I love mornings! Getting up a little earlier than everyone else in the house and finding my way to the kitchen for my first (of many) cups of coffee. With the beautiful weather, I step into the silence outside and pull out my phone.
It’s crazy how its all changed; I don’t go to the doorstep to pick up my paper, I pull out my phone. I want you to think for a moment, what do you do every morning. Be honest here; this is a judgement free zone.
Here’s my actual routine, and I doubt I’m much different than you:
Coffee
Scroll thru my newsfeeds
First check on emails
Check Instagram
Check Facebook
Look at my subscriptions on YouTube
Get ready for my day.
If you’re one of the few that don’t check Social Media every morning – I admire you. I really try not to, but yet, I do. Every day I get sucked in to my DM’s, who’s been where, who’s posting what. Maybe its FOMO, maybe it’s a daily dose of gossip, maybe (since I work from my home office) its my watercooler. Either way, it helps me feel connected.
Let’s go one step further; what does your target market do every morning? Do they get up early before the kids? Do they commute and listen to podcasts? Is their only free moment early in the morning or late at night?
Why do you need to know?
Simply, you want to be in front of them.
If I know that my prospects enjoy social media, but only have time in the morning or evening, then that is when I want to post. If I post content at 1 pm, but my prospects aren’t looking at it until 8 pm, how many people, that they follow, have also posted since 1 pm. I’m going to get lost in the feed. If I post later, then I’ll be at the top, showing as more current.
Same with emails. I don’t start my emails with first received, essentially, I start at the top, at the most recently received. If my prospect is a busy mom, she’s checking her personal email first thing in the morning, maybe at lunch, and then after dinner. Especially if she works outside of the home, she’s not popping into personal email during business hours. So when do you send your marketing emails? When she’s most likely to be online, so your email doesn’t get lost in her pile of to-dos. If you’re not sure the patterns of your prospects, check the open rates on your emails, sent at various points in the day. What have you noticed happens to your open rate at different times in the day?
Your digital marketing strategy needs to be three things:
Responsive
Strategic
Consistent
We’ll go a little deeper into these three concepts in our upcoming blog, but consider for this week, the strategic aspect of your strategy, and that means, getting inside the head of your prospect, and ahead of your competition.
Take this week to start thinking about how your messaging could be better received, starting with understanding the routines of your market.
And because I know my friends and family will read this, yes, I skipped the part in my morning routine where I hit snooze three times, bulldozed others on my way to the coffee pot while tripping over the cat and running out of milk. But it’s social media; I can pretend to be perfect for a little bit!
By Peggy Murrah, Founder of PMA Web Services
Peggy Murrah is a unique combination of web and marketing savvy, along with dependability and resourcefulness. These qualities have been instrumental in her building a successful business that serves clientele across five continents. PMA Web Services provides marketing direction and strategies for entrepreneurs through mentoring, social media marketing, list building and management, and development/maintenance of their online presence.