Category: Business Growth

Small plant blossoms to indicate audience retention and growth

How The Post and Courier is Investing in Marketing to Grow and Retain Audiences

Posted on | by Post and Courier Staff

The Post and Courier is always looking for innovative ways to reach new audiences to deliver the news that matters most to South Carolinians. With an ever-evolving digital transformation and rapid expansion across the state, we’re leading the charge in several ways.

First, The Post and Courier is investing in reporters to expand coverage across current markets in Charleston, Columbia, Greenville, Spartanburg, North Augusta, Myrtle Beach, and Hilton Head, as well as new markets in Florence and Rock Hill. In addition, The Post and Courier is building a new state-of-the-art printing facility that offers modern and efficient printing to serve our readers and commercial print customers. But behind the scenes, as a versatile multi-media company, we’ve also been investing in our marketing to ensure quality journalism and to meet the needs of local businesses that want to reach our valued audiences.

“Most people might consider The Post and Courier as a legacy media company that has covered Charleston for 200+ years, but really as we transform toward a future in digital and grow our audiences across the state, we really consider ourselves as a 200+-year-old start-up,” said Chris Zoeller, Chief Opportunity and Marketing Officer.

“And to achieve these efforts, we know we need to invest in building a team that can focus on a variety of marketing initiatives to grow and retain our audience. Our readers trust our journalism and advertisers want to be aligned with our readers.”


Paid Digital and Print Audience Growth

As part of the strategy, Claire Linney, a long-time The Post and Courier employee, was named Audience Director, where her main responsibility is to grow paid digital and print audiences. 

“I love being a part of our creative and fun team! We are a fast-paced, idea-generating group and it’s a great culture to be a part of,” said Linney. “I find it rewarding to be a part of a team that is collectively working together to support our community with impactful news.”

Previously, as Associate Director of Audience Growth and Acquisition, Linney focused on a growth plan for print subscriptions and adequately used the resources available to her. For example, Linney and her team were able to sell over 100 print subscriptions at Summerville’s annual Flowertown Festival, which shows there are several new opportunities for subscriber growth.

“I am looking forward to being a part of our overall subscription growth, we are on a positive trajectory, and looking forward to being a part of the growth to come,” said Linney.

Also a part of the acquisition team is Digital Marketing Manager, Kelly Krammes. Krammes comes to The Post and Courier from the TV news side of the industry and has over a decade of experience marketing to local audiences and sharing the important work journalists are doing in these areas.  

“The Post and Courier is a storied brand with an excellent reputation in South Carolina and beyond,” said Krammes. “I’m a passionate consumer of news and am proud to work for a brand that is well-known in the industry for providing impactful journalism.”

“It’s our responsibility to make data-driven decisions to best serve the readers and subscribers who invite The Post and Courier into their homes via our digital and print products, while also reaching new audiences. I’m thrilled to join this team of collaborative marketers as we continue to make strategic decisions by honing in on the information we have about our consumers, and news consumers in general, to keep our digital marketing approach agile and relevant.”


Subscriber Acquisition and Retention

But what happens after a new subscriber is acquired? Retention Marketing Manager, Mary Fox, comes in to help onboard and retain new subscribers to make sure they are getting all of the content and benefits of being a Post and Courier subscriber.

In her former role as Subscriber and Donor Engagement Specialist, Fox worked closely with the rest of the digital marketing team to acquire subscribers but saw a gap where new subscribers did not receive the same attention as potential subscribers. 

“My strengths are experimenting with different tools and resources to build engagement—and therefore, retention—through messaging our subscribers as well as fundraising campaigns,” Fox said. “I’m happiest trying new things or trying things in a new way to build our retention efforts. I like researching what other companies are doing outside of media/newspapers to see how we can implement that at The Post and Courier. I also am super driven to achieve the goals of keeping subscribers engaged and building our fundraising to benefit future special reporting projects.”

This growth in acquisition and retention extends to the rest of the team as well, with a complete team of seven marketing professionals in the Digital Marketing Department, including Linney, Krammes, Fox, two Newsletter Editors, a Subscriber and Donor Engagement Specialist, and Marketing Coordinator.

Each of these professionals has several ideas for data-driven, creative campaigns to continue branding and marketing The Post and Courier across the state, and to continue to reach new audiences with the quality journalism that is known to come from the reporters at The Post and Courier.

 

About Our Team 

Claire Linney, Audience DirectorClaire Linney, Audience Director

Audience Director, Claire Linney, has been with The Post and Courier for nearly a decade and through this experience has a strong grasp on the holistic approach of the paper in acquisition and retention. Linney enjoys looking at the big picture and the overall goal of the business, and in this position works closely with the digital marketing team to reach their goals.

 

Kelly Krammes, Digital Marketing ManagerKelly Krammes, Digital Marketing Manager

Digital Marketing Manager, Kelly Krammes, comes to The Post and Courier with a decade of experience in news marketing, working at 11Alive News, the NBC affiliate in Atlanta. Her main goals in this position are to create avenues to reach new audiences to be able to share The Post and Courier with these audiences.

 

Mary Fox, Retention Marketing ManagerMary Fox, Retention Marketing Manager

Retention Marketing Manager, Mary Fox, has been with The Post and Courier for almost two years and in that time has created and refined several acquisition and retention campaigns for subscribers and donors to the organization. In this role, Fox has created several retention strategies, including an onboarding series for new subscribers, subscriber-only contests and events, and reaching out to these audiences whenever there is breaking news.

Google News Initiative Case Study Learnings

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In July of 2021, The Post and Courier began work on a project in conjunction with Google News Initiative (GNI). The purpose of the collaboration was to explore the efficacy of paid newsletters as a viable growth strategy for the news organization. Could the paper create alternative revenue streams and increase its digital audience effectively with this new type of subscription model? And what would that entail?

About The Post and Courier’s vision

John A. Carlos II / Special to The Post and Courier

It is worth noting that the Post and Courier has made a conscious effort to think forward. Where other traditional news organizations have shrunk, the newspaper has done quite the opposite. In 2021, The Post and Courier announced that it had grown its digital subscriber base to over 20,000. It’s also rapidly expanding, giving the paper a truly statewide reach with locations now in Charleston, Columbia, Myrtle Beach, Greenville, Spartanburg, North Augusta and Hilton Head. The paper also recently doubled down on its commitment to print, building an all-new state-of-the-art printing press. The opportunity with GNI presented a chance to even further expand the brand.

As any marketer worth their salt knows, our engagement with media is constantly evolving. Wherever you look you can see the effects — whether that’s in Tik Tok being the most visited website of 2022, the advent of the Metaverse, or our consumption of movies and the surprising decline of Netflix subscriptions. To keep up with the times is imperative to be flexible and willing to experiment.

GNI Learnings

A example subscription ad for the newsletter The Tiger Take.

So in the summer of last year, The Post and Courier launched two newsletters built around collegiate athletics — The Tiger Take and Gamecocks Now. Both newsletters are subscription-based, meaning they require subscribers to pay. Gamecocks Now is written by a 20-year veteran of the beat— David Cloninger and The Tiger Take is written by Clemson newcomer, but veteran sports journalist— Jon Blau.

After seeing the success of the two sports newsletters, the paper launched the food newsletter, CHS Menu, (Charleston’s Menu) in late February of 2022. In partnership with GNI, The Post and Courier revealed a few of their findings. The main learnings were as such:

Leads

Lead growth is essential to subscriber growth. Before launching the sports newsletters there was a small number of leads. The Post and Courier had explored a free sports newsletter and used this niche audience to help grow its subscriber base. However, by placing more of an emphasis on growing the top of funnel, in 8 months the team was able to grow previous leads by 268%. These leads led to both subscriptions for the paper as well as subscriptions to the two paid newsletters.

ARPU

Make ARPU a key metric. At the initial launch of the Gamecocks Now and The Tiger Take existing PC subscribers were offered a highly discounted price point as a bundle offer. While this drove subscription numbers, it ended up drastically tanking ARPU. It also, due to the nature of the sale, led to a high percentage of churn. By increasing the price of the newsletter bundle and killing the previous offer the sports newsletters were able to increase ARPU by over 8%, while also combatting churn and increasing revenue.

Estimating Audience Size

The most important learning from the partnership with GNI was helping approximate potential audience size. GNI had previously provided the target of subscription numbers to be 1.5% of the monthly audience on the paper’s website. By using these numbers the sports newsletters are already 63% to goal in only 8 months! Using this data also helped assess a proper estimate for subscribers to the food newsletter as well as the paper itself.

Open Rates

Make open rates key! Before the Apple IOS update, the sports newsletters maintained well over 40% open rates. Especially for paid newsletters, this metric is crucial to success.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can read the case study: here. 

Facebook, Meta, and the Future of Social Media

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Woah. Facebook just went Meta. 

If you’ve paid attention to the news recently, you may have heard about Facebook’s rebranding. Let us clarify this right off the bat, the parent company that oversees Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus has rebranded itself as “Meta”, not Facebook the website/app itself. Do not worry, you will not be posting any updates on Meta.

This rebrand came after Facebook received increasing pressure particularly from whistleblower and former Facebook data scientist, Frances Haugan, who filed complaints that the social media platform’s empire knowingly amplifies hates, misinformation, and political unrest. 

Then, Facebook and WhatsApp’s infamous day-long shutdown increased speculation that the company was scrubbing unscrupulous records. Facebook, of course, denies this. 

So, what the heck is going on and what does that mean for those of us in marketing and advertising?

Facebook’s Algorithm.

In a previous blog, I wrote in-depth on Instagram’s algorithm. If you wish, you can read it here. Suffice to say, it’s no secret that social media platforms do everything they can to keep consumers on their apps and websites. It’s likely you have seen the research, or perhaps even the documentary The Social Dilemma, that gives details on how these companies operate. Social media gets consumers hooked, keeps them engaged for long periods of time, gets them to come back frequently, and make the company increasing amounts of money. Your time is up for sale and a slot machine of entertainment is at your fingertips. Unfortunately, as much as we know about media, the efficacy of such practices and their effect has only recently begun to be explored. 

This is where Frances Haugen’s testimony comes in. Appearing before the US Senate Congress Committee on October 5, 2021, she uncovered a number of issues with Facebook’s dealings, having previously leaked files of the companies findings. You can read her article on the subject in a Wall Street Journal article, or, if video is more your speed (looking at you Gen Z), you can watch her 60 Minutes interview. The summary is this – that there are two competing factors at work: what’s good for Facebook and what’s good for their consumers. Haugan found the data showed that Facebook often amplifies hate, enables misinformation, creates division, and aids in political unrest. Studies also found that Instagram is harmful to teenage girls. This is because, generally speaking, negative and divisive content performs better than the opposite. And because this is the case, the algorithm works to enable such content. Rather than protecting its consumers, Facebook promotes the thing that will get the most clicks.

At The Post and Courier, we’ve found this troubling statistic to be true. When boosting stories from the paper, we noticed a trend: crime pieces perform better than anything else. In fact, each week our best performing stories are almost universally about crime or policing. It creates an ethical dilemma for a company. Do what’s best for the consumer or do what’s best for the bottom line? And where do you draw the line? Can we create a more gracious, optimistic, and equitable society, or do we work to sow division by promoting what audiences want to click on? Questions worth pondering for any advertiser. 

On the Metaverse

One last thing of note. Facebook also introduced something called the “Metaverse”. You can watch the entire 75 minute video on their website if you like, but believe me when I say it’s straight out of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, or for the modern reader something out of a film like Wall-E. Facebook’s parent company, now named Meta, is beginning to focus on the future of the internet in Virtually Reality (VR) format. Instead of going into the office or talking through a 2D screen on Zoom, they are working towards a future where people will hold meetings in a 3D VR world. Meta announced the advent of this Metaverse, an augmented reality experience where you can also meet friends, play games, watch movies, and generally spend time in this virtual world. 

Mark Zuckerberg’s postings got immediately panned with comments like “this is an episode of Black Mirror I swear.” But, interestingly, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, got much more favorable comments on his less aggressive video post. Regardless, it seems as though the future is here, however long it takes to actually become fully realized. We certainly don’t know the implications of this new interweb, but it’s best to start preparing now.

Get ready, it’s a scary world out there.

 

Why You Are Not Reaching The Right Audience

Posted on | by Post and Courier Staff

As any good business owner knows, your audience drives your success. Why? Because without an audience, you are not selling anything. Therefore, you do not have a business.

It is a simple equation that even the best entrepreneurs and business savvy individuals miss the mark on.

So, why are you not reaching the right audience?

Your Content Falls Flat

Content is key. So, why is your content not everything?

Perhaps you pour a significant amount of money into content creation, but you still are not seeing the results you desire. It may be you

r messaging.

Does your content reflect your business? Does it tell a stranger everything they need to know to entice them to engage with your advertising or business?

Your content should tell a story without overwhelming a potential lead.

Check out this way to be seen by 1.8 million people

Your Audience Is Not Defined

Identifying who you want to sell to is going to benefit your business and save you money overall.

If you do not have a defined audience, you could be overspending on advertising. Your advertising may be getting seen, perhaps skyrocketing with interactions. But the leads are minimal.

Why? The money you invested in digital advertising is being fed to the wrong viewers.

People are seeing your ad, maybe interacting with it, but a target audience was not defined. This causes Google, Facebook, Instagram – whatever the platform – to focus on one goal: spend the money it was given.

For example, Facebook and Instagram ads are great ways to reach people and grow your business in a digital space. But, if you do not identify who your audience is, target the right interests, income, area – you may be reaching the wrong people and wasting money.

Without a deep understanding of your audience and digital advertising, you are nurturing an expensive brand awareness campaign. Brand awareness is great, but leads are better.

You Do Not Know Who You Are Selling To

As a business owner, you engage with customers, know who they are, and can determine any customer’s needs. But do you know your community, the place where you are offering your services/business?

A common mistake business owners make is that, while you are passionate about your business, does your potential audience feel the same?

Take the time to research your local community. Find out the median income, are there more families or single individuals, what is the most common pastime? Questions that resemble a dating profile should be the questions you ask yourself when determining your target audience.

If you have a better understanding of who the audience is that surrounds your business, the better you can tailor content, spend your ad dollars, and grow your business.

The Post and Courier knows the community and has built up more than 250 years of trust within that community. Better yet, the community knows The Post and Courier. We have developed a trustworthy, affluent, and statewide audience over the years. With that, The Post and Courier has developed a team of knowledgeable experts that efficiently tailor your message into captivating content for digital advertising and print advertising campaigns that help you tap into THE audience.

Why You Should Implement Video Into Your Marketing Strategy

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Let’s be honest, it’s not the year 2005 anymore. Fifteen years ago if you were looking for video marketing implementation, you’d likely find it in TV advertising or on a web browser. Today, however, video is available everywhere: on our phones, laptops, TVs, tablets, and even on our fridges! If you’re not using video as a part of your marketing strategy you’re missing out. Below are a few ways to begin implementing video right away:

Branding

In the ever-changing and tumultuous environment created by social media and COVID-19, video marketing presents a clear outlet to establish and maintain relevance for your brand while respecting safety guidelines. Regardless of whether you’re on a B2B or B2C platform, video marketing is generally agreed to have a great ROI. Video allows you to be much more personal than other mediums. Presenting your product or service over video allows you to build brand awareness, build loyalty and is an excellent avenue for presenting value proposition. Think: why is YOUR brand better than your competitors? Videos are an excellent opportunity for your company to shine through, for you to distinguish yourself, and to separate yourself from the pack. 

One of the simplest ways to promote your company is to include clips of employees or satisfied customers talking about your business. Remember with branding to tell a story and to aim for the heart. If people can put a face to the company then they will much more easily connect with what you’re doing.

Advertising

When it comes to paid advertising, video is an easy way to present your product or service. In particular, tailoring your video to platforms like YouTube which has over 2 billion active users a month, gets your company before a huge audience quickly. Most social media platforms include paid opportunities to promote a business via videos. These include YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Vimeo, Reddit, and TikTok. Before choosing a platform to promote on, make sure you’re familiar with what will be best suited for your needs. Our guide on picking between Facebook and Instagram is a helpful resource. 

More traditional television advertising is also a great way to promote yourself too, but you certainly need to take cost-efficiency into account before going that route. Social media can be a simpler and much cheaper alternative.

Events

For events, videos are an excellent option as well. Before an event include clips from a previous event, you can also show location and venue. These will preview the audience to what they will experience when they attend. It can help with other things too. One of the most useful benefits of video is it can help your website with SEO. If you’re having trouble getting your event to show up on search engines, embedding a video could be just the trick to get you at the top of the page.

When the event is over make sure to follow up. Give a recap of what happened; interview attendees. Make sure to maximize the event to its full potential. Make sure you’re collecting new leads, creating a newsletter, and offering sponsorships. An after-the-event video can be a great opportunity to generate future leads for those who were unable to attend. 

Product Demos

Product demos can be one of the most effective ways to market yourself. HubSpot recently noted that 73 percent of all US adults are more likely to buy a product after viewing a product video.

These videos can be simple and silly! Some great ideas include filming a live video showing off the latest inventory, or filming someone on your phone and posting to your feeds. Obviously, product demos can be highly produced affairs, but they don’t have to be! Get creative with your presentation.

Lastly: Go for it!

We know making the step into video marketing can be a scary thing. Many people don’t ever do it for fear of producing something of poor quality, or for fear of failure. If you need help getting your plan off the ground the team at King + Columbus would love to help. K+C has some of the top professionals in the industry and is well equipped to help your business grow wherever in the process you might be. No need to wait, go ahead and start implementing video today!

 

Spring Cleaning your Brand in 2021

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

The early part of a new year is great for more than just cleaning out your house. The spring season is an ideal time to revitalize your brand as well. And in 2021, the need to take a fresh look at your brand image is made more important by the evolving state of the pandemic.

So what are the most important aspects of your brand to reimagine, and how should you go about rebranding?

Logo and Brand Identity  

Your logo is a customer’s first impression of your brand, so it should feel modern. You want your customer to feel like they are interacting with a brand that exists in the current landscape. 

While not everyone is a graphic designer, there are still subconscious impressions that customers have about modern style and design. People know a logo from the 90’s or early 00’s when they see one.

Evaluate your creative assets. A strong logo is the pillar of your marketing efforts and is essential for building brand recognition. 

Companies are constantly evolving, and a refresh keeps your brand from feeling or looking old. On average companies update their identity every 7-10 years. Renew and refresh your company’s vibrancy and set yourself apart from the competition with an updated logo.

Popular website builder tool Wix identified the following styles as top logo design trends in 2021.

  • Hand-drawn imagery
  • Back to basic shapes (with a twist)
  • Overlapping text
  • Bringing classic symbols back to life
  • Optical illusions
  • Analogous color schemes
  • Breaking the rules of composition
  • Incorporating nature imagery
  • Using emojis

Brand Values

The next point should inform every decision you make about your brand when doing a refresh in 2021. Your brand values affect everything from how you should conduct your social media, to your advertising messages, all the way to how you run your business operations.

Your company’s acknowledgement and awareness and adaptability to COVID-19 is the most important “value” to work on. Even though we are nearly a year into the pandemic and vaccines are rolling out to more people every month, customers need to know that you’re still doing what’s best for everyone’s safety. 

Take a look at the first places people see any messages you put out. Think about your instagram bio, your facebook featured image or description, the front page of your website. These are all places that people should see something about your response to COVID. Even something as simple as stating that you’re requiring masks in person, or sanitizing your offices or store. 

If this is something that you haven’t already done over the last year, it’s not too late. Make COVID considerations a part of your entire rebrand as you go about planning it.

Take this time to also consider what social movements might be important to you. Black History Month and Women’s History Month are on people’s minds during this part of the year,  with February and March being dedicated to the movements, respectively. Build out plans to celebrate the messages that are important to you.

Social Media

Evaluate the social media accounts you are currently using and make sure they are updated with current logos, images and links to your website. Review and refresh your social media strategy, set goals, examine analytics and build robust content calendars. 

LinkedIn and Twitter are the fundamental social accounts for financial services, but Instagram can bolster brand awareness and help you engage with clients. Sprout Social reports that Instagram passed the 1 billion user mark in late 2020. So you’ll be missing out on a massive audience by leaving this platform to gather dust. 

Your employees are also key in building your social media presence. Recommend that their profiles are up to date and connected to your business page. Encourage your employees to connect on LinkedIn and share your content. They are valuable to organically expanding your social reach and building brand awareness. 

Finally, don’t forget to clean out your messages and make sure you haven’t missed any questions, comments, concerns, or feedback. Clients expect instant responses, this is a chance to showcase exceptional client service in a public forum.

5 Events To Promote Your Business

Posted on | by Post and Courier Staff

What if we told you that your business can reach a whole new audience, gain quality leads, and be immersed in South Carolina excitement? With Post and Courier events, you can!

That’s exactly what events with Post and Courier can do for your business…and then some!

We had a successful year of events and are looking forward to an even stronger 2021. Your business has the opportunity to sponsor or participate in any and all events that come up.

A partnership through sponsorship or event participation could lead your business to…

  • 200,000 people+ will see your business from email alone
  • 7,000 attendees+, both in-person and virtual, will see your business
  • 4 million+website page views
  • 10 million+ views across platforms including social media and email

Listed below are events YOU can sponsor or participate in during 2021!

1. Kids Club Live! || February 2o, 2021 

Kids Club Live is the merging of Lowcountry Family Expo and Kids Club! The inaugural year of the Family Expo happened in February 2020 and was such a hit we had to bring it back! Check out last year’s line up here!  More than 2,500 people attended last year’s Family Expo! Kids Club was also a brainchild of 2020 that turned virtual amid COVID-19. More than 8,400 attendees and over 1,400 families tuned in for each event and received more than a million social media impressions! Kids Club and Lowcountry Family Expo were such hits, that we decided to merge the two family fun events into one big event!

Learn More About Kids Club Live! Here! 

 

2. Virtual Events || Any time! 

Have you heard of The Post and Courier Virtual Events? You can learn, dance, play Bingo, and even cook with us from the comfort of your own home! Over the last 6 months of virtual events, there have been a total of 4,860 registered users. With banners, social ads, email marketing, and other means of promotion, you’re reaching anywhere from 7,000 to over 16 million people while partnering with The Post and Courier to teach viewers and readers alike something new!

Learn More About Virtual Events Here!

3. Night At The Movies|| Next Event on January 23!

The pandemic has us missing heading to the movies with friends and families! A Night At The Movies is a great way to still experience the joy of movie-going. The dog-friendly events are socially distanced, COVID safety compliant, and for all ages that takes place in the Post and Courier parking lot in Downtown Charleston. Our recent movie nights have included food trucks and a photo booth (that your business can sponsor! Your logo on each picture taken!).

Learn More About Night At The Movies Here!

4. Bicycle Across South Carolina (BASC) || October 

Bicycle Across South Carolina (BASC) is a multi-day ride hosted by the Post and Courier. BASC takes participants off the road and onto the scenic trails of South Carolina. Riders will experience a unique opportunity to explore state parks, off-the-grid-trails, and engage with a community of like-minded enthusiasts. BASC kicked off its inaugural ride in September 2019. In 2020, we were lucky enough to celebrate year two with brand new routes for riders to experience a diverse look at South Carolina’s landscape!

We are actively working on BASC 2021. Make sure to sign up for the newsletter to stay up-to-date on the latest!

Learn More About BASC Here!

5. Steeplechase of Charleston || November 14, 2021 

Steeplechase of Charleston 2020 was an outstanding event with 2,500 attendees, 30+ vendors, and a long list of cherished sponsors. Racegoers were able to enjoy a socially distanced tailgate with their friends, shop local vendors, and watch an incredible docket of horse races right here in beautiful Charleston.

Learn More About Steeplechase of Charleston 2021 Here!

 

These 5 events are incredible opportunities for you to expand and immerse your business in the Palmetto State. Between the variants of these events and a multitude of other events such as We The Women, 12 Leaders To Watch, College of Charleston 250, and Pints and Politics, your business can partner with The Post and Courier and gain so much more than new business and quality leads.

Ready to find out? Learn more about sponsorships, contests, and other events! 

10 Reasons to Start Planning Your 2021 Event Sponsorship

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

2021 is on the horizon and there is no better time than now to make sponsorship plans. COVID-19 has affected the event landscape in a major way. Events are changing, and so should the way sponsorships are planned and executed.

Every business in the market wants to create an image of success and authority. But it’s not very easy when you are competing with the large, already established, companies. Through event sponsorship you can leverage the power of credibility.

If you are thinking of stretching your marketing budget, here are 10 reasons why you should sponsor an event.

Brand Visibility

Sponsoring an event brings your business in the limelight. The event you sponsor puts your business in front of a global audience and gets you a lot of mention in the social media and press. The bigger the event, the bigger the reach.

And in an era of virtual and online-hosted events, reach is actually increasing. More people are open to the idea of attending an event from the comfort of their couch. You don’t have to rely on only reaching the people who enjoy public outings. Under COVID lockdown measures, both audiences are engaging in virtual events.

Lead Generation

With event sponsorship you reach a huge population at one place. You get to meet your target audience and approach them all under one roof. The event organizers also provide a list of attendees which you can use for email marketing.

Business Relationships

Event sponsorship is an opportunity to meet non-competitive companies from your industry and in your area. Sponsorship is a way to collaborate, rather than compete. You can learn more about other businesses that share your target audience and likely hold the same values, which could help plan future partnerships.

Increase Sales of Products

With event sponsorship you get to increase your sales. You can put your products in the hands of your target audience and let them experience it. You can also pass on some free samples which will lead to increase in sales. In the virtual space, you can give product or service demonstrations. You can even have an easy way for the viewers to click through and sign up to learn more, opt in to email messaging or just make a purchase!

Show Social Responsibility

Event sponsorship is a way to show that your business supports a cause or mission about which your customers are passionate about. It helps you to build an image in the society and connect with customers on an emotional front.

Enhance Content & Social Media Marketing

Sponsoring an event gives you a lot of content for ramping up your strategies. Events can put your brand name in every possible social media platform including the event’s official website boosting your reach on social media.

Improve Your Company’s Image

When your business sponsors a big event with a wide enough base, the public perception of your business is as big as the host of the event. People see you as big professional and reputable business.

Learn More About Your Target Audience

Event sponsorships are an opportunity to meet your target audience, though not always in person. Virtual events will continue to be popular even after we start returning to in-person gatherings. But both types of events allow you to interact with your audience.

As a sponsor, you can work with the event host to hold an interactive Q&A segment as a part of a virtual event. Get the audience engaged and learn what they’re interested in, and ideally tie it back to what your business does.

Sponsorships are Affordable

Radio, television and print ads continue to work well and even work together. However, these take a great deal of your time and could potentially be out of your budget. Event sponsorships save you the time and money of having to target an audience. Let the audience choose to come to you through the event.

Get a Strong ROI

All in all, event sponsorships get you a solid return on investment. You get to approach your target audience, increase your sales and you get a list of leads to follow up with afterwards.

Event sponsorship is a deal with a lot of benefits. So start planning how this could fit into your 2021 budget now, before sponsorship slots fill up. Events often live or die based on sponsors, so showing that you have interest and can help support live and local events can help everyone involved.

The Value of Repurposing Content

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Reusing old content has become more valuable than ever in 2020. On top of that, there’s no better time to revitalize old posts than during the holidays. Between the stresses of dealing with COVID-19 as a business and planning time away from work, pulling content out of the vault can lift many burdens.

Depending on what your business produces to market itself, there will be different ways to repurpose it. But the core idea remains the same; take valuable content that has been buried under newer things, add a new spin on it, and push it back to the top of your feed.

Why reuse old content?

Before diving into your past catalog and simply re-posting everything you have, let’s dissect why this is important to do. Understanding the value of repurposed content will help you to decide which pieces to revitalize and how to do it.

Save time/money

The most obvious reason to go about this, is that you’ll save time and possibly money. Repurposing old content can often take a fraction of the time and effort it would take to create something new.

If you’re working with a third party such as an agency, you probably are conscious of both time and money. Your agency can help identify good content to reuse, based on how well it performed. The agency can then transform that at a faster pace and a cheaper cost than producing something original.

The process can even be automated. If you have timeless content, meaning it wouldn’t need any rewriting or additions, you can set up a system to automatically republish content. This is great for the holiday season once you start to take time off. This can be done through something as simple as using social media to post links to your content. Or on a deeper level, set up your website to push old, but relevant blogs to the top of the page.

Boost SEO

Your content can only truly boost the overall SEO of your website if people are visiting and spending time viewing your content. So don’t let your old content go to waste by hiding it in the past.

Giving people a fresh reason to visit your page will add to the existing SEO power that it built up originally. Whether you decide to update your existing content’s page, or copy the contents to create a new, fresh page, the SEO benefits will be great. You can attribute your new content back to the old post. More pages on your site means stronger search engine value. 

Reach new audiences

This boost in SEO is also one way that your repurposed content will attract new audiences. Perhaps your content didn’t’ achieve its full potential the first time. Giving it a second chance will do nothing but positive things for your brand’s reach. 

Times have changed dramatically in 2020. People are living their lives in ways we never saw coming, due to quarantines and social distancing. Chances are high that your business can play on these life changes in some way. Take a look back at your history of content marketing. You might just find something that is now relevant to a wider audience.

Just be sure not to overdo it by rehashing the same topics week after week. You don’t want people to see you as a brand with nothing new to say.

How should you reuse content?

Content marketing comes in many forms, and they cannot all be treated equally when it comes to repurposing. Once you’ve identified what’s worth reusing, you have to find the right approach to doing so.

Blogs

Blogs often rely on data to back up points, which builds up your brand’s expertise on a subject. One straight-forward approach to reusing old blogs is to update them with newer data. Add new links to externals sources, or even new backlinks to pages on your site that didn’t exist before. This all adds to SEO and brand image.

You don’t even have to keep the blog in written form to reuse it. Consider ways to turn your writing into podcasts or videos. Come up with new ways for audiences to digest your content. Not everyone engages with content in the same way.

Once you have a solid backlog of blog content, you can compile related blogs into a single collection. This can even take the form of a physically published book. 

The purpose of blogs in content marketing is mainly to build up the brand image by showing your expertise. Reminding people that they can engage with your content in different ways gives them more chances to see that you’re an expert.

Videos

Video content does not need to be reshot in order to be repurposed. Graphics, text, and animations can be added to transform your video.

Are you proud of a recent award or achievement your business achieved? Commercials or other video marketing pieces are a great place to insert graphics announcing your success.

If you have the time, recording new voice-over narration and adding new music is a great way to reuse videos. You won’t have to bother reshooting footage, and the content will still feel fresh. This is a great way to make new announcements for your business or share anything that has changed since the original video.

This is an important thing to remember even when shooting footage for entirely new videos. Always incorporate some level of timelessness. You can always cut things out, but try to get enough evergreen footage in your content that it can be trimmed and reused. 

Social Media

Social media is made for throwbacks. We’ve even dedicated a whole day of each week to it. Engage in the Throwback Thursday trend to reshare old posts with your followers. 

Hopefully, your follower count is always growing, so there should always be new eyes to share your content with. This can be done through stories, so you don’t have to clutter up your feed with duplicate content.

The cycle of reusing content can involve every channel. So if you’re refreshed an old blog for 2021, share that out on social media. You can do something as easy as taking the original image you used to post about the blog the first time, and add an “updated for 2021” text stamp on it. 

One important thing to remember when updating content that has been shared on social, is to make sure links still work. If you’ve gone back to edit an old blog, or have published a new version of a blog, make sure your posts link out to the new content. And always make sure no posts are linking to a page that no longer exists. Set up redirects to solve this issue.

Better 4 Business: Facebook or Instagram

Posted on | by Post and Courier Staff

Social media has become a dominating platform with 3.2 billion users worldwide. Facebook and Instagram making up a large portion of that use, especially when it comes to business and social media marketing.

While the excitement of using social media to gain more business is intriguing more than ever, you may not need to utilize both social media platforms to see immense success.

The decision and comparison can be overwhelming. We have taken the top attributes of each and broken them down for you to decide which is Better 4 Your Business.

Facebook 4 Business

Facebook, being the matriarch of social media, has many attributes that it brings to the business table.

Industries like alcohol, Food & Beverage, sports teams, hotels, and non-profits being the breadwinner of engagement. So, businesses do well.

For starters, a wider audience. Facebook has 1.6 Billion users, while Instagram has about 112.5 million. This audience is heavily diverse but has an older audience. What those numbers tell us is that Facebook has more opportunity for more people to see your content, paid or organic.

What those numbers also tell us is that while there is a high potential for more people to see your content, they most likely will not see or engage with it. Facebook has a significantly low engagement rate of only 0.09%.

This is why targeting ads is so important. And Facebook does this factor in a great way.

The implementation of an interactive carousel ad. This ad format has shown great success for a B2B audience. This leads to retargeting.

Retargeting tracks when prospects visit your site and then display a relevant ad to that user when they are on the platform.

Using a look-a-like audience to target the ideal audience is also a feature that Facebook does well. You can specifically target individuals with a specific demographic, interest, etc. This helps to strategically pinpoint an audience rather than hoping your ad reaches who you want it to reach.

In addition, retargeting via Facebook not only gains a more specified audience but plays well in SEO tactics.

“Facebook retargeting, in cohesion with SEO tactics, places an undisputed level of efficiency. Rather than targeting a new demographic of customers, using the pixel you are targeting users who have shown the initial interest based on SEO.” Seo Marketer

Another point worth mentioning is that Facebook’s online shopping presence is top-notch. Facebook Marketplace is a mogul in social media shopping.

Outside of shopping, Facebook’s business pages are highly reputable. In fact, having a Facebook Business Page unlocks several benefits for your business in the long run.

Insert Instagram.

Instagram 4 Business

Instagram has captured social media like its iconic logo. So much so, that other social media platforms actually use its design as a model, Facebook included.

Instagram is the trendier of the comparative duo. The demographics reflect this. Instagram tends to attract the younger audience, millennials more specifically.

What is most intriguing about the fact that a young audience drives Instagram stats, is that users report that they follow at least one business religiously.

Another thing to note? One-third of Instagram users have made an online purchase within the Instagram app. Sixty-percent of users uses Instagram to seek out new products, or have discovered new products using the app. This is why the influencer industry is booming!

Perhaps the best part of advertising with Instagram is that about 72% of marketers are currently making use of it.
Instagram also shines in social media for the median 1.22 percent engagement rate it carries. The lowest engagement industry is retail which is .67 percent.

That’s nearly 7 times higher than Facebook’s median engagement rate. In fact, this is 5 times higher than the highest engaged industry on Facebook.

Now, to be fair, again – Instagram does have a significantly lower amount of users than Facebook.

One thing Instagram undoubtedly does well at is the Instagram shop capability. Similar to Facebook’s carousel feature of showcasing products or a list of services in a way that does not feel like you are being sold to, this does exactly that.

Instagram also uses the same targeting, retargeting, and look-a-like audience models as Facebook. Actually, Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012. So, while they are two different companies, the puls side is that they both use Facebook Business Manager to post ads.

Then, the most obvious difference between Facebook and Instagram is that Instagram is more visibly pleasing. For most ads that you are served within the app, you do not even realize that you are viewing an ad. The flawless advertising makes Instagram a successful platform in this sense.

Best 4 Business

So, who reigns champ? Let’s review.

Facebook has 1.6 billion users compared to Instagram’s 11.2 million users. However, Instagram’s median engagement rate is nearly 7 times higher than Facebook’s. While this may attribute to more users causing the engagement rate to water down, breaking down the engagement rate per industry returns the same results.

Instagram is also geared towards a younger audience, but an audience that yearns to shop. Facebook also has a great Facebook shopping capability, the site shows great plays in carousel advertisements.

Additionally, having a Facebook Business page may hold a greater weight than not having one. Facebook Business is a noteworthy complement to your website and business.

Also mentioned above the fact that Facebook owns Instagram. So, regardless of which you prefer, both have the same advertising tools out of Facebook Business Manager. You won’t be jipped of that aspect if you choose exclusively Instagram.

Honestly, the two things the decision boils down to are what you want your content to be and who your audience is. Are you looking for more pictures or videos? Younger or older audience? Broad or specific audience? Breaking those down will help you to decide which is better 4 your business.

Another truth?

Having one over another will not hurt your business. Having both definitely will not hurt your business. What will hurt your business is not accurately strategizing your content and advertising on these platforms.

What could be Better 4 Business is partnering with The Post and Courier.