The 3-Step Guide to Making a Great First Impression

The 3-Step Guide to Making a Great First Impression

Vartika Kashyap 02/11/2018 7

You have got a pretty good product. You have a great team that is putting meticulous efforts in marketing to take your brand to the next level. But, nothing seems to be working out correctly. You don’t really understand what’s wrong with your strategies. The following article will answer this question for you. Let’s go back a little. For a few seconds let's forget about all this and put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Now think like a customer - does your online content or marketing content leave an instant impression? Chances are the answer is going to be a NO.

There you have it - the reason that is making your marketing strategies go down the drain. Do you know that you have just a couple of seconds to leave an impression on your online customers - a study conducted in 2012 revealed that you have just 2.6 seconds to make your first impression online. "Want to bring a positive change in your worklife this year? Stop relying on emails and switch to a project management software!"

Now the question arises here is how to make a great first impression in this fast paced, digital economy, when you know that attention span of users is declining faster than Zimbabwe’s GDP. I’m going to share a few of these tips that will help you in the same. Let us take a look at those tips one by one -

1. Narrow down your range to ideal, not all

In conventional marketing, when you go out to sell your product or service you always have a target audience in mind, which you think will be easy to convince - right? Employing a similar approach with your online marketing endeavors can do wonders in this regard. You need to create a persona of your ideal customer and create a marketing strategy that focuses on leaving an impression on your ideal customer, and not everyone.

Have the persona of your customer in mind -What would your ideal customer think when he/she watches the content? Is he or she going to be impressed with the first look? And, if you are not convinced yourself being the customer, how do you expect the customer to be?

So, the first step to create online marketing material that grabs customer’s attention has to be something that focuses on your ideal customer and not all.

2. Make wise use of emotions

A 2016 article on HBR titled - an emotional connection matters more than customer satisfaction sheds light on how emotions in marketing are taking over. As a matter of fact, emotional connection has always been a strong factor in driving sales for businesses. And, there is no denying that emotional words play a role in creating a great first impression.

You can find quite a number of articles citing the use of powerful words that incite emotional trigger in customers, compelling them to take action. This forms the basis of emotional marketing. Words like Free, Save, Guarantee, You etc., are some of the most powerful words that incite the emotional trigger.

So, the second important step you can take towards creating a great first impression has to be integrating these emotional trigger words in your content.

3. Bring out customer success stories

Nothing works better in leaving an impression than gaining customers' trust. While it is true that gaining trust requires time. However, a great way to gain trust from your customers in an instant is by sharing  success stories of your previous or current customers.

People easily connect with real life success stories. No matter how good you are at storytelling, real-life experiences of customers using your service or product would fetch better results on any given day. And, there must be a few customer stories that you can put out there so that people can easily connect them to their personal scenario. 

So, the last bit of advice that I have for you for creating an instant first impression on your customers online is to showcase how your business has helped people like them solve real-life problems.

Understanding what works in marketing and what does not is no rocket science. It only requires some common science, a little conscious effort and focus on making the basics work out. And, the points I have mentioned form the core of marketing, no matter which niche you are targeting.

Try to implement these tactics for your brand marketing, and brace yourself for an even better year.

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Author Bio:

Vartika Kashyap is the Marketing Manager at ProofHub and has been one of the LinkedIn Top Voices in 2017. Her articles are inspired by office situations and work-related events. She likes to write about productivity, team building, work culture, leadership, entrepreneurship among others and contributing to a better workplace is what makes her click.

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  • Andrew Scott

    Thanks Vartika! Your articles are very helpful!

  • Dennis Werne

    I always try to be overfriendly, and I end up looking weird and saying unnecessary things. I need to apply these tips and be myself like you just said.

  • John Coleman

    This helps a lot.

  • Sean Finnegan

    I'm excited and ready to make a great impression.

  • Holly Robertson

    Your articles are constantly helpful and sincere. I learned a lot from this post.

  • Janet Douglas

    Super helpful...Thank you so much..please don't stop doing this!

  • Ricky Chalmers

    Just what I needed now.

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Vartika Kashyap

Digital Expert

Vartika is the Chief Marketing Officer at ProofHub. She has 6 Years experience in online digital marketing, brand optimization and SEO along with social media marketing and email marketing strategies. Vartika holds an MBA in Finance (Banking) & Marketing from the IBS Hyderabad.  

   
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