Finding Your Place: Why the Best Digital Marketing Strategy Starts “On the Carpet”

The foundation of all good communication is meeting people where they are. Today’s tools make it easy to do this, but most businesses don’t bother. Why?

The Table vs. The Carpet: How to Meet People Where They Are

When my kids were small, I noticed that many adults would sit at the table and expect my children to come to them when beckoned, and sit quietly or interact politely. I love my children fiercely, and I also know that toddlers can be quite feral, especially with people they don’t know.

I also noticed something about my own parents. They didn’t demand that the children be brought to them. They just got down on the carpet and started interacting with whatever the child was doing: stacking blocks, coloring, or running around like a maniac wolverine. They were, quite literally, meeting the kids where they are.

Guess who the kiddos leaned towards – then, and now?

From Marketing Plan to Go-to-Market Strategy Consulting

All people are somewhat self-centered, thinking that their own experience applies to others. My first child is a daughter who used to love tea parties. My next two were sons who liked to climb playground equipment like spiders. I’ve watched moms of only daughters gasp as my sons leaped into the playground mulch. I’d gently tell them they’re fine; I have my eyes glued to him in case one of them tries something truly reckless.

In business, these same scenarios play out. We sit around the conference room table, talking about what we are trying to sell and what our own goals are. We might do persona work, but then we file it away and go back to thinking about ourselves. We focus on the marketing strategy vs. marketing plan, but we forget the human on the other side.

What we need to do is step away from the table, sit down on the carpet, and meet our clients where they are.

Data-Driven Marketing Solutions to Help You “Get Down on the Carpet” and Make Real Connections

There’s a reason why McDonald’s makes its corporate employees work shifts in the restaurants. It keeps everyone focused on what’s important: the customer experience. 

If you don’t have that luxury, there is a wide variety of tools to give you a line of sight into what your customers are actually trying to do. Here are some examples we use every day, as well as pro tips for quick wins.

• • SEM Rush: This tool helps you understand what is (and isn’t) being searched for. For example, are they searching for “workplace behavioral health” or “workplace mental health”? These are different disciplines, but it’s important to understand that people outside of your organization may not understand the nuance. If you want to be found online, you have to know what people are looking for. Beyond that, SEM Rush is great because It indicates whether the search has commercial intent (“ready to buy”) or informational intent (“just browsing), which is a vital difference.
    • Quick win: SEM Rush allows 10 free searches a day. Put your company’s URL in the search bar on the home page and see your top organic keywords. Are you ranking for the things you do? If not, put a content strategy in place. 

• • Google Analytics and Search Console: These tools show you what terms are bringing people to your website and where you might be losing them. This knowledge helps you build both offensive and defensive strategies for being found on Google.
    • Quick win: Open your Google Search Console today. Look at the top three queries bringing people to your site. Are they buying what you are selling, or is there an intent mismatch?

• • HotJar: Once they are on the site, what are they actually doing? This heatmapping tool shows what people click and what they ignore, versus what you want them to do.
    • Quick win: If you’re looking for a free version, Contentsquare’s Free plan provides heatmaps, recordings, and analytics at no cost, for up to ~200,000 sessions per month. 
  • HubSpot: HubSpot’s free CRM plan gives businesses a fully free, no-expiration customer relationship management platform with core tools for contacts, deal management, basic reporting, shared inboxes, live chat, email tracking, and integrations to unify customer data and support growth without paying. However, there are limits on some features, and some, like emails, include HubSpot branding.
    • Quick win: HubSpot’s free CRM now includes buyer intent insights that help you see which companies are actively engaging with your website – even if they don’t fill out a form. Set up a free weekly email to see which companies have visited your site, including how many people from the company have visited, and how many pages they’ve viewed.

Your Digital Marketing Agency Partner

At Benchmarketing Group, we act as your fractional marketing consultant to help you move from the table to the carpet. Whether you need a full content creation agency or a partner for marketing strategy consulting, we ensure you are meeting your customers exactly where they are.

Ready to get to work? Let’s get on the carpet together.