Marketing your menu: how to deliver the right online content

We can do that pretty easily. In fact, I could put something together in the next few minutes and share it on my blog and my website, send to my email list, post to all my social channels and cross my fingers in the hope that it will drive sales.  But it doesn’t just happen like that, because in 2015 marketing is hard.

Everyone is being told “you need to produce content”. We hear phrases such as

• “To perform well in search engines you need keyword dense content”
• “To build a community on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and more . . . you need sharable content”
• “To get high open and click rates on your email ….. you need in demand and useful content”

Repeatedly all you are hearing is . . . “you need to produce content”.  But that just means more and more companies are producing content and the consumer is being inundated with messages. Many of which they don’t want or need. So the consumer ignores the content and you have wasted your time, effort and most likely lost the respect of your customer. After all, you are now “that brand” that tries to sell to us all the time.

Humanise your marketing​

As I have observed the developments in marketing over recent years, I feel we have spent too much time talking technology and not enough time thinking about people. Advances in neuroscience and psychology mean we can actually understand more about our customers and how they make purchasing and consumption decisions than ever before. At the end of the day, whether we are selling in a B2C or B2B market, realistically we are just selling from one human to another. Our industry, our business and our marketing is all about people.

How should you think about content?​

To produce good content you need to find the content niche that you can fill and your audience wants. You should be looking for the content spots where there is minimal content competition.

Then look at your different types of audience and get to understand them. You shouldn’t just be looking to identify them by age, gender or location; you should be looking at their behavior, their feelings and really understanding their emotions. When you understand your audience, you communicate better.

As a broad starting point, break down your audience into these four categories:

• Seekers ​– People who are looking for a topic or business, possibly using a search engine or website.
• Joiners​ – People who have signed up to receive information from you – such as via email, a Podcast or a YouTube subscriber
• Amplifiers ​– Those who are sharing stories about your business, your people, your products and services. These people may be talking about you on or offline.
• Buyers​ – When it comes to a night down the pub, it isn’t always the person paying that makes the decision to visit your establishment.

Then do everything you can to understand each group and the sub groups within them. Never forget their emotional reasons for being a seeker, joiner, amplifier or buyer.