Customer preferences and buying trends are constantly changing. Any company that markets its services online or offline faces an uphill battle to stay relevant, maintain visibility, and remain top-of-mind with its audience.

Keeping up with potential clients and their motivations may seem like a full-time job, but here are some tips to help you stay focused on what’s important.

These tips can be applied to your overall marketing strategy or individual campaigns.

1. Revisit Your Audience Personas

Accurate client personas are foundational to all marketing. When you genuinely understand who you’re selling to, crafting a compelling message is easier and more effective. Detailed personas will save you time, effort, and a lot of marketing dollars as you’ll speak directly to the customer’s needs and have a much better chance of converting.

Before you begin:

• Identify your best clients and their attributes.
• Send out surveys and conduct market research to understand the state of your industry and market.
• Craft buyer personas to reflect the customers you most want to attract.
• Take the time to understand your least desirable customers.

The last point is vital as it will help you make the best use of your time and budget.

2. Address Customer Pain Points

Which problems (that you can solve) keep your clients up at night? They might be different than you think. Truly understanding those problems helps you articulate how you do it, and the benefits you offer. (Remember, features tell, and benefits sell.) Sales meetings are more productive when you’re comfortable with the narrative, and you’ll likely close more deals as the service, its purpose, and the end user are directly aligned.

3. Use Clear, Concise, and Persuasive Language in Marketing

Use your customer personas and research to inform the creation of highly resonant marketing messages.

• Branding matters. Make sure your messages are different from your competitors, that they align with your audiences, and that they are unique to your company’s brand.
• Establish an emotional connection through storytelling. Remember, it’s not all about what you do; it’s about how much better the customer’s life is when your services are in play. Demonstrate this in your content using real-life scenarios/success stories.
• Each marketing channel has its own distinct tone and style. While longer, more informative posts are okay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and X, Instagram users have shorter attention spans and prefer visual messaging or reels. Landing pages can dive deeper and provide all the information a client might need (and your social channels should link back to them).
• Streamline creative across all channels. Even when marketing to diverse personas and channels, every asset should stay consistent in tone, look, and intention.
• Don’t discount the power of a good CTA. Every ad, email, post, or marketing content must include a strong call to action (CTA) to direct the desired response. Examples of strong CTAs include scheduling a call, downloading content, signing up for a webinar, etc.
• Say it simply. Make your messaging easy to understand and avoid jargon.

4. Be Solutions-Oriented

Your clients want solutions. They don’t want to have to think too much about managing their third-party relationships and they appreciate partnerships that add value beyond the service itself. Your marketing can demonstrate how helpful you are in a variety of ways.

Show them how you make their lives easier and be ready with content and timely advice that focuses on what they truly want to accomplish. Here are some ideas:

• Create white papers, tip sheets, and case studies that focus on how you solved similar problems. Tailor the content to your ideal customer and leverage to attract qualified leads.
• Videos are an excellent way to convey the benefits you offer and tell your story visually. Examples include explainers, case studies, or scripted storytelling to bring your campaign to life.

5. Measure, Optimize, Repeat

Every campaign should have specific key performance indicators (KPIs) to help you measure success. Measurement is the only way to understand whether your marketing investment has paid off.

Choose a few KPIs to measure based on campaign goals and what matters most to you. These could include:

• Return on ad spend
• Number of sales-qualified leads (SQLs)
• Cost per lead
• Cost per click
• Visits by traffic source (search engine, Facebook ads, etc.)
• Ad impressions
• Ad engagement
• Landing page traffic
• Email opens
• Click-throughs
• Content downloads

Whatever you choose to measure (resist the urge to pick too many KPIs as the process can get complicated very quickly) will reveal what’s hitting home with your audience—or not. Underperforming ads can be just as helpful as they inform improvements. If a specific channel isn’t delivering, you may want to reallocate your budget elsewhere or drop it altogether.

There is no question; marketers today have never before had to work so hard to gain—and maintain—attention. Staying agile, knowing your audience and their pain points, leveraging (and updating) customer personas, and knowing exactly how to solve their pain points are the ingredients for successful engagements, even when customer preferences change.

Prioritize measurement, monitor analytics, and actively seek out customer feedback so you can continue to improve.

LETTER 7 is a full-service creative firm that provides branding, marketing and design services.

We partner with B2B companies to measurably boost marketing results, providing a comprehensive range of services that include:

• Social media marketing
• Email marketing
• Search engine marketing
• Video and content creation
• Pay-per-click advertising

And more.

We specialize in companies that provide professional services, including real estate, insurance, legal, telecom, accounting, consulting, and more.

You are an expert in your field. A high-performing marketing campaign can help you expand your customer base, scale your marketing results, and grow your bottom line. Speak to us about your needs or schedule your marketing audit today.