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How to Use the 2018 Holiday Season to Drive Sales https://ift.tt/2EThawX With the holiday season quickly approaching, your business needs to take steps to prepare for a potential surge in sales. But you can’t assume people will buy from your brand during the holidays if you sit back and do nothing. The brands able to recognize the latest marketing trends will have success in the coming months. Consumers are willing and able to spend money during the holidays. It’s a fact. How you prepare and position yourself will determine how much of the market share your company will control. Even though the ecommerce industry is a competitive space, there is plenty of money to go around. In fact, experts predict ecommerce sales to increase by 17-22% during the 2018 holiday season. November 1st to January 31st is considered the holiday season. I know what some of you are thinking. There are holidays throughout the entire year. What makes the ones during those dates so special? Research shows consumers say they will spend nearly $800 during the winter holidays: On average, they spend more money during the winter holidays than during all the other top-spending holidays combined. It’s the season of giving, and it’s usually a happy time of year. People are feeling generous when buying gifts for their friends and family. However, the holiday season can be stressful. The weather starts to get colder. Stores get busier. Consumers feel overwhelmed with the length of their to-do lists. As a marketer, you need to make the buying process as easy as possible for the customer. With your ecommerce platform, there is no reason for people to fight the crowds at their local shopping malls. They can buy holiday gifts from the comfort of their homes. I’ll explain how you can use this situation to your advantage and benefit from a major boost in ecommerce sales during the 2018 holiday season. Don’t wait to start your promotionsWhen is it appropriate to start running holiday ads? Right now. You need to learn how to build hype for the holiday season as an ecommerce brand. This is your chance to let people know what to expect. Tell them what type of sales you’ll be running or whether you’re planning to release a new product around that time. They may not necessarily buy something the first time they see your holiday ad, but be persistent. Continue running promotions on all your distribution channels. When consumers are ready to buy, your business will be on their minds. All too often I see ecommerce brands hesitant to start these promotions early. They think it’s a waste of money because people don’t start shopping until late November at the earliest. But that’s not the case. Research shows that only 27% of consumers don’t purchase any gifts before Thanksgiving: This means that more than 70% of people have done at least some holiday shopping before Thanksgiving. It’s not unreasonable for a customer to buy gifts during the first week of November. The earlier you can start your holiday promotions, the greater chance you’ll have of driving more ecommerce sales. Recognize the most popular shopping daysAs you can see, there is a surge in ecommerce sales between November and January. But some days are more popular than others during that time. Over the past five years, Cyber Monday and Black Friday have consistently been the most popular days for holiday shoppers: We’ve all seen those crazy Black Friday videos every year. Hundreds of customers running into stores, trampling on anything and anyone who gets in their way. Six people fist-fighting over the last TV in the store. It’s madness. Why does this happen? It’s because everyone loves to get a deal. As an ecommerce brand, you need to run ads promoting ways customers can save money by shopping online. They don’t need to deal with that mayhem to get a bargain. Here’s another strategy you can consider. There’s no need for you to wait till Cyber Monday to slash your prices. Since so many people are shopping during those two days, your brand could get lost in the shuffle. To stand out, create your own brand holiday that same week. Send out email reminders, post on social media, and update your website. Then your customers will know they can get great deals on the Tuesday or Wednesday before or after Cyber Monday. If you implement this strategy, you should still continue to run deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The last thing you want to do is let your competitors steal your customers during the two most popular shopping days of the year. Put emphasis on your return policyObviously, you don’t want to deal with returns. However, your return policy is important to your customers. This is especially true during the holiday season. When people buy gifts, they don’t know whether the recipient will like what they get. What if they already have one? What if the size is wrong? That’s probably why holiday ecommerce return rates are so high. Customers are more than three times as likely to return a holiday ecommerce purchase than a standard brick and mortar purchase. Ecommerce return rates are 10% higher during the holidays than the rest of the year. Furthermore, 80% of consumers expect free returns. However, only 25% of retailers have a free return policy. This is your chance to differentiate yourself from the competition. Offer free returns. We know that 83% of customers read return policies before buying something, so make sure this information is easy to find on your website. Here’s something else you should keep in mind: 72% of consumers are willing to shop more frequently and spend more money with businesses offering easy returns. If you make this process simple, you can boost revenue by optimizing the customer experience. Consider extending the length of your return deadlines, especially during the holiday season. Here’s why. Even if your company has a 30-day return policy with no questions asked, it still may not be good enough. What if someone buys a gift for Christmas in early November? The return policy could be invalid before the recipient even opens their gift. Take all of this into consideration when you’re creating your return policy. Advertise how easy it is for customers to return gifts without any hassle. Don’t charge for shippingIn addition to offering free returns, you should offer free shipping as well. I already discussed how much money people plan to spend during the holidays. They’ll do whatever they can to save money when they have the chance. If they are torn between buying something from two different brands, they’ll ultimately decide to go with the company that will ship their items free. Don’t underestimate the importance of this. Free shipping was cited by consumers as the most important option when buying online: The reason why businesses don’t offer free shipping is because they don’t want the cost to come out of their pockets, which is understandable. To offset the shipping cost, just raise the prices of your products. Your customers won’t know the difference. They’re still paying for the advertised price and can benefit from free shipping. Here’s an analogy. Have you ever stayed at a hotel offering free breakfast? Obviously, that breakfast isn’t free. Its cost was included in your nightly rate. The same concept can be applied to free shipping. Offer rewards for customer loyaltyThe holiday season shouldn’t be a time for you to start focusing on customer acquisition. Would you be happy with getting new customers? Absolutely. But that doesn’t mean you should be marketing to a new audience. Instead, focus on generating sales from your existing customers. These people already know who you are and what you stand for. They’re familiar with your products and don’t need any introduction. You can increase sales by implementing a customer loyalty program. You can use this strategy all year. Research indicates 82% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands offering loyalty programs. If you have these programs in place, make sure you remind your loyal customers they can save money with their rewards during the holidays. As I said before, people are spending a ton of money during this season, so they’ll gladly look for any way to save a few bucks whenever possible. During the holidays, 86% of consumers will stay loyal to businesses that have rewards programs: Furthermore, 90% of shoppers say they plan to take advantage of rewards programs during the holiday season. And 50% of consumers plan to use those rewards to buy more gifts than they normally would. But just because someone is a member of your rewards program doesn’t mean they won’t buy from another brand. The average consumer participates in four different rewards programs. To ensure your customers buy from you instead of your competitors, you need to offer better rewards and incentives. Make it easy for customers to track shippingEarlier I mentioned that people are stressed during the holidays. They have much to do and have many things on their minds. To stay organized, people want the ability to track the progress of their orders. You should send shipping notifications and tracking numbers to your customers. This is a great chance for you to create an actionable drip campaign. First, send an email to the customer confirming their order was completed. Then, send a second email notifying them the order has shipped. This is an appropriate time to include the tracking number. Finally, send a third email when the product has been delivered. Click-through rates to tracking pages increase during the holiday season: This should tell you that consumers are genuinely interested in tracking their orders. It gives them a chance to make sure everything is going according to schedule. Studies show 93% of consumers refer to their emails for these notifications, and 38% of people want to be contacted on multiple channels. If applicable, consider sending text messages and push notifications. Here is another reason why tracking packages is such an important feature for you to offer. Statistics indicate that 33% of people have had packages stolen from their doorsteps. Nearly 26 million Americans had packages stolen from their doorsteps or front porches during the 2017 holiday season. With ecommerce sales expected to rise during the 2018 holiday season, it’s safe to assume theft will rise as well. These are alarming numbers, but it’s reality. By alerting your customers their orders have been delivered, you can help reduce the chances of theft of their purchases. Prioritize mobile commerceBy now, I hope you’ve recognized the importance of mobile optimization. Your website should be mobile friendly, and some of you may have even developed a successful mobile commerce app. Don’t overlook mobile commerce during the holidays. It should remain an important part of your marketing strategy. On Black Friday of 2017, 57% of ecommerce traffic came from mobile devices. People were using their smartphones even while shopping in stores. Mobile commerce held a 37% revenue share last year during the holidays. This was up from 17.5% in 2016. I expect this trend to continue rising in 2018 and the coming years as well. Consumers will turn to their mobile devices to buy during the holidays. As you can see from these numbers, ecommerce brands with mobile apps will have a competitive advantage here. Make sure you utilize all the features at your disposal. Send out push notifications to mobile app users to remind them of flash sales. You can also send notifications about order updates, which I discussed when talking about tracking orders. Appeal to those last-minute shoppersEarlier I told you that you should start advertising as soon as possible because people start shopping for the holidays sooner than you may think. But some people just love waiting until the last minute. Don’t stop running your holiday campaigns until the season is officially over. Make sure you find ways to appeal to last-minute shoppers. The best way to do this is by offering fast shipping options: As you can see, people who wait until the last minute to buy gifts are significantly more likely to buy from retailers offering fast delivery. Last-minute shoppers are 39% more likely to abandon their shopping carts if the delivery options are too slow. Overall, 67% of consumers abandoned ecommerce shopping carts in the last year because of slow delivery times. This is a 16% increase from last year. And 92% of consumers said that receiving their delivery on time was the most important factor they considered when purchasing a gift. Unfortunately, it may not be reasonable to combine your fast delivery feature with your free shipping incentive. If a last-minute shopper needs something shipped overnight two days before Christmas, they’ll have to pay a premium for shipping. But by this point, they’re willing to pay as long as it arrives on time. ConclusionThe holiday season is a great opportunity for you to take advantage of consumer spending habits. Since they spend more money, you have a chance to make more money. But this won’t come automatically. Start promoting your holiday sales as early as possible. Run your best deals on the most popular shopping days of the year. Make it appealing for customers to buy from you instead of your competition. Offer free shipping. Have a hassle-free return policy. Reward your most loyal customers. Allow your customers to see their order status and track the shipping of their packages. Don’t forget about mobile customers and last-minute shoppers. Follow the advice I’ve outlined above, and use this guide as a reference to generate sales during the 2018 holiday season. Happy holidays! How is your business planning on appealing to holiday shoppers this season? Social Media via Quick Sprout https://ift.tt/UU7LJr October 29, 2018 at 10:11AM
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How to Create the Perfect Instagram Ad in 10 Minutes https://ift.tt/2EQcjwC Instagram ads are a great way to share your content with the platformâs one billion users. Theyâre invaluable for growing your followers, building your brand, and driving sales. The key to a successful Instagram ad strategy is experimenting and refining. Rapidly generating and testing ads will help you learn quickly what works best for your brand and your target audience. You donât need to spend a ton of time on each oneâyou just need to understand the most essential elements of an awesome ad. In this post weâll guide you through creating a perfect Instagram ad in only 10 minutes. We also have a step-by-step breakdown on the art of Instagram ads, if you need a more detailed primer. Note: To run Instagram ads, youâll need to set up an Instagram business account and then link to your companyâs Facebook Page. Ready? Letâs go! Bonus: Download a free checklist that reveals the exact steps an adventure photographer used to grow from 0 to 110,000 followers on Instagram with no budget and no expensive gear. Minute 1: Set your goalDecide what action you want people to take when they see your ad. An Instagram ad isnât like a Swiss army knife: it should have only one purpose. Are you promoting a new product? Sharing a limited-time offer? Raising awareness about your brand? Choose the objective that best aligns with your advertising goal. It should be clear and simple, to you and your audience. This objective is the foundation of your ad, so keep it in mind for the next nine minutes. Minutes 2 + 3: Consider your audienceNext, take a couple of minutes to decide who you want to reach with your ad. Understanding your audience is key to creating ads that catch their attention and make them want to click. If you have them, audience personas can be helpful here too! Here are a couple of tips to keep in mind: Stay focusedIf your goal is to reach as many people as possible, it might be tempting to leave your audience filters wide open. But honing in on a specific segment or demographic will provide you with more useful data about your audienceâs preferences and interests, and ultimately help you refine your ad strategy. Want to share an in-store promotion or drive registration for an upcoming event? Narrow your audience by location, like the example above. Trying to reach new customers? Use a lookalike audience to find people who share similarities with your existing customers. Donât wear out your welcomeThere is one thing that all audiences on Instagram have in common: a short attention span. You donât want people to get bored of your ad, so set it to expire after a week or two. Then you can take what youâve learned and put it in action for your next 10 minute ad. Minutes 4 + 5: Add a compelling imageNow weâre ready for everyoneâs favorite part of Instagram: the visuals. Ads on Instagram can take the form of photos or videos, in the Feed or as Stories. For the purposes of this 10-minute overview, weâre sticking with the OG: a Photo Ad. Hereâs how to choose an excellent photo, fast: Pick a representative imageYour ad should be aligned with the rest of your brand identity, as well as the landing page that your audience will see when they click (more on that at minute 9!) Think of it as a window display for a shop: itâs a curated look at whatâs inside. To that end, make sure your image aligns with the rest of your brand identity! When someone clicks on your ad, the experience on the other side should mirror the look of your ad. Stick to high-quality imagesInstagram has always been a visuals-first platform, and that rule applies to ads too. No matter how incredible your offer is, if youâre leading with a lackluster photo, your audience will just scroll on to the perfectly-lit brunch post below. If you need a crash course in Instagram photography, you can learn how to take an excellent photo using only your phone and how to edit to perfection. The maximum size for an Instagram photo is 1936 x 1936 pixels. Stick to that size to ensure your photo isnât blurry or grainy, and looks sharp on every screen. Showcase the offerIf youâre promoting a specific offer and aiming for conversions, it can help to include the offer right in the image. Just make sure youâre not sacrificing quality for directness. Your ad still needs to stand out and appeal to your audience. To paraphrase Tyra Banks: Convert, but make it fashion. Evoke emotionThink about your audience again. How do you want them to feel when they see your ad? What will appeal to them and make them want to click? For instance, you can appeal to their sense of humor by using a cheeky visual or a funny photo. Or you could create a different kind of mood that reflects your brand or offer. For instance, Flax Sleep is creating a tranquil, cozy vibe that makes you want to crawl into bedâwhich is perfect, because theyâre a bedding company. Minutes 6 â 8 : Craft your copyStunning images may be the foundation of Instagram, but captions are invaluable for driving engagement and showing your brandâs personality. You donât need to be a wordsmith to write a killer caption. Just follow a few simple principles. Stay focusedRemember six minutes ago when you set a goal for your campaign? Whatever your ad objective is should be reflected in your caption. Use direct, compelling language, so that your audience is clear about whatâs waiting beyond that click. Donât overthink this! Imagine how you would describe your offer or product in a single sentence to a friend. It doesnât need to be fancy to achieve results. A helpful shortcut when writing captions is to borrow wording from your landing page. This consistent messaging will build trust and reinforce your offer. Use your character count wiselyYou can include up to 2,200 characters in an Instagram ad caption. However, unless youâre selling some kind of quantum mechanical time machine, you probably donât need that much space to explain your offer. Since only the first few lines will be visible without clicking for more, place the most important details at the beginning of your caption. Donât feel like you need to use up every character if you can make your point in less. Your photo is worth a thousand words, so your caption can be brief! Bonus: Download a free checklist that reveals the exact steps an adventure photographer used to grow from 0 to 110,000 followers on Instagram with no budget and no expensive gear. Get the free checklist right now!Create urgencyHow can you compel people to act now? Encourage audiences to click by emphasizing that your offer is limited in time or quantity. Hereâs an effective example from Girlfriend: Show your personalityYour ads are part of your overall brand identity, and they should reflect your values and character. Donât get so focused on the details of your offer that you abandon your authentic voice. Especially if youâre targeting awareness (rather than conversions or engagement), your caption is your opportunity to make a memorable first impression. Minutes 9 + 10 : Add the finishing touchesYouâre almost done! Just a few last steps as you wrap up your ad. Choose your destinationWhere are you sending people when they click your ad? A clear, focused landing page will drive conversions and reinforce your offer. Wherever your send them, make sure the next step â whether itâs a purchase, subscription, or sign up â is crystal clear! Add the CTAInstagram has a menu of CTA buttons, which will appear between your image and caption. Choose the one that aligns with the message in your copy and the goal of your campaign. Preview your masterpieceTime to take a moment to check your work and look at the ad as a whole. Donât race through this step! You still have one whole minute. Is the most important part of your offer getting cut off? Rearrange your copy. Is your CTA redundant? Edit your caption, or switch up your CTA selection. This is also your moment to triple-check spelling, grammar and tone. Itâs amazing (and embarrassing) how easy it is to miss your own typos. For peace of mind, I always ask someone else to have a glance before I take my ads live. And thatâs it! You nailed the perfect Instagram ad in only 10 minutes. The best part is, this ad cycle will provide you with new insights to inform your social media marketing strategy. Good luck! Save time managing your Instagram presence using Hootsuite. From a single dashboard you can schedule and publish photos directly to Instagram, engage the audience, measure performance, and run all your other social media profiles. Try it free today. Social Media via Hootsuite Social Media Management https://ift.tt/1LdunxE October 29, 2018 at 08:26AM
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4 Easy Tips to Make Social Media Videos More Engaging https://ift.tt/2zcGmIP Are you trying to make social media videos that are more engaging? Do you know what you need to do to draw in more viewers, hold their interest, and encourage them to react to your videos? Although making social media videos engaging may sound like a tall order, there are actually several easy tips that can help:
Right at the start of every video, you should add a strong hook. The majority of viewers take just about 8 seconds to decide whether to watch a video or not, and a good hook could help sway them into continuing to watch yours. The hook that you add should quickly let viewers know what the video is about, and how it will benefit them to watch it. In short, it should provide a compelling reason that will make viewers want to watch the video.
The most engaging videos on social media share one thing in common: They trigger an emotional reaction in viewers. That is something that you should try to emulate with your videos – by trying to create videos that tickle viewers and get them to laugh, make them feel inspired, or even surprise and shock them. While triggering emotional reactions can be tricky, a good place to start is by structuring it as a story so that viewers feel more emotionally-invested in it. On top of that, you should use the right music to help forge a more powerful emotional connection, and for example you could use Movavi Screen Recorder to rip audio from SoundCloud if necessary. The more intense an emotional reaction you trigger, the more likely it is that viewers will feel driven to react to your video and share, comment, or perform other actions.
Overall the videos that you create for social media should be short. The attention span of the audience on social media tends to be low, and short videos have a far better chance of being watched to completion. The optimal length for social media videos does vary from platform to platform, but try to keep your videos about a minute-long at most. If you feel the video topic is too broad to be covered in that duration, try narrowing it down and maybe even breaking it up into several shorter videos.
Videos are more visually stimulating than other types of content, and that is one of the reasons they are generally more engaging. The more you are able to capitalize on the unique ability of videos to deliver information visually, the more engaging your videos will be. The best way to do that is to always try to find ways to ‘show’ the message rather than telling viewers about it using a voiceover, or spelling it out with text. If you can find creative ways to deliver your videos’ message visually, odds are you’ll be able to hook viewers and keep them interested for much longer. Now that you know how to make your social media videos more engaging, the next step is to put it into practice. Start applying the tips listed above, and be sure to track the performance of your videos so that you can see how they affect engagement levels. As you publish more and more videos, you should analyze their performance and try to pinpoint what your audience seems to respond to. In time that can help you to improve your videos further and make them even more engaging. The post 4 Easy Tips to Make Social Media Videos More Engaging appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog October 29, 2018 at 08:22AM
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Can Chatbots solve your Omni-channel needs? https://ift.tt/2Jn5Rvy Research published on ScienceDirect identified integration and automation as one of the most pressing challenges in Omni-channel digital communications. Experts at Harvard assert that a sample size of 46000 shoppers confirmed that Omni-channel retailing is a successful model – and clearly most experts on e-commerce agree if you consider adoption rates. So have we moved closer to any real solutions yet? How SnatchBot enables omni-channel communication:Garnering over 24,000 users in less than 18 months from launch, SnatchBot has been experiencing a rapid growth in the chatbot industry. The chatbot is swiftly innovating the most important aspects of a business—productivity, customer service, and user interaction. With the recent integration of the Line messenger, the SnatchBot is expanding into the Japan and Asian market with its cloud-based bot design, publishing, and analytics platform. The Line social network has over 200 million users; this will positively impact the growth of SnatchBot. The growth of SnatchBot is so staggering that people in the technology are beginning to seek to know what sets SnatchBot apart, and why it is been chosen for omni-channel communication. Understanding omni-channel communication Omni-channel communication is the term used to define the ease of flow in transferring a communication from one platform without losing the line of communication or having to restart the communication. It is the seamless continuation of a communication that was initiated on a business platform and continuing it on another communication network integrated into the business. It is 2018 and businesses now have websites, mobile apps, as well as social media presence in major social networks like Facebook and Telegram. Customers want to be able to continue a chat they initiated on the business app on the company’s website without having to start all over again or supplying the information they had already provided on the app. This integrated approach to enhancing customer experience is what many enterprises are focusing on. Right now, SnatchBot is the only chatbot that allows businesses to synchronize social networks. This means that a user can start a conversation on Line messenger and continue on the website without interruption. This helps in seamlessly converting interactions to transactions. The modern user is tech savvy, and the need for a communication channel that easy, fast and self-serviceable regardless of location or device has been on the rise. How SnatchBot is positioning itself in modern communication According to the CTO and co-founder, Avi Ben-Ezra, SnatchBot wants to convey information at blistering speed. Using the analogy of weightlifting, SnatchBot seeks to involve in the most vital moment of snatching. The technology lifts the heaviest weight of business—customer service. There are several chatbots in the market that simply apply a routine question and answer framework, but this is a distasteful technology for users who want solutions that are tailored to their specific emotional and technical needs. This is why SnatchBot stands out. It utilizes the power of NLP and artificial intelligence to create an exciting and engaging experience for the users. The imaginativeness of SnatchBot ensures that the chatbot is well positioned above several pseudo-chatbots which offer limited and boring customer experience. Now, SnatchBot offers voice-activated chatbots that people can use even while driving or reading a newspaper; the chatbot may be venturing into the car industry soon. Their state-of-the-art NLP integration ensures that both users and business owners can effectively use the technology without having a coding background. The vision SnatchBot is a complete PaaS. PaaS is an acronym for Platform as a Service; as a PaaS, SnatchBot is accelerating the trend of allowing customers to design their own chatbots. Users can now design and develop their sophisticated chatbots on their platform without any coding experience. This is setting the pace and an excellent strategy to outwit other chatbots in the industry. With SaaS, SnatchBot is putting the creative power of developing a chatbot that is tailored to business needs in the hands of the business owners. Considering that the bots developed on the SnatchBot’s SaaS could be integrated with nearly all social channels, such as messaging tools like Facebook, Slack, and Skype, the complexity of handling customer complaints across several platforms is alleviated. Its communication channel includes text, voice, and email. In simple terms, SnatchBot allows you to build a chatbot that has a universal presence. In addition, SnatchBot has a variety of chatbot templates that have been pre-built in its store. This allows new users of the system to be able to have a template where they can start from. These templates cover functions such as hospitality, banking, customer service, healthcare, travel, e-commerce, and internet-of-things. Founded in 2015, the goal of expanding the accessibility of chatbots for all types and sizes of businesses is on track. Already, the chatbot boasts a host of integrations with the top social networks as well as website integration. With the development of PaaS and voice chat, SnatchBot is positioning itself as the rightful choice for omni-channel communication. The post Can Chatbots solve your Omni-channel needs? appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog October 29, 2018 at 06:56AM Top 5 Digital Marketing Courses for Gaining a Competitive Advantage https://ift.tt/2SlBEBj Career opportunities in digital marketing are on the rise. One industry report claims that 44% – in other words, nearly half – of businesses plan on bringing in more marketing talent, with the main focus being digital marketing. The reality is that knowing how to build a digital presence and reach out to target audiences online has become a necessity for businesses of all sizes. This means that not only is there currently a demand for digital marketing professionals, but that we can also expect to see that demand grow in the future. What can you do now to secure a piece of your own success in the industry? Start by taking a digital marketing certification course to polish your skills, develop insights and achieve a certificate as a bonus addition to your credentials. Here are the top 5 digital marketing certification courses that are available today. Simplilearn Digital Marketing Course – Digital Marketing Certified Associate Certification Training There are plenty of courses out there, but few that approach digital marketing from every angle. When you’re looking to become certified, it’s important that you have acquired every skill to enhance your potential for success. Simplilearn’s Digital Marketing Course is a complete, comprehensive option that will help you master every digital marketing discipline. Simplilearn’s Digital Marketing Course is ideal for a range of professionals, including those who are just starting in the world of marketing, and business professionals who are looking to build upon their existing skillset. Completing this course and becoming certified will instantly boost your professional value and prepare you for a variety of exciting careers in digital marketing. Course Features:
Digital Marketing Institute’s Certification for Digital Marketing & Sales Professionals The Digital Marketing Institute offers a range of certification courses that are explicitly designed for every level of digital marketing experience. Course options include Certified Digital Marketing Professional, Certified Digital Marketing Leader and Certified Digital Marketing Master. Whether you’re approaching a career in digital marketing from the starting line, or you have been working in the industry for years and you’re ready to level up your career opportunities and learning potential, the Digital Marketing Institute has a course that will fit your professional learning needs. Course Features:
American Marketing Association PCM Digital Marketing Exam Preparation The American Marketing Association, also known as the AMA, partnered with LinkedIn learning to provide a series of courses designed to take you on a learning path that will culminate in complete preparation for the Professional Certified Marketer (PCM) certification. The AMA PCM certification training is hard-hitting, providing participants with the knowledge they need to pass the exam and secure a position in the fast-growing, dynamic field of digital marketing. Course Features:
MarketMotive’s Digital Marketing Certification Course MarketMotive presents their Digital Marketing Certified Associate (DMCA) course to assist professionals in boosting their capabilities in core digital marketing strategies. This course prepares participants to enter the field with an industry-ready skillset that allows them to step right into the action. By completing this course, participants gain knowledge in core marketing principals, along with the ability to apply tools and marketing concepts to real life, brand building scenarios. Course Features:
EdX Wharton Digital Marketing EdX and Wharton University of Pennsylvania present a 4-course digital marketing program that provides participants with the essential digital marketing skills they need to gain a competitive advantage in the industry. For professionals that are looking to bridge the digital skills gap and want the designation of certification from one of the top university marketing programs, the EdX Wharton course path will provide the knowledge and skills you need to move forward in the industry. Course Features:
Businesses in every industry depend upon digital marketing professionals to help them stand out in the massive digital crowd and get noticed. As more brands realize this, the demand for professionals with excellent marketing skills and certifications is going to continue to grow. How are you preparing yourself for future success in the industry? A digital marketing certification course is an essential step in gaining the skills and confidence you need to establish yourself in one of the most critical areas of marketing today. Contact Simplilearn to discover more about our digital marketing course options and certifications and how we can help you elevate your career potential. The post Top 5 Digital Marketing Courses for Gaining a Competitive Advantage appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog October 29, 2018 at 06:56AM
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How to Use Facebook Dynamic Ads for Time-Sensitive Sales https://ift.tt/2z9WR8y Do you want to promote time-sensitive sales using Facebook ads? Wondering how to set up Facebook dynamic ads for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or other seasonal sales? In this article, you’ll discover how to set up your product feed to run Facebook dynamic ads with beginning and end dates.
#1: Design Product Images That Reflect the Holiday SeasonThis holiday season is the perfect opportunity to change up your creatives. You can and should differentiate them from the look you’ve been using the whole year, which your audience has grown accustomed to. There are two ways to spice up your creatives:
Using a creative frame allows you to style your Facebook dynamic ads quite easily. Check out this step-by-step walk-through on how to create frames for your dynamic ad campaigns. If creating a frame sounds a bit tedious, you can always use Facebook’s overlay feature to make your ads stand out. Although the feature is not as powerful and flexible as using a frame, you can grab your audience’s attention by displaying the percentage off the regular price, free delivery, and so on. Changing the creatives on your website may be time-consuming, especially if you have a large number of products on your site. If your promotion isn’t valid for all of your products, Facebook will let you focus on only the ones that are affected. #2: Set Up Your Product Feed for Time-Sensitive SalesThe product feed is the core of your Facebook dynamic ads. It contains information on all of the products you’ve uploaded to Facebook. Based on the information in your product feed, Facebook will populate your product catalog. Although the setup process may sound daunting, this article walks you through how to create a product feed with Google Sheets. This method of creating a product feed offers you flexibility to add columns that will come in handy for time-sensitive promotions. Add a current_price ColumnIncluding the current_price column in your feed lets you display a wealth of additional information on both your ad creative and copy. The frame below shows the current_price and price (strikethrough value). Insert sale_price_start_date and sale_price_end_date ColumnsIf you’re running time-sensitive sales where you need to display discounted prices for a specific time period without having to update the feed, the sale_price_start_date and sale_price_end_date columns are ideal. You’ll need to format dates according to the ISO‑8601 standard and input the time in GMT. So, for example, if you want to display the discounted price for a specific product starting on October 5, 2018 at 8:00 AM, enter 2018-10-05 08:00:00 in the row that corresponds to that product and under the column sale_price_start_date. These columns will work well with your Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions. Keep in mind that after the end date passes, your products will display the original prices. Use Custom LabelsFacebook provides five custom labels—custom_label_0, custom_label_1, custom_label_2, custom_label_3, custom_label_4—to insert additional information about your products. One great use for them is to store information on your margins, either in the form of text (low, medium, high profit margin) or a numeric value (10%, 25%, etc.). This isn’t data you’ll necessarily display in your Facebook dynamic ads, but it will help you create relevant product sets. Upload Your Products to Your Catalog ManuallyWhen you set up a catalog with Catalog Manager, you have the option to add products to it manually. After you select that option, you see a page where you can enter the details about the first product. Adding products manually is a good option if you have a small number of products to upload (fewer than 100). #3: Group Your Products Into Product SetsThe most common way to create Facebook dynamic ads is to use all of the products in your feed. However, if you create a product set, you can show more relevant products or tailor your bid strategy accordingly. To create a product set, go to Catalogs in your Business Manager. On the Product Sets tab, click the Create Product Set button. To create a product set, you need to apply filters based on the fields of your product feed. To create a product set with products from a specific brand, choose Brand from the first drop-down list. Then click in the Add Brand field and choose the brand(s) you want from the drop-down list that appears. You can further narrow the number of products by applying additional filters. Keep in mind that the final product set will contain products that meet all conditions. If you’ve implemented some of the suggestions above, you’ll see them as options when you set up a product set. This allows you to create product sets containing products with a specific sale date, profit margin, and so on. You can also create a product set with all of your bestsellers by inserting their product IDs. To make the most out of your product sets when creating an ad set, choose any of the product sets you created earlier (or create one at the ad set level) and apply different frames. This way, even if you’re targeting the same audience (be mindful of the audience size), they won’t see your same creative over and over again. If you want to create a product set during the ad creation process, click on the + sign in the Products section at the ad level. Then run your dynamic ads campaign as normal. Pro Tip: Optimize Your Dynamic Ads for International Audiences If you’re targeting an international audience of people who speak different languages, Facebook’s multilanguage dynamic ads feature will help you show the right product to the right user at the right time and in the right language. This is a combination of dynamic ads and dynamic language optimization. During the ad setup process, find the Multiple Languages section and click the Create in Different Language button. Next, choose the default language and add up to four additional languages. Fill in the form with the required information and click Save when you’re done. Conclusion The last 4 months of the year are undoubtedly the most important for many businesses with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the holiday season taking place. The buyer’s intent is there; people are looking to buy gifts for their loved ones and themselves. With a very competitive environment, you want to make sure customers will choose you over your competitors. Facebook dynamic ads yield great results in terms of return on ad spend, and click-through and conversion rates. This holiday season, make sure your dynamic ads stand out from those of your competitors, and optimize all aspects of your campaigns. What do you think? Has this tutorial inspired you to take your dynamic ads to the next level? Which of the recommendations will you implement for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the rest of the holiday season? Please share your ideas in the comments below. More articles about Facebook dynamic ads:Social Media via Social Media Examiner https://ift.tt/1LtH18p October 29, 2018 at 05:03AM
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'Free speech' social platform Gab has gone offline https://ift.tt/2PXdkE6 Gab has gone offline. The self-described "free speech social media platform" is taking time off the internet, after landing under the spotlight when it was discovered the suspect involved in Pittsburgh's synagogue shooting was a poster and user on the site. Gab posted a message on its homepage, announcing that the site will be "inaccessible for a period of time" as it works "around the clock" to transition a new hosting provider. The platform has been banned by PayPal, and fellow online payment service Stripe is looking to cut off the site. Gab's new hosting service, Joyent, reportedly will suspend the site from 9 a.m. ET on Monday, Oct. 29. Gab's domain registrar, GoDaddy, has also asked for the platform to take its business elsewhere. "We have informed Gab.com that they have 24 hours to move the domain to another provider, as they have violated our terms of service," GoDaddy told Mashable in a statement. "In response to complaints received over the weekend, GoDaddy investigated and discovered numerous instances of content on the site that both promotes and encourages violence against people." Publishing platform Medium has also recently suspended Gab's account, under which the social site had made a statement stating that it "unequivocally disavows and condemns all acts of terrorism and violence." This statement has now been made unavailable. Mashable reached out to Medium for comment. Social Media via Mashable https://ift.tt/2DCFv97 October 28, 2018 at 10:42PM Is It About Your Brand Or Is It About Your Followers? https://ift.tt/2OakB1x For any brand thinking of developing a social media presence, the first instinct is to get as big as possible. And, if that brand is paying thousands of dollars a month to a digital marketing agency, you can surely bet that they will expect this to happen as soon as possible. But is that really the best strategy to pursue? In search of the right metricIn many ways, this question can be analyzed as a simple “quality vs. quantity” problem. Either you have a huge number of followers, many of whom like your page and never return again, or you have a smaller number of very passionate followers, who check back every day for new content. In business, of course, there’s always a race to keep score with the competition, and that’s what makes things more complicated. If your biggest rival has 10,000 Facebook fans and 5,000 Twitter followers, then why can’t you? And this is about more than just a matter of ego – it’s also a matter of credibility. That’s because the more followers you have, the more “social proof” you have that you are doing something right. This is, in many ways, the type of thinking best associated with the old analog era. Bestsellers were based on a single metric: book sales. Movie blockbusters were based on a single metric: box office receipts. And hit new TV shows were based on a single metric: Nielsen viewership numbers. Until the creation of the social web, it was theoretically possible to encapsulate the success of your entire business with a single number. And, thus, it’s perhaps no surprise that so many brands adopt that same mentality. They are looking for a single metric to prove they are “winning” – and that metric is # of followers. How to get your social media content seenBut the wrinkle here is that the social web is all about conversations. Your goal should be having people talk about your brand online. And the single best way to measure this is using a metric known as “engagement.” For most brands, this is a way to measure all the likes, shares and comments and determine just how engaged people are. The higher your engagement, the better your performance will be on social media. Here’s just a simple example: if you post a new item on Facebook, and nobody responds to it, Facebook won’t show that content to anyone else. You might have 10,000 followers or 100,000 followers, and it won’t matter. They won’t see this content because nobody is talking about it. In short, you’re wasting your money on Facebook. But what happens when you have high engagement? Facebook rewards you by showing your content to everyone else. It doesn’t matter how many followers you have, because even a tiny core group of brand fanatics can get your content shared with a much wider audience. The link between engagement and ”going viral”This is how movements and viral trends tend to form overnight. One example was a private Facebook page set up by a few women during the 2016 presidential election. They planned to dress up in Hillary Clinton-style pantsuits to vote in November. Well, so many women thought it was a good idea that it became a national sensation almost overnight. Hillary Clinton herself even referenced this “secret Facebook page” in her concession speech. That’s why engagement is so important. In political terms, it’s all about “activating your base.” If you have a strong, loyal base, you can accomplish things that simply aren’t possible otherwise. Sure, having a lot of followers is a quick way to show “social proof” that you’re popular. But if you want to walk the walk and not just talk the talk, then you also need to show engagement. The post Is It About Your Brand Or Is It About Your Followers? appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog October 26, 2018 at 07:14PM
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Twitter suspends accounts linked to mail bomb suspect https://ift.tt/2CJi3pm At least two Twitter accounts linked to the man suspected of sending explosive devices to more than a dozen prominent Democrats were suspended on Friday afternoon. Cesar Sayoc Jr., 56, was apprehended by federal law enforcement officers in Florida on Friday morning. “Though we’re still analyzing the devices in our Laboratory, these are not hoax devices,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said during a press briefing. Facebook moved fairly quickly to suspend Sayoc’s account on the platform, though two Twitter accounts that appeared to belong to Sayoc remained online and accessible until around 2:30 p.m. Pacific. Both accounts featured numerous tweets, many of which contained far right political conspiracy theories, graphic images and specific threats. TechCrunch was able to review the accounts extensively before they were removed. Both known accounts, @hardrockintlet and @hardrock2016, contained many tweets that appeared to threaten violence against perceived political enemies, including Keith Ellison and Joe Biden, an intended recipient of an explosive device. In one case, those threats had been previously reported to Twitter. Democratic commentator Rochelle Ritchie tweeted that she reported a tweet from @hardrock2016 following her appearance on Fox News. According to a screenshot, Twitter received the report and on October 11 responded that it found “no violation of the Twitter rules against abusive behavior.”
The tweet stated “We will see u 4 sure. Hug your loved ones real close every time you leave home” accompanied by a photo of Ritchie, a screenshot of a news story about a body found in the everglades and the tarot card representing death. Between the two accounts linked to Sayoc, many of the threats were depicted with graphic images in sequence. In one tweet on September 18 to former Vice President Joe Biden, the account tweeted images of an air boat, a symbol depicting an hourglass with a scythe and graphic images of a decapitated goat. Threatening messages that emerge out of a sequence of images would likely be more difficult for machine learning moderation tools to parse, though any human content moderator would have no trouble extracting their meaning. In most cases the threatening images were paired with a verbal threat. At least one archive of a Twitter account linked to Sayoc remains online. In a statement to TechCrunch, Twitter stated only that “This is an ongoing law enforcement investigation. We do not have a comment.” The company indicated that the accounts were suspended for violating Twitter’s rules though did not specify which. Social Media via Twitter – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com October 26, 2018 at 05:49PM
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How to Deliver Relevant Marketing Content by Segmenting Your Email Subscribers https://ift.tt/2CIrR2T Email marketing needs to be a top priority for your company’s content strategy. 80% of retail brands named email marketing as the top driving factor in customer retention. Plus, email has the highest ROI per $1 spent compared to other content strategies. On average, for every $1 you spend on your email campaigns, you can expect to receive $40 in return. That’s why it’s so important for you to get more email subscribers without annoying your website visitors. But having a huge list of subscribers is useless if you don’t know how to manage your content. If you are sending the same campaigns to everyone on your list, I bet your results aren’t that favorable. People on your email list shouldn’t be grouped into one category. Why? For starters, these people are very different. In addition to their demographic differences, your subscribers will have separate wants and needs. It’s unlikely you’ll be able to run an email campaign relevant to everyone on your subscriber list. Irrelevant content is the second most common reason why people unsubscribe from email lists. You worked hard to get them to sign up, but all of that will be thrown away as soon as they unsubscribe. You need to avoid that. Email segmentation is a must if you want to deliver relevant marketing content to your subscribers. If you’ve never segmented your email lists or your current segmentation methods need improvement, you’ve come to the right place. I’ll explain what you need to do to elevate your email marketing strategy with segmentation tactics. Encourage your customers to create profilesOften, businesses don’t segment their email lists because they simply don’t have enough information to do so. How can you segment your subscribers if the only piece of information you have about them is their email address? Email addresses alone won’t be enough. That’s why you should encourage your customers to create profiles on your website. You’ll use these profiles to improve their shopping experience. Then they can store their payment information, billing addresses, manage their order histories, etc. But these customer profiles will benefit your segmentation strategy as well. You’ll get more information about each customer. And you can use that information to segment your lists accordingly. That said, customer profiles shouldn’t be a requirement. Some ecommerce shops force customers to create profiles just to buy something. I strongly advise against this strategy. In a perfect world, yes, they’ll create profiles. But you don’t want to lose conversions because of this. Instead, try to give them a reason to sign up. Here’s an example from the Lululemon website: As you can see, they list the benefits of creating a customer profile. No hard sell or any pressure to do so. People who create a profile will benefit from:
When the customer creates a profile, you’ll collect more information about them. We’ll talk more about what type of info you should be asking for as we continue through this guide. Don’t ask for too much information right awayIf people want to sign up to receive emails from your company, they shouldn’t have to submit a blood sample to do so. Obviously, I’m exaggerating here. But you’d be surprised at the number of form fields some brands require when a customer signs up for email content. I understand your reasoning behind this. The more information you get from your customers, the easier it will be to segment them into different categories. However, if you ask for too much, it will turn people away from signing up in the first place. Why should they trust you with personal information that’s, in their opinion, irrelevant to their shopping experience? They just won’t sign up. Plus, you can still come up with effective segmented lists with just a few form fields. Here’s a great example from the Champs Sports website: In addition to asking for a website visitor’s email address, Champs also requires them to give their first name. While this won’t necessarily help them segment their subscribers, it will help them personalize their messages. With the information on this list, Champs can segment new subscribers based on:
That’s plenty. You can create multiple lists with just those three pieces of information. For example, one group could be females between the ages of 18 and 25 living in New England. The content they receive would be significantly different from a group of men between the ages of 35 and 50 living in southern California. Limit the form fields on your opt-in page. There’s no reason for you to know their favorite color or mother’s maiden name. The more information required to sign up, the fewer people will subscribe. Let your subscribers customize their contentAnother way to deliver relevant marketing content is by simply asking your subscribers what they want to receive. If they can customize the type of emails you send, they won’t be surprised or annoyed when they get a message. Everything delivered to their inbox will be extremely relevant. Set up these options through your customer profile settings, which we just talked about. In addition to letting people customize their email content through their profiles, you can give them options on the types of content they want to receive when they initially sign up. Here’s a great example of this strategy used by Lowe’s. Lowe’s only asks for the customers’ email addresses and zip codes. They can use this to segment their audiences by location. But look at how Lowe’s offers customizable email options. By default, everything is checked. However, people can uncheck the types of content they find irrelevant. For example, let’s say someone wants to receive only marketing promotions from this company. Any time they got a message about home improvement tips or upcoming events, they would be annoyed. These newsletters are irrelevant to them. They can opt out of those by simply unchecking the appropriate boxes when signing up in the first place. Use the double opt-in strategyWhen I work with other businesses, I see this problem all the time. They have many subscribers on their email lists that don’t belong there. That’s because some people provided their email addresses without realizing what they were getting into. To get more subscribers, some websites have a default setting during the checkout process to join their email lists. But the customer doesn’t realize they’re going to get bombarded with marketing emails just because they wanted to buy something. While I don’t have a problem with this strategy overall, it needs to be implemented with a double opt-in to complete the signup process. Your content won’t be relevant if it’s being delivered to people who subscribed by accident. Double opt-ins help ensure that subscribers actually want to receive marketing messages from your business. The easiest way to implement a double opt-in verification message is with a welcome email: Once a new subscriber confirms they want to be on your email list, you can segment them based on the factors I previously discussed and will continue to cover moving forward. If a customer doesn’t complete the process, don’t send them emails unless it’s related to their order. Segment based on engagementAnother way to segment your subscribers is based on how they responded to previous emails you sent. You should be tracking actions such as:
Then, segment your subscribers accordingly based on this behavior. For example, someone who never opened an email could potentially get a similar promotion in the future. Whereas a subscriber who already opened that message shouldn’t receive it again. It’s irrelevant to that person. This tactic will help you improve your open rates and other metrics due to your segmentation strategy. Segmenting based on engagement is another way to take advantage of your customer profiles, which I discussed earlier. When someone browses on your website while logged in to their customer profile, you can segment them based on their browsing behavior, purchase history, and the frequency with which they visit your site. Someone who is on your site weekly shouldn’t get an email saying “we miss you.” That type of message is only relevant to subscribers who have been inactive for several months. Understand the needs of your B2B clientsSegmenting email subscribers is extremely important for B2B companies. It’s a great way to improve your overall B2B marketing strategy. Those of you who operate a B2C and B2B company should have those two categories segmented, at the very least. But you should take that one step further on the B2B end. Your B2B lists should be even more specific than your B2C lists. The number one factor contributing to B2B marketing success in the previous year was creating higher quality and more efficient content: Understand who will be receiving these emails. You can segment these lists based on a job title. Company owners who have more buying power and final decision-making should not get the same messages that a warehouse manager would. Segment your B2B lists based on industry, company size, and marketing budget. Your clients that spend $50,000 a year on your products and services shouldn’t be getting the same marketing content as B2B clients that spend $5,000 annually. Put your subscribers into customer groupsMy last point leads to the next one: not all your customers are the same. Put them into groups based on a number of factors related to their status as a customer as opposed to general factors such as their age and location. For example, new customers shouldn’t be getting the same emails as people who subscribed over a year ago. A great way to start communicating with your new subscribers is by creating a series of actionable drip campaigns. If you put all your customers into one group, you won’t make as much money from them. Here’s what I mean. Your customers who spend the least amount of money shouldn’t be getting emailed about your most expensive products. Instead, send them promotions that entice them to spend a little bit more or shop more frequently. That’s why segmenting your subscribers based on spending is an effective strategy. Targeted emails based on this type of segmentation yield an average of an additional $14 in sales per subscriber. Some of you may have nearly 10,000 or more subscribers on your email lists. So do the math. These additional profits will add up quickly. Send birthday emailsAs we’ve seen throughout this guide, age is a great way to segment your subscribers for a number of reasons. But you can do even more with that information if you have it. It may sound cheesy, but sending birthday promotions to your subscribers can go a long way. You can take advantage of their birthdays more than just once a year. Take a look at how The Hook Up uses this strategy to send an email on its subscribers’ half birthdays: This personalized content is extremely relevant to the recipient. It’s unique to each subscriber. Discounted dinner for being a half year older? Sign me up. You can even start birthday promotional messages early. For example, let’s say your email lists are segmented by birthday months. Everyone who has a birthday in November can receive a message in October about getting ready for their birthday with a new pair of shoes or something along those lines. Obviously, you’ll tailor the message accordingly based on your business, but you understand what I mean. Start smallRight now, some of you might not be segmenting your subscribers at all. Don’t get overwhelmed and bite off more than you can chew when you start. Research shows that half of businesses aren’t segmenting email lists. So you shouldn’t be too alarmed yet. Don’t try to come up with dozens of different lists right away. Start by trying to segment your existing subscribers. Send a poll to the people on your email list about their interests, and group them accordingly. Change your current landing page to get more information from new subscribers. You need to walk before you can run. Starting slow will help you make sure you get things right. The last thing you want to do is put people on the wrong list. That strategy will backfire because your content will be more irrelevant to them than ever before. ConclusionSegmenting your subscribers is the key to email marketing success. If you learn how to segment your customers accordingly, your marketing content will be more relevant. As a result, fewer people will unsubscribe from your list, and your email campaigns will be more profitable. Encourage your customers to create a profile. Just don’t force them to give you too much personal information. On sign-up, let your customers customize the type of content they want to receive. Use a double opt-in landing strategy to make sure people actually want to be on your email marketing list. Segment subscribers based on engagement, browsing history, and previous purchases. Understand the difference between your B2C and B2B clients. Your B2B lists should be even more specific. Group your customers based on spending habits. If you’re new to email segmentation strategies, start small. Focus on the basics before you try more complex tactics. Ultimately, this will help you deliver relevant marketing content to all your subscribers. How is your brand segmenting subscribers on your email lists? Social Media via Quick Sprout https://ift.tt/UU7LJr October 26, 2018 at 10:02AM |
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