SEO Marketing Process Persona Profile

Local Larry

Age: 42 | Education: College graduate | Occupation: Owner of a local retail store

“I’m struggling to attract customers to my store, and it feels overwhelming trying to figure out digital marketing on my own. I know I need to improve my online visibility, but I’m not sure where to start.“

🥅

Visible Goals

These are the goals Local Larry would tell you about.

Increase foot traffic to my store
Grow sales by 30% in the next year
Enhance my online presence through SEO strategies

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True Goals

These are the real things they want to achieve.

“I want to feel financially secure for my family“

“If my store flourishes, I can expand my operations and hire more staff“

“I need to establish a strong reputation in my community so that I can leave a legacy“

🙅‍♂️

Purchasing Objections

These are Local Larry’s doubts about your product.

“I don’t think I can afford your services right now“
“I’ve tried other marketing solutions before, and they didn’t work“
“I’m worried that I won’t have enough time to implement your recommendations“

👍

Answer to Objections

These are your product’s answers to Local Larry’s doubts.

Our subscription model offers flexible pricing options tailored to your budget
We focus on proven SEO and marketing strategies specifically designed for local businesses like yours
Our SOPs are easy to integrate into your existing workflow and save you time

✨

Transformation

In Local Larry’s own words, here’s how your product has improved their life.

“Now that I’ve partnered with Thomas David Jacob, my store’s online presence has skyrocketed. I feel confident knowing that I’m reaching my target audience effectively. My sales have increased by 40%, allowing me to hire two new employees and provide for my family while focusing on what I love.“

How to use this information: You should think about your target persona every time you’re working on any marketing campaign. Your landing pages, blog posts, social posts, ads, videos, email copy, new products, should all be targeted at Local Larry.

Top of the Funnel

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Your Goal at the Top of the Funnel: Awareness

At this stage of the funnel, your marketing persona isn’t aware of your product and isn’t even necessarily looking for a product. They just know they have a problem. Your objective at the top of the funnel is for them to be aware of your business by providing value (without trying to get them to buy right away.)

New visitors to the website
Total views on social media posts
Engagement rate on blog content

📝

Content Marketing

Content marketing is all about creating the assets you’ll promote and optimize on through the different marketing channels (SEO, social media, email marketing, and ads.) At the top of the funnel, you’re creating your mass-market content, aimed to attract as many people as possible.

Content ideas:

Blog post: ‘5 Essential Digital Marketing Tips for Local Retailers’
Infographic: ‘The Importance of Local SEO for Small Businesses’
Video: ‘How to Optimize Your Google My Business Profile’
Podcast: ‘Local Larry Interviews Successful Local Business Owners About Their Marketing Strategies’
Webinar: ‘Understanding the Consumer Journey: Attracting More Customers to Your Store’
Interactive Quiz: ‘Is Your Local Business Ready for Digital Marketing?’

What to measure:

Page views on blog posts
Social media shares/likes
Time spent on content

🔎

SEO

With SEO, you can get your content to rank on the top of search engines for the keywords that your marketing persona is typing into Google. At the top of the funnel, the keywords you’ll target will likely have a higher search volume and will be harder to rank for.

Keyword ideas:

Local SEO strategies for small businesses
Benefits of Google My Business for local retailers
How to improve online visibility for brick-and-mortar stores
Top digital marketing tools for local business owners
Cost-effective marketing strategies for local shops
Trends in consumer behavior for local retail

What to measure:

Organic traffic growth
Keyword ranking improvements
Number of backlinks acquired

🎯

Paid Advertising

Regarding ads, targeting is probably the most important predictor of a winning campaign (closely followed by ad creatives.) At the top of the funnel, you’ll be looking for brand new audiences who have never heard about your company — these are called “Prospecting” campaigns.

Target audience ideas:

[Prospecting] Facebook Ads: Local audience interested in small business tips and local SEO.
[Prospecting] Google Ads: Keywords related to ‘how to get more foot traffic’ and ‘local marketing for retailers’.
[Prospecting] YouTube Ads: Target users searching for small business marketing strategies.
[Remarketing] Facebook Ads: Previous visitors who engaged with the ‘Google My Business’ content.
[Remarketing] Google Ads: Users who visited the pricing page but did not convert.

What to measure:

CPC
Ad impressions
Click-through rate (CTR)

📱

Social Media

The hardest part about doing social media as a brand/business is that you should not behave like just another business on social media. Your social media content should be native to each channel in tone, format, and style. Because of its mass usage, social media is perfect for top-of-the-funnel content.

Social media campaign ideas:

Create a weekly series showcasing local business success stories on Instagram.
Run a themed hashtag campaign: #LocalLarrysMarketingTips.
Host a live Q&A session on Facebook about small businesses’ common marketing mistakes.
Share behind-the-scenes content about the agency’s projects for local retailers.
Monitor relevant hashtags for conversations and engage with potential customers.

What to measure:

Reach of social media posts
Engagement rate (likes, comments, shares)
Number of new followers gained

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Marketing Experiments

For whatever campaign you launch, there will always be room for improvement. It’s a good idea to pick a few experiment ideas and launch split tests designed to improve your most important metrics.

Experiment ideas:

A/B tests different blog homepage headlines to see which drives more traffic.
Test the impact of including images vs. just text in content pieces.
Experiment with varying the length of blog posts to find the optimal engagement.
Run a split test on a call-to-action button color to see which converts better.
Analyze user flow from social channels to identify drop-off points and optimize those pages.

What to measure:

Bounce rate
Conversion rates for content downloads
Click-through rates on CTAs

Middle of the Funnel

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Your Goal in the Middle of the Funnel: Consideration

At this stage of the funnel, your marketing persona is aware of your product but isn’t ready to purchase. They are still doing research and comparing your solution against competitors. This is the time to build trust by giving them more information and providing answers to questions they might have. Your main objective in the middle of the funnel is to turn a stranger into a lead.

Return visitors to the website

Number of leads generated

Engagement rate on email campaigns

📝

Content Marketing

The content you’ll create for the middle of the funnel is typically called a “lead magnet.” This is usually a free (or very cheap) piece of content that you’ll offer to your marketing persona in exchange for their contact information (e.g. email address or phone number.)

Content ideas:

Webinar: ‘How Local Businesses Can Leverage SEO for Greater Visibility’
E-book: ‘The Ultimate Guide to Online Marketing for Local Retailers’
Video Series: ‘FAQs About Digital Marketing for Local Business Owners’
Case Study: ‘How [Similar Local Business] Increased Foot Traffic by 40%’
Infographic: ‘Local SEO Tactics Every Retailer Should Know’
Blog Post: ‘Top 10 Mistakes Local Businesses Make with Digital Marketing’

What to measure:

Registrations for the webinar
Download count for the e-book
Average time spent on case study pages

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SEO

At the middle of the funnel, your marketing persona is likely specifically searching for information about the solutions to their problem (without looking into any specific product, yet.) These keywords are considered to have “higher intent” (aka, more valuable) than the ones at the top of the funnel, but they will have smaller search volumes.

Keyword ideas:

Effective keyword research for local SEO
Strategies for optimizing website content for local searches
How to get customer reviews and manage reputation online
Utilizing citations and link-building for local business sites
Common SEO myths that local businesses should avoid
How to measure SEO success for a local business

What to measure:

Number of inbound links
Keyword rankings for targeted terms
Organic traffic to middle-of-funnel content

🎯

Paid Advertising

At the middle of the funnel, your paid advertising campaigns will zoom into people who are already aware of your brand somehow but haven’t yet become leads. “Remarketing” campaigns are great for this (although, you might also sometimes experiment with prospecting campaigns that try to convert strangers to leads right away.)

Target audience ideas:

[Prospecting] Google Ads: Target users searching for ‘best local marketing strategies’ and ‘increase my store foot traffic’.
[Remarketing] Facebook Ads: Users who attended the previous webinar but did not engage further.
[Prospecting] YouTube Ads: Audience interested in local business growth tips and small business marketing.
[Remarketing] Google Ads: Visitors who downloaded the e-book but didn’t sign up for more resources.
[Prospecting] Instagram Ads: Local demographics interested in entrepreneurial education and marketing advice.

What to measure:

Cost per lead
Impressions on ads
Lead conversion rate from ads

📱

Social Media

The social media campaigns at this stage of the funnel are designed to get your marketing persona off of the social media channel and into your platform (e.g. your website), where you can capture their contact information.

Social media campaign ideas:

Run a poll on Instagram Stories asking followers what digital marketing topics they want more information about.
Share snippets or quotes from the e-book to create buzz around it.
Post a teaser for the upcoming webinar with a call-to-action to register.
Encourage feedback and discussion around the blog post about common digital marketing mistakes.
Live stream an interactive Q&A session discussing SEO strategies for local retailers.

What to measure:

Engagement rate on polls
Shares of e-book content
Sign-ups for the webinar through social media

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Email Marketing

Email marketing is an often overlooked channel that’s critical for the middle of the funnel. Email is a very effective way to reach your marketing persona directly. The most common mistake businesses make is underutilizing email in their marketing (you should think beyond just email newsletters.)

Email marketing campaign ideas:

Email sequence for the webinar promotion with reminders leading up to the event.
Follow-up email sharing the recorded webinar and highlighting key points.
Nurture sequence for leads who downloaded the e-book, providing additional valuable insights.
Monthly newsletter featuring case studies and success stories of local businesses using effective marketing.
Survey email to gather feedback on what topics leads are struggling with in digital marketing.

What to measure:

Open rates on promotional emails
Click-through rates on webinar registration links
Engagement in follow-up content

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Marketing Experiments

For this stage of the funnel, your experiments will be designed to maximize the number of leads you get from your campaigns.

Experiment ideas:

A/B test webinar registration page headlines and copy.
Experiment with different formats for case studies (video vs. written) to determine engagement.
Test varying email sequences for nurturing leads to see which has higher open and click rates.
Analyze the effectiveness of using GIFs vs. static images in email campaigns.
Split-test the call-to-action buttons on the resources page to maximize downloads.

What to measure:

Conversion rates for the webinar registration page
Engagement metrics on case studies
Email open and click-through rates

Bottom of the Funnel

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Your Goal at the Bottom of the Funnel: Purchase

At the bottom of the funnel, your marketing persona already knows your product and is ready to make a purchase decision. They already have all the information they need. Your objective at this stage is to address purchasing objections and convince them to take that last step and become a paying customer.

Conversion rate from leads to customers
Average order value
Customer acquisition cost

📝

Content Marketing

The content you’ll create for the bottom of the funnel is purposely designed to get your marketing persona to purchase. You don’t have to be afraid to be sales-y or about talking about your product directly.

Content ideas:

Case Study: ‘Transforming Local Retail: A Success Story with Thomas David Jacob’ showcasing the journey of a local retailer who increased sales.
Video Testimonial: ‘Hear from Our Clients: Local Larry’s Experience’ where satisfied customers share their results and feelings about the service.
Blog Post: ‘5 Reasons Why Local Retailers Thrive with Our Marketing Strategies’ detailing how specific tactics work.
Interactive Pricing Calculator: ‘Find Your Perfect Digital Marketing Plan’ to help potential customers visualize costs based on services needed.
FAQ Page: ‘Addressing Your Concerns: Why Choose Us?’ to tackle common objections faced by local business owners.
Special Limited-Time Offer Email: ‘Join Now and Get 20% Off Your First Month!’ designed to create urgency and encourage sign-ups.

What to measure:

Number of case study downloads
Viewing completion rates of video testimonials
Engagement metrics on blog posts discussing service benefits

🔎

SEO

At the bottom of the funnel, your marketing persona will be searching Google for information about your product (for example: reviews, pricing, features, etc), which is why you’ll be optimizing for a lot of “branded” searches — these are searches that include your brand/product name.

Keyword ideas:

Keywords like ‘best SEO services for local businesses’, ‘affordable digital marketing services’, ‘local marketing solutions case studies’, ‘successful local business growth strategies’, ‘testimonials for digital marketing agencies’, ‘how to choose a marketing agency’, ’emerging trends in local SEO’, ‘why marketing agencies fail for small businesses’, ‘tailored marketing plans for retailers’, ‘affordable pricing for local SEO services’

What to measure:

Keyword rankings for targeted conversion-related terms
Lead generation through SEO-driven content
Organic traffic to conversion-related pages

🎯

Paid Advertising

At this stage of the funnel, you’ll be running conversion campaigns to get purchases. These will be your highest revenue campaigns, where you will be keeping a close eye on your return on ad spend (ROAS.)

Target audience ideas:

[Remarketing] Google Ads: Target visitors who viewed pricing plans but did not convert to remind them of ongoing promotions.
[Remarketing] Facebook Ads: Users who engaged with testimonials or case studies but didn’t take action.
[Prospecting] Instagram Ads: Local business owners looking for reliable marketing partners, targeting interests in entrepreneurship and small business growth.
[Prospecting] YouTube Ads: Users who have shown interest in local business marketing strategies and SEO improvements.
[Remarketing] YouTube Ads: Viewers of previous marketing webinars who have not converted to leads yet.

What to measure:

Cost per acquisition (CPA)
Return on ad spend (ROAS)
Click-through rate (CTR) on ads targeted for conversions

📱

Social Media

The bottom-of-the-funnel campaigns will usually only make up a small minority of your social media content.

Social media campaign ideas:

Share client success stories on Instagram, showcasing before-and-after results of implementing services.
Create highlight reels of client testimonials and case studies on Instagram Stories to keep them evergreen.
Run a Facebook Live Q&A answering final purchase questions directly from interested prospects.
Conduct a social media poll asking followers what their biggest concerns are when selecting a marketing agency.
Encourage current clients to share their successes on their social media, tagging your agency.

What to measure:

Engagement rates on testimonials and case study posts
Number of shares of success stories
Sign-ups from leads following organic social campaigns

📧

Email Marketing

Email is perfectly tailored to run bottom-of-the-funnel campaigns. After you’ve provided value to customers via your other email campaigns, you can run sales and promotional campaigns to get conversions.

Email marketing campaign ideas:

Follow-up email campaign highlighting key benefits of the service and addressing common objections.
Email series containing exclusive client testimonials sharing their success stories and results.
Personalized email outreach to leads summarizing their needs and suggesting tailored solutions.
Limited-time offer email campaign for past subscribers to encourage them to reconsider your services.
Strategic reminder emails for leads who’ve engaged with case studies or pricing pages, encouraging them to book a consultation.

What to measure:

Conversion rates on follow-up email campaigns
Engagement rates on testimonial emails
Clicks on personalized solution emails

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Marketing Experiments

Your bottom-of-the-funnel experiments will have the objective of maximizing your profits. That could be by getting more first-time customers or increasing the amount of money you get from each customer on their first purchase.

Experiment ideas:

A/B testing different versions of the pricing page to see which converts more leads into paying customers.
Split testing calls-to-action (CTAs) in emails to determine which wording yields higher conversion rates.
Experimenting with the timing of abandoned cart reminders for services to find the most effective schedule.
Analyzing the impact of adding live chat support on the service page to assist potential customers immediately.
Testing different formats of client testimonials (video vs. written) to see which improves conversion.

What to measure:

Conversion rates from pricing page visits
Click-through rates on CTAs in various formats
Lead engagement with live chat support

Retention

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Your Goal at the Retention Stage: Increase Lifetime Value

In the retention stage, your marketing persona is already a customer of your product. Your objective is to increase the value you can extract from them directly by generating repeat purchases, upsells, or reducing churn; or indirectly by improving brand image or promoting referrals.

Customer lifetime value (CLV)
Churn rate
Net Promoter Score (NPS)

📝

Content Marketing

The objective of the content you’ll create at the retention stage is to keep your existing customers happy by providing ongoing value (even after purchasing.)

Content ideas:

Monthly performance report email: Highlighting growth metrics and ROI for Local Larry to reinforce value.
Webinar series: ‘Maximizing Your Marketing Efforts: Tips for Existing Clients’ focused on advanced strategies.
Success story blog post: ‘How Our Partnership with Local Larry Transformed His Retail Store’s Online Presence’ illustrating real results.
Interactive Q&A session: ‘Ask the Experts’ where current clients can submit questions about strategy improvements.
Video tutorial series: ‘Getting the Most Out of Your Subscription’ teaches customers how to utilize provided resources effectively.

What to measure:

Open rates on monthly reports
Engagement metrics on webinar sessions
Time spent on success story pages

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SEO

At the bottom of the funnel, you’ll want to make sure your marketing persona can find all the information she needs to get the most out of your product (e.g. knowledge base articles), or to solve any problems that may arise (e.g. support/contact page.)

Keyword ideas:

Optimize existing content for keywords like ‘how to retain customers in retail’, ‘improving customer loyalty strategies’, ‘effective marketing for small businesses retention’
Targeting customer service-related keywords that potential and existing clients may search for help.
Blog post optimizations around ‘what to do after optimizing your local SEO’ focused on ongoing engagement.
Create long-tail keywords related to common concerns or queries raised during Q&A sessions.
Focus on keyword variations that address the transformation journey of Local Larry.

What to measure:

Organic traffic to retention-related content
Keyword rankings for retention-focused terms
Visitor engagement time on retention resources

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Paid Advertising

At this stage of the funnel, you might choose to run campaigns promoting new features, upgrades, or promotions.

Target audience ideas:

[Remarketing] Facebook Ads: Targeting existing customers who have not engaged in recent months.
[Remarketing] Google Ads: Focusing on users who viewed posts about success stories or webinars but haven’t converted to the next level.
[Prospecting] YouTube Ads: Aiming at local business owners interested in customer retention strategies.
[Remarketing] Instagram Ads: Engaging with existing followers who have interacted with past content but are not active clients currently.
[Prospecting] Facebook Ads: New audiences based on current client attributes expressing interest in digital retention solutions.

What to measure:

Cost per engagement
Click-through rate (CTR) on remarketing ads
Return on ad spend (ROAS) for retention campaigns

📱

Social Media

Retention campaigns on social media revolve around building a sense of community with your existing customers. You’ll do a lot of monitoring of brand mentions on social media.

Social media campaign ideas:

Monitor social media for mentions of the brand, responding to both positive and negative feedback proactively.
Regularly share client success stories on social platforms to enhance trust and community engagement.
Invite existing clients to participate in live polls or question threads on social media platforms about their needs.
Engage in conversations around marketing trends in local retail on Twitter to establish authority.
Promote community-building activities among current clients through dedicated social media groups.

What to measure:

Engagement rates on success story posts
Number of comments/questions on interactive posts
Growth of client-focused community group

📧

Email Marketing

Retention email campaigns will be a mix of educational emails (onboarding, activation, etc), transactional emails (reports, receipts, reminders, etc), and promotional emails (upgrades, upsells, etc.)

Email marketing campaign ideas:

Quarterly check-in emails inviting clients to discuss their results and future goals.
Special offers tailored for existing customers to encourage upselling or cross-selling.
Automated reminders for clients to review their previous month’s performance stats.
Personalized thank-you emails after every significant interaction or milestone achieved.
Feedback request emails asking existing clients what additional resources they would find helpful.

What to measure:

Response rates to check-in emails
Participation rates in feedback requests
Engagement on special offer emails

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Marketing Experiments

Your retention experiments will have the objective of maximizing the lifetime value of existing customers.

Experiment ideas:

A/B tests the design and content of monthly performance reports for clarity and impact.
Experiment with different formats for Q&A sessions to see which yields higher attendance or engagement.
Test the timing of follow-up emails regarding upsell opportunities to find which schedule works best.
Run a split test on the messaging in retention-focused email campaigns to identify the most compelling offers.
Analyze the effectiveness of various formats for sharing client success stories (video vs. written).

What to measure: