Are you a Good Matchmaker?

I was recently reading into the importance of relevance in Google Adwords when I read this: “Google search is like a matchmaker: it matches people with the web pages they’re looking for, both through search results and through ads. That’s why Google encourages you to make your ads, keywords, and website as useful to a searcher as possible.” I thought that this was a fantastically accurate way to describe what they do. With Valentine’s Day almost upon us, I’d like to take the opportunity to talk about the importance of matchmaking in business. Apologies in advance if you were expecting me to reveal my “advanced dating tips” here!

So how does matchmaking apply to the business world? It starts with truly understanding your customers and target audience. There are a couple of ways that you can do this.

  1.  If you run an established business that already has an existing customer base, think back to each sale you made. What was that one thing that you said or offered that turned that prospect into a buyer? Going through this process you’ll usually find two or three things that ‘clinch the deal’ – It could be anything from a specific feature or benefit to the guarantee that comes with your product or service.
  2. Another option is to survey your existing customers to find out what they really value. However, the challenge with surveys is that you rarely get the “real” answer, as people usually give you answers that are a) in their best interests (that’s why you should never survey customers about your pricing!) and b) people will often give the answers that they think you expect and that make them look good rather than giving the true answer. Nevertheless, you can put your Sherlock cap on and try to use their answers to deduce what the real answers might be.

If you have a brand new business or are thinking about starting one up, just turn to the search engines. There are a variety of keyword tools out there, the most popular being Google’s very own Keyword Planner. That’s one of the reasons that us marketers love Google; when people search for a particular word or phrase, they are showing their needs/wants/desires for particular products or services. (Just a quick note on needs and wants: It’s much easier to sell someone what they want rather than what they need, as most purchases are predominantly based on emotion, and people think they know what’s best for them). There’s nothing better than a market of hungry buyers, and if you can see thousands of people searching for a certain term, the chances are there’s a hungry market out there. Here’s a great article from Moz.com on choosing the right keywords.

How do we bring all of this together?

Something I’ve been saying for a long time is that good performance in Google (both in the organic rankings and Google Adwords) always starts with the user. The closer you can match your business to their wants, needs and desires, the better chance you have of selling your product and service. This includes everything from the content on your landing pages to the headlines in your adverts. It all comes back to relevance – highly relevant headlines that increase your click-through rates, and body copy that resonates with the reader are strong signs to Google that the information on your site is exactly what the reader is looking for. In Adwords, this increases your quality score meaning you pay less per click, but most importantly, you are dramatically increasing your chances of making a sale.

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