If you’ve read our book, The Titanic Effect, you know that we are strong proponents of picking a customer segment to target at the start. Then you can expand by segments over time to grow. But, you really have to know who is your ideal customer. If you need more ideas about what an “ideal customer” is, check out our interview on the Creative Warriors podcast. Once you know who your ideal customer is, you have to frame your ideas in the language they use.
Hopefully, you have the ability to do deep, insightful research with them. But if you don’t, there are unobtrusive ways you can figure this out. You can start by using some online tools to better understand the language people are using when they think about your product. While not perfect, keyword planning tools available from companies like Google, Google Trends, Keyword Generator, Keyword Sheeter, Answer the Public, and others, will give you lists of keywords for both broad and narrow topics. They start with the keyword(s) you provide and give you lots of related words. Some will also give you search volume estimates. Traditionally, this is the first step in SEO (search engine optimization) which you should also do. But it can also be used to develop a hierarchy of language around your offering.
Start by thinking about a “marketing funnel” – people use different language and ask different questions at different stages of the funnel:
Top of the Funnel (“ TOFU”) is the discovery phase. Lots of people are here. As we say, “traffic is high.” They know they have some kind of problem to solve. But they aren’t sure what the options are, how to evaluate those options, or maybe even how the solutions might work. They are ready to learn. Right now, they are “window shopping” like in the top picture above.
For example, we used the keywords “entrepreneurship,” “entrepreneurship books,” “startup,” and “startup books” to better understand thinking about our book. The first thing we discovered is that “startup” is a much more popular word than “entrepreneurship.” As academics, we naturally think about “entrepreneurship.” In fact, Todd is a professor of entrepreneurship and corporate strategy. All of the academic journals on this topic have “entrepreneurship” in the title. And maybe you’ve noticed how often we say “startup” on this blog.
Then we discovered lots of TOFU questions and broad topics people search on:
- what is entrepreneurship
- what is social entrepreneurship
- what is the meaning of entrepreneur
- what is the definition of entrepreneur
- what is a social enterprise
- what is intrapreneur
- what is entrepreneurial mindset
- angel investors
- startup ideas
- unicorn startup
- startup funding
- startup weekend
This list tells us the kinds of things we can explain to people. We can use a wide variety of content to do that. And planning that content should be the next phase of this research. For now, we want to focus on just understanding the language itself.
Middle of the Funnel (“MOFU”) is the consideration stage. They’ve learned about the available options and are trying to figure out how to choose between them. In the shopping analogy, they’ve gone to mall and are looking at different brands of jeans like in the lower left picture above.
So now we find search terms like:
- best startup books
- best entrepreneurship books
- best startup ideas
- best books to start a business
- books for female entrepreneurs
- books for young entrepreneurs
- books for black entrepreneurs
This was interesting to us. It means that we can make comparisons between our book and other popular startup books. It also means that people are looking for special content for different types of entrepreneurs. Again, this will help in building out a content plan.
Bottom of the Funnel (“BOFU”) is the purchase stage. They want to solve a problem. They have a good idea what the choices are and they have a preferred choice. The question is should they buy now? Back to our shopping analogy, they are in the dressing room and getting input from the sales associate like the lower right picture. Now our search terms reflect the actual books they are considering. These are the competitors we need to understand, so that we can make comparisons for better conversion at the MOFU stage.
This exercise gave us a better understanding of the thought process that people have as they consider buying a book about startups. It told us the kinds of questions they are asking. And, it told us who we have to get to know in order to differentiate our book. These insights help us build our marketing strategy. It’s up to us to then plan marketing tactics to fulfill that strategy. Now it’s your turn. What’s the language hierarchy that your target customers use?