RACE

The 3 Staples

Not necessarily in this order..

• Your client

  • Don’t turn this into a Wiki page, or make it feel like you’re reading from their mission statement. Who are they, really, or how do people perceive you?

• The competition

  • Again, not a Wiki page, but how are they really similar/different, and/or how are they perceived.
  • If someone covered up their logo, how would they know they are using your brand vs this competition.
  • Or are they virtually the same?

• The marketplace

  • Growing? Shrinking?
    • What might be the reason for the change?
  • Has the economy or pandemic changed things?

• The goal is NOT to list too many facts. You want to use these to illustrate your points or story. Include some primary and secondary information, but don’t try to pick 20 facts for 2-3 minutes of your presentation.
• Instead, 8 well chosen facts that link together and paint a story will be more powerful than 20 things thrown together.

“Other”

• Give some hint at goals charged by your client

  • Or you can wait to include this in the action plan.
  • Awareness?
  • Conversions?
    • These are really two separate things. What you do to make people aware of who you, what you offer is NOT necessarily the same thing as making people feel like you are their “go to brand,” or consider trying you out or make you more loyal.
  • If they’ve asked you to do both, you are going to have to consider different messages for each goal, different outcomes, and that probably is going to mean different KPIs.

• How do people find your brand, or stumble across your brand category?

  • This may say a lot about you AND the competition.
  • You might want to say SEO within Google or a social media platform. Great. But what made them look for you in the first place? Did they see people using your product as they were walking by? Were they on a lifestyle or health blog?
  • What is that first Trigger point?
  • Again, this could also be part of the Action Plan under Pain Points.

Getting ready to show your solutions.

• What elements will you use in a PESO Mix?

• You might want to include a brief overview of this at the end of your Action Plan so you can just jump right in at this point. Perhaps put this as part of your Journey. Or, lead this section with this brief overview.

• Show each major element

• This is why they asked you to participate.
• Use a mockup.
  • How does this solve the problem or highlight an opportunity from your Research and Action Plan?
• If it’s a key element, show multiple examples.
• If it’s a supporting item, just show one, but you could include a list at the side that indicates how these might vary (seasonal, different ages, etc.)
• ———–

• Explain what it’s being used for

  • Perhaps Awareness
    • “These Instagram posts will be used to create broad awareness of the benefits of …”
  • Perhaps Conversion

• Show who the target is.

  • Is it everyone, like an umbrella messages that covers all of the targets?
    • Or is it just for 1 or 2 personas?
  • This can easily be done with a graphic or colored dot that represent each.
    • Assume your 3 personas each have a different colored background (Blue, Green, Red). You could put a Blue and Red dot bside one of the elements to indicate it’s only meant to reach 2 of the 3.
  • Some media may be used to connect with only one target, while others might be used for all three.

For Social…

• Indicate how the organic, Owned media posts will differ from the Paid ones.
• Will you suggest to soften the Owned posts, while provide more pushy CTAs on the Paid ones?
• Will you ask the client to organically post more Owned messages about Topic A or B?

For Paid…

• How are you going to get in front of someone?
• You probably need to consider something like Pew’s stats on who uses what.
• But that’s just for social media ads.
• Are people really going to social media to check out your product in a category they’ve never owned? That’s doubtful. They are their to look at cat videos, messages from friends, etc.
• So what are other options? Maybe consider…
  • Native Ads (“other stories” that might interest you;
  • Digital display ads on a lifestyle, parenting, or health blog/websites
  • Streaming ads on Hulu, ParamountPlus, Nat Geo, HGTV, etc. Think about content they may be consuming.
  • Spotify for music or podcasts? Maybe your “thing” is visual and this might be a tough swing, but do they listen to things right now, and would they be likely to do so while using your thing?

What will you do for Conversions? Most webpages “convert” only 2-3% of the time, especially on your first visit. That means 97-98% of your people are rejecting to convert (donate, or buy). Are you going to let them just disappear, or do something about keeping them on the page, or get them to return?

3 Common website “conversion” bumps”

• 1) Consider your organic SEO (which also means you should consider this for your Paid, as well).
• 2) Tie your “ads” or “triggers” to a specific page/section on the website.
  • This may be harder to do with social, than with other things, but you can link a digital display ad about “what an ebike can do for you” or “common misconceptions” so that when it is clicked, the user automatically goes to that specific section or block, not just the homepage.
• 3) Consider follow-up reminders either via capturing their email, or through the use of a modal or popup when they try to leave the page.
  • Yes, some U/X people don’t like these, but modals can 3x the effectiveness of the process if you don’t over do them.