead/inquiry forms
Downloading product information
Holding a meeting with a company representative
Demographic and firmographic (same as demographic but elements specific
to companies), data may be appended to each visitor resulting in the further
clarification and understanding of segments and profiles via third-party data
appends. Through lead / inquiry forms or surveys, further
psychographic, demographic and behavioral data may be appended such as
company size, location, and purchase stage.

28. (3) Advertising and Media sites
Goal - to acquire and direct new visitors to as many pages and pieces
of content as possible in order to generate advertising views for paying
customers.
– Referring domains as well as search keywords and phrases to overall traffic volumes
– New visitors viewing of individual pages and content
– Conversion metrics that will lead to increased retention and loyalty, such as newsgroup
sign-ups, alert features and chat
– Campaigns that are successfully driving desired demographic or behavior profiles traffic
to your site
Advertisers to your site may also be interested in knowing how their
ads are resonating with key demographic and psychographic segments.
Example: How are their ads performing with females vs. male
audiences?

29. (4) Customer Support sites
Customer Support sites will likely key in on the visitors ability to
find specific kinds of information. As the online marketer for a
self-service or support site you may want to look at segments
including:
– “Information found” conversion rates by various visitor groups
– Key words and phrases requested by new visitors
– Time spent on top pages by new or returning visitors

30. The performance metrics listed in previous slides for the various
business models are simply a place to start, you may need
different metrics and many more depending on your specific
needs. The key to any metric for any segment is to answer the
question, “Is the information actionable?” If the indicator does
not have the potential to drive action, it is probably not a good
key performance indicator for your business.

31. Online Marketing Research Framework
1. Getting Customer Insights
- know your user and what their pain points are
and you can develop content and social media activities that speak to them. Tools – user
personas, social technographics
2. Understand Why People Go Online - people go online for two simple
reasons: to answer a question or get an update.
3. Keywords brainstorming
4. Keywords research - user persona helps guide what content needs to be
created to earn this engagement. Also links and optimizing each page for search is critically
important for climbing in the rankings. Tools: Google Keyword Tool, Google
Trends, Compete.com, Open Site Explorer, SEOmoz toolbar
Doing our homework upfront helps ensure we don’t custom
build an online brand experience that nobody will interact
with.

32. How is it that some web sites just click, the moment
you look at them?
– What makes some people just love Grolsh beer, while
others swear by Guinness?
– Why do you like BMWs, while I like Teslas?
– Why do I like one candidate, while you like another?
This isn’t luck. Someone designed these brands or
campaigns to appeal to certain personalities. And
they started with personas.

33. Getting Customer Insights
Know your user and what their pain points are and you
can develop content and social media activities that
speak to them.
Two tools will review in-depth:
– USER PERSONAS
– SOCIAL TECHNOGRAPHICS

34. ASSUMPTION FROM THE PAST
Traditionally marketing has looked at demographic and
psychographic data as ways to identify and segment
customers. “Female, upper-income, 25-34, African
American, college-educated, who prefers high-end
brands” was good enough for a long time. The thought
being that by going narrower, the marketer gets a
better return on their marketing dollars and does not
pay to interrupt customers who would have no interest
in buying.

35. CUSTOMER PERSONAS
WHAT IS PERSONA?
A persona is a group of visitors that visit a website, that share a common
objective, purpose or background which make them distinct from another
group of visitors.
Used in design for years
“day in a life of customer”
demographic data + psychographic data
emotions and empathy
Allows to articulate consumer needs better

36. Why use personas?
Forcing us to think like the customer
many organisations start with the mind-set of “we have these products or services, they have these benefits and
features, let’s find people who want to use them”. If you use personas, the customer always comes first
Making keyword research more efficient
working out which keywords are likely to be uses by the personas you develop gives us a starting point for keyword
research that may be broader than just asking the question “what would I Google to find this site?”
Improving customer journeys
All websites have goals and personas will help you to work out how your visitors might want to get there, making your
customer journeys efficient and smooth
Making sure we use engaging imagery
We’ve all experienced hours of trying to find a stock photo that will fit a website or, even worse, the CEO who says “I
want a big picture of a smiling man pretending to shake hands with somebody”. Personas give you a starting point in
that search, and a diplomatic way to put that CEO back in his box
Giving us ideas for and helping us launch linkbait
One of the most important steps in creating linkbait is to know what appeals to your target audience, and what they’re
likely to share. Personas can help provide you with that knowledge and launch a successful viral campaign

37. The easiest way to understand personas is through some examples:
CHARITY WEBSITE - some visitors will come to the site to look to
volunteer; others will want to understand how to fundraise. You might
also get some media folk who aren't interested in doing either and just
want to write about the good work the charity does.
E-COMMERCE WEBSITE E.G. HANDBAGS - here nearly everyone will
come to the site to look at buying a handbag. But you'll get some men
looking to buy for the lady in their life; some women looking to buy for
themselves; some women looking to buy but not for themselves; and
you may even get a curious group of men who are looking to buy
another man a bag.
B2B WEBSITE - regardless of the industry, whether it's
finance, incentives or call centres, the different personas may reflect
the different levels of seniority of visitor that come to your site, e.g.
finance assistant, finance director, business owner...etc.

38. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TARGET AUDIENCE AND
MARKETING PERSONA
A target audience identifies a broad category, such as
“High School”.
A marketing persona goes deeper by identifying more
specific behaviors, such as habits, wants and needs of
the of the individuals in the target audience.

39. Another example: http://ondigitalmarketing.com/textbook/research/example-user-persona/

40. How to build customer personas?

41. Demographic data
• Name
• Position in an organisation (if you’re working on a B2B persona), or
income level if B2C
• Age
• Marital Status
• Number of children
• Home owner or renting?
• Education level
• Do they hold the purse strings, or are they recommending to the
person who does?
• How engaged are they with social media, and which social networks
do they use?
• Other media they consume

42. Knowing these details will help you both to connect
with each persona, and will provide insight into
how they may think.
For example, somebody who is 44, has two children
and has a mortgage is a lot more likely to want
financial stability and to save some of their income
than a 22 year old who has just finished university
and doesn’t have any financial commitments. This
in turn will make their decision making process
different from the 22 year old.

44. What are their pain points?
Does your persona have a task they want to automate, a product
they want to find more cheaply, a job function they want to
outsource, information they can’t find anywhere else? What
problems do they have that you can solve?

47. YogaSpot.com example

48. How can my set of products or services help to ease
that pain?
My product might benefit you in fifty different
ways, but if you don’t really care about the first three in
my list you are unlikely to engage with my website. If I
can solve your pain in a few sentences, you will want to
give me your credit card details, or subscribe to my RSS
feed, or recommend me to your friends

49. ONCE WE HAVE COMBINED SUFFICIENT INFORMATION TO CREATE A CLEAR PICTURE
OF A TYPICAL MEMBER OF A SEGMENT, WE REFER TO THIS AS AN AUDIENCE PROFILE
OR PERSONA, AND IN TURN DEVELOP HYPOTHESIZED TESTS MADE UP OF MULTIPLE
COMBINATIONS OF THE MARKETING MIX TO DEVELOP MORE RELEVANT EXPERIENCES
TO EACH SEGMENT.
IN ESSENCE, THIS ALLOWS US TO DELIVER THE RIGHT MESSAGE, TO THE RIGHT
PERSON (REALLY SEGMENT), AT THE RIGHT PLACE, AT THE RIGHT TIME THROUGH
MULTIPLE AND RELEVANT ENGAGEMENT EXPERIENCES.

50. The 3 Groups of Personas
1. Focal personas
2. ‘Eh’ or OK personas
3. Exclusionary personas
Build for the focal personas, and to filter out the exclusionary
personas. Present as neutral a face as possible to the rest.

51. IMPORTANT NOTE: personas are ever changing

52. ANALYZING PERSONAS

53. Sample personas
• http://www.portent.com/downloads/persona
_cm.pdf
• http://ondigitalmarketing.com/textbook/rese
arch/example-user-persona/

54. Social Technographics
Studies done by Forrester Research
Analyzing the online habits of U.S. adults
Company developed various categories to help the marketer
predict what they might expect for engagement
Note: These consumers are still sliced in part by demographic data. As you might
expect, participation can vary widely by age and a bit by gender.

55. Source: Forrester Global Social Technographics Update 2011

56. Creators sit at the top and at least once a month publish a blog or article online, maintain a
Web page, or upload videos to YouTube, or upload audio/music, write articles or stories and
post them. These are wired, techy people who feel the itch to create digital content to share
with others. They use platforms like Blogger, WordPress, and Tumblr.
Conversationalists, while not quite as engaged, update their status on a social networking
site and post updates on Twitter. These are individuals who update Facebook, LinkedIn, or
tweet.
Critics post ratings/reviews of products or services, comment on someone else’s blog,
contribute to online forums, and will add/edit articles in a wiki. These are the individuals we
rely on so heavily when trying to ascertain whether a product or service is any good, in
absence of a reliable word of mouth source. They’ll use Google Reviews, Yelp, TripAdvisor,
or Foursquare.
Collectors use RSS feeds, vote for websites online, add “tags” to web pages or photos. These
individuals might curate content on Digg or StumbleUpon. They will tag friends on Facebook
or Flickr. They use a service like Flipbook or Google Reader to consume site updates via RSS.
Joiners maintain a profile on a social networking site and visit social networking sites. These
are the casual participants that are on these networks and swing by from time to time.
Spectators make up the bulk with roughly 3 out of 4 of online Americans and Europeans
falling into this category. They read blogs, listen to podcasts, watch video from other users,
read online forums, read customer ratings/reviews, and read tweets. They might check
Facebook on a daily basis but they do not necessarily post content for others in their
network to observe.
Inactives have been shrinking since the study began. They do not participate in any of the
above activities.

57. OTHER EXISTING STUDIES ON
DIGITAL SEGMENTS
1. McKinsey study
2. Digital life study

58. McKinsey study
(a bit outdated – study of 2001)
1.
2.
3.
4.
Connectors: New users; more offline purchase
Samplers: Light users
Simplifiers: Efficiency seekers
Routiners: Go online for information but not primarily
interested in shopping
5. Surfers: Heavy users; spend lots of time online;
Searching multiple domains
6. Bargainers: Online price comparison; Shop for the best
buy
7. Funsters: Looking for information in entertainmentoriented domains

59. DIGITAL LIFE STUDY
Based on conversations with over 72,000 people in 60 countries, Digital Life’s
size, scale and detail make it the most comprehensive view of consumer
attitudes and behaviour online, on a global and local level.
Done on yearly basis.
Intro: http://2010.tnsdigitallife.com/an-intro-to-the-digital-lifestyles/
6 digital lifestyles: INFLUENCERS, COMMUNICATORS, KNOWLEDGESEEKERS, NETWORKERS, ASPIRERS, FUCTIONALS

60. FUNCTIONALS

61. ASPIRERS

62. NETWORKERS

63. KNOWLEDGE-SEEKERS

64. COMMUNICATORS

65. INFLUENCERS

67. Short quiz

68. How you can relate your developed personas together
with social technographics?
Great tool from Forrester Research (free but available only for bigger
countries and markets than Lithuania)
You can find the tool here:
http://ondigitalmarketing.com/textbook/research/social-media-engagement/

69. Key takeaway:
By layering Social Technographics research on
top of our user persona that already includes
interviews,
demographics,
and
psychographics, we can have confidence our
social media efforts will resonate with our target
market.

70. •
•
•
•
•
Google AdWords account?
Business?
campaign goals and strategy
Pre-Campaign Report
Upload Pre-Campaign Reports and Credit AdWords
Account. Once the student teams have uploaded their
Pre-Campaign Reports, student teams request crediting
within the dashboard. We will then verify and credit
the associated AdWords account with US$250.
• You may run your campaign over any three consecutive
weeks from February 12, 2013 to June 14, 2013. WHEN
YOU WILL RUN YOUR CAMPAIGN?
• Post-Campaign Report/Impact Statement

71. Pre-campaign report
Source: http://www.google.com/onlinechallenge/discover/campaignreports.html
The Pre-Campaign Report has three components:
• Client Overview (12 points) that describes your client business
• Proposed AdWords Strategy (13 points) that helps your team
craft and defend your draft AdWords Strategy
• Communication and Readability (5 points)

72. Client Overview (12 points, about two pages)
Client Profile (2 points):
• Name, Location
• Number of employees
• Goods and services offered
• Key online marketing personnel
• Age of the company
• URL
• Website Age
• Website Management
• Social media such as Google+
• Company presence and sales via online and
offline channels
• Other relevant information
Market Analysis (4 points)
• Current and potential customers
• Current and potential competitors
• Overview of the industry (key
characteristics, competitive/saturated/mature)
• Projected and historical online spend for the
industry
•
•
Market position/specialties
Unique selling points of the goods/services
offered
• Seasonality of their goods/services or
seasonality that the company has identified
• Other relevant market information
Current Marketing (4 points)
• Website uses, e.g. sales, customer service
• Website strengths and weaknesses
• Website visibility, such as Google
PageRank, incoming links, a few keyword
search results
• If available, summary information from Google
Analytics or other third party web tracking
software
• Other online advertising and offline promotion
of the url
• Conclusion on How the AdWords Campaign
Aligns with the Client's Business (2 points)

73. Proposed AdWords Strategy (13 points, about two
pages including sample AdWords ads and keywords)
Based on an analysis of the client, its website and marketing, each team
should craft an appropriate AdWords Strategy and metrics for their campaign.
The proposed strategy should include:
• Number of Ad Groups and the focus for each Ad Group
• Keywords and negative keywords
• Text for at least two AdWords versions for an ad group
• Daily and weekly plans for spending their campaign budget
• Network(s) for their AdWords ads
• Target audience settings
• Ad serving options
• Keyword bidding
• Geo-targeting
• Goals for impressions, clicks, CPC and CTR
• Proposed success metrics
• Other relevant information

74. Post-Campaign Report (Judged on a
total of 70 points)
The Post-Campaign Report has five components:
• Executive Summary (8 points)
• Industry Component (28 points)
• Learning Component (14 points)
• Communication and Readability (10 points)
• Relevant use of Tables, Figures and Charts (10 points)
Your post-campaign report will most important
document for grading of your project success (25%
of your final grade)

75. Formatting Requirements
All reports should use the following formatting: 12-point
Times font, 2.54cm page margins, A4 paper, leftjustification, 1.5 line spacing. A4 paper is a standard paper
size, in the 'Page Layout' section of most word processing
programs.
Reports that exceed the page limit or ignore the formatting
guidelines will be disqualified. Do not include cover
pages, title pages, or table of contents with your reports.
Similarly, do not include information that shows your team
members'
names
or
institutional
affiliation
(e.g., college, university).
Report Length and Language Options
• Pre-Campaign Report can be a maximum of four pages
• Post-Campaign Report can be a maximum eight pages

76. Personas exercise
Sit down with a group of your team and/or clients and ask
"who do we want to attract to our website?"
Brainstorming will give you a few personas to start
with, then as you develop those personas you will realize
that what you thought was one target segment is in fact
two or three, and start to develop new ones entirely.
It is good to think about personas first because that means
that all design, content, and strategy is user-centric.

77. Research: team + statistics
TEAM:
• Experts on this audience.
• Anyone working with these personas on a daily basis:
Salespeople, teachers, trainers, bosses, installers, tech support, etc..
• Writers who write documentation or marketing copy for these personas.
STATISTICS:
• Social media: What do folks on Facebook, in the blogging world, etc. say about this
brand, type of product or service? Don’t take the first post as gospel – make sure
you research.
• Quantcast (free): What are the demographics of people visiting similar sites?
• Keyword data from Adwords (free), Yahoo (free), KeywordDiscovery,WordTracker.
The phrases people use are a great peek in their heads.
• Current site statistics, if you have them.
• Industry-wide site stats (Hitwise and NetRatings) if you can afford it.
• Geographic segmentation: Prizm (free).

78. Who they are, every day:
Demographics
1.
2.
3.
Where do they live?
What’s the climate like there?
Typical stuff: Age group, children, married/single, salary, job, home
ownership, ethnicity, education, nationality.
4. What group might they belong to? What’s their status within that group? Are
they influencers? On the fringes? By ‘group’, I mean something like
‘cyclists’, ‘travelers’, ‘skiers’ or ‘people who like to cook’.
5. What’s their lifestyle?
6. Any special interests? Party affiliations, etc.?
7. Any accessibility issues?
8. Are they internet novices? Experts?
9. What kind of gadgets do they have?
10. What’s their reading level?
11. Would this user be comfortable using a chat program? E-mail? A web-based
form? Or only on the phone?

79. What they want, all the time:
Emotional
1. What’s their self-image?
2. Personality?
3. What are this person’s beliefs? This isn’t about
religion, necessarily.
4. Where would they fit in a typical personality test?
5. What are their day-to-day goals? Survival? Fun? Family?
Something else?

80. How they interact with you and your
competitors: Relationship
1. Has this person used this kind of product/service before?
2. Do they know much about it?
3. When do they use this product or service, or otherwise take
action?
4. What’s their role in this interaction? Decision maker?
Researcher? Something else?
5. What’s the environment in which they’ll use this web page?
At home? Surrounded by co-workers? Barking dogs?…
6. How do they feel about it? Is this a product the get excited
about? Or is it a necessary evil?

81. What might make this interaction
happen/not happen: The Pitch
1. What’s their goal in buying the product or service, or
otherwise taking action? Think of the big and little picture
here.
2. During this interaction, should they feel adventurous?
Secure? Confident? Luxurious? Powerful? Independent?
Peaceful?
3. What makes this interaction fun? Memborable?
Maddening?
4. How important is confidentiality?
5. How much is trust an issue?
6. What frustrates them about this product or service?
7. What will make feel they’ve received value?

82. How they may affect your
organization: Impact
1. What effect is this person likely to have on the business?
Help? Hurt? Earn money? Cost money? A long-term
customer?
2. How often will they come back and use this product, service
or interaction?
3. Will you enjoy working with this person?

83. At the end of the exercise one page description of your
business personas should be provided to me + picture
and name of persona

84. Steps for doing competitive market
research
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
We evaluate the product or services’ functional benefits and then ask ourselves “what else is out
there”? Google around for various search terms and make a list of who comes up on the first
page. The famous SWOT analysis method can be helpful for evaluating internal and external
market opportunities.
Competitive audit for the industry and identify the market leaders. Knowing these players, we
can use our local university or public library databases and Google to research things like yearly
revenue, sales growth, and possible distribution channels. If the company is publicly traded, SEC
filings can be helpful depending on the granularity of the filing.
Evaluate what our competitors’ brand experience is like. We would begin listening on Twitter and
Google Alerts. Scouring Facebook for brand mentions and reviewing their fan pages for
engagement and content. Scanning our competitors’ blogs for comments and how the company
interacts and treats its users is another opportunity to learn.
Evaluate the customer buying experience funnel. This would include everything from search
results to their ecommerce or in-store experience. We would be looking for ways to enhance the
experience from first point of contact all the way to checkout either online or in a store.
Constantly asking ourselves, “Where can we make this better? More remarkable? More valuable
in exchange for their time?”
If it’s a product company we are marketing, we can read over the user reviews on sites like
Amazon. These offer tremendous clues on what works and what doesn’t in the entire brand
experience. If it’s a service based company check out Google Reviews or Yelp! for customer
feedback.

85. Assignment
If you haven’t done it already, the first step is to lay out
your user persona in a printed format. You should have
a picture, name, and all the other data front and center
in a narrative format make sure you’ve cross-referenced
it for social media engagement.
Preparation for keyword brainstorming
http://ondigitalmarketing.com/textbook/research/10steps-to-better-keyword-brainstorms/

87. After brainstorming
• The “Affliction vs. Aspiration” whiteboard
exercise helps us get creative around potential
topics for content. This is the art part of our
search marketing efforts. Now, we will apply
some science using some free tools from Google
for collecting real data.
• At this point, our goal is to try and understand to
the best of our ability the ways people will search
for our product or service.
• Tools: Google keywords, Google trends,

88. • Becky busy gridline
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxTC0TWc
LlM 15:20

89. Research on first impressions
• http://ondigitalmarketing.com/textbook/rese
arch/how-to-do-brand-first-impressionsresearch-for-digital/