Introduction to attract and angage with digital marketing

You will continue to learn about the marketing funnel and its stages: awareness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty. You’ll also learn strategies for turning potential customers into paying and repeat customers at each stage of the marketing funnel. Finally, you’ll explore how to use customer personas to understand consumers’ goals, pain points, and preferred online platforms.

Dedication to study

• Videos: 42 min

• Leitura: 3 h

• Teste: 1 Teste com avaliação

Learning Objectives

• Identify customer personas and build your target audience.
• Describe the marketing funnel’s purpose and benefits.
• Learn strategies to build brand awareness among potential customers.
• Detail how to build interest and have potential customers consider your business.
• Understand how to increase your conversion rate.
• Apply strategies to build brand loyalty in paying customers.

Content

1. Getting started with the ccourse
2. Create Customer personas for your target audience
3. Awareness and consideration marketing funnel stages
4. Conversion and loyalty marketing stages
5. Review: Introduction to attract and angage with digital marketing

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1. Getting started with the course

Introduction to Course 2

Video. Duration: 4 minutes

Hello there, and welcome! In this course, we’ll discuss how to identify your ideal customers, connect with them online, and motivate them to become paying customers. Specifically, you’ll learn marketing strategies including search engine optimization and search engine marketing. Now, before we talk about what you’ll learn, let me first introduce myself. My name is Coach AK. I’m a performance coach, serial entrepreneur, and the current Sales Excellence Lead here at Google. I’m excited to be the instructor for this course. For over 10 years, I’ve worked in the startup space, really helping entrepreneurs turn their ideas into reality. Everything we experience, from the furniture in our homes, the appliances we use, even the way in which we travel, all started with an idea. That idea manifested into action, and that action led to new products and services that impact billions of people every day. For me, my first experience with entrepreneurship was actually in athletics. I was a professional track and field athlete. Now, from there that really taught me the importance of continually growing to make big results. I always found a way to grow, to iterate, and learn the latest techniques and strategies to become successful. And after retiring from athletics in 2016, I used that same energy and dedication and transferred it into the entrepreneurship world. I learned from scratch how to build websites and incorporate SEO strategies. I even used Google ads to reach audiences from across the world I never knew I could reach. My first website, I still remember. It was awful. But looking back, it’s what started my journey. Every new thing I learned, I implemented piece by piece. This is my biggest takeaway after all of these years, because you can always grow and you can always learn something new. If you just take the time, be willing to try something new, everything will come together. Every new skill gained is a new muscle formed which help me and you become better than you were the day before. I believe that one percent better each day creates massive results. This course is all about that improvement, helping you build marketing muscles to advance your career in digital marketing when you cross that course finish line. Let’s discuss what you’ll cover in this course. We’ll begin with an important marketing concept and something you should create before beginning any campaign: customer personas. The personas help you ensure you represent specific customer identities, traits, and needs in your marketing. Then we’ll go in depth on strategies for each step of the marketing funnel: awareness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty. Then you’ll learn about search engine optimization, also called SEO. Search engine optimization is the practice of getting your website to rank higher in search engines like Google. Think about when a potential customer searches for your product and service. You’d like your website to appear as close to the top of the results page as possible, right? Next, you’ll learn about search engine marketing, also called SEM. Search engine marketing is similar to search engine optimization, except it’s paid placement. A popular example of SEM are the search ads on the Google search engine results page. We’ll wrap up with display advertising. You know when you visit a website and see an advertisement? That’s often a display ad. You’ll learn how display ads work and some best practices on when and how to use display ads. Ok. Now that you have an overview of the course, you’re ready to get started.

Course 2 overview

Reading. Duration: 20 minutes

Hello and welcome to the second course of the program, Attract and Engage Customers with Digital Marketing. By the end of this course, you will be able to apply digital marketing strategies, best practices, and tools to increase the awareness of a business, identify customer needs, and increase customer interest in products and services offered.

Course progress

The entire program has seven courses. Foundations of Digital Marketing and E-commerce is the first course in the series.

Course flow

1. Foundations of Digital Marketing and E-commerce —(current course) Learn about the fields of digital marketing and e-commerce and the skills needed for associate-level roles.

2. Attract and Engage Customers with Digital Marketing —Apply the marketing funnel concept to stages of the customer journey, including engagement, conversion, and loyalty. Learn methods for search engine optimization so potential customers find your products or services.

3. From Likes to Leads: Interact with Customers Online —Learn how to create marketing content and ads on social media platforms and evaluate their effectiveness using social media analytics data.

4. Think Outside the Inbox: Email Marketing —Learn how to execute email campaigns, use mailing lists, and automate customer communication and workflows.

5. Assess for Success: Marketing Analytics and Measurement —Learn how to collect, monitor, analyze, and present data from marketing campaigns using analytics and presentation tools.

6. Make the Sale: Build, Launch, and Manage E-commerce Stores —Learn the process to create a new e-commerce store and drive traffic to the online business through advertising campaigns.

7. Satisfaction Guaranteed: Develop Customer Loyalty Online —Learn strategies to build customer loyalty in e-commerce and use specific tools to help develop and maintain client relationships. This course also closes out the program with professional development topics to help you prepare for a job search.

Course 2 content

This course has regular assignments. You can complete them at your own pace; however, the assignments are designed to help you finish the program in six months or fewer. Refer to the information below about progression for this course.

Module 1: Introduction to Attract and engage customers with digital marketing You will continue to learn about the marketing funnel and its stages: awareness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty. You’ll also learn strategies for turning potential customers into paying and repeat customers at each stage of the marketing funnel. Finally, you’ll explore how to use customer personas to understand consumers’ goals, pain points, and preferred online platforms.

Module 2: Understand search engine optimization (SEO) You will review the fundamentals of SEO. Then, you’ll gain a basic understanding of how the Google Search engine works and how websites are ranked. Then, you’ll learn how to do keyword research.

Module 3: Apply search engine optimization (SEO) You will examine how to optimize a website for search engine optimization, including strategies for content, images, and linking. You’ll also learn how to help search engines better understand your content. Next, you’ll explore how to craft effective website titles and add structured data markups to help users and search engines find what they need. Then, you’ll learn all about how to use SEO tools to analyze search performance and user behavior.

Module 4: Search engine marketing (SEM) and display advertising You will learn about advertising opportunities within search engines, also called SEM and Google Display advertising. You’ll learn best practices for creating an ad in search results or a display ad. You’ll finish the course understanding how to apply and improve display ads.

What to expect

Each course offers a series of lessons with many types of learning opportunities. These include:

• Videos for instructors to teach new concepts and demonstrate the use of tools

• Readings to introduce new ideas and build on the concepts from the videos

• Discussion forums to share, explore, and reinforce lesson topics for better understanding

• Discussion prompts to promote thinking and engagement in the discussion forums

• Self reviews to practice tasks and check your results for accuracy or correctness

• In-video quizzes to help your comprehension of content presented in videos

• Practice quizzes to prepare you for graded quizzes

• Graded quizzes to measure your progress, give you valuable feedback, and satisfy program completion to obtain a certificate—Following program guidelines, you can take a graded quiz multiple times to achieve a passing score of 80% or higher.

Tips for success

• It is strongly recommended to take these courses—and go through the items in each lesson—in the order they appear because new information and concepts build on previous knowledge.

• Participate in all learning opportunities to gain as much knowledge and experience as possible.

I- f something is confusing, don’t hesitate to replay a video, review a reading, or repeat a self-review activity.

• Use the additional resources that are referenced throughout the program. They are designed to support your learning.

• When you encounter useful links in a course, remember to bookmark them so you can refer to the information later for study or review.

• Understand and follow the Coursera Code of Conduct to ensure that the learning community remains a welcoming, friendly, and supportive place for all members.

Helpful resources to get started

Reading. Duration: 20 minutes

As a learner, you can complete this course only. However, to obtain a certificate, you must complete all the courses in the program. This reading describes what is required to obtain a certificate and best practices for you to have a good learning experience on the platform.

Course completion to obtain a certificate To receive your official Google Digital Marketing and E-commerce Certificate, you must:

Pass all graded assignments in all 7 courses of the certificate program. Each graded assignment is part of a cumulative graded score for the course, and the passing grade for each course is 80%.

AND one of the following:

• Pay the course certificate fee,

• Be approved for Coursera Financial Aid, or

• Complete the certificate through an educational institution, employer, or agency that’s sponsoring your participation.

Healthy habits for course completion

Here is a list of best practices that will help you complete the courses in the program in a timely manner:

Plan your time: Setting regular study times and sticking with them each week can help you make learning a part of your routine. Use a calendar or timetable to create a schedule, and list what you plan to do each day in order to break your work down into achievable goals. Create a quiet place to watch the videos, review the readings, and complete the activities so you can really focus on the material.

Work at your own pace: Everyone learns differently, so this program has been designed to let you work at your own pace. Although your personalized deadlines start when you enroll, they are just a guide. Feel free to move through the program at the speed that works best for you. There is no penalty for late assignments; to earn your certificate, all you have to do is complete all of the work. If you prefer, you can extend your deadlines by returning to Overview in the navigation panel to click Switch Sessions. If you already missed previous deadlines, click Reset my deadlines instead.

Be curious: If you find an idea that gets you excited, act on it! Ask questions, search for more details online, check out the links that interest you, and take notes on your discoveries. The little things you do to support your learning along the way will take your knowledge even further, open more doors in this high-growth field, and help you qualify for jobs.

Take notes: Notes are useful-to-remember information that you think might be important in the future, especially as you’re preparing to enter a new job field. In addition, taking notes is an effective way to make connections between topics and gain a better understanding of those topics.

Chat (responsibly) with other learners: If you have a question, chances are, you’re not alone. Reach out in the discussion forum to ask for help from other learners in this program. You can also visit Coursera’s Global Online

Community: Other important things to know while learning with virtual classmates can be found in the Coursera Honor Code and Code of Conduct.

Update your profile: Consider updating your profile on Coursera. This link appears in the menu when you click on your name at the top-right corner of this screen. When classmates find you in the discussion forums, they can click on your name to view your profile and get to know you more.

Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations for course activities

To complete certain activities in the program, you will need to use digital documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Marketing professionals use these software tools to collaborate within their teams and organizations. If you need more information about using a particular tool, refer to these resources:

• Microsoft Word: Help and learning: Microsoft Support page for Word

• Google Docs: Help Center page for Google Docs

• Microsoft Excel: Help and learning: Microsoft Support page for Excel

• Google Sheets: Help Center page for Google Sheets

• Microsoft PowerPoint: Help and learning: Microsoft Support page for PowerPoint

• How to use Google Slides: Help Center page for Google Slides

Course glossary

This course will cover a lot of terms and concepts, some of which you may already know and some of which will be new. To remind yourself about what a term means, or to help you review concepts for graded quizzes, refer to the Glossary for this course.

Meet and greet

Discussion Prompt. Duration: 10 minutes

People can become inspired to change careers for many reasons. Some are unfulfilled in their current role or think it could be a good change for their family, while others may just want to further their experience and skill set. What inspired you to enroll into this program and how do you think it will change your life? Write 3–4 sentences explaining your motivation for taking this course. Then, review your peers’ responses to discover if you have anything in common.

Participation is optional

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2. Create Customer personas for your target audience

Welcome to week 1

Video. Duration: 1 minute

Hello, and in this upcoming section, you’ll learn strategies to move a customer through each stage of the marketing funnel. We’ll start with an overview of the customer persona, which is a representation of an ideal customer for a business. You’ll also learn how to research and create multiple personas. Then you get an overview of the marketing funnel. This is a step-by-step approach on how to attract customers who may not know about a brand and its products and services and turn them into repeat customers and brand advocates. We’ll review the first stage of the funnel, which is the awareness stage. This section is all about strategies to get customers introduced to the brand. Then we’ll discuss the second funnel stage, consideration. This stage is all about building interests in potential customers. After that, we’ll cover conversion. At this stage of the funnel, customers are ready to make a purchase. We need to build their trust so they become paying customers. And finally, we’ll discuss the loyalty stage. This is when you have paying customers and are encouraging them to become repeat customers and brand advocates. You’ll also read through several case studies on how businesses apply these strategies for each stage of the marketing funnel. We have a lot to cover over the next several videos. Are you ready? Great. Let’s get started.

Customer personas for your target audience

Video. Duration: 4 minutes

We’re bombarded with marketing and advertisements all day. So as a marketing professional, how do you get a brand to stand out? You must create messaging and materials that connect with your customer. Before you start creating marketing materials, you need to know who you’re marketing to. That’s why we’re going to start this course with an important marketing concept: defining your ideal customer. In this video, we’re going to discuss the customer persona, also called the buyer persona, marketing persona, or audience persona. A customer persona represents a group of similar people in a desirable audience. They can help you figure out how to reach people at the right time, with the right message, offer, and products. The customer persona we’ll be discussing is very simple. It includes who the person represents, also known as their characteristics, their goal, or what they want to achieve, and the barrier to reaching their goal, also called a pain point. Typically, a marketer creates several types of personas for a product or service. You may even work with a business with over 10. This is because most businesses have more than just one type of customer. It’s important to remember that customer personas can get very complex. For our purposes, we are presenting a simple version. As a marketer, you may find yourself adding many details such as customer interests, behaviors, needs, and skills. So, why create customer personas in the first place? Well, one reason is to better understand the customer’s perspective. With a persona, you’re imagining things through that individual’s point of view. This is more specific than a target audience, which is more broad and general than a persona. When creating marketing material such as an advertisement or an email, you should consider the customer’s priorities. Like what message or visuals will best appeal to them? Does it help them reach their goals or relate to their pain points? Another reason is once you understand who your customer is, it’s easier to create customized content for them. You’ll understand how they think, what they want to achieve, and what’s holding them back from making a purchase. The last reason to create customer personas is for effective ad targeting. Later in this course and in the following courses, you’ll learn more about ad targeting, also called targeted advertising. Most digital advertising platforms now provide targeted advertising. The platforms offer several different targeting tools to help get your ads in front of the audiences you wish to reach. Let’s quickly go over an example of a customer persona, specifically for a company that sells camping tents. Now, they want to create a marketing campaign for a six-person tent. Based on the company’s research, the marketing team determines one of the persona’s elements is a parent or guardian. They continue doing research on demographics and learn that they’re in their mid-30s to mid-50s and have two to three children. After conducting in-person interviews, the marketing team learns that their general goal is to purchase a budget-friendly tent that will last for several years. You’ll also learn that a common barrier to purchasing a large tent is concern about setting it up due to a frustrating prior experience. With this persona, you can create materials accordingly. For example, an online ad could read like, “easy to set up tent for the whole family.” You can also target this ad to people who fit the demographic profile. Remember, you can certainly go in more depth on the demographics, the goals, or the barriers for this customer persona. Excellent! Now, you have a working knowledge of customer personas, which will help you connect with customers in your future digital marketing role.

How to create a customer persona

Video. Duration: 6 minutes

Hello there! Now that you know what customer personas are and why they’re important, let’s discuss how to create one. When crafting a customer persona, you’ll need information about your ideal customers. You shouldn’t just guess. You need actual data. The thing is you’ll likely need to do research to collect this information. Here are a few ways to do the research. The first is to review customer data. It’s possible the business already has existing data about its customers. Review this for information for details such as demographics, location, sales history, and customer service notes. A second way is to conduct customer interviews. Like, consider interviewing customers directly about their experience with the product or service. Ask questions such as what brought them to the product, how did it solve their problem, and if appropriate, consider collecting information on their other interests as well to form a more detailed persona. Now, another way is to analyze web data. If the business is active on social media, review any demographic data about people who follow your business account. Additionally, website analytics, such as Google Analytics, provide data about elements like the age and gender of website visitors. Now, if you’re wondering what Google Analytics is, we’ll be covering that in a later course. If available, research online reviews and comments, as well. They can be a great opportunity for persona data. A fourth way is to send out surveys. A simple method to collect information is to email a survey out to current customers. You may find that participation is low on this particular type of strategy. So instead encourage survey participation by giving away something for free to one of the customers who fills out the survey. Now, once you’ve done your research, the first part of creating a persona is defining who your customer is. This includes defining your persona’s interests, traits, and demographics. Demographics are information specific to the customer, such as age, gender identity, income, family size, occupation, education, and location. For example, a persona for a pet business could be: A man in his 30s with two children who loves the outdoors and lives in the suburbs. They may even get more specific with their personas and detail-out a 32-year- old man with two children who owns a large dog and likes to go hiking. Now, the more detailed your personas, typically the more personas you will create. This aligns your advertising language to many members of your audience. Now, once you determine the persona’s interests, traits, and demographics, it’s time to get specific about their goals and barriers. To create the goals and barriers, you should primarily rely on the data you collect about customers, such as surveys and interviews. For the customer persona goal, get specific about the customer and what they want to achieve. This goal needs to be related to the product or service. For example, if it’s a landscaping business, the customer wants great looking greenery. Reviewing the data, you also identify additional goals they may want to achieve. Some of the customers just want peace of mind that their plants and property will be taken care of. For other customers, it’s pride in the look of their landscaping. While you’re relying on your data to form the goal and barrier, it’s okay to include additional details. For instance, maybe customers consistently said they want their landscaping to look good. You can infer they want to feel pride in their home. Now, after identifying goals, consider the barrier, or what’s preventing the customer from achieving their goal. You can also consider what’s keeping the customer from hiring the company. Again, review the customer data, including the surveys and interviews. Can you identify any barriers? Continuing with the landscaping example, when reviewing the customer survey, you noticed a few recurring barriers. Some customers say they don’t have time to take care of their lawn. Others state they’ve tried but don’t believe the lawn looks any good. Another group stated they simply just don’t have the equipment. Consider a barrier related to hiring the company. One could be that they don’t trust landscaping companies because they received poor service in the past. Now that you have the demographic information, the goals, and the barriers, combine that information to create your personas. Following the landscaping example again, one persona could be A 55-year-old woman in the city with a small yard and a garden. She has been taking care of her own yard for five years but currently doesn’t have the time to do it. A second persona could be a 30-year-old new homeowner. They’ve never worked with landscaping before and just moved to the suburbs. And a third persona could be a 27-year-old, budget-conscious renter in a rural area. They’re trying to get basic landscaping to keep up with their homeowners’ association demands. Now, let’s imagine you’ve completed a few personas. Now what do you do with them? A best practice is to keep them readily available. Whenever you work on any marketing material, consider all of your personas. Who are you trying to reach? What visuals appeal to them? What messages appeal to them? What online platforms do they spend their time on? That’s the power of a persona. Instead of just guessing or combining all personas together, you have specific data about who your customers are. You know what they want to achieve and the barriers that keep them from achieving those goals. Customer personas may seem like a lot of work, but they are well worth it. Successful marketing starts with knowing your customers well. And now you know what steps to take to gain that knowledge and really make that connection.

Learn to create customer personas

Reading. Duration: 20 minutes

At this point in the course, you’ve learned about the importance of connecting with your customers through digital marketing. Creating customer personas for your target audience is one of the ways you can do this. In this reading, you’ll learn more about the process of creating a customer persona.

Introduction to customer personas

Customer personas represent a group of similar people in a desirable audience. They are fictional users whose goals and characteristics represent the needs of a larger group of users.

Customer personas can help you focus on creating marketing materials for the people who are most likely to buy your products or services.

Most businesses have more than one type of customer, so they typically create multiple customer personas to accurately capture their target audience. Each customer persona represents an individual from one of the organization’s target groups. A target group is a set of people who have similar interests, goals, or concerns.

In a later activity, you’ll practice creating two customer personas.

What’s included in a customer persona

Although some templates for customer personas can be longer and more complex, the template you’ll use in this course is a simple one. It includes three basic components:

1. Who: Provide a short description of the fictional person that includes their name, age, location, household, and education. You’ll also include a photo. These details make it easier to imagine someone who represents an actual customer.

2. Goals: Describe what the person wants to achieve. This might include several related goals that apply to the customer’s life and your products or services.

3. Barrier: Identify a pain point that prevents the person from achieving their goals.

Although it’s not required for the personas you’ll create in this course, it may be helpful to include more information. For example, you could include a detailed description of the individual’s personality, hobbies, values, and lifestyle. Including more information can help you understand the customer better.

Researching your customers

Creating an accurate customer persona begins with research. You’ll need data about your customers, including demographics like age, location, household, education, and occupation. You’ll also need data that describes your customers’ goals and barriers (or pain points).

Companies gather this type of data using analytics tools, customer interviews, surveys, focus groups, and other research methods.

Here are some examples of questions you might ask to gather customer data:

• What is your age?

• What is your education level?

• Where do you live?

• Whom do you live with?

• What is your occupation?

• What are your primary activities on a typical workday? What about on the weekend?

• What challenges do you face?

• What do you value most?

• What are your goals?

The questions you ask should also be tailored specifically to address your company’s products or services.

After you gather and compile all the data, you’ll need to organize it by finding trends and grouping similar answers together. Then, based on the data collected, you can create fictional personas that represent each target group in your target audience.

Here is an example of how you might organize your customer data in a spreadsheet:

Customer Persona Data

Customer persona examples

The following examples represent customer personas for a company that sells camping tents, which is one of the examples used in a video. Based on the company’s research, they found that a majority of their customers were parents or guardians in their mid-30s to mid-50s with two or three children. They also researched the goals and barriers for their customers and found that customers fit into several different groups based on their answers. They used the information from this research to create a customer persona that represents each group.

Here is one of the customer personas that the camping tents company created:

1. Who:

Antonio Weber is a 35-year-old dad with three young kids. He is an electrician with an associate’s degree and lives in the suburbs.

2. Goals:

• To share a love for the outdoors with his three young kids

• To purchase a large, budget-friendly tent that will last for several years

3. Barrier:

Concern about being able to set up the tent alone, since the kids are too young to help with this task

Persona 1

Here is another customer persona that the company created:

1. Who: Juliana Soto is a 50-year-old parent with two college-age daughters. She is an insurance agent with a bachelor’s degree and lives in the city.

2. Goals:

To plan an affordable month-long family road trip across the United States

To find a waterproof tent that will keep the family dry and protected in all types of weather

3. Barrier: Concern about the tent leaking during a rain storm due to a prior experience

Persona 2

Why customer personas make a difference

It’s important to remember that customer personas are based on the research and information you have about your actual customers. Accurate customer personas based on research help you better connect with your target audience.

Creating customer personas will help you approach your work from the customer’s point of view. Your marketing messages, your brand voice, and your email and social media campaigns can all benefit from knowing the customer at a deeper level.

Key takeaways

Creating customer personas can help you better understand and empathize with your target audience. The process begins with researching and identifying who your customers are. Then you group similar customers together and create a customer persona to represent each group.

Activity: Create two customer personas

Practice Quiz. 1 question. Grade: 100%

Link to Activity: Create two customer personas

Activity Exemplar: Create two customer personas

Reading. Duration: 10 minutes

Here is a completed exemplar along with an explanation of how the exemplar fulfills the expectations for the activity.

Completed Exemplar

To review the exemplar for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Link to exemplar: Customer personas

Assessment of Exemplar

Compare the exemplar to your completed personas. Review your work using each of the criteria in the exemplar. What did you do well? Where can you improve? Use your answers to these questions to guide you as you continue to progress through the course.

Note: The exemplar represents two possible personas for the customer data provided. Your personas will likely differ in certain ways. What’s important is that your personas provide a clear representation of the broad characteristics, goals, and barriers of each target audience.

Let’s review each persona:

Persona 1 - The Budget Buyer

• Name: This persona uses the name of one of the survey respondents (Raj) who matches most of the Budget Buyer characteristics.

• Age: Raj’s age (27) is within the main age range of customers who care most about cost.

• Location: Raj lives in the suburbs because that’s where most Budget Buyers reside.

• Education: Raj is college educated because Budget Buyers tend to be college educated.

• Household: Budget Buyers are typically younger than Variety Shoppers, so they tend not to have partners, spouses, or children.

• Barriers: Raj is a Budget Buyer, so he wants to purchase bedding that doesn’t cost too much. But he’s concerned that his budget might limit his options. Since he can’t examine the bedding in person before purchasing it, he also wonders if the quality is really as high as it seems online.

Persona 2 - The Variety Shopper

• Name: This persona uses the name of one of the survey respondents (Malena) who matches most of the Variety Shopper characteristics.

• Age: Malena’s age (44) is within the main age range of customers who care most about variety.

• Location: Malena lives in a city because that’s where most Variety Shoppers reside.

• Education: Malena is college educated because Variety Shoppers tend to be college educated.

• Household: Malena is part of a multi-person household because Variety Shoppers are often partnered or married and have 1–2 children.

• Barriers: As a Variety Shopper, Malena wants to be able to select from a wide range of options for themselves, their partner, and children. But they don’t know if they’ll be able to find everything they need in one place. Even if those options are available, it might be hard to find them if there aren’t enough sorting options on the website.

Test your knowledge: Create customer personas for your target audience

Practice Quiz. 4 questions. Grade:100%

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3. Awareness and consideration marketing funnel stages

Introduction to the marketing funnel and its benefits

Video. Duration: 3 minutes

Welcome back! Earlier, you were introduced to the marketing funnel, which is a process to take people who are unfamiliar with your products or services and turn them into paying customers. Overall, a main goal of the marketing funnel is to help a business accomplish their goals, whether that be for profit, revenue, new customers, or even something different. All of the marketing efforts need to be well- optimized so that they lead to achieving business goals. Now as a marketer, you want to ensure that you are reaching and resonating with your target audiences in all stages of the customer journey. Now, if you do any research on marketing funnels, you’ll quickly realize that there are many different kinds. You may work for a company that has a six-stage marketing funnel. That’s perfectly okay. A marketing funnel is just a framework. It helps show how customers move from knowing about a business to purchasing something. The structure may be a little different depending on the business. For this course, we’re going to focus on a four-stage marketing funnel: awareness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty. In the following videos, we’ll break down each stage in depth and discuss marketing strategies. But before we start discussing the strategies, let’s briefly go over the benefits of a marketing funnel. The first benefit of this framework is to consider the buyer’s journey. Instead of just simply trying random marketing strategies or sticking to what drives sales at the bottom of the funnel, the marketing funnel encourages you to consider the experience a buyer has with the brand. When do they first experience the brand? How do they experience it? And what do they do after their first experience? Now, these types of questions help you, as the marketer, help you really better understand the brand and the business from the customer’s perspective. The next benefit is to optimize your marketing strategy. All marketing strategies have gaps, and the funnel helps you recognize and fix them. Maybe the display ads aren’t connecting with your potential customer, or maybe they connect with your ads but the webpage they land on loads slowly, preventing them from moving forward. When optimizing your funnel, you can find and address these kinds of challenges. And lastly, once you consider the buyer’s journey and optimize the marketing strategies, you’ll increase the conversion rate and drive more business results. For example, with an e-commerce business, you may track the percentage of potential customers that become paying customers. If 100 people visit a product page and only one of them purchases a product, that’s a one percent conversion rate. Optimizing your funnel provides a better experience for potential customers. This can increase the conversion rate and ultimately earn the company more revenue. Overall, a main goal of a marketing funnel is to provide a great experience for the customer and earn the business more revenue. All marketing efforts need to be well-optimized. This ensures that the marketing performance helps meet the business goals. Learning what does and doesn’t move your customer through the funnel may be one of your more important tasks as a marketer.

Awareness: Strategies to get customers introduced to a brand

Video. Duration: 5 minutes

Hello again. In the previous video, we discussed the marketing funnel and its benefits. Now in the following videos, we’ll share specific marketing strategies for each funnel stage. Let’s discuss the first stage in our funnel, and that’s awareness. In this stage, the potential customer may not know about the product or service. Maybe they have a specific problem or pain point they need to solve, such as wanting to buy a new piece of furniture. Or maybe they were introduced to your brand without specifically searching for your product or service, such as through a Facebook or Instagram ad. However they encounter the brand, the awareness stage is when a potential customer first becomes aware of the product or service. This first impression counts. Imagine you’re a digital marketer. You’re tasked with creating and implementing a strategy to get more people aware of a product or service. Well, how do you do it? Now before I get into these strategies, let me first say that if you’re struggling to understand these terms and concepts, that’s okay. I’ll be covering these more in depth as you go through this course and the following courses. So by the end of the certificate program, I promise you will be a pro. Let’s quickly go over the difference between strategies and tactics. This is an important marketing concept. Often, you’ll find marketers using these terms interchangeably. However, for our purposes, strategies support the plan to achieve the marketing goal and tend to be more general ideas. Tactics are actions taken to make the plan happen. For example, social media marketing would be a strategy. It’s a general idea. And actions on social media would be the tactics. These support the strategy. Here are some strategies and tactics to build awareness. First is search engine optimization, also called SEO. This is the process of improving a website to increase its visibility in a search engine such as a Google Search or Microsoft Bing. Think about when a potential customer searches for a resolution to their pain point. If your website appears at the top of the search, they will become aware of your business. Next is search engine marketing, also called SEM. It’s when you increase a website’s visibility in a search engine through paid advertisement. It’s similar to SEO. Now when a customer does a Google Search for what you provide, wouldn’t it be great to show near the top of the search results? SEM can get the brand there. Display ads are graphic-based advertising such as photos, videos, or text. Now you commonly encounter display ads on websites and applications. Build awareness by getting display ads on websites your potential customers are visiting. Next is social media marketing. These are posts on any social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Typically, these are at no cost. Now depending on the social media platform, there are many ways to build awareness. One common strategy is to get a follower to share the brand’s post to their followers. When this happens, new people get introduced to your brand. Social media advertising is similar to social media marketing, except that it’s paid. The type of advertising varies depending on the platform. Now, a common paid opportunity that builds awareness is an ad that shows in non-followers’ feeds. You can target new potential customers based on their interests.

Video marketing comes in many forms, but a common one to build awareness is a YouTube ad that plays before a video, similar to social media advertising. You can target potential customers based on what videos they previously watched. Influencer marketing is when you partner with a person or a brand that has a large following. For a fee, they will promote your product or service to their followers. There are several types of influencer marketing partnerships. A common one to build awareness is a review. For example, a brand could pay an influencer to try out their product or service. The influencer then details their experience. That review could be in a video or photo or a text format. Remember, when doing influencer marketing, make sure your influencer discloses the relationship. Follow all regulatory guidelines. Next is content marketing. This is a marketing technique that focuses on creating and distributing valuable content. An example of this is a downloadable e-book that your potential customers may want to read. It could also be an educational webpage. Content marketing is often tied with SEO or SEM, but remember, creating valuable content is just the first step of content marketing. The next is to get the content in front of potential customers. Play video starting at :5:4 and follow transcript5:04 All right, that was a lot of strategies to build awareness! As a quick recap, we covered search engine optimization, search engine marketing, display ads, social media marketing, social media advertising, video marketing, influencer marketing, and content marketing. Remember, you’ll be learning more about those throughout this program.

How a business creates awareness for their products

Reading. Duration: 20 minutes

Businesses use marketing strategies to build awareness among potential customers. You have learned that the first stage of the marketing funnel is the awareness stage. In this stage, potential customers first become aware of a product or service. The customers don’t know about the brand and aren’t seeking out its products or services. Because potential customers aren’t aware of the brand, it’s the business’s job to introduce their products or services.

In this reading, you’ll learn how a fictional company, Lirio Cases, creates a marketing strategy to build awareness. Lirio Cases makes premium leather phone cases. They have been in operation for several years. Even though they have a growing customer base, they would like to reach even more customers interested in their products.

Here are the marketing strategies Lirio Cases uses to build awareness in potential customers:

Search engine marketing (SEM)

While Lirio Cases’ website does appear on Google and Bing’s first page of search results for keywords such as “leather iphone case” or “leather android case,” their visibility is towards the bottom of the page.

In addition to their website’s presence, they would also like to have a presence with advertising towards the top of the search results page. So, they decide to create and publish search ads using Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising. These ads allow Lirio Cases to get their brand in front of customers searching for their products. For example, when someone searches for one of their products, “black leather iphone case,” their ad typically appears with other ads at the top of the search engine.

Social media marketing

Lirio Cases is on several social media platforms and has a large following on Instagram. They usually post simple photos of their products. However, they would like to reach new customers by making their Instagram content provide more useful information.

To do this, they take high-quality photos with their leather phone cases matched with other popular items such as pens, wallets, and watches. Artfully pairing their phone cases with other items gives new customers a reason to follow their account: style and fashion recommendations.

Social media advertising

In addition to making high-quality Instagram posts, Lirio Cases also advertises on social media platforms. To reach new potential customers, they target customers based upon the customer personas they previously created. For the ad content, they re-use the new high quality photos on their Instagram account.

The social media advertising reaches new customers and also grows their following on Facebook and Instagram.

Influencer marketing

To increase their new customer reach on Instagram, Lirio Cases decides to pay an influencer with a large following to promote their latest leather phone case in a post. By having an influencer promote Lirio Cases, tens of thousands of new potential customers learn about Lirio Cases’ brand and products.

In the Instagram post, the influencer encourages followers to visit Lirio Cases’ Instagram account and promotes a 15% discount on the next 200 purchases.

Key takeaways

The combination of search engine marketing, social media marketing, social media advertising, and influencer marketing helps Lirio Cases reach many new potential customers. Reaching potential customers is only the first step. After the initial introduction, they now have to build interest and persuade the potential customer to become a paying customer.

It’s important to remember that as a digital marketer, it’s unlikely you’ll be implementing all these strategies at once. It’s more likely that you will build out one strategy at a time. Additionally, a typical small to medium-sized business may only focus on two or three of these strategies. In a larger company, digital marketers typically specialize in a particular type of marketing, such as search engine marketing or social media marketing.

Case study: Okabashi uses marketing strategies to attract customers and build interest

Reading. Duration: 20 minutes

Previously, you learned about the awareness marketing funnel stage, which is when a customer isn’t yet aware of a brand or its products. In this case study, you’ll learn how Okabashi uses marketing strategies to build awareness and consideration among potential customers. Awareness is the first funnel stage, when customers haven’t heard of or encountered the brand before. Consideration is the second funnel stage, when a customer knows about a brand, but they aren’t ready to make a purchase. Okabashi uses specific marketing strategies to drive potential customers to its e-commerce website and to eventually make a purchase.

Company background

Since 1984, Okabashi Brands has been a family-owned and operated shoe company in the small town of Buford, Georgia. Currently, Okabashi is run by Sara Irvani, who took over the business from her father in 2017. Okabashi’s main products are colorful, moldable flip-flops and sandals designed for foot health. It manufactures its shoe products in a factory that is over 100,000 square feet.

Okabashi places an emphasis on solid company values. One such value is sustainability. Each pair of Okabashi sandals are made of approximately 25% recycled products from its own closed-loop manufacturing process. Additionally, customers who recycle their older sandals with Okabashi receive 15% off their next purchase.

Okabashi employees inside the factory posing with shoes

The challenge

Like many companies, a challenge Okabashi faces is reaching new customers and building interest in those potential customers. While Okabashi does have many repeat customers, it is always trying to build its pipeline of new customers.

The approach

To reach new customers, Okabashi uses multiple strategies including search engine ads, social media ads, display ads, and influencer marketing. Once potential customers become aware of Okabashi’s products, it continues to use several marketing strategies to build interest in those customers. Strategies it uses during the consideration stage include remarketing ads, email marketing, and showcasing Google reviews to build trust.

With many of its marketing strategies, Okabashi includes language with its purpose driven values: local-based, made in the USA, women-owned business, and sustainably-produced products.

Awareness

During the awareness marketing funnel stage, Okabashi uses several types of Google Ads, including Search ads and Shopping ads. When setting up Google Ads, it is specific about the type of product, even down to the color. For example, it will use “coral” to describe sandals instead of a more general color, such as “pink”. This ensures Okabashi’s products display for specific, targeted searches.

For social media, the company promotes ads on Facebook and Instagram. These are typically lifestyle-based and promote the general brand, not always a specific product.

One unique marketing strategy Okabashi has used is influencer marketing. The company wrote hand-written notes to over 100 influencers and included a free product. The idea behind this strategy is that the influencer will connect with the hand written note, enjoy the product, and then make a post with Okabashi’s product. A key to this strategy leading to sales is ensuring the influencer has an audience that is interested in the particular type of product.

Consideration

Okabashi uses remarketing to keep its products top of mind for potential customers. When a potential customer views a product on its website, Okabashi remarkets those products through online advertisements. The remarketing ads display on Google Ad supported websites, Facebook, and Instagram.

Another strategy Okabashi uses to build interest in potential customers is email marketing. A unique strategy it uses is email collaborations. It will collaborate with non-competitor brands who share similar values and interests, such as being made in the USA. Each brand will send an email promoting each other’s businesses to its email list.

To build consideration among potential customers, Okabashi focuses on increasing trust with customers. Okabashi has built up its reviews on its Google Business Profile, so that potential customers can learn about previous customers’ experience. Okabashi also builds trust by sharing its company’s story on social media, through email, and on its product pages. Reading its made-in-America business story builds confidence in the brand among potential customers.

The results

A well-crafted marketing funnel with multiple strategies has helped Okabashi grow its online customer base. To date, Okabashi has sold over 35 million pairs of shoes.

Conclusion

One of the qualities that has made Okabashi successful with its e-commerce store is its creative marketing strategies. The use of influencer marketing and email collaborations to get its shoe products in front of ideal customers is innovative. When considering these strategies, it’s important to note that it takes relationship building. While a business can create ads to build awareness and consideration, partnering with influencers and brands is a relationship-based strategy. Done well, it can result in a win-win result for everyone involved.

Consideration: Strategies to build interest in your product or service

Video. Duration: 3 minutes

Okay, you now have potential customers aware of the brand and what it provides. However, they aren’t ready to purchase yet. Now what do you do next? You build consideration. In the consideration stage of the marketing funnel, you build interest for your product or service. The potential customer already knows about the product or service, and now they’re ready to learn more. Now it’s important to remember that the strategies we discussed in the previous video still apply in the consideration stage. For example, social media marketing helps build consideration. Content marketing does too. Now the difference between the awareness and the consideration phase is the type of marketing strategy you apply. For example, the content for the consideration phase may be more in-depth and persuasive, such as a case study. The ad targeting will likely be different as well. Previous visitors will be targeted. Here are some marketing strategies and tactics to build consideration. First is a unique selling proposition, also called the USP, and it explains why a product or service is better than the competition. Once a potential customer is aware of the product or service, make sure that the USP is clear and repeated often. Testimonials are when customers provide their experience with a product or service. A well-crafted testimonial can build trust in a potential customer. They imagine themselves as the customer who had a great experience and problem was solved. Testimonials can either be written, in audio, or video. Next is case studies. Are similar to testimonials, except they’re usually more in-depth. They’re often in written format. A business with projects that last for several months may use a case study to explain its progression. A thorough case study builds trust in the potential customer. Remarketing ads are advertisements delivered to previous purchasers, subscribers, or visitors to a brand’s website or social media. These types of ads are common in e-commerce. You likely have experienced ad remarketing. For example, maybe you viewed one or more pairs of shoes on a website and then later saw ads for those shoes showing up on other webpages or apps you visited. That’s remarketing. You’ll learn more about this tactic in a later course. Webinars are presentations, typically educational, that are provided online. They are a great way to both educate potential customers and promote your product or service. One challenge to webinars is getting people to attend. You want to make sure you’re providing something enticing and of value to your customers. Email marketing is when you send promotional or educational emails to an email list. When a potential customer becomes aware of the brand and signs up for an email list, they would like to learn more about the products or services offered. There are many uses of an email list. One strategy to build consideration is to send out educational emails about the products or services. Testimonials also work great for those who haven’t purchased yet. Social media marketing is slightly different in the consideration stage than the awareness stage. In the consideration stage, potential customers are now account followers. Post to followers consistently with varied content to build their interest in the brand. Now that wraps up the strategies to build consideration. Okay, the potential customers have considered the product or service, and they’re ready to make a purchase. In the next video, you will learn about the conversion stage: How to encourage customers to follow through and really make that purchase.

How a marketer increases consideration for a business

Reading. Duration: 20 minutes

The second stage of the marketing funnel is consideration. During the consideration stage, a business builds interest in their product or service. The potential customer knows about the product. The business provides information to move the customer closer to a purchase.

While there are similar strategies between the awareness and consideration stage, there is a difference. The consideration stage typically provides more in-depth and persuasive information than the awareness stage.

A fictional company that makes leather phone cases, Lirio Cases, has tens of thousands of potential customers who are aware of their products. They are trying to build interest and desire in those potential customers.

Here are some marketing strategies Lirio Cases uses to build interest:

Remarketing ads

Remarketing ads are advertisements delivered to previous purchasers or visitors to a brand’s website or social media. Lirio Cases would like to advertise to potential customers who visit their website or social media pages. After someone visits their website or social media page, Lirio Cases remarkets ads for the specific product page they visited.

For example, when someone visits the product page for the leather iPhone case, Lirio Cases can deliver ads for that product to that visitor on Instagram. If the visitor would like to learn more about the leather iPhone case, they can click on a link to revisit the website. If the visitor wants to learn more about the brand, they can easily visit Lirio Cases’ Instagram account.

Email marketing

When someone visits Lirio Cases’ website, the person is encouraged to sign up for the email list to receive a 15% first order discount. While some visitors make a purchase immediately with this discount, most do not.

Lirio Cases keeps in touch with these customers through email marketing. Once a week, potential customers receive emails about leather-based products, including phone cases. Through the emails, Lirio Cases also informs new customers about the brand’s story, including how the business started, their quality leather, sustainability, and how they’re inspiring their customers.

Testimonials

Testimonials are when customers share their experiences with a company’s products. To increase interest among potential customers, Lirio Cases includes positive testimonials on product pages, on their social media, and periodically in emails.

Potential customers read the testimonials of current customers and gain confidence in the product’s quality. The potential customers also start to imagine what it would be like to own the leather phone case.

Unique selling proposition

A unique selling proposition (USP) explains why a product or service is better than the competition. Lirio Cases decides that it needs to better explain why their products are preferable to those of their competitors.

Lirio Cases’ USP is “Phone cases with premium leather and design that can go everywhere you do.” This USP clearly states why a customer should buy their leather phone cases. To make the unique selling proposition effective, Lirio Cases includes it throughout their website and marketing materials. They state it clearly and often.

Key takeaways

To build interest in potential customers, Lirio Cases uses remarketing ads, email marketing, testimonials, and a revamped unique selling proposition.

The marketing strategies a company uses in the consideration phase can vary drastically. Lirio Cases’ products are under $80. For higher priced products and services, more in-depth strategies may be needed, such as webinars, case studies, and free trials. The higher priced the product, typically the longer it takes to build interest in a potential customer.

After a company builds interest in their products and brand, they should focus on strategies for the next funnel stage, conversion.

Test your knowledge: Awareness and consideration stages of the marketing funnel

Practice Quiz. 4 questions. Grade: 100%

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4. Conversion and loyalty marketing stages

Conversion: Strategies to increase the conversion rate on a website

Video. Duration: 6 minutes

Hey there. In the previous video, we learned how to build consideration and get customers super interested in a product or service. Now they’re ready to buy. The next stage of the marketing funnel is conversion. Think of conversion as the process to get a potential customer to take a desired action. This could be to sign up for a consultation, or as simple as coming into the store. For this video, we’re going to focus on online purchases. You’d think this is an easy process. Someone visits a website, and they make a purchase, but it’s not always that easy. What if they have difficulty with the checkout process, or get distracted and cannot complete the online transaction? Or what if they’re interested in the product or service, but are still undecided if it’s right for them? As a digital marketer or e-commerce analyst, it may be your job to ensure the checkout process goes smoothly for the customer. It may also be your job to increase the likelihood that the customer makes a purchase. Or you may be tasked with increasing the purchase volume or total value. Now both of these jobs have one main goal: to increase conversion rate. The conversion rate is the percentage of users or website visitors that take a desired action. The typical conversion rate of an e-commerce business is around 1-2%, For example, if two people out of a hundred visit a product page and make a purchase, that is a 2% conversion rate. Imagine if you could increase that by just one person out of a hundred. So, three people out of a hundred make a purchase. You could increase the business revenue by 33% with a simple website change. That would have a huge impact on the business’ revenue! Now that you understand more about the conversion, let’s discuss strategies and tactics. Optimize the checkout process. When a customer goes to check out, it should be as easy as possible. Every additional field or page may decrease the conversion rate. A field is any piece of information the customer needs to enter before purchasing the product. For example, do you need their phone number? If not, delete that field. Another optimization idea is to change the purchase button from “add to cart” to “buy now.” Or consider adding additional payment options such as Google Pay or Shopify’s Shop Pay. Add better product and service photos. The quality and number of photos on a webpage may drastically affect the conversion rate. Add high-quality photos with varied angles to increase that. Additionally, many e-commerce companies only put photos of their product or service. So consider adding lifestyle photos. A lifestyle photo shows someone actually using the product or service. Encourage customers to add lifestyle photos to their product reviews. Strengthen the product or service copy. When a potential customer reads about the product or service they will purchase, it should be persuasive. The copy is any written material that encourages a customer to buy a product or a service. Make sure the copy is not only explaining the product but also making an emotional appeal to buy it. Add live chat. Not all companies will be able to add live chat. However, if they can, it could increase the conversion rate. If a customer has an issue with checkout or a product question, they can simply ask the question through the chat. That’s better than having them actually leave the webpage. If you’re working for a small business that cannot staff live chat, they can add chatbots instead. Chatbots are software that answers basic questions for website visitors. Pursue abandoned carts. This is when a customer starts the checkout process and enters their email but doesn’t make the purchase. You may think this isn’t common, but it is. Many e-commerce softwares now come with the capability to send these customers an email. The email reminds them that they still have items in their cart. Some customers with an abandoned cart will revisit the website and finish their purchase. Additionally, this is a great opportunity to send a remarketed ad. The ad will remind these potential customers what’s in their cart. Increase website speed. According to a study by The State of Online Retail Performance, for every second delay in page load speed, conversions can fall by 20%. Website speed is something we’ll discuss later in the program. There’re a few simple strategies to increase the speed of a slow website, such as reducing the size of images. Offer a trial or money-back guarantee. While this isn’t possible for all products or services, it can nudge a customer to a purchase. You typically encounter a money-back guarantee for more expensive purchases. Products I’ve recently experienced with money-back guarantees include mattresses, glasses, and clothes. Experiment with A/B tests. This is a more advanced strategy because it involves analytics. An A/B test is when you compare two versions of a webpage to determine which has the highest conversion rate. We recommend that whenever you change an element on a page, you compare its conversion rate to the page’s previous version. Generally, you should change one element at a time to get the most accurate results. For example, you could test different main photos for a product. Which converts the highest: the product photo with a white background, outside background, or a lifestyle setup? Remember A/B tests apply to more industries than just e-commerce. It’s for any type of business that wants to make it easier for their customer to take a desired action. When implementing any strategy to increase conversion, you have to keep in mind the return rate. It doesn’t benefit a company if, when the conversion goes up, so does the amount of products returned. Keep this in mind. All right, you’ve taken the potential customer from the AWARENESS stage, to the CONSIDERATION stage, to the CONVERSION stage. Congrats, they’re now a customer, but are you done marketing? No, no, you’re not. In the next video, we’ll discuss the LOYALTY stage: How to turn customers into repeat customers that support the brand.

How a marketer increases the conversion rate of an e-commerce website

Reading. Duration: 20 minutes

Once potential customers are aware of and have considered the product, the next step in the marketing funnel is to convert them into paying customers. This is the third stage of the marketing funnel, conversion—the process of getting a potential customer to take a desired action.

For the fictional Lirio Cases leather phone case business, they want customers to purchase their leather cases or other leather-based products.

Here are some marketing strategies Lirio Cases uses to make a purchase conversion happen:

Pursue abandoned carts

A percentage of Lirio Cases’ customers reach the final check out page and enter their email address but don’t make the purchase. This is called an abandoned cart.

Previously, Lirio Cases wasn’t pursuing abandoned carts. They would let the customer leave the website and the abandoned cart would simply disappear. Now, they decide to pursue these carts by sending a follow up email. In the follow up email, they remind the customer of the products they put in their digital shopping cart, but did not purchase.

Not all abandoned cart emails Lirio Cases sends leads to a purchase. However, some do. These purchases increase the overall conversion rate of the product pages.

Additionally, Lirio Cases examines their entire checkout flow to determine if any challenges are keeping potential customers from ordering, such as too many information fields. A more simple checkout process may lead to a reduction in the abandoned cart percentage.

Add better photos

While Lirio Cases had decent product photos, they were several years old. They decided to use a professional photographer to take updated product photos.

In addition to standard product photos, Lirio Cases added more relatable photos, called lifestyle photos. These lifestyle photos show people using the phone cases in everyday settings, such as at home, at work, and outdoors. Make sure lifestyle photos represent the diversity of people who may use the product.

To further show off the features of the phone cases, Lirio Cases also hired a graphic designer to create mini animations. The animations display on the website and help explain the special features of their phone cases.

The higher quality photos and animations help encourage customers in the conversion funnel stage to take action and make the purchase.

Strengthen the copy

In addition to the new photos, Lirio Cases decides to rework the copy on their website. Copy is written material that encourages customers to buy a product or service.

Previously, the copy only described the product features, which was not very compelling to customers. Now, the copy includes an emotional appeal, explaining how the customer’s life might be different with Lirio Cases’ leather phone case. An emotional appeal persuades a customer to imagine how they might feel using the product, making it more likely they will make a purchase.

The business also reworks their frequently asked questions (FAQ) page to include common questions they receive in emails. The new questions and answers, such as how to care for the leather case, help remove common concerns potential customers have about the products.

Experiment with A/B tests

After reworking the photos and product page copy, Lirio Cases would like to test the changes to ensure they are leading to more sales. They would also like to test product page changes such as where to place product reviews and additional product recommendations.

To test these webpage changes, they run A/B tests. The A/B test is when a marketer compares two versions of a webpage to determine which has the highest conversion rate.

Lirio Cases tests several versions of product webpages. They determine the most effective version and increase their conversion rate by .8%. The changes lead to a $150,000 increase in yearly sales revenue due to just a few product page changes.

Key takeaways

The marketing strategies Lirio Cases used to increase their conversion rate were adding better photos, strengthening the website copy, conducting A/B tests on product page changes, and pursuing abandoned carts. By implementing their strategies, the business increased its conversion rate and overall revenue.

Lirio Cases has now made potential customers aware of and built interest in their products and turned them into paying customers. Now, they have to turn those customers into repeat customers and loyal brand advocates.

Loyalty: Strategies to increase the loyalty of customers after a purchase

Video. Duration: 4 minutes

In the last video, we discussed strategies that turn interested customers into paying customers. In this video, we’ll discuss strategies to turn those paying customers into loyal repeat customers. During the loyalty stage in the marketing funnel, customers become repeat customers and brand advocates. Ideally, they become the voices of the brand. Maybe they talk about how great the product is to family and friends. Maybe they make a social media post and share their experience with hundreds of friends. Or maybe they go from being reminded to purchase the service to actively seeking out the service. With the digital tools now available, it’s never been easier to get customers into loyal brand followers. At this stage in the funnel, you’ve already earned the paying customer. None of the following strategies are necessary. However, implementing these strategies will lead to repeat customers and an increased conversion rate or conversion value. Plus, you may get loyal customers to promote the product or service and be a voice of the brand. That’s free marketing. Now, let’s go over post-purchase strategies and tactics to increase loyalty among customers. Reward programs. Incentivize customers to keep coming back to the business. We experience rewards programs on food apps like Starbucks, Chipotle, and McDonald’s. Many point-of-sale, or POS, systems now offer reward programs built into their software. Now, a POS system accepts payments from customers and manages their information. Email marketing keeps your brand in front of the customer on a consistent basis. Remember to always craft emails that provide value to the customer. If not, they may unsubscribe. To build loyalty, consider educating your customers or tell the story of the brand. Social shares are when customers share your product or service to their social media followers. It’s important to first encourage customers to follow the business’ social media accounts. Then you have to deliver content that they may want to share to their followers. Consider remarketing to paying customers with new ads. While we mentioned ad remarketing in a previous stage of the funnel, you can use it again to reengage customers. Once you know a product the customer purchased, you can recommend another product or add-ons to the current product. Another way to earn loyalty in a customer is to encourage them to leave a positive review. If a customer has a positive experience with the business, encourage them to write about their experience. The review could be online, such as on a social media account, or simply through an email. These positive reviews can be posted as content on the business’ website, social media page, and through email marketing. The thing is, many people love to be recognized on their birthday. Consider offering a discount for your customers’ birthdays. You could also provide a discount on the anniversary of the first day they became a customer. Freebies are a way to get customers reminded of the brand over and over again. Freebies could be a sticker, a magnet, a t-shirt, or something related to the business. Like, for example, I recently bought a pillow, and included with that product, I received a complimentary branded sleep mask. Honestly, I thought it was pretty cool. Our last strategy is amusing confirmation messages. When a customer purchases a product, they often receive a confirmation email or text. Often those messages are standard and transactional. If appropriate for the brand, why not just make them interesting? Add personality to the confirmation message by writing it in a way that makes the customer excited about receiving the product or service. Using descriptive language, tell them how they’ll feel when they receive the new product. By really utilizing these strategies, hopefully you can turn customers into loyal fans. You’ll keep them purchasing more products and services, and ideally, the loyal customers will tell their friends and family about the business too.

Practice: Marketing funnel stages and corresponding strategies

Ungraded Plugin. Duration: 30 minutes

Identify the right stage for marketing funnel tactics

In this categorization exercise, you’ll assign marketing tactics to their correct stage in the marketing funnel.

1. Place display ads on third-party websites

• Awareness

2. Send stickers and a magnet to new customers who complete a purchase

• Loyalty

3. Post video testimonials from happy customers to website

• Consideration

4. Partner with influencers to introduce new audiences to a product

• Awareness

5. Send post-purchase email asking customers to share their experience on social media

• Loyalty

6. Send follow-up email to customers who leave unpurchased items in their carts

• Conversion

7. Add high-quality product photos to help potential customers decide whether to purchase

• Conversion

8. Create remarketing ads for potential customers who visited website’s product

• Consideration

How a marketer increases the loyalty of customers post-purchase

Reading. Duration: 20 minutes

In the loyalty stage of the marketing funnel, businesses encourage paying customers to become repeat customers and brand advocates. Think of brand advocates as people who are voices of the brand. They tell their family and friends about their purchase and how great the brand is.

A business wants brand advocates because these people are providing passionate, enthusiastic recommendations for their products. This type of recommendation is priceless for a brand. Plus, brand advocates don’t cost any additional marketing dollars!

We will continue with our example of Lirio Cases, the leather phone case business. Currently, Lirio Cases has tens of thousands of customers. However, they haven’t applied specific strategies to build loyalty in their customers to turn them into brand advocates.

Here are some strategies Lirio Cases uses to build loyalty among its customers:

Social shares

Social shares are when a person shares a brand’s content with their social media followers. Currently, Lirio Cases doesn’t receive many content shares from their followers.

In an earlier reading, we mentioned that Lirio Cases is focusing their Instagram content on style and fashion advice. They believe this content shift will make customers more likely to share their content.

In addition to improved social media content, Lirio Cases also decides to have monthly product giveaways to customers who share their recent purchase on social media. Every month they select one customer who tags their Instagram account in a post to receive the giveaway.

Encourage reviews

Reviews indicate how satisfied a customer is with a purchase. A detailed positive review persuades a potential customer to make a purchase themselves.

One aspect of reviews that isn’t often discussed is the brand loyalty it builds among the reviewer. When someone takes the time to write about why they are satisfied with a product, the reviewer develops positive feelings about the product and builds brand loyalty.

Currently, Lirio Cases displays reviews on their product pages. However, they don’t encourage customers to write product reviews. To receive more product reviews, they decide to send a follow up email to the customer encouraging them to write a review one week after the leather phone case gets delivered.

Send freebies

Freebies are items that a customer receives in addition to the product. Previously, Lirio Cases did not send freebies with their products. Now, along with their products, they send a branded sticker, small magnet, and instructional card that tells the customer how to care for the leather product.

This type of gesture can create a connection with the brand. Some customers will place the magnet on the refrigerator and the sticker on their laptop or water bottle. This public display of a brand turns them into brand advocates. It also reminds anyone who sees the sticker or magnet of the brand, including the customer!

Remarket customers with other products

Lirio Cases sells other products besides leather phone cases. They also sell items such as leather watch bands, wallets, and tablet cases. They would like to advertise these products to previous customers and turn them into repeat customers.

Recall that remarketing ads are advertisements delivered to previous purchasers, subscribers, or visitors to a website. Based on what the customer previously purchased, Lirio Cases decides to serve ads that recommend products the customer didn’t purchase.

For example, if a customer purchased a brown leather phone case, they may receive ads with a brown leather wallet to complement the case.

Key takeaways

By providing social share opportunities, encouraging reviews, sending freebies, and remarketing customers with other products, Lirio Cases hopes to build brand loyalty. Turning previous customers into loyal promoters of the brand is a low-cost or no-cost way to get even more sales.

Experiences with brand loyalty

Discussion Prompt. Duration: 10 minutes

Lately, you’ve focused on learning strategies to turn potential customers into paying and repeat customers in each stage of the marketing funnel. During the loyalty stage in the marketing funnel, customers become repeat customers and brand advocates. Ideally, they become voices of the brand. Success at the loyalty stage means implementing effective strategies to increase customer loyalty.

For this discussion prompt, consider these strategies in relation to your experiences with a brand. Then answer the following question:

What are 2–3 ways a brand has increased your loyalty?

Please write a response of 3–4 sentences (60–80 words). Then, go to the discussion forums and, applying what you’ve learned, comment on at least two posts from other learners.

Participation is optional

A certain brand increased my loyalty through personalized recommendations based on my previous purchases, making me feel understood and valued. They also offered a seamless and hassle-free returns and customer support process, ensuring a positive experience even when issues arose. Furthermore, their loyalty program with exclusive discounts and rewards for repeat customers incentivized me to keep coming back and advocating for their brand. These strategies not only retained me as a customer but also turned me into a brand advocate.

Test your knowledge: Conversion and loyalty

Practice Quiz. 4 questions. Grade: 100%

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5. Review: Introduction to attract and angage with digital marketing

Wrap-up

Video. Duration: 1 minute

I just want to say, congrats on finishing this section! Wow, I have to say we’ve covered a lot of marketing concepts and strategies! Now, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, remember, you’ll be learning more about these strategies in this course and later courses. Let’s quickly recap what you’ve learned. We started by discussing customer personas and how important it is to craft them before creating any marketing materials. Then, we went in-depth on the marketing funnel. You learned strategies to get potential customers aware of the business. Then, in the second stage of the funnel, how to build interest and create consideration for a product or service. In the third stage of the funnel, you learned about conversion strategies to increase the likelihood of a desired customer action, like a purchase. And lastly, we covered strategies to increase the loyalty of paying customers. In a role as a digital marketer or e-commerce analyst, you may be tasked with implementing any of the marketing strategies we discussed. If you feel lost and not sure how to connect with the customer, consider creating a persona. While it may not be required by the organization, it will be helpful with any marketing activity. Think through who the customer is, their goals, and barriers. Additionally, if an organization you work for doesn’t have a clear marketing funnel, consider creating one. And when working on a marketing activity, think about where the customer is in the journey to become a first-time and repeat customer. Great work so far in this program! We’ll meet you in the next video!

Glossary terms from module 1

Reading. Duration: 10 minutes

Terms and definitions from Course 2, Module 1

A/B testing: A method of testing where two versions of content with a single differing variable are compared to determine which yields better results

Abandoned cart: When a potential customer adds an item to their cart but doesn’t complete the purchase

Awareness stage: The first stage of the marketing funnel, when a potential customer first becomes aware of the product or service

Consideration stage: The second stage of the marketing funnel, when a potential customer’s interest builds for a product or service

Content marketing: A marketing technique that focuses on creating and distributing valuable content

Conversion rate: The percentage of users or website visitors who take a desired action

Conversion stage: The third stage of the marketing funnel, when marketers capitalize on the interest people have already shown

Copy: Any written material that encourages a customer to buy a product or service

Customer persona: Represents a group of similar people in a desirable audience

Customer persona barrier: What is preventing the customer from achieving their goal

Customer persona goal: What the customer wants to achieve

Demographics: Information specific to the customer, such as age, gender identity, income, family size, occupation, education, and location

Display ad: A visual ad format placed on websites or applications

Email marketing: Sending messages to a list of existing subscribers to share information, drive sales, or create community

Influencer marketing: Involves a brand collaborating with an online influencer to market one of its products or services

Loyalty stage: The fourth stage of the marketing funnel, when customers become repeat customers and brand advocates

Remarketing ad: An advertisement delivered to previous purchasers, subscribers, or visitors to a brand’s website or social media

Search engine marketing (SEM): Increasing a website’s visibility on a search engine results page through paid advertising

Search engine optimization (SEO): The process of increasing the visibility of website pages on search engines in order to attract more relevant traffic

Social media marketing: The process of creating content for different social media platforms in order to drive engagement and promote a business or product

Social share: When a customer shares a product or service with their social media followers

Strategy: A plan to achieve a marketing goal

Tactic: An action a marketer takes to make a marketing goal happen

Unique selling proposition (USP): An explanation of why a product or service is better than the competition

Webinar: A presentation, typically educational, that is provided online

Module 1 challenge

Due, Oct 22, 11:59 PM WEST. Quiz. 10 questions. Grade: 80%

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END! - Week 1 - Course 2