Successfully navigating through the three phases of the buyer’s journey, in dating and using Google Ads
As someone who’s involved in strategizing telecom marketing plans for numerous businesses, having the opportunity to create a personalized journey for different buyers to embark on is both challenging and rewarding. With all of the tools and software at us marketers’ disposal, like Google Ads, there’s unlimited potential to captivate your target audience and turn them into lifelong buyers. Think of the buyer’s journey like dating.
In every relationship, there’s a story that comes with it. Google Ads is an important aspect of your comprehensive marketing plan because it allows you to share your business’s story with a wide, yet meaningful audience. Done well, you’ll be able to use your story to move the right people through the stages of their journey toward buying from you. The continuous engagement leads to a developing relationship with your business!
Let’s uncover how you can use Google Ads as a tool for developing strong, long-lasting relationships with your target customers. In this approximately 7 minute read, you’ll learn about each phase of the dating… I mean buyer’s journey, and how Google Ads assists!
Phase 1 – Awareness:
Meet Mike and Michelle. A happily married couple that met on Bumble!
For those that aren’t familiar with Bumble, it’s a dating app that allows you to advertise yourself for relationships. You set your desired outcome (dates, friends, professional) and then narrow your search settings to your ideal date/friend persona. This is where the fun begins… swiping through your results!
Similarly with Google Ads, when you create your ad campaigns, you start by choosing your desired outcome – website traffic, leads, brand awareness, etc. Starting with the end in mind allows you to then get extremely granular with your targeting and audience. Granularity is very important for telecom marketing success. If you don’t know your top buyer personas, start here first!
When creating a new Google Ads campaign, this is your first task:
Starting with a goal of finding his forever woman, Mike set specific parameters on his Bumble account that created hyper-focused results. The granular targeting produced great results, ultimately leading to a first date with an ideal wife candidate, Michelle. Their story has officially begun!
“Think of the first stage of the buyer’s journey like a first date at Starbucks!”
Mojo founder and CEO Angela Leavitt.
Mike and Michelle’s first date – talking over coffee – is similar to users who initiate contact with your business through a top-of-funnel Google Search Ad that gets directed to your website. It’s the first time both sides get to learn more about each other. If it goes well, as it did with Mike and Michelle, each side discovers more about each other with continued interaction.
Keep in mind that sub-consciously and consciously each side is analyzing everything about the other. It’s important to ensure your brand’s image, and messaging tone and voice are consistent!
Not all first dates get followed up by a second, just like not all users who visit your website will return. To stay top of mind with users throughout the buyer’s journey – like Mike with Michelle to secure a second date – Google Ads allows you target users who’ve been on your website through remarketing campaigns.
Remarketing should be done in a way that’s similar to dating: highlighting the positive moments and capturing the opportunity to experience a specific topic that was learned on the first date. For our lovely couple, that was talks of competitive sports and a second date at their local putt-putt course. For digital marketers, that’s getting granular through custom audience definitions and creating remarketing campaigns that relate to the audience’s specifications.
Display ads are a great way to remarket to your custom audiences. A picture says a thousand words!
Phase 2 – Consideration:
The relationship blossoms with continued touch points between both sides. Mike requests to be Michelle’s friend on Facebook, Michelle adds Mike on LinkedIn, long late-night phone calls and meaningless Snapchats of each other’s lunches strengthen the relationship over time.
Similarly, through Google Ads, you can create those touch-points with your users. It’s important to remember to continue expanding your message to nurture the relationship as you target users further along their buying journeys. Google makes it easy to reach users across a multitude of websites and platforms with targeted campaigns on Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERP), Google’s Search Partners, YouTube, Gmail, a variety of apps, and more!
We recommend targeting across multiple sources/platforms to appeal to your users in different ways, catching them in various mindsets to engage and nurture them throughout their buyer’s journey. See the five different ways Google assists you in reaching your audience below.
There’s a fine line between not enough and too much. To avoid an early exit from the middle of the buyer’s journey, measure and analyze all data to make smart adjustments to your touch-point frequency. Don’t be weird, guys!
Phase 3 – Decision:
As users make their way to the end stage of the journey, it’s imperative to have a clear call to action that relates to your overarching goal. For Mike, the call to action was the marriage proposal. His clear objective was the opportunity to spend the rest of his life with Michelle.
Your call to action might be to schedule a consultation, download an ebook, or submit a contact form. At this point, it should be clear to your user what your objective is. If you’ve nurtured the relationship well, this should be a simple Yes-or-No decision!
Google Ads is a great tool to support your relationship building and lead qualifying. It allows you targeted touch points to nurture the relationship throughout each stage. And while Mike and Michelle’s touch points were hard to calculate a ROI, Google Ads make it very simple with its robust data tracking. Combined with a well-designed digital marketing strategy and detailed target personas, you’ve got unlimited potential to blossom many new exciting relationships!
Key takeaways:
- Define your buyer personas
- Understand each persona’s potential buyer’s journey and the overall goal relating to that persona
- Create specific audiences for targeted Google Ads campaigns
- Strategize thoughtful touch points throughout your target persona’s buyer journey that reach across multiple sources and platforms
- Use Google Ads as a tool to stay in front of your users and drive more qualified leads that result in overall growth for your business
What’s your story?
