Introduction
In March of this year, I enrolled in a “Attract and Engage Customers with Digital Marketing” course in the hopes to increase my knowledge on effective marketing strategies. This 14-hour online course was part of the Google Digital Marketing and E-commerce Professional Certificate, made possible through a professional development grant that I received from the American India Foundation. As a beginner with zero background in the marketing field, I was excited to start this course which I hoped would teach me the basics to understanding marketing tactics that would help Bhayli attract customers. This course however, exceeded my expectations by not only teaching me to recognize strategies to build brand awareness, but also equipping me with practical tools to apply these strategies across various digital platforms. From creating compelling content, building customer personas and applying search engine optimization, the course offered a hands-on approach that made learning compelling and applicable to my work on the Bhayli project.
Building Customer Personas
To get your brand to stand out, messaging and materials need to be clear and connect with the customer. Therefore, the first module of the course focused heavily on defining the ideal customer. According to Google, a customer persona represents a group of similar people in a desirable audience. Customer personas help businesses understand their customer characteristics, goals, and behaviors. When the marketer understands their ideal customer, they can then use this information in creating customized content for them through emails, advertisements, etc.
Through this module, I learned to create customer personas for simulated businesses and replicated this to create customer personas for the ideal bhayli customer! The first step is to do research and to collect information on your customers. This can be done by reviewing customer data through existing customers, conducting interviews, analyzing web data, and giving surveys. These methods allow the marketer to learn specific details such as demographics, location, sales history, experience with the product, etc. Then, the marketer should analyze the customer’s goals and barriers related to the service or product such as the goals they want to achieve and the roadblocks that are preventing them in doing so. The business can now identify numerable customer personas for the product/service through specific data which helps in creating visuals and content that would appeal to the ideal customer. To build Bhayli’s customer personas, I looked at online customer reviews, existing client information, and web analytics. While these sources provided valuable insights, conducting interviews or surveys with actual customers would have allowed for a deeper, more nuanced understanding of their needs and motivation. Through the knowledge gained from this module, I built two potential customer personas for Bhayli’s hamper box.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
One of the greatest marketing tool for a brand is Search Engine Optimization, which helps a website appear in a search engine results page. When a business’s page ranks well, it significantly increases visibility, attracts more traffic, and builds brand trust. Understanding some key factors that influence SEO and that determines website rankings are crucial to improving website performance. These factors include:
Meaning of the query: A query is simply words typed into a search bar. Google’s search algorithm has created language models to understand the intent behind the search. Therefore, as a marketer it is crucial to understand the potential customer’s search intent and meaning of a search as to create content based on the searcher’s needs.
Relevance of Webpages: Google’s algorithm also evaluates what content is relevant to a search by analyzing how closely a webpage’s content matches the search terms. As a marketer for your business using the right keywords throughout your site can increase overall relevance.
Quality of Content: Search engines prioritize great quality web content and one way that Google determines this is if prominent websites link or refer to the content itself. Usually, well-researched, structured, and informative posts are crucial in engaging users and this can increase search engine rankings.
Usability of the webpages: A webpage’s ease of use is another factor when considering how a page ranks. A more mobile-friendly, easier navigation, and quick loading page with a positive user-experience will perform better.
Context and User Settings: Information such as the user’s location, browsing history, and search settings influence the search algorithm to deliver relevant results. Having locally relevant content and options can increase your business’s relevancy and ranking in the search results.
Boosting Bhayli’s Visibility
While SEO tasks can be more advanced like using JavaScript, most SEO tasks are minor modifications to the business’s website pages. When looking at these factors that influence SEO, Bhayli can increase its online presence in a few ways.
Featured Snippet: A special box that displays information about a search in the results page. Google systems determine whether a page will make a good snippet and to increase the chances of getting a featured snippet, Bhayli can focus on optimization for content structure and SEO best practices. Using simple and direct language that answers potential user questions in 1-2 sentences can improve Bhayli’s bangle box page of being featured as a snippet. Title section (H1) such as “Handwoven Bangle Box” could be enhanced to “Handwoven Bangle Box— Sustainable Storage with Artisan Craftsmanship.” An add-on heading (H2) could also be added with important keywords such as ‘eco-friendly’, ‘artisan-made’, ‘sustainable’ to increase SEO relevance. Inserting a FAQ section in Bhayli’s bangle box page can boost SEO by answering real world questions that users might pose. Well-structured FAQ answers of 40-50 words which signals that the page is relevant can dramatically increase visibility. While, currently there is no blog page on Bhayli’s website, creating a blog page and showcasing blog posts and featured articles that talk about Bhayli’s products could be another way to increase relevancy. Through the use of anchor texts (clickable words in a hyperlink) that links to relevant posts, users are more engaged and stay longer on the page, which signals to search engines that the content is relevant, thus boosting SEO.
Search Engine Marketing: There are many types of paid ads that can help a business grow and profit. One way that Bhayli could increase its visibility and ensure more traffic to its site is through search engine marketing (SEM). This involves increasing a product or services’ visibility on a search engine results page through paid advertising. Through a pay model called pay-per-click, Bhayli only needs to pay when a user takes an action and clicks on the ad. It also incentivizes search engines like Google to show the right ads to users that will get clicked on in order to get paid. These ads for Bhayli’s website will then appear at the top or bottom of the search results page depending on what type of ad it is. SEM can allow Bhayli to reach customers who are the most likely candidates to buy from the business while also allowing for the business to appear quickly in the search results page. With small and new social enterprises like Bhayli that has not yet built enough reputation, SEM can be an incredible way to market strategically and gain more customers.
Display Ads: Another way that Bhayli could increase traffic to its site is through display ads which are visual ad formats on websites or applications. They are static ads that can appear on websites, videos, and applications. A good strategy for Bhayli would be to feature ads on YouTube because they are inexpensive, effective, and helps reach Bhayli’s target audience. Ads on YouTube function on a pay-per-click model and can cost a few cents per view or action. They also reach a larger audience and have the potential to increase the number of people who interact with the brand. Lastly, YouTube allows brands the chance to reach audiences who are searching for topics related to their products. Bhayli could target customers using specific keywords, topics, and demographics allowing them to market its brand and products to relevant customers.
Conclusion
Through the use of data-driven work like building customer personas, Bhayli has the opportunity to understand and target its ideal customer and create effective marketing and sales content. By understanding factors that influence SEO, Bhayli can make modifications to its website pages to increase relevancy and ranking. With targeted paid ads like search engine marketing and display ads that use the pay-per-click model, Bhayli can control its budget, reach specific audiences, and measure its effectiveness in real time. Ultimately, these methods can increase Bhayli’s visibilty on multiple platforms, thus productively growing its sales and furthering its brand.
References
Google. (2025). Attract and Engage Customers with Digital Marketing [Online Course]. Coursera. https://www.coursera.org/learn/attract-and-engage-customers/home/module/1
