June 6, 2018 - Melody Jennings Bowers

Social Media: Vanity vs. Effectiveness

Are your followers actually potential customers?

Whether you love social media or hate it, it’s definitely a very effective way to connect with paying customers. Learning how to use a customer persona will help you create a simple measurable benchmark to help guide all of your social media decisions while allowing you to see if your efforts are effective or not.

Knowing who your target customer is for a small business or startup is more important than ever these days—it’s way too expensive to try and market to everyone.

Unfortunately, I speak from experience when I tell you it’s easy to invest an enormous amount of time and money with little, or nothing, to show for it in return.

When we started Virtual Collective eight years ago, we learned a lot about creating content for the wrong customer.

At that time, we had no idea how to find and target customers, or how to collect and analyze data. We jumped right into writing blogs and posting content on social media channels without having a plan in place for who we thought was our ideal customer. We were obviously missing something because our followers were not turning into customers, and our customers weren’t even our followers. There was a big disconnect.

Followers vs. Customers

Who doesn’t like having a bunch of followers on Instagram and likes on Facebook? But think about it: if those people following and liking aren’t buying what you’re selling, they’re nothing but vanity metrics. You need to evaluate how much time you spend on creating content for followers vs. customers.

At Virtual Collective, we spent a year creating tons of content without a real plan in place to measure or track our efforts. Although I had heard of “customer personas” before, I thought that “small business owner in need of digital services” checked that box, so that’s who we were aiming for.

It wasn’t until I discovered that there was a whole lot more to customer personas that I realized the magnitude of our honest mistake.

Identify your customer, not your market

We created some really great content, but it was for the wrong customer—because if you think about it, what small business owner doesn’t need digital services? It’s important to target your ideal customer, not your ideal market. “Small business owner” is a market, not a customer.

We had been inadvertently trying to reach the small business owner who didn’t necessarily know what they needed. They also required a lot of education and hand-holding, only to discover that they really didn’t have the budget for us to manage and execute what they actually needed.

Susan and Theo - Marketing to Everyone is Expensive - HerDataMethod.com

Theo and Susan were totally different

I knew for a fact that the few “Theo” clients we did have were not looking for blog posts online about “How to Set Up Your Facebook Business Page”, and they definitely didn’t care about our Instagram posts showing me at home with my sick kid working on my laptop.

And while we loved working with “Susan”, our services were too much of a stretch for their budgets. We couldn’t afford to keep working for free and expect to stay in business. So we decided to embrace Theo and Susan’s unique characteristics and started focusing on defining our services to match their specific needs better.

Now, Virtual Collective targets the “Theo” persona for our marketing services—and for the “Susan” customers, we built a course and coaching program designed to help “Susan” succeed even though she might not be ready for a full virtual team yet.

Lots of followers, but not enough customers?

Let’s talk about another common problem: lots of followers, but not enough customers. Which might sound like a great problem that you wish you had, but If you were to really look at your followers, what would you find?

Did you go to high school with them? Are they in your mom’s bunco group? These are the people you can depend on for shares, likes, and reposts—not for sales.

Take a look at your followers. HerDataMethod.com

Those are your FFFs

What’s an “FFF”? A friend, family member, or follower. These are your loyal fans, not necessarily loyal fans of your product, and they are often different than customers. They might not even quite understand exactly what you do, but they might refer one of their friends to use your services, and you can be damn sure that they will “like” every one of your posts!

Don’t get me wrong, in no way are lots of followers a bad thing, but it’s important to recognize that these people are not really helping your bottom line. It’s your customers that are the people who do help your bottom line. They’re the ones buying what you are selling. They will engage with the content on your social channels, and they’re willing to click through to your website and buy your stuff, show up to your event, or sign up for your newsletter.

These are the people who don’t necessarily have a personal connection with you but they share your aesthetic, they speak your language, and they have the money and interest to follow through help you make a sale.

The goal is to find that sweet spot where the two groups overlap. This is that magical area where your followers have a better chance of becoming an active customer.

The good news is, it’s not magic—it’s methodical. You can actually move more followers into that circle by intentionally creating a measurable customer persona. The whole point of social media is to connect and build strong relationships with your customer. It also gives you the ability to reach them where they are and bring them back to your website.

You have a lot of people at your fingertips that you can learn more about, so why not create a detailed persona to help target your ideal customer and spark engagement?

As a side note, we strongly urge you to not even think about investing in paid ads until you do this step!

Your ideal customer might be different than you think

Don’t forget to leave room for the possibility that who you THINK your target customer is might not actually be the case.

Don’t be tempted to take any of this personally. In our case, we had two completely different personas and it actually hurt us to try and cater to both audiences with the same content. Discovering that we needed to adjust and re-focus our efforts was a game-changer. I just wanted to warn you that the outcome of this exercise might be different than your assumptions, so stay open to new possibilities!

Some of you might also be thinking that, like us, you had already defined your customer persona already. We thought we had a pretty clear idea of who Susan was, but we eventually learned our assumptions were based on opinions and impossible to measure!

Measurable vs. Not Measurable - HerDataMethod.com

To help you avoid the same kind of mistakes we’ve made I thought I’d share the process that helped us demystify how to create a customer persona.

Once we learned that there are three main types of factors to consider when defining your customer persona it suddenly made a lot of sense. In our course, Know Your Data Know Your Customer, we have assembled questions for each factor designed to help you identify three different types of basic measurable information. I’ve included several examples of each type of question to help you get started.

Are you ready to get to know your target customer better than you ever thought possible?

Sign up to receive our Customer Persona Worksheet from our new course for FREE!

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Factor No. 1: Demographics

Start by gathering some basic facts about your customer.

Demographics are measurable facts. Think about statistics. This is how we sort and organize populations. These are black and white truths, don’t make any assumptions here. To find your customers demographics you can ask questions like:

Are they a male or female?

Do they have children?

Where do they live?

How much is their annual household income?

Factor No. 2: Psychographics

Now, put yourself in your customer’s shoes and think about how they make decisions.

The next factor is psychographics. You’ve probably been hearing this word lately in the news. This is the kind of information that can get companies into trouble if used incorrectly. It gets sketchy when this information is used without your customers’ knowledge. However, it is important to identify these factors when defining your ideal customer, because you have to step into their mind. Psychographics are still measurable, but they do require some assumptions.

Hint: It’s helpful to have a real-life customer example. For us, we looked at our favorite client and made assumptions about him and how he made decisions.

What do they believe?

How frustrated are they by their problem?

What do they fear?

Why will this customer trust you?

Factor No. 3: Behavioral

Your customer’s actions speak louder than words.

Behavioral factors are determined by your customer’s actions. In this step, you will get to think more like a detective.

What does a typical day in the life of your customer look like?

What are their buying habits?

Test and Refine Your Assumptions

Once you have your persona defined, what should you do next?

This is where you test and refine— and patience is 100% required. In order to measure your persona, you’ll want to set a goal or “conversion”. This can be as technical (or non-technical) as you want. Honestly, the easier the better. Ask yourself: what is it that you want people to do? Do you want them to show up to an event? Buy a product? Sign up for your email list? This is your goal.

Once you set your initial goal, STOP. Give your hard work time to perform. Give your targeted customers time to find and engage with your content. I have found that three months is a good amount of time to monitor and track your efforts before drastically changing anything.

Remember, All Data is Good Data

If you were spot on with your customer persona, great! Keep up the good work. And if you were right but still aren’t seeing any increase in sales, no new followers, and no new signups for your email list, this can still be good news. That’s the beauty of data collection: you can see where you were wrong, and you can see where you need to make adjustments. Maybe you need to tweak their age or their occupation—or maybe they don’t have a pet. Point is, now you know who not to target. You already know your product is fantastic, you just need to find the people who agree with you.

Let's recap...

Marketing to everyone is expensive, so evaluate how much time you spend on creating content for your followers vs. customers.

Follow the 3 Main Factors when defining your customer persona.

Test and refine your assumptions by setting goals.

Customer Persona Worksheet PDF - HerDataMethod.com

Sign up below to receive the Customer Persona Worksheet for FREE!

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Data Matters! HerDataMethod.com Nashville, TN

July 4, 2017 - Andy Derrick

Have you ever wondered if your social media campaigns are actually doing anything for your business?

Meet social media and marketing expert, Alyssa McNally. In this interview, she shares exactly how you can make sure your campaigns are making an impact by using data by learning how to set goals the right goals and measure campaign effectiveness. She also shares her favorite power tools that help her keep everything organized.

Read on to learn how to NEVER waste time or energy on a social media strategy that isn’t working!

Thank you for doing this interview! Let's jump in and start at the beginning. When did you become a social media marketer and what has that experience been like?

When I graduated college, social media had just started to become the most popular form of communication. Instagram had just launched, Twitter was picking up speed, and Grandma’s around the United States were starting to create Facebook accounts. And as the token millennial in my first job out of college, I was looked at to lead their social media marketing efforts.

I worked for several years as a marketing manager at a publishing company right outside of Chicago. They gave me the opportunities, resources, and time to really learn about social media marketing strategies. Fortunately, the projects also had budgets that allowed me to test out my marketing theories while promoting entry level authors, which always helps, right?

Alyssa McNally - Social Media Marketing Interview for HerDataMethod.com

From that job, I transitioned to Nashville where I began freelancing for a few different companies running their social media accounts and campaigns, as well as writing and editing content as needed.

Which led me to a brief stint at a small startup called Gradient; an online magazine focused on exploring the human experience. But, as so many startup stories go, after a series of unfortunate events, that company lost their funding.

Finding myself pushed back into the world of freelance, I decided to launch my own small business. I still provide social media marketing for startups, but now I work on a contract basis with more than one company at a time.

What is your process for choosing and developing a new social media campaign?

My business is generally comprised of two different types of projects, campaign based or brand based, and they are exactly what they sound like!

If a company hires me to execute a campaign based project there is always a very specific goal in mind for a short period of time. They usually want to raise awareness about a specific product, to grow by a certain amount of followers or to increase sales.

Brand based projects require more time to implement. And generally, the focus is on developing brand awareness, creating higher conversion rates, and/or increasing their SEO all of which require several months of development and a lot more time to execute.

However, both types of project are very influenced by data. When I create specific social media goals and think through how I can reach them I have to know what their current customers look like before I start targeting who they hope to reach.

Campaign Based Project Image for Alyssa McNally Interview on Her Data Method Blog

Data allows me to know who is already visiting their website, who has already bought into their brand message and product. Once I know that information I can quickly deduce the kind of person I need to target. Then I begin to identify opportunities to expand into different markets.

When it comes to social media channels, I always start by collecting demographic data (information like age, gender, and location) on the existing audience. Then I look at how engaged, or active, they are on each of the client’s existing social media platforms. I have to establish a baseline first of who they are currently reaching and who is already converting. Otherwise, once I begin to grow their reach it would be impossible to measure what is working and what isn’t if I don’t have this figured out.

Once you determine who your target customer is what is your process for setting goals at the start of a new campaign?

I always 100% of the time set goals before starting a new campaign or taking over an existing account. I do this for many reasons, the first being it helps measure success and show the client progress. Throwing money into campaigns or marketing agencies with no measurable goals is pretty pointless. I just think it makes sense to start with a baseline and work towards a goal. And if I miss the clues and the audience doesn’t react like I thought they would? It’s still great information about your customers! You can’t control the data, you have to follow whatever it tells you.

Up Graph of Growth of Social Media Strategies - Alyssa McNally - HerDataMethod.com Blog

There are parts of social media campaign that are harder to track than others — like overall brand awareness and customer comfortability — however, those things are trackable, just not easily through most traditional analytic tools. You have to dig a little deeper for those!

Secondly, setting goals helps me create measurable analytics; it helps us adjust posts, audiences, and verbiage throughout the campaign to meet those initial goals that were set.

Tell us about a time you knocked a social media campaign out of the park. What factors influenced the campaign’s success the most?

One time I had a client who wanted me to help him with three very specific, measurable goals:

To expand their audience reach by 40% on Instagram within the next three months.

To impress and woo large corporate brands into buying their product by developing a more sophisticated brand presence.

To drive 100 visitors to our client’s website per month through organic engagement (not paid).

SOLUTION NO. 1

There was a little bit of trial and error on this one. But, once I got a strong grasp of how the brand was currently perceived, and then I was able to expand their audience engagement and reach on Instagram over 90 percent!

Through Minter, (see tool recommendations below) I was able to discover when their audience was most active on social media, which hashtags were getting the most traction, and what posts were attracting the most traffic and at what time of day. I kept measuring and adjusting as needed. I tested different types of posts, even tested a different language before eventually finding out what would work best for their audience.

SOLUTION NO. 2

Designing a curated feed so that large corporate brands would see a level of professionalism in their brand. Every photo and design was posted in context with the rest of the feed. The owner had other companies coming up to him complimenting him on their presence, and he was able to sign a contract with a large brand because they were impressed with his social presence.

SOLUTION NO. 3

The client’s online traffic increased and an average one hundred people visiting his website every month due to the actions that were implemented for steps 1 and 2, which was tracked by Google Analytics.

Now, what about a campaign that didn't go so well? What did you learn from that one?

I was working on a team that a company hired us to do a LinkedIn campaign. They wanted to increase awareness before a conference they were attending. While the client was actually extremely happy with the work we did, we were underwhelmed with the results and felt that we didn’t hit the mark.

The main reason we felt like we didn’t make much of a difference was that we started the project with very little knowledge about the client’s customer base. They did not provide any statistics, or understanding of how their target audience was spending their time online. We had to make educated guesses and launch with the information we had to work with. So, case in point, right? It’s all about the data!

Social Media Campaigns - Alyssa McNally - HerDataMethod.com Blog

What tools do you love for social media management, data and analytics?

Other than the obvious analytic tools that are built into each individual social media platform and Google Analytics, here are three that I love…

grum.co – Great for scheduling Instagram posts (from your computer!!)

minter.io – Minter has the best Instagram analytics!

sproutsocial.com – Awesome analytics for every social platform!

What one piece of advice would you give to a business owner looking to start or improve her social media marketing efforts?

My biggest piece of advice is…don’t have social media accounts just for the sake of having them. Create realistic goals for your platforms, post with purpose and take the time to understand how it is valuable to advancing your brand.

Where do you think social media marketing is going? Where should people be looking in the future?

A few things…

Everything will be more live, more authentic. Think about how your brand can be live, present and active with your target market.

Sales are going to just continue to move online, Amazon is changing the game, and it is cost effective for businesses to move their products online. And as a result, social media will continue to be oversaturated with sales, which will keep forcing social media marketers to figure out how to stand out.

At the end of the day, learn how to tell your story and focus on being authentic with your audience.

*This post contains affiliate links. Please know that we only recommend products or services that we genuinely enjoy and have gotten great results with for our own business.

June 6, 2017 - Ashley Haugen

How Data Made Her Do It

Today I am interviewing Melody Jennings Bowers, co-founder of the Virtual Collective and Her Data Method. A former school teacher, Melody is a brilliant, hard-working, data-driven woman, mom of two rockstar teenagers and all-around badass, and she can hustle with the best of them when it comes to making things happen. In fact, she and her co-founder Shannon Ware hustled so hard during the iFundWomen campaign that they met their funding goal and then some, which has since allowed them to begin converting their Her Data Method dreams into reality. Melody took a quick break to share with us what she’s gained through the crowdfunding experience (HINT: It’s not just money …), what her goals are for Her Data Method and so much more.

Meet Melody, Co-Creator of Her Data Method

Melody! How are you?

I’m good! Good!! Just working like crazy to get Her Data Method built and launched.

Excellent! Before we get into Her Data Method, I want readers to get an idea of who you are and the path that led you to this point in your career.

Through the work we were doing with Virtual Collective, we found that our clients often struggled to understand how the health of their website impacted their ability to collect data, and that kept them from being able to effectively market their brand. Which ended up leading to wasted time and wasted ad dollars.

After I learned how to code and I built a couple websites from scratch and understood how everything works from the backend of a site, I realized that there are several basic fundamentals are non-negotiable if you want to have an online presence. I began mapping out a course to start figuring out what and how to teach in a way that would make sense to non-tech people. Once a teacher always a teacher!

"I mapped out a course and started to figure out what and how to teach it in a way that would make sense to non-tech people. Once a teacher always a teacher!"

Live-Crowdfunding-Marketplace-Event-Nashville-Entrepreneur-Center

How did you and Shannon conceive the Her Data Method idea?

Shannon and I had committed to building an online course about how to collect data and we brought on Andy Derrick to help us figure out the best way to build it. In our first brainstorming session (where I was probably terrifying him with releasing all that was in my head!), I kept giving examples of situations that could have been helped by this course. He asked, “Don’t you think there are other women in business who could benefit from this?” That never crossed our minds. The minute I told Shannon about Andy’s observation, she got excited too. Everything clicked! We did some more research, came up with a name and began developing the course. A couple of weeks later, I received the iFundWomen press release email and everything kind of took on a life of its own.

At what point did you and Shannon say, “We’re doing this.”?

After I saw that press release on the morning of February 9, 2017, I quickly applied and then sent Shannon an email that said, “I just applied for this — could be a great way to launch the HDM idea.” And by 4 p.m. that same day I had been interviewed by the iFundWomen team and we were accepted. The goal was to launch our campaign on the iFundWomen Nashville page which was going live on March 6, and then we would prepare for the Live Crowdfunding Marketplace Event with the Mayor that was scheduled for March 26 at the Entrepreneur Center. I told Shannon “Yay! We just got accepted!” She said, “Yay!” but didn’t look at all the emails in detail until a week later when she emailed me and said, “This looks like a pretty amazing opportunity! What all do we need to do?” HA! Once we started looking into what all was involved with pulling off a crowdfunding campaign, we realized it’s a good thing we didn’t know what was involved or we might not have ever done it! But with the help of the Virtual Collective team, we pulled it off!

"With the help of the Virtual Collective team,
we pulled it off!"

Describe for me the moment when you achieved full funding.

We were at my house doing our weekly “partner meeting” and going over ways to cross the finish line. She sent an email reminding a client who had mentioned that he was interested in supporting the campaign that we were pretty close to our goal. He responded about five minutes later by saying, “Refresh your page.” He had donated $500! Which took us over our goal! We whooped and hollered, cried some happy, humble tears, sent him thank yous, and then got back to work.

What was the biggest “A-ha!” moment for you throughout the entire iFundWomen campaign experience?

There were so many “a-ha” moments. That whole experience was pivotal for me in realizing that everything we have been working toward with Virtual Collective and now Her Data Method has been time well spent. On a human level, it reminded me how awesome our team is and how valuable all of our community efforts have been. It felt like one big universal nod to go forth and prosper. It was so empowering! As a woman, it underscored the need for women to stop working for free and to not feel weird or uncomfortable about seeking funding.

Her-Data-Method-Crowdfunding-Project-on-iFundWomen-735x1100

Why do you think the focus is so heavily shifting toward empowering women, with Her Data Method and iFundWomen being prime examples of that?

There is strength in numbers. When you find other women who are either ahead of or behind you in their journey, it’s empowering both ways — it’s empowering to be the one who can help another woman in her efforts and encourage her along the way by sharing your experiences or knowledge or whatever. But it’s just as empowering to be on the receiving end of the encouragement and to feel that support. It’s contagious. That spirit is what will continue to move us forward.

Talk to me about equal pay for women, and the disparity between investments made in female startups vs. male startups.

Women are starting to change the entrepreneurial landscape with or without funding; the micro-funding boost just helps makes getting to the next level in the process a little more possible. But you know what? Until the day comes when women are on a level playing field with men in terms of pay, or VC investments, we need pioneering women like Karen Cahn who are willing to bring projects like iFundWomen to life that help all of us push our ideas forward – have you seen all the amazing female founders projects on iFundWomen? I think women are already changing the world, give them a supportive community, some funds and get the out of the way! Plus it’s just fun to connect with that many other passionate women who are getting shit done with a shoestring budget and an iron will.

So do guys have any role at all in these women-driven businesses and initiatives?

Absolutely! Even though the focus is on women, it’s the community of inclusiveness that gives these initiatives power. Men, women, whatever. The future may be female, but we aren’t going to get there by ourselves. When people believe AND invest in you and your idea, the energy exchanged is powerful, and THAT is why iFundWomen was worth doing. We want to invigorate others in that same way to help them accomplish their goals and make a difference not only in their lives but in the world. It’s a cycle … and it’s life-changing for anyone who is a part of it!

So what’s the ETA for the launch of Her Data Method?

Well, we just finalized the course outline today, and we begin building in May. You can pre-register now and we’ll let you know when the course is live. Beta testing is scheduled to begin in July, and we are on track to have the course live in August 2017!

If ever there was a team that could meet — and exceed — their goals, it’s Melody and Shannon and their dedicated, loyal, passionate team. If you’re ready to get on board with Her Data Method and take your business to the next level, sign up to be notified when course registration goes live. Click here, learn more about it, sign up and get ready to rock!

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