Tag : online marketing

The Essential Guide to Facebook Ad Split Testing

The Essential Guide to Facebook Ad Split Testing
29Oct

As you plan your Facebook marketing strategy, how do you decide between one image style or another? Or find out what sort of ad copy your leads prefer? You could guess blindly, but you’ll be better off with split testing.

Split testing (or A/B testing) is the practice of sending out different ads to different sections of your audience. So Group A gets ad one and Group B gets ad two. From there, you can see which ad performed better, which informs the rest of your advertising strategy going forward.

Why is split testing worth it? How do you make an effective split test? I’ll go over the answers to those questions and more in this guide to creating successful Facebook ad A/B tests!

Why Bother?

For many people new to the idea, split testing seems like a waste of time and resources. Who wants to write double the ad copy and generate twice as many images? Well, as it turns out, you do.

Split testing has become an advertising best practice across the industry for a lot of reasons, but in short, it makes sure that your ad campaign is on the right track.

For starters, it’s an essential part of overall better marketing. If it turns out you’ve been appealing to people with the wrong angle, then you need to change that direction ASAP. Once you’ve made these corrections, you’ll probably see your web traffic, engagement and conversion rates all increasing.

This then translates to increased ROI. Basically, $100 of subpar ads may only generate half the attention that $100 of tested and optimized ads gets you. It’s a bit of extra effort now for increased effectiveness and revenue later.

So you know why you should be split testing your Facebook ads, but how do you get started?

Have a Goal and Expectation

Before you start writing up any ad copy, you need to determine what you want to test. Do you want to try a new headline style, or maybe you want to see what kinds of images perform best with your audience? Whatever it is, set one thing to alter. That way you’ll know exactly what changed your audience’s reaction between the ads.

This is where marketing and science start to blend. Form a hypothesis! Which ad do you think will perform better? Why? During this step, you’ll also want to establish what a successful split test will look like for you. If you’re advertising for your online store, maybe a 7% increase in site visits is a good goal for you.

Create the Ads

Now, draft your two ads with the one major difference. And really, it needs to be a MAJOR difference!

For example, let’s say you’re marketing for a gym and you decided to test the images used for your ads. You’re not going to have meaningful results if your first ad has a picture of a smiling, fit woman stretching and your second ad features a smiling, fit woman lifting weights. They’re just too similar to tell you anything important.

Instead, you might have your first ad feature the same woman sitting down, but your second ad could feature shots of your equipment or pictures of healthy foods and protein powders. This way, when one ad performs better than the other, you’ll know it isn’t just a coincidence!

Send Them Out and Analyze the Data

Now, publish your two Facebook ads and see what happens. Set which metrics you want to track based on your goals for this test, and may the better ad win!

Let the ads run for a set amount of time, however long your ads usually take to see optimal engagement, then step back and look at your results. If one ad outperformed the other, use this information as you plan your ads in the future!

If there weren’t significant results, don’t be discouraged! Make sure you made substantial changes between the ads or (if worst comes to worst) test a new part of your ads! There’s always something to improve on, and these tests are important to optimizing your processes.

Test, Test, Test!

The only way to improve is to identify problem areas, so get to work! You’ve got nothing to lose by testing, and a whole lot of revenue to gain!

Would you like to discuss your unique Facebook ad strategy? Schedule your free consultation with the marketing experts at The Go! Agency!

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Amazon Holiday Marketing Strategies to Avoid

Amazon Holiday Marketing Strategies to Avoid
24Oct

The time of seasonal sales is fast approaching! For many marketers, you’ll be promoting your products on Amazon this year, and you want to get the word out. And you should! American online shoppers reported that 76% would use Amazon for most of their holiday shopping.

It’s fair to market your Amazon products, but sometimes the moves you don’t make are as important as the ones you do. The internet is chock full of bad marketing advice to boost your holiday sales via Amazon, and you need to know what to avoid.

Read on for the worst Amazon holiday marketing advice you’ll hear and why you don’t want to follow it.

Buying Amazon Reviews

The lie:
Paying for reviews is a harmless way to make sure your products are ranking higher on Amazon searches! It’s completely untraceable, and your store will get a convenient boost right before the holidays!

The truth:
Some marketing strategies are just bad news all around, and buying Amazon reviews is one of them. Ignoring the ethical issues of paying nameless internet faces to write positive reviews in exchange for money or free products, there are a lot of practical reasons to skip this can of worms.

When Amazon finds out that you’ve been purchasing reviews (and they’re Amazon, so they’ll find out), your store account will be in serious jeopardy. If you’re lucky, every single review will be deleted from your page. Yes, even the real ones. You’ll have paid for all that work and have nothing to show for it.

If you’re not lucky, your seller’s account could be closed, and suddenly you’re barred from the largest e-commerce site in the world.

Save yourself the hassle and wasted resources. You may be tempted to boost your holiday sales with some timely positive reviews, but don’t fall for that trap. Earning real reviews will better serve your business in the long run.

Sending Direct Traffic to Your Amazon Products

The lie:
Sending ad traffic straight to your Amazon store can only benefit you. Consumers who click on your ad are shown immediately how to buy from you, and you’ll generate tons of sales this way!

The truth:
Sending traffic to your Amazon page is ridiculously unlikely to be a lucrative venture. Why? Well, let’s say you put an ad on Facebook for your target demographic, and the ad takes users straight to one of your products on Amazon’s website.

What percentage of people who click on your ad are going to complete a purchase? One optimistic study puts that number at 26 percent. That’s a great number, but you’re still paying for the clicks of the other 74 percent who looked at your product and decided not to buy.

More concerning is what these users do to your Amazon ranking when they don’t make purchases. Every time someone clicks on your Amazon ad and leaves without buying, your Amazon ranking goes down. After enough clicks that don’t end in conversions, you may find your product sinking to the third, fourth, then fifth page of results, where users are unlikely to ever see it.

Ads can be a great way to make sales, but you shouldn’t put your Amazon ranking on the line. Link back to your own website or another e-commerce platform that isn’t tracking clicks and applying them to your rank. Of all the great ways to build your name on Amazon for the holidays, this isn’t one of them.

Dodge the Pitfalls

Like with many other topics on the internet, holiday marketing on Amazon is full of bad information. Don’t risk your livelihood by following poorly-thought-out advice. Now that you know what strategies won’t work, you can redouble your efforts in more reliable areas!

You know what not to do, but are you sure what the next best steps are for your business? Schedule your free consultation with The Go! Agency to make sure!

 

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3 Ways to Get Your Shopify Store Holiday-Ready

3 Ways to Get Your Shopify Store Holiday-Ready
22Oct

You’ve put a lot of work into your e-commerce platform throughout the year, but have you thought about what you’ll do for the holidays?

It isn’t enough to quietly lower your prices. There are a lot of Shopify stores out there, and you need to stand out! Thankfully, there are some simple steps to ensure you’re making the most of of the holidays.

Let’s talk about how you should customize your Shopify store for the winter sale season!

1. Start a Holiday Sale
This one is a no-brainer. Holiday sales are inseparable from the winter shopping experience, and frankly, most shoppers won’t consider your Shopify store if you’re not running a seasonal sale.

To set sale prices, you’ll click on the individual product you want to discount, and you’ll have two options, “price” and “compare at price.” The “price” box will be the sale price, and the other box will be its price outside of the sale. This is a classic marketing strategy. When interested shoppers see how much they’re saving with your sale, they’re more likely to jump on the chance to get your products at a lower rate!

Once you’ve set up your sale dates and prices, don’t stop there! For loyal customers on your email list or new shoppers who sign up for it, why not show them a little extra love with some coupon codes?

2. Prepare Coupon Codes
Special discounts give people that extra push to give your store a try. After all, what do online shoppers love more than a bargain?

You can create coupons for a specific dollar amount, a percentage off an order, or free shipping. Your Shopify discounts will also have a programmable range of dates when the codes can be used, the number of coupons you’ll accept per order, and any order minimums for your discounts.

A word to the wise: Test your coupon codes! If your customers go to checkout and their coupon codes won’t apply, they’ll be so frustrated that they’ll never spend a dime at your store.

Before sharing the coupons, create a buyer’s Shopify account and try to make a purchase from your store. If the code works, then full steam ahead! If you’re getting an error message, you may need to reach out to Shopify’s support team for help.

3. Limit Your Coupons
Remember how I said you can limit the number of coupon codes for each order? Yeah, you’ll want to make that a priority.

Let’s say you’re offering 3 different coupons: 15% off the order, $10 off all orders over $50, and free shipping. Individually, each of those coupons is an incentive for your customer to spend more money at your store. But together? Their $60 order is only costing them $41, and you’re left on the hook for shipping.

By programming your Shopify checkout to only accept one coupon at a time, though, your customers can choose which discount best suits their needs without completely draining the transaction of any profit.

Deck the Digital Halls

It’s a lot of work to get your Shopify store ready for the shopping season, but it’ll be worth it. Apply these tips to your e-commerce shop and you’ll be set to enjoy a holly jolly sleigh ride straight to the bank!

Do you have some lingering questions about optimizing your store for the holidays? Talk it out with the experts at The Go! Agency!

 

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Your Metrics System: How to Track Results

092618 Your Metrics System_ How to Track Results
26Sep

You’ve done it! You created and survived your holiday marketing campaign!  While it would be nice to revel in the feeling of accomplishment, you’re not done yet.  

“But the campaign was a success!” You say, “we earned so much money! What’s left to do?”

Nothing much . . . only determining if your campaign was actually worth the time, money, and energy you spent on it.

I hear this sentiment all the time from business owners. After they’ve dipped their toes in the marketing world for the holiday season, they decide to leave the pool until the next fall. 

“Why would I ever need to know all those marketing stats?” They ask. 

This attitude will doom your chances of long-term success. These metrics affect your business, your brand, and your bottom line.

Those “marketing stats” will help you in a myriad of ways. They 

  • are necessary for calculating your return on investment (ROI);
  • give you valuable demographic information;
  • help you determine your upcoming budget; and
  • give you insight into and ideas for your future marketing initiatives.

Here are a few metrics you should consider measuring at the end of your holiday marketing campaign.

Impressions are the number of times an individual person sees a piece of content (ads, tweets, updates, blogs, etc.). This is an awareness metric. Although impressions are important, it can be a vanity metric. Focus on the quality or the effect of the impressions. How many times did a person see your ad before taking an action? 

Reach refers to the number of people who saw your ad. I’ve already discussed how important it is to target the right audience, and this metric lets you see if you hit your target! Did the social media network, website, and/or publication you chose for ads live up to your hopes? Did you get the customers you expected, or did you see a boost in traffic from an unexpected demographic? For instance, video games are marketed to teenagers, but parents are usually the people who actually buy them.

Engagement is, essentially, interaction. It shows that your audience actively participated in your content. Likes, clicks, shares, comments–all of these are ways your audience engages with your brand. Think of engagement as the active result of reach and impressions!

Click Through Rate (also known as CTR) is found by dividing the number of individuals who clicked a link or ad on your webpage by the total number of users who viewed the page. If your page was viewed by 380 people, and 7 of those people clicked the link to your storefront, then the click through rate would be 1.84 percent. That CTR isn’t horribly low, by the way. According to Hubspot, search ads average a CTR of 1.91 percent and display ads have around .35 percent.

Conversions are actions taken by visitors. These actions can include completing a purchase, filling out a survey, or subscribing to an email newsletter. Tracking conversions enables you to retarget consumers. In retargeting, you present ads to consumers who visited your page but did not complete an action (e.g., added items to the digital shopping cart, but never paid).

All of these metrics will vary according to your goals. Too many novice marketers make the mistake of only analyzing these metrics after the holidays or another big campaign, but that is asking for trouble. You need to do this throughout the year! Take stock of where you are so that you can get to where you want to go!

Voilà! I’ve told you everything you need to know about running your holiday marketing campaign! If you have additional tips (or cautionary tales), share with us in the comments below. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions about digital marketing, seasonal campaigns, or one of my many Christmas cookie recipes!

Do you need more help with your holiday marketing campaign? Don’t wait for a Festivus miracle! Contact The Go! Agency today for your free consultation! 

 

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Creating Your Timeline for Holiday Marketing

092418 Creating Your Timeline for Holiday Marketing
24Sep

The holiday season is just a few weeks away! So far, I’ve told you what you need for your holiday campaignhow to target your audience, and where you should focus your budget, among other tips from my years as a marketer. Now I want to address the schedule. 

Your holiday marketing campaign isn’t a high school project: you can’t expect to reach your goals if put everything off until the last minute. You need deadlines! I’ve found that there are three pillars for a good deadline. Good deadlines must be . . . 

1. Good for Your Budget: The deadline must fit within the confines of your budget. Will you have enough money to run ads for a given amount of time? Will you have enough in the budget to cover your personnel needs until a specified date? These are the questions you’ll need to consider.

2. Good for Your Bandwidth: Speaking of personnel, you must give your team deadlines that are reasonable. Don’t assume that your staff will be able to pull off a Christmas miracle! Factor in human error and human nature by giving yourself and your staff a buffer. Never set deadlines at the last possible minute! 

3. Good for Your Campaign’s Effectiveness: Will this deadline further your goals? In other words, are you spinning your wheels? Determine which actions are priorities, and which actions can be postponed.

Let’s start with a list of everything you need to accomplish or complete for your campaign. You’ll notice that some of these lead into the next item (i.e., you cannot complete Y until X is done). Generally, holiday campaigns include:

  • Final Strategy: When will you have your final plan? This is the blueprint that you’ll be sticking to for the entire campaign; so while you can (and should) be flexible, your campaign plan should be complete.
  • Budget: When will you have your budget ready? Do you need to hire any contractors or agencies to take on extra work of the campaign? It might sound silly to include deadlines for strategy and budget, but it will help you keep an analytical perspective toward your campaign.
  • Creative/Visuals: When do you need your final designs? This aspect includes layouts for ads and any new website or landing page visuals. Do you use a contractor for design work? Remember that contractors might book up quickly for the holiday rush!
  • Copy: When do you need all of your campaign’s written content? This should include landing page copy along with advertisements, posts, and blogs. You’ll need to account for editing content in addition to the approval process for ads.
  • Advertising: There are a few aspects to keep in mind here. The first is practical: what is the deadline for submitting ads for a given publication, website, or platform? The second aspect to consider is when will your ads have the greatest impact? For example, you can’t expect a lot of engagement from a Cyber Monday sale ad if won’t be approved until Tuesday morning.
  • Website Landing Page: You could generalize this to your entire website, but focus on the landing page for your holiday promotion or campaign. When will you need to have it up and running? If you use a contractor or another third party entity for your web design, what is their turn-around time? Will the holidays affect their schedule and availability? 

Finally, you should consider the timing of your overall campaign. The timeline for a campaign that peaks on Black Friday is drastically different from a timeline for a campaign that peaks during the week of Christmas. 

Armed with my advice, creating your campaign timeline should be a breeze! I mentioned this already, but it’s important enough to repeat: keep your plans firm, but allow for some wiggle room! Life happens. You realize that your copywriter will be out of town for Hanukkah. Your social media manager is hosting a horde of relatives and cannot work any overtime. Your IT guru will be on PTO all of Thanksgiving weekend–and you approved her request back in March. 

This guide should help you create the optimal timeline for your holiday marketing campaign! Now let’s go!

The holidays are coming in fast–is your marketing strategy ready? The Go! Agency can help you get results! For a free consultation, contact us today! 

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Contests, Promos, & Giveaways: What You Should Know

091918 Blog Contests, Promos, & Giveaways_ What You Should Know
19Sep

Whether your business centers on a product or a service, the holiday season is filled with opportunities. But how can your marketing compete when all of your competitors are pushing for the same clients? Why not incentivize your customer with a contest, promo, or giveaway?

In my years as a marketing expert, I’ve noticed that companies fall into one of two camps when it comes to incentives. The first camp consists of the anti-incentives crowd. These brands might feel that giving a free incentive would denigrate their product or service. They believe that such promotions (or even discounts) could damage the brand even if they attract new customers. Antis see incentives as pandering to their consumers. The second camp is filled with pro-incentives people. Such brands believe that people love free stuff, therefore free stuff will attract customers. This group is all about giving away promotional materials, too. (Coincidentally, brands like these are the reason we have uniquequirky, and just plain weird marketing swag.)

Both sides make fair points. You don’t want your brand to appear aloof, but you don’t want customers to take you for granted, either. There’s a way to balance both. Let’s discuss contests, promos, and giveaways, along with incentives!

Contests are events in which individuals (or teams) compete for a prize. They are a great way to get user-generated content (UGC). Often, brands will ask customers to post pictures or create videos that meet certain requirements. 

Tagline: “Send us your best pic, and the winner will receive an all-expenses-paid cruise!”

Promos (short for promotions) are limited-time offers or events that are held to encourage consumer engagement. Brands want to attract new customers, so they’ll offer free shipping for a given time period. Some companies offer discounts to new users or members. In several U.S. states, the school year is preceded by a “tax-free weekend,” in which the government forgoes sales taxes in an effort to increase back-to-school shopping at local establishments. 

Tagline: “Buy-one-get-one-free sale on pens this weekend only!”

Giveaways are when a brand gives an item or provides a service free of charge to consumers for promotional reasons. These can range from a free gift with purchase to giving out promotional swag to passersby. 

Tagline: “Free gift with every purchase!” 

As you decide what you want to do, you need to think about the following points.

1. Competition 
This point could just as well be labeled “research.” Find out what your competitors are doing. While you want to stand out from the crowd, knowing industry norms will keep you from looking reckless or foolish. For example, a Porsche dealership wouldn’t hold a buy-one-get-one (BOGO) for free deal on cars, but they might throw in free oil changes and other maintenance for the lifetime of the vehicle.

2. Incentives
There are actually two types of incentives. The incentive could be a reward, i.e., something that could be considered a bonus. With the above example, a reward might be the inclusion of an official Porsche crest keyring. The incentive could be a motivator, i.e., something that would push your audience through the decision process faster. In the previous example, the free maintenance acts as a motivator. The great thing about the types is that you can combine them or use them concurrently. One final note on incentives: it should be something complimentary to your service or product. An insurance company might give out a free umbrella to new clients, for instance.

I personally believe that incentives can be great for your brand’s sales and reputation. I’ll leave you with a story that, to me, proves the value of an incentive.

The Go! Agency handles the marketing for a franchise of assisted living facilities. One challenge they faced was that caregivers of potential residents who toured their properties would love what they saw, but choose another home for their loved one. These decisions were often based on price and other factors that our client could not control. We decided to add value to the tours by creating an ebook that explained what you should ask about a potential assisted living facility. At the end of each tour, the guide would say, “I know that you’ll probably continue looking around and researching your options. We totally understand–you want to find what’s best for your family! Anyway, the website has a link to an ebook we’ve written. The book gives you some questions that we’ve had people ask time and time again. We’ve chosen the most important ones, so it should be useful if you tour another residence.”

BOOM

By sharing knowledge, our client is now an expert. 

BOOM

By trying to help out caregivers, our client is now a resource.

BOOM

By emphasizing that they understand, our client has now endeared themselves to that family.

All because of an incentive. 

Contests, promos, and giveaways are great for encouraging engagement from your audience and drawing attention to your brand. You can do so much with these events, both in terms of money made and buzz generated. 

Do you need help with with an event, or your overall marketing strategy? Discover what my team of marketing experts can do for your brand! Contact me today for a free consultation!

 

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7 Questions to Answer When Creating a Holiday Sale

091718 7 Questions to Answer When Creating a Holiday Sale
17Sep

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Small Business Saturday . . . . We’re about to enter the holiday sales season!  

I have seen so many brands crash and burn when it comes to holiday sales. Either they do no promotion at all or they go overboard and spend a fortune promoting the sale. You don’t want to do either! Sales should be organized, promoted, and measured. Never wait until the last minute to plan your sale! And remember that you have to budget for the whole season: you should never throw all of your holiday budget into promoting your Black Friday sale, for example. 

I’ll let you in on a secret: you can learn a lot from your competitors! What are their promotions like? How far in advance did they begin promoting the sale? What discounts are they offering? Do some research and see what the norms are for your industry.

On to the nitty-gritty! Here are seven big questions you should answer. 

1. What is Your Goal? 
What are your desired results from this sale? Do you want to reach new customers or gain exposure? Do you want to make room for new inventory? Do you want to make money? This will affect the details of your sale, like prices and discounts.

2. Does Your Sale Revolve Around the Price or the Product? 
“But wait,” you say. “Don’t sales involve both?” I’m talking about discounts versus bundles here. Are you offering your merchandise at a blanket discount (“20% off the whole store!”) or are you grouping products/services into bundles (“Buy One, Get One half price!”)?

3. How Will You Measure Success?  
Determine what metrics you will use to gauge your success. One thing you should absolutely find out is the total amount grossed from the sale, minus the total amount spent on promoting the sale. Other metrics might include counting unique website visitors, new email marketing subscribers, or social media engagements.

4. Where Are You Going to Promote It?  
You should definitely advertise your sale on social media, but how do you choose which platform? The obvious answer would be: the platform which is most frequently used by your target audience. Boosted or sponsored posts on the right platforms are crucial!

5. What is Your Promotional Budget? 
Speaking of sponsored posts, you’ll need to determine your promotional budget. What will you spend on ads and boosted posts? For online merchants who also have brick and mortar stores, will you be making any physical materials like flyers or signs? Keep in mind that this might not be the only sale you will have during the holiday season–budget accordingly!

6. What is Your Timeline?  
This not only includes the time of the sale itself, but the lead-up to the sale. How long will the sale itself last–a few days, one day, a few hours? A good timeline is thorough! You should include deadlines for writing ad copy, designing visuals, and placing advertisements; additionally, you need a deadline for sending your website or IT team the necessary codes and information for the website! As I mentioned above, you should look at your competitors and other companies in your industry to determine discounts, duration, and other specifics. 

7. Is Your Website Ready?  
The doomsday scenario for every online merchant is a website crash on the day of a major sale! Don’t let this happen to you! Consult with your website design team to double check that your online store is stable and ready for an influx of customers. Contact your web host to ensure that their servers can handle the anticipated above-average volume of traffic. If possible, ask your IT person to be on standby during the sale–especially for weekends or holidays, but expect to pay for their time–in case of emergency issues.

There you have it! These will help you plan the holiday sale–without losing your holiday cheer! I’ve learned from experience that there’s no such thing as a stress-free sale, but these questions will help keep you focused!

Do you need marketing help for the holidays and beyond? Contact us today for a free consultation!

 

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How to Create the Perfect Budget for Holiday Marketing

0910 Go Blog
10Sep

I know, I know, I know. Budgeting at this time of year can be challenging at best. As we go into the 4th quarter, most of the marketing budget has probably already been spent. Every business enters the crucial 4th quarter period counting pennies and figuring out ways to cut costs so that they can still somehow end the year with a bang.

Why is this an issue for so many companies? Why does it keep happening year after year? 

Two words: poor planning. 

You don’t account for surprise marketing expenses. You don’t adequately track your annual marketing spend. You just don’t plan.

Listen, what’s done is done: you need to move forward. Tomorrow is a new day–a day when you still will have the ability to plan and budget for your success. The wonderful world of social media marketing has many hidden expenses that can pop up suddenly. So expect the unexpected–and include the unexpected in your budget! 

Let’s throw the other important factor into the mix: the holiday season. You need to answer some basic questions before you can begin your preparations. Are you a product company or a service company? Do you know what you should realistically expect to pay for social media advertising during the busy holiday season? What are your objectives? How much saturation will you need to overcome in your market? What are your competitors doing? 

Now that you have those basics, how do you prepare the perfect budget for your holiday marketing on social media? Here are my tried-and-true, go-to tips to help you begin!

  1. The Objectives: What does your business need to achieve in that all-important 4th quarter? Increase number or amount of sales? Get rid of old stock? Build awareness for an upcoming initiative or launch? Your first step when it comes to any budget is to understand what you want to achieve. 
  2. The Where: Once you understand what you want to achieve, you need to think about where you’re going to focus your efforts. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube? All of them? This is important as each one of these has not only a different price tag for entry, but includes a whole separate set of work. 
  3. The Who: Now that you have objectives and social media sites in mind, who is doing the work. In-house, or are you outsourcing? Why – there is a cost associated with this decision. 

Now it’s time to work on your budget: 

  1. What Are You Working With? Take a look at your annual budget and see what is left. How much will you be able to allocate to your social media marketing for the holiday season? 
  2. What Is Your Timeline? How long will your holiday marketing campaign last? Do you want to slowly escalate it, or stay at one pace? When will you be doing the most marketing? 
  3. What About Advertising? If you don’t plan on outsourcing your social media efforts, this will be your only remaining price pusher. How much do you want to spend on social media advertising? If you are new to this concept, I would suggest Facebook Advertising. It has a low barrier to entry and will help you understand how to execute a campaign. My top tip is to test ideas for your advertising accounts before you launch the full holiday campaign!

This will help you get your ducks–or reindeer–in a row. Remember that the more you spend on social media advertising (when the correct audience and metrics are in place, of course), the more results you will see. Now get going! 

 

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Social Media Marketing Evaluation: Breweries

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING EVALUATION_ BREWERIES
30Jul

For the rest of the summer, The Go! Agency blog will focus on the social media habits of  some of our favorite industries. Every week, our first blog will explain common mistakes made by an industry; followed by a second blog that will explain how to fix them. Think of this series as What Not to Wear for social media marketers!

This week we’ll see what breweries are doing on social media that torpedo their chance of marketing success.

Hyperfocus on Beer

We get it. You make beer. You serve beer. Presumably, you enjoy beer. That’s great, but so does every other brewery in the history of fermentation. What makes your brewery different? Do you have a monthly game night? Are you pet-friendly? Do you support any charities? Is your building historic? Does your brewery double as a venue, maybe for weddings or concerts? What about art shows, open-mic nights, rap battles, or slam poetry festivals? Show users why your establishment is worth their time, money, and commute. (Brew pubs and restaurant breweries, take note: you are just as guilty of this as your hoppy brethren. If your social media posts are mostly shots of meal pairings or beer-based menu items–no matter how creative the recipe or avant-garde the presentation–your page will be boring.)

Speaking of which, the “picture of a beer bottle/beer can with the beer’s name as the only description” trope needs to go away. Even if the label art is phenomenal, even if the beer’s name is a hilarious and profound pun containing layers of allusions–these posts are boring. It is possible to have too much minimalism: people who are interested in your product would like to get information on your product.

Wall-to-Wall Promotion

On a similar note, far too many breweries focus solely on promoting their wares. By all means, post shots of seasonal menu specials, beer pairing dinners, and full dining rooms. However, your social media profile should showcase your brand as a whole: that means showing followers your corporate personality, not just your products.

POST ALL THE MEMES! 

[Author’s note: runners-up for this subheading title included “All your beers are belong to us”; “ERMAHGERD! AAYELLE!”; “i can haz pilznar?”; and “Such Hops, Much Ferment.”]

Memes are, for better or worse, now part of our culture. Even the best memes, however, can get very boring very quickly–particularly when they make up 70 percent or more of your social media posts. A much more effective way to show followers that you are funny, hip, and/or edgy is to actually introduce the funny, hip, and/or edgy people who work for you. A few memes can add humor and a spark of irreverence to your social media profile, but use them sparingly.

Haphazard Posting Schedules

In the month leading up to the release of a new beer, you posted eight times a week. In the three months following that release, you posted eight times period. Be consistent with your posting schedule. At the very least, major activity promoting a new brew immediately followed by radio silence might make followers think that your new release was a flop–otherwise you’d be posting about it, right? You should always choose quality over quantity, so it’s fine to forgo posting lackluster content just for the sake of posting something. That being said, you should establish and stick to a consistent posting schedule.

Monotonous Content

You can have too many photos of sunsets from the porch. You can have too many shots of dogs wearing bandanas. You can have too many pics of your staff gathered around a keg, of bartenders pouring a pint, and patrons raising their glasses in silent toast. Mix it up a bit. 

Bad Photos

This is a universal mistake that is made by every industry (yes, even some professional photographers are guilty of this on social media). You don’t necessarily need to hire a pro, but you do need to take visuals seriously. You want your images to look polished–and don’t just assume that any mistakes can be fixed by using a filter. Far too often, breweries seem to think that an Instagram filter is the answer for everything, only to end up with washed-out, over-exposed, poorly-cropped pictures.

In out next post, we’ll take a look at a hypothetical brewery that has committed all of these social media sins. We’ll explain how to remedy these issues in our next post!

Is your brand languishing in obscurity? Are you struggling with social media? The Go! Agency can help revitalize your social media marketing strategy! Contact us today for a free consultation!

 

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Not a Popularity Contest: Social Media Metrics that Matter

Not a Popularity Contest: Social Media Metrics that Matter
25Jul

Too many novice social media marketers focus on the wrong metrics when measuring the success of their social media campaigns. They regress to 10th grade students at a new school: desperate to be liked, seeking out the quickest way to popularity. Like those high school sophomores, they don’t consider what they really need or want and instead pursue goals that won’t actually benefit them in the long term. Don’t mistake popularity for validation when it comes to your brand’s goals–in fact, don’t mistake likes for popularity. Determine your goals and then apply strategies that will help you get to those goals. We’ll explain a few of the key metrics today.

1. Engagement

Likes are nice, but on their own will not give you a good indication of audience engagement. You should focus on active participation. For example, comments and replies are proof that your audience is invested in your content. The number of shares will help you determine what content is perceived as valuable or interesting by your audience. Review your content to see what content received the most comments and shares. Do they have anything in common, like subject matter or posting time? What are the commonalities among your less-popular, less-shared posts?

2. Awareness

You don’t want to waste time, effort, and resources on a campaign designed to increase likes when reach is more relevant to your goals. Impressions are number of times that someone sees content (tweet, update, post, ad, etc.). Reach is the number of unique individuals who see the content. If Ward sees an ad for Daughters of the Dragon Sriracha Marinade three times, that ad has three impressions and a reach of one. For some brands and under some circumstances, impressions might be paramount; for other brands and circumstances, reach matters more. Brands that want to broaden their audiences and find new consumers should focus on reach, while brands that want to strengthen their message to their existing audiences should focus on impressions.

3. Conversions

How many users were so impacted by your content or message that they took action? That is conversion in a nutshell. To determine this, you’ll need to have already determined your goals. Note that this should be more than “complete a purchase.” Do you want users to share your content? Do you want users to go to your website? Enter a contest? Fill out a survey? Measuring conversions can be as simple as tracking click rates. Take Joy’s law firm as an example. She ultimately wants prospective clients to come in for a free consultation at Meachum & Gao, but she understands that achieving this will take many steps. Therefore, her immediate conversion goal is for people to click through links from the firm’s social media profiles to the firm’s webpage. By tracking the click rate, she can see what content is most compelling to prospective clients. Armed with this information, she will be able to create enticing content that will motivate prospective clients to contact her office.

Remember that your goals will probably change over time, so it’s important to periodically reevaluate your strategies. Above all, don’t get too comfortable! Savvy social media marketers know that you must continually adapt and evolve to keep up with current trends as well as the needs of your consumers. 

What metrics have you found to be most valuable for your marketing strategy? Share with us in the comments!

Are you lost when it comes to social media? We can show you the path to digital marketing success! Contact us today for your free consultation!

 

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