Conversion Strategy: Using Colloquial Keywords to Optimizethe Purchase Journey

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Colloquial keywords... Purchase Journey... seriously?

If you're rolling your eyes, just chill for a second. I promise I'm not here to promote annoying newmarketing terms. So before we proceed let's align on my intent for sharing this strategy and process,which is:

To inspire you to take a transformative action that will give you an advantage over your competitorsby enhancing your desire to understand, on a deeper emotional level, the community of people youwish to do business with.

3 Types of Value You Can Get From this Oddly-named Keyword Optimization Strategy

To help you decide if this post is worth your time and to give you a sense of the opportunity, I wantto be clear about the value of this information.

There are three instructive elements to this post:

The Philosophical

The Contextual

The Practical

And here are the three types of value:

I. Revenue and Growth Value- when your success is measured by achieving marketing goals tied tocreating new business, growing revenue and increasing the lifetime value of your community, applythe context of this colloquial keyword strategy.

II. Visibility, Attention and Engagement Value- when your marketing objectives demand that youcreate more visibility, attention and engagement on digital channels to support reaching yourrevenue and growth goals, you make practical application of this colloquial keyword strategy.

III. Competitive Value- when you are competing for the attention and trust of the people who arejourneying through the process of choosing one product and brand over another,you make contextual and practical application of this strategy in ways that elevate you over yourless-caring and less-strategic competition.

In the third paragraph I used the word "transformative". When I say "transformative" pleaseunderstand I literally mean that this strategy can transform your entire mindset as a marketer in away that I feel will be highly-desirable in the near future, which is:

And by marketing with this type of care and guidance mindset, you develop a level of empathy thattransforms you into a marketer who possesses the power to:

But, this is all predicated on you and I sharing a similar personal philosophy which we apply to ourprofessional work:

That said, what you learn here will help you sell more products. And by the end of story you will seewhy.

What's a Purchase Journey?

Please don't feel bad if you're unfamiliar with the meaning and context of a consumer's purchasejourney... this is how I personally define the purchase journey:

Understanding a consumer's purchase journey, and I mean really getting deep into their nuancesand patterns of behavior, will enlighten you on ways you better relate to a community of peoplewhom you likely know nothing about.

And by going through the process of building a purchase journey, you'll quickly develop a new foundcare and respect for this community of people, and you'll genuinely want to see them make the rightpurchase decision.

Here's how I visualize in my mind the connection between marketing, empathy and the purchasejourney:

Those are the four essential questions a consumer seeks answers to as they go through the physicaland emotional process of making a buying decision. I say this confidently because I've createdpurchase journey's, and because I've used purchase journey's to develop multi-channel digitalmarketing strategies, all the way up to the Fortune 25 level.

The reason why I have those four questions connected to the word empathy is because it's on you toanswer those questions genuinely and authentically, with the greater good in mind. It ties back toempathy, as in truly caring that people make the right decision for their life, especially when theperson has to make a significant investment of time or money in you.

And part of being an empathetic marketer is ultimately possessing the desire and discipline to:

Who Should Care About Their Audience's Purchase Journey?

When the research is done well and the data is logically disseminated, purchase journey insights

bring tremendous revenue-growth value and opportunity. Especially for eComms, financial serviceproviders, real estate agents, healthcare practitioners and any brand that launches geo-targeted orhyper-local marketing campaigns, especially when lead generation, subscriptions, memberships orappointments play a significant factor in the sales process.

A legit purchase journey goes deep into nuances of your audience, such as howthey use search and social on their path to purchase, which is obviously quite valuable for marketerswho use digital channels.

The Colloquial Keyword and Purchase Journey Connection

Now that we're aligned on what a purchase journey is and why it's so valuable, let's make theconnection between this and the colloquial keyword concept by creating some context for "colloquialkeywords", which is about you:

The connection between colloquial keywords and optimizing the purchase journey centers on youbeing able to honestly say:

Think about it, you may only get a few seconds of a person's time and attention while they're on theirpurchase journey, comparing you against your competitors. At that moment when your paths crossthe goal is to make a genuine personal connection in a way that frees the person to give you more oftheir time and attention, by their own choosing.

Visual Context: How Hershey's Is Faking The Colloquial Keyword Concept

As I was in the process of writing this post, I knew I couldn't publish it on Nick's blog withoutproviding a real example of a big brand that's smart enough to use the colloquial context andconcept to sell their products, but in the exact opposite way it should be done.

Hershey's, unfortunately, has provided us with a real life illustration of faking the colloquial keywordconcept...

"Hey DC, check this out. Have you ever had Lancaster caramels before?"

"No, I don't believe so."

"Lancaster caramel is amazing. Come over here and look at this. We should get some."

I was at the other end of the aisle when my friend discovered the caramels. As I walked back up theaisle I began to catch a glimpse of the packaging. And then as I got closer something felt off, mostlybecause the packaging had a big brand look and feel which is not customary for products that aremade by artisans in that hyper-local geographic location [Lancaster, PA].

When I got in front of the shelf I instantly went into skeptical-marketer mode. Whomever designedthe packaging clearly wants to get people's attention by making the word "Lancaster" the eye-catcher and showstopper. So then I went into research-marketer mode.

"No way these are real Lancaster candies. Turn the bag over and tell me who it's made by."

"Ugh. Hershey's."

Nice try Hershey's and Canada (you're on the bag, so you're getting called out too). Oh, and we sawthe high fructose corn syrup and the GMO soy on the ingredients list. You think the Amish inLancaster are putting that shit in their caramels?

This is where Hershey's wants you to think these caramels are made:

But this is really where the caramels are made:

Calling anything "Lancaster X" carries colloquial context that has become known the world over.And that's because the fascinating people of this community in rural Pennsylvania have built areputation for creating products that are distinctly "Lancaster", whether it's a Shoofly Pie, a quilt ora hand-carved armoire.

Using this as an example, I feel like Hershey's is taking from the people that develop and grow thecolloquial context of "Lancaster", and Hershey's are using it to sell a product based on a reputationthey did little to create or support. I could be thinking too far ahead, but I don't believe brands canget away with faking it like this much longer without getting publicly (e.g. socially) called out andmocked.

I trust you now have a solid understanding of the colloquial keyword context and concept, and thepower it has to create visibility, attention and engagement in order to sell products in highlycompetitive industries.

What is a Colloquial Keyword Strategy?

First, when I use the term "Colloquial Keyword Strategy" don't get stuck thinking about it in a purelySEO way. Yes, this strategy will allow you to discover and properly use the right geographic andhyper-local words, in a relatable way, on pages you want to create visibility for on natural and paidsearch channels.

But remember, this is really about you taking the time to go through a process of understanding howto best help your target community make the right purchase decision. Here's how I visualize thestrategy in a practical way:

Think about people who are looking for a wealth advisor for a moment. Now think about why theymight need to draw those conclusions and make those trusting statements before they are ready tochoose one wealth advisor over another.

The "care" part is you doing this type of research to discover that people who use search and socialas part of their purchase journey to find a wealth advisor want affirming answers to those questionsbefore they buy. And then making creative application of your research to optimize the consumer'spurchase journey.

3 Elements of a Colloquial Keyword Strategy

Just so we're all clear, let's define the three elements that make a colloquial keyword strategy, withsome more context:

Colloquial keyword research- this is done the same way you would do any other type of keywordresearch, using many of the same tools you already use. The difference, however, is purely with yourintent and the goal you're seeking to achieve, which is helping you understand why people describetheir community the way they do and why that's important to them.

Colloquial keywords- think of these like the emotionally-intelligent version of broad keywords. Sure,colloquial keywords are typically geo-specific, entity-specific and often times hyper-local. But alsothink about the intent of the person who goes to Google and types, "financial planner center cityphiladelphia". That person's intent-to-buy is likely stronger than the person that types, "philadelphiafinancial planner".

Quick story related to colloquial keywords...

Last year I provided data to a Fortune 25 CMO that showed in a specific town in Washington, wheretheir brand competes with two other mega brands, that the equivalent of 0.46% of the entire town'spopulation does monthly searches on Google using geo-specific and hyper-local terms related totheir line of business... that helped get a conversation going about competition and lead generation,among other things.

I tell this story as an example of how you can use the colloquial keyword research to help inform astrategy that seeks to address competitive threats and to uncover new marketing opportunities ondigital channels.

Colloquial keyword optimization- to me, keyword optimization is really about getting search, social,content, PR and digital channels teams to strategically collaborate on geo-targeted digital marketinginitiatives more effectively by communicating with their target community with one voice, one toneand one personality, in a way they can relate to.

Lastly, consider how this type of keyword research strategy might lead to something significant...

How to Do Colloquial Keyword Research

I'm sorry if this posts ends like a Lars Von Trier movie, but as I mentioned above, the process youfollow to do colloquial keywords research is no different than how you normally do keywordresearch. The difference is the intent and goal of your research, and how you plan to make strategicand tactical application of your data.

To end the post I'm going to walk you through my colloquial keyword research process, but if you'relike, "shit, I don't even know how to do keyword research", then I suggest you stop now and readthis prolific keyword research post by Nick. In fact, it was Nick's post that directly inspired me toexplore the idea of using hyper-local and colloquial keyword data to optimize the purchase journey.

How I do Colloquial Keyword Research

Keyword research is something I find enlightening, enjoyable and educational. In terms of doingcolloquial keyword research, I have a focused process that progresses in this logical order:

Define the strategic marketing goal

Define the strategic marketing objectives

Perform a competitive analysis on search and social channels

Using the competitive analysis data, create a visualization of the competitive landscape withprescriptive next steps

Establish KPIs for the approved project

Use the brand's purchase journey data to create audience and community profiles

Survey people that publicly represent the brand, sell to the prospective clients, or directly provide aservice to the prospective client

Use the survey to uncover professional and personal biographic information about therepresentatives or service providers

Use the survey to get the representatives to reveal how people in their local community describeentities, geographic locales, neighborhoods and parts of town

Use the survey to learn how the locals describe where the representatives or service providersoffices are, and how they refer to their community, colloquially

After this process is completed, all data has been compiled, and all business cases have been madeand approved, I move to the tactical phase of uncovering colloquial keyword opportunities andstrategizing how to use them

The survey's have been the most powerful way to get insightful biographical, colloquial, geo-specificand hyper-local keywords because you're essentially asking a local to educate you about geo-centricand hyper-local colloquialisms and how to use them without sounding like an idiot.

Tools I use to do colloquial keyword research

Here's a list of every tool I use to pull data from search and social channels during the tacticalresearch and discovery phase:

Extend the value of the data these tools provide

I've found there are valuable insights that extend beyond the keyword opportunities themselves. Theinsights are buried within the nuances of the keyword data, and reveal strategic insights such as:

Trend-driven patterns of behavior- those tools will show you how your keyword opportunities havehistorically behaved on natural search and social channels. And also if marketers have been willingto paying more to get visibility for those keywords on paid channels... take a look at the historicaltrends to get a view into the future.

Demand- there's no better way to uncover a legitimate business opportunity than using data todetermine market demand. Buried within the data those tools provide are market demand insights.

Competition- as a marketer I want to know where my competitors are investing their marketingdollars, how they are investing those dollars and how well those investments are performing.SEMrush and Google Keyword Planner do a solid job providing these types of competitive marketinginsights.

So, where are we again?

As I said at the outset, my intent for sharing this is to inspire you to try a new approach to solving ana old problem, but in an empathetic way. Give yourself permission to rewrite the rules of what youthink keyword research is and the value it can provide.

I know this is a lot to cover in a blog post, and I tend to think more conceptually and big picture, soplease use the comments section to ask me specific questions, get clarification or to dive deeper intoa concept or idea discussed in the post. And most importantly, many thanks to Nick for offering aplatform to publish my feelings about marketing, and these ideas.

About David Cohen

David is a decisive leader who earns resources to build teams and execute multi-channel campaigns.He has earned a reputation as an exceptional communicator and presenter with high level ofbusiness acumen, critical thinking and diplomacy skills. And an empathetic manager with verifiablesuccess directing and mentoring teams, especially Millennials.

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