Recommendations Must BeThoughtful, Not Random
Alhough social networks, native networks and marketers know that
relevant recommendations are important, most have yet to master the
art. And when recommendations are sloppy and don’t work, they deflate the
interests of consumers, and can even offend them.
The unexpected consumer
Consider:
Demographic data might lead you to assume that every stay-at-home mom wants to
be inundated with recommendations for cooking and cleaning products, and every
senior citizen can benefit from countless ads for incontinence products, but of
course that’s not true. Buying into that kind of assumption ignores the reality
that individuals have individual needs, tastes and preferences.
For
recommendations to work, they have to closely align with individual consumers’
interests. And assumptions will drive potential consumers away. Online is noisy
enough without you adding to it with spammy offerings that aren’t relevant.
Analyzing
conversations on social media can demystify consumer desires, especially if you mine forpsychographic insights around emotions
and behaviors. It’s not simple to do, but it is becoming essential, allowing
you to see the “feelings, attitudes and commonalities across multiple
demographics” and uncover target audiences you never knew existed. Going after
your expected audience is so 2015.
Quality
matters
Recommendations
must also demonstrate respect for consumers’ time and intelligence. That means
they should be high-quality and relevant—not spammy clickbait. As Revcontent advises,
“One of the fastest ways to drive your audience away is low-quality content
recommendations.”
Sponsored
and recommended content must be on par with your own, both in terms of
relevance to your field of expertise and quality of presentation. Bad content
at the bottom of your blog doesn’t make yours look better—it makes your brand
overall look worse. At the least, it leaves visitors questioning your taste; at
worst it makes them wonder if your product or service is just as low-quality.
And
it’s the same with product recommendations. If a consumer purchases a luxury
item, the recommendations that appear post-purchase shouldn’t be for items
they’d find at the local dollar store. It’s not about making a recommendation
for the sake of it—it’s about making the right recommendation for each user.
Hone
in on your target with Facebook ads
If
your business is on Facebook, you have a number of options to ensure your
recommendations are hitting their mark.
A
good place to start is with your current followers. Each Facebook user who
likes your brand’s page has a whole network of potentially interested friends
you can target. Like minds attract one another, so chances are whatever your
current users find appealing will also be attractive to many in their network
of friends.
Facebook
also lets you target consumers by their interests to define your brand’s ideal audience.
Through likes, shared content and keywords, Facebook users give you a lot of
information about what’s important to them. By integrating this data into your
recommendations, you can give users exactly what they’re looking for,
compelling them to connect with you in turn.
Tip:
Keep in mind that while you want your target audience to be specific, you don’t
want to alienate potential consumers by making it too small. Over-refine and
you run the risk of cutting out a segment likely to respond positively to your
brand.
When
in doubt, test!
If
you want to dial things up yet another notch, A/B testing on Facebook lets you assess and
perfect the effectiveness of your message through side-by-side comparisons. To
get the most out of your recommendations, you’ll want to put a few variations
out there at first to see what users respond to.
Your
test suggestions should be generally similar with slight variations that’ll
tell you what’s working. For example, keeping the copy the same, you can test
the effectiveness of an image by testing two options and seeing which image
users respond to more positively.
And
you can do the same thing with copy. By keeping the images the same and using
variations in language, tone and calls to action, you learn which words
consumers want to hear, and you can deliver awesome options that keep
them coming back for more.
The
recommendations game is one of constantly moving parts, so there’s no simple
solution to apply across the board. But keeping consumers’ interests—and that
goal of not annoying them—top of mind is always a good place to start.
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