In this article, we are going to discuss the importance of audiences and journeys, how they work, and what makes them so special.
What is a Journey?
Journeys are a great way to send out targeted content to a specific group of people and send them on a personalised content 'Journey' building excellent rapport with contacts and giving them the feeling that their specific needs are being taken care of and thought about, and more importantly, that you are the expert in that field and know everything there is to know about what they want. We can use Journeys for many different things, for example, if a contact registers to buy with you and answers a question with 'buying for investment' we can target that contact and send them specific content about buying for investment at times which you think are suitable.
What is an Audience?
An audience is a group of contacts which are segmented out by either following specific set of rules, or simply by information you know about them, or both, to end up in a specific group of people we call an audience. We can then deliver hyper targeted marketing to them.
How Do I Set Up a Journey?
The first thing we need to think about when we set up a journey is, who are we trying to target? Who will benefit from my content? Once we have our targets in mind, we first need to create the Audience. Once we have created our audience, we can then create our specific content for this group of contacts and decide which content we want to send out to them and which time.
How Do I Create My Audience?
So we have our audience in mind, and we want to create it in order to send out our targeted marketing. The first thing we want to do is go to Marketing and Autopilot >> Audiences.
Then we want to click 'add dynamic audience' Click here to understand the difference between dynamic and static audiences.
Now we want to think about what criteria our audience will have to meet in order to join the audience. There are many options we can choose from for example;
Contact Related Criteria - This is criteria based on the contact detail, for example, profile type, gender, town, postcode etc.
Contact Activity Criteria - This is criteria based on what the contact has done, for example, visited a website or filled out a specific form etc.
Property Related Criteria - This is criteria based on the property, for example property status, MA status, price etc.
Applicant Related Criteria - This criteria is based on applicants who have created a search profile, and we can filter through many things, for example, buyers/tenants, date profile was created, answers to questions on registration etc.
For this example we are going to create an audience for buyers who answered the question 'reason you are looking to buy' with the answer, 'Buying for investment'.
To do this, we scroll down to applicant criteria, and under 'search profile' select buyer.
Then, under questions we will find the question 'reason you are looking to buy' and select the answer 'buying for investment'
Now we have our audience click save.
Now we need to name our audience and click create, be sure to make it something that stands out so it's easy to find!
I've Created My Audience, Now What?
Now we have our audience, we need to think about what specific content we are going to send them. What do they want to know? What do I want them to know? Once you have the answers to these questions, create your targeted content in a blog or an email template in Lifesycle.
I've Created My Audience and Created My Content, What's Next?
All that's left for you to do is to think about when do you want your audience to receive each piece of content once they join the audience, send it over to our support, and we take care of the rest.
Be sure to send it in the following format:
"Hi, Lifesycle support.
I would like a journey set up for the audience (audience name here).
After 2 days, send - (blog/email name)
Wait 3 days
Send - (blog/email name)
Wait 5 days
Send - (blog/email name)
End."
And that's it! Support will create the journey for you and inform you when it's complete. Then your hyper targeted marketing begins! All the easy work is done and now Lifesycle does the hard work for you!