Category: Business Growth

social media advertising: facebook vs instagram

Social Media Advertising: Facebook vs Instagram

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Social Media Advertising: Facebook vs Instagram

The year 2020 has shown us that social media advertising is here to stay, and that allocating your budget to successful campaigns with a high ROI is more important than before. Many times businesses feel the return on print advertising can’t be accurately measured. The beauty of marketing via social media channels is the variety of insights provided that can be analyzed to continually improve your campaigns to achieve successful results.  

Gone are the days where social media was solely for social interaction. In fact, research shows that 52% of all online brand discovery still happens in public social feeds (organic & paid). This suggests that the majority of consumers use Instagram and Facebook to investigate a new company before even visiting their website! 

Build brand awareness and loyalty by engaging with your followers and curating a feed that gives consumers a feeling of trust and relatability. Of course this means understanding the algorithms and the importance of curating captivating content. Let’s break down common questions surrounding social media advertising. 

 

What are the benefits of social media marketing?

Social media is proven to increase brand awareness, inbound traffic, conversion rates, customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, and most importantly is measurable and cost effective.

 

Audience Growth: Facebook v Instagram

Of all social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram are proven to be the most interactive and can produce the best ROI. However, the benefits of each are very subjective and depend on which features are being used, your industry, audience, and other factors.

  • Facebook
    • Facebook launched in February 2004, and introduced Facebook Ads in November of 2007. The platform was originally created to help people stay in-touch with family and friends and became an advertising powerhouse with the launch of Facebook Ads and Business pages in 2007.According to Statista, Facebook reported almost 1.79 billion daily active users and overall, daily active users accounted for 66% of monthly active users.  This number continues to grow by 9% compared to the year before, despite the speculation that Facebook is “dying”. 
  • Instagram
    • Instagram launched in October 2010 and is a younger platform focused on storytelling through images and now instagram reels and stories. Instagram ran its first ad in November 2013. By 2017, Instagram was averaging more than 2 million businesses with purchased ads, compared to Facebook’s 5 million. 
    • However, according to Statista, Instagram has over 500 million daily active users out of 1 billion monthly active users, making Instagram a powerhouse when it comes to audience engagement.

 

Audience: Facebook v Instagram

Facebook may not have the highest engagement, but because it is the oldest platform the audience is huge, with more than 2.45 billion monthly active users. Facebook differs from other social media platforms that show strong trends in users by age. The average age for a Facebook user ranges from 18-49, with little variance in between. However, Facebook is the most popular social network among seniors and the majority of the users are in the United States.

Of this 1.79 billion daily users, the ad audience reach for the U.S. is only 183 million people. This audience size has also seen a decrease in the past year from 3% to .4% - a fairly significant dip.

Instagram’s growth continues to be studied and monitored by marketers. In the United States, the network reaches over 37% of the population. The global audience is diversified, with only 11% of Instagram users represented by the U.S. eMarketer estimates 2020 will reveal a growth of over 5% in the U.S. compared  and anticipates this number to continue growing at this growth rate. 

More adults use Instagram than you would think, with 37% in 2019. The network is also significantly more popular amongst the younger generations. 67% of users are between the ages of 18-29. Here’s a breakdown from Hootsuite:

    • 18-27: 67%
    • 30-49: 47%
    • 50-64: 23%
    • 65+: 8%

Another important and interesting insight to Instagram’s audience is that the gender demographics are pretty even - 48% female and 52% male. 

All of these statistics are important to research when considering your buyer personas. You should always analyze your business’s audience and design your strategy based on this information rather than the overall network statistics.

 

 

Brand engagement: Facebook v Instagram

It’s no surprise that consumers rarely engage with branded social content compared to all content on a social platform. A study by Forrester revealed that on six of the seven social networks, the brands studied had an engagement rate of less than 0.1%. So, between Instagram and Facebook, which platform has the highest engagement? Depending on the blog you read, you’ll render different results. According to the Forrester study, one platform stood out the most: Instagram.

Facebook launched Facebook Business Pages to support the Facebook Ads launch in 2007, and now has over 60 million business pages. 39% of Facebook users that follow Facebook Business Pages do so because they want to receive special offers. Interestingly enough, the average organic reach of a Facebook post is only 6.4% of the Page’s total likes. Statista reports that  in 2019 the social network’s marketing spending reached almost 9.9 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of over 2 billion U.S. dollars from 2018. However, despite this level of spending, the engagement on Facebook with paid branded content is still under .1%. 

A study by Merkle reveals that ad spending on Instagram is 23% higher than facebook. What is driving this shift in ad spending to Instagram’s platform? Story ads and higher engagement.  

 

 

Types of Ads: Facebook v Instagram

Facebook offers Facebook Ads Guide for types of ads. These ad types include: Image Ads, Video Ads, Carousel Ads, and Collection Ads. Facebook provides thorough research where their teams explored the effectiveness of ads based on engagement, exploring text, timing, and format considerations. You can find some of this research here. Facebook’s targeting tools are considerable, and allow you to narrow down by purchase behavior, interests, location, demographics, Facebook communities, and more. You can create Core, Custom, and Lookalike Audiences for your ad delivery to increase relevance, thus leading to higher ad engagement.

Instagram ad types consist of feed posts and story ads. Both types look just like regular posts and stories, but are labeled with a “Sponsored” label and include a call to action button with options to send to your messages, website, Instagram profile, etc. According to AdEspresso, the average engagement rate for Instagram branded posts is 4.3%, compared to Facebook’s 1.5%. 

The user experience for Instagram story ads shows most users don’t realize they’re seeing an ad play back to back, revealing a smooth experience that isn’t too interruptive. Additionally, because an Instagram story takes up the entire screen there is no competition with other content and when targeted correctly, the experience feels organic. Therefore, consumers are more likely to engage.

Both are measured by reach & impressions. Reach is the number of unique views on a post. Impressions are the total number of times a post was seen. Both metrics provide helpful insights to your ad performance and allow you to make adjustments to improve your ad engagement overall.

 

 

Cost: Facebook v Instagram

A study in 2019 found that the average CPM for Instagram is $5.14 per 1000 visits. While the average CPC for Instagram ads is between $.20 and $2.00. Compared to Facebook’s CPM of $5.12 and CPC of $.80, Instagram wins again in this category. This study is a broad estimation, and certain factors like your target audience will affect these costs. Let’s discuss a few factors that affect the ad costs.

  • Ad Relevance - Facebook takes into account the relevancy of your ad amongst your selected target audience and factors this into the cost of the ad. Facebook and Instagram provide a relevancy score that changes while your ad runs. If you receive high engagement, your score will increase. If consumers are hiding your ad, your score will go down. A/B testing is a great way to determine what is relevant to your audience. Remember to only change one factor so that you receive concise data. Similar to a Google algorithm, the more relevant your content is to your target buyers and ad audience, the less expensive your ads will be.
  • Target audience - If you are targeting a popular audience that is high-demand, the cost will fluctuate. 
  • Time of year - like any retail or sales strategy, the time of year will determine the cost of the ad. Popular times of the year, like holidays, will affect the ad cost.
  • Ad Run Dates - Obviously, the longer you run an ad the more your cost will increase. The average ad doesn’t necessarily need to run for a long period of time. Assessing your impression and reach goals will help guide you to determine a reasonable ad length and price.

 

 

 

 

 

Creating a Strong Email Onboarding Plan

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Having a poor onboarding experience for your customers can pretty much kill your growth and potentially your business.

The first experience someone has as a potential customer sets the tone for your relationship. If the onboarding process is confusing or overwhelming, you risk driving the customer away permanently.

What is onboarding?

Customer onboarding is the process a new user goes through to become acclimated with your product. The onboarding process starts from the moment a new visitor begins your signup funnel. It continues as they tour your product for the first time and never truly ends. 

You should continue to use onboarding as you educate your user base about new product functionalities and features. No matter when it happens, great onboarding quickly and effortlessly answers several key questions for your customer.  

Why use email to onboard?

Email is a great supplemental onboarding tool that can further educate users about your product’s features and benefits. The process should always start with a welcome email, and can then go on to include emails with followup and additional information.

Welcome emails have four times the open rate of other types of emails, and are shown to perform even better when they include video. A good way to incorporate that is by using short looping videos in a welcome email. This adds interest and movement to an otherwise static experience.

You can use email in other ways to enhance your onboarding experience. Remind new users to access the product during their free trial. Dig deeper into product benefits. You can even share social proof to build value. 

What should the email series include?

An email onboarding plan can look different for every company. But time has shown that there are best practices for how many emails to send, and how much to space out the send dates.

Stephanie Dill
Stephanie Dill, The Post and Courier’s Digital Marketing Manager

Once you get the welcome email out to the customer’s inbox, what comes next? For additional insight into how the Post and Courier onboards its brand new subscribers, I spoke with Digital Marketing Manager Stephanie Dill.

“Currently our onboarding process is a series of 6 emails sent over 30 days,” Stephanie points out when asked how many emails and how often the company sends. 

“We start with a welcome letter from our Executive Editor, putting a human face behind the subscription, and then the following emails highlight different benefits you receive as a subscriber.” 

Explaining benefits that customers receive as patrons of your business is crucial to the email onboarding process. When customers walk through your store, or browse your catalog of products or services, they get the basic idea of what they’d be paying for.

Present exclusive customer benefits in your emails

The email onboarding process is your chance to present the deeper value of your business, outside of what the customer already knows on the surface.

“These [benefits] include newsletters, access to apps and our digital replica E-Paper, our podcasts, exclusive subscriber-only Facebook groups, etc.” 

For customers using the newspaper’s E-Paper service, videos have been made available to walk them through the service’s interface and show them how to navigate the digital newspaper replica.

Great onboarding can decrease your customer service requests. If you do a great job teaching new customers how to use your product, they’re less likely to have questions down the road. In fact, 47% of businesses say using video as an FAQ tool has helped them do just that. 

“The onboarding series is a way for us to help our new subscribers make the most of their subscription and form a relationship with them that we hope will last for a long time,” Stephanie said.

How often should you send emails?

Your business should decide whether it wants to send out a burst of many emails in a short period of time, or if it should send a series of fewer emails over a longer period of time. There can be ways to meet in the middle, but you should find the right balance for your business and its customers.

“I think a blend of the two is ideal for us,” Stephanie said. “Right away, we want people to know how to use their subscription, so we send quite a few emails in the first 10-12 days. After that we back off, giving more time between sends, but continuing to check in and have little touch points for the first 30 days or so.”

Adapting the plan to your business model

The message behind your onboarding emails can and should look different depending on how you sell your product or service. Are you a business that simply sells your goods, and then hopes customers return to pay you again? Or is your revenue built upon subscription services, or other forms of recurring payment over a long period of time? 

Stephanie gives valuable information for how the onboarding process should differ for these two business models.

“I think for an already paying subscriber, you already know they are committed to their purchase, and you are working to show them additional benefits to keep them long term,” Stephanie said. 

“For a marketing qualified lead, they haven’t made that commitment to your brand yet, so your relationship is in a different place. You are still building and nurturing the relationship, and it is still very sales focused. You are offering things they want and need, but trying not to overwhelm them.”

For these types of customer leads, you should offer them discounted access to your product. You already know they have shown interest in your brand. They just need a little extra push to dedicate their time and money to you.

Finding the right balance of email frequency and regular communication with customers is the key to keeping customers invested but not overwhelmed. You never want to drive anyone away if they feel their inbox is becoming cluttered. 

So always make sure your emails are valuable and informative. Treat your potential customer well, and talk to them like a person, not just a piggy bank.

Steeplechase of Charleston_Diamonds Direct

Spotlight On: Branded Content

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Spotlight On: Branded Content

Authenticity for the Win

By, Sterling Eason, Senior Director of Partnership Development

Now more than ever, consumers are gravitating to brands to hear their authentic stories.  They want to see the CEO on Zoom (with her dog) in weekend clothes giving a tour of the factory or follow a social media campaign that teaches them something new.  And, it's comforting when the delivery is genuine and authentic.  The best part? Authentic communication is as effective as it is affordable.

This is where branded content comes in.  It is the vehicle for the authenticity to travel within, which is why it can be one of the most effective tools used by brands today. Trust can be built between the consumer and the brand when they see the people behind the brands and the products.

New sales and marketing models are emerging weekly.  Coupled with concerns and uncertainty around budgets for marketing, we are stepping onto new ground that can feel precarious. There will be no return to the status quo for consumers in the near future - the new normal is taking shape.

We recently surveyed our business partners at Steeplechase of Charleston with the majority  indicating that their top tools for marketing are social media and branded content.  This is where the affordability theme steps in.  Creating branded content doesn’t mean slick and expensive productions.

 

HOW TO GET STARTED

What is your goal?

Let’s start with what branded content is often used to do:

  • Drive engagement
  • Increase brand awareness
  • Improve brand loyalty

 

First, gather your smartest minds together and talk it out.

Be sure to populate that team with people from multiple areas of the company. Remember, your brand is represented in everything from sales to operations to the front lines of customer service - all these areas should weigh in. 

  • What do you want for the brand? Find your themes.
  • Start putting them into buckets with ideas attached to each.
  • If you are efficient, this is a one-hour meeting. Preparing your people before the meeting is key. Give them time to think about the brand and assign them ideas to bring to the table.

 

Develop the story and concept.

You have your buckets of goals with themes, now pick one.  Pick a week on the schedule to push it out and work backward to begin your planning. While you are at that, create a basic content calendar for the year and share it with the team. Be willing to change that calendar as often the market will present new challenges. For guidance, here's a great article discussing the Nine steps to great storytelling.

 

Develop content that strengthens likability while also carrying out your major goal.

Good content is key to convince consumers to click.  People like content that makes them feel good and in turn, they often will feel good about the brand. Make them laugh, teach them something, give them special access. With consumers spending less time commuting, etc., they are looking to fill in gaps. This is your opportunity to bring them content that entertains and informs - resulting in consumers taking action.

A SATISFYING CONTENT EXPERIENCE → DRIVES CLICKS → HOME PAGE → SALES

 

A few ideas to consider:

  • Give them access to something - Go behind the scenes and show your process. People love to see things being made!
  • Another suggested strategy is to not only attempt to create a community centered on enthusiasm for your brand, but for your brand to enthusiastically support existing communities that have a purpose separate from, but relevant to you.

 

How to tell your story

  • Find the easiest platforms for you to use.  This is where Social Media steps in often.   It is user-friendly, easily-measured, and inexpensive. (If you aren’t consistent with content on social media, you are likely not going to build your followers.)Baker Motor company Steeplechase Social Content
    • However, there are many other platforms such as articles, video calls, virtual events, branded videos, newsletters, as well as conference calls.
  • Identify the voice: If it is a Zoom call, bring in a moderator to hold the content together by keeping everyone on message; if it’s an article, have your CEO pen the piece from their perspective, or, if you are hosting a virtual event, pin it to a theme and have your host give a strong introduction and close.
  • Record and reuse.  Once you have built a body of content, save it! Use it again. Replay it to a new audience. And by all means, add it to your website so that those visiting for the first time can get a sense of your brand voice.

Here's an example of a branded content video created by Steeplechase of Charleston for our presenting sponsor, Baker Motor Company:

 

Last but not least, three golden rules:

  • Have a purpose for what you are doing when you tell your story.
  • Tie that purpose back to a call-to-action.
  • Make it easy for them to act as well as react.

 

The time is now to drive connections. The desire of your customers is there. What are you waiting for?

A partnership with Steeplechase of Charleston can mean much more than exposure on race day. Consider a conversation with me to discuss how your brand can be a part of our overall content strategy that begins well in advance of race day and extends across multiple platforms.

 

 

By Sterling Eason, Senior Director of Partnership Development, Steeplechase of Charleston, The Post and Courier

 

 

 

 

SEO marketing

10 SEO Mistakes to Avoid

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

10 SEO Mistakes to Avoid

Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial to building your brand and growing your business in 2020. As the use of technology has significantly increased over the last decade, so has the use of Google’s search engine. According to Statista, in April 2020, online search engine Bing accounted for 6.25% of the global search market, while Google had a market share of 86.02%. Additionally, in 2017 Google was responsible for driving 35% of all website traffic. 

SEO best practices are constantly evolving, as is Google’s algorithm. It is essential to not only continually monitor your website SEO conversions, but also continually optimize. There are a lot of intricacies surrounding search engine optimization, and it is easy to feel overwhelmed with what best practices to use. Today, lets discuss common SEO mistakes and how to avoid them.

 

1. Not meeting search intent 

It is important that the reader achieves what they’re looking for when visiting your page. If their needs are not met, your SEO ranking will be negatively affected.  Google ranks your site based on trust & value. This trust is established by behavior that shows your visitors find what they are looking for.

 

2. Writing at a high reading level

This is something that I personally struggle with every time I write a blog. As a writer, it is easy to forget that not everyone loves long, intricately structured sentences with fancy words like you. Not everyone, meaning Google.  Ideally, Google wants to see that your page is readable to anyone who visits it. This means keeping sentences short, and using words that everyone understands.

 

3. Outdated SEO techniques 

If you’re familiar with search engine optimization already, you know just how quickly the techniques can change. Google’s algorithm is constantly changing. It is important to understand the important SEO insights as they actively change. Here is a good list of 9 SEO insights you must follow right now.

 

4. Unclear SEO goals

Just as any marketing practice, without a strategy there is no way to measure your success or reach your goals. You should establish an overall SEO strategy, as well as a strategy for individual campaign initiatives. If you’re new to building an SEO strategy, I highly recommend checking out this article by marketing expert Drew Fortin.

 

5. Ignoring conversion data

Measuring the success of your SEO is extremely important. The primary goal of your search engine is to drive traffic to your company website. More specifically, the goal is to target relevant customers. Someone who is already interested in a product or service your company provides is more likely to convert. Without measuring your conversions, you have zero ability to measure the effectiveness of your SEO strategy. Here are some helpful tools to audit and monitor your SEO.

 

6. Using only text content

If you’re new to SEO optimization, text-only content is dead. It is more important than ever to include imagery and/or video in blogs, emails, and other means of content. According to comscore, adding video to your website can increase the chance of a front page Google result (SERP) by 53 times. Video increases customer attention, therefore leading to higher engagement. This Vidyard article is a great example of the benefits of video marketing.

 

7. Not good for mobile

Over 50% of users use their phones to view websites and open emails. Google search ranking practices Mobile-first indexing, meaning that Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking.  Because of the shift in web traffic being driven by mobile users, new websites (built since 2019) are indexed mobile first. Keep this in mind when building your landing pages and blogs!

 

8. Not enough attention to your headings

Headings and subheadings are important because they make your page or article easier to read; thus, increasing your SEO value. The reader should be able to find what they’re looking for quickly. Otherwise, they will leave your page. Making minor changes to the text in your headings won’t directly affect your SEO value. Rather, it is the effect on the overall structure of the page. Use headings as signposts, and the text below to describe what they’re about. Applying structure and making the page easy to read for customers will help Google understand your page better, too. 

 

9. Writing for Google & not your audience

It is easy to lose sight of the purpose of the blog article or landing page you are building and cater specifically to SEO rankings.  As important as it is to keep search engine ranking top of mind, it is essential that you write for your audience and not Google. If you’re using a platform like WordPress, I highly recommend using the Yoast SEO plugin. Once you’ve begun utilizing Yoast, write FIRST for your audience and THEN integrate the SEO optimization. Yoast will provide a detailed list of SEO suggestions, and rank your blog or landing page accordingly. Ultimately, real people are who you are trying to reach and convert into revenue, not Google (sorry, Google).

 

10. Helpful content

This is one of the strongest marketing trends for 2020. With the current state of the world and the economy, it is more important than ever to produce helpful, educational content. If you are producing something to sell to your clients, you’re going to turn away potential clients before they can even decide if they want to buy with you. Your communication should come from an empathetic and honest place. However, don’t ignore the elephant in the room. Try new + creative email campaigns geared towards providing your clients with helpful resources.

 

 

 

 

Important Email Stats You Should Know

Important Email Marketing Stats You Should Know

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Email Marketing Stats You Should Know

Covid marketing trends that are here to stay

 
  

What is the current state of Email Marketing?

Let's start unpacking this question. Before the Covid-19 pandemic began, many marketers suspected that email marketing would be “dead” within a matter of a few years. However, recent trends suggest just the opposite. HubSpot research shows that 78% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months. In fact, the latest research from Litmus found that for every $1 spent on email marketing, the ROI is $42.

 

So, what helpful statistics can help your business navigate email marketing practices to increase your email performance, and thus your company’s ROI?

 

Since April 1, 2020, marketing email open rates have been climbing.

Additionally, companies are utilizing email marketing at a higher rate than before. These two metrics have increased in tandem. Here are some useful insights related to open rates:

 
 

Additional best practices to increase your open rates involve your subject line.

Before your customer can even read the beautiful and helpful email you’ve created, they need to feel inclined to open.  Your subject line needs to grab the attention of your audience within just a few words. 

The best part about subject lines is that they can be A/B tested. It never hurts to switch up your language, be mindful of your audience, and test different methods to see what your audience reacts to. 

  • Keep it short. Recipients are often mobile users. Keep your subject no  more than 9 words / 60 characters. (Mailchimp.com)
  • Personalization is key. Use tags to personalize your subject lines with each recipient’s name, company name, or location. Personalization is known to increase open rates for most users. (Mailchimp.com)
  • Try using emojis. 56% of brands using an emoji in their email had a higher open rate than those that did not (HubSpot.com). Try to limit your emoji use to one, and use them to supplement words rather than replace them to make sure your message is clear. (mailchimp.com)

 
 

Implement email segmentation.

Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue. (HubSpot.com).  

What is segmentation? According to Campaign Monitor, segmentation is the division of an email list into smaller segments based on set criteria. Segmentation is a tactic used to ensure relevancy to your audience based on location, interests, purchase history, client activity, and more. 

 

Additionally, measure & analyze your list performance.

Continually monitor email performance metrics like bounce rate & unsubscribe rate.

Your bounce rate is a direct measure of your contact database and how enriched your data is. A high bounce rate would suggest that your contacts are recently active, or perhaps just aren’t updated.

A high unsubscribe rate speaks to your list and the relevancy of your email to your customer. If you’re just beginning an email campaign strategy and your clients aren’t used to receiving emails from you, make your purpose and value of the email clear to your audience. Continue to segment your lists based on the list performance results and nurture the clients who want to be included in the information you have to share.

 

Create honest, helpful content. This includes educational or resourceful content.

This is more important during this “new normal” as we’ve adapted to the Covid-19 pandemic. If you are a part of an industry that has been slow to adapt to digital marketing, this presents a large window of opportunity.

Conductor.com reports that according to their new research, consumers are 131% more likely to buy from a brand immediately after they read a piece of educational content.  

HubSpot Marketing Manager Henni Roini echoes this sentiment, “Only the companies and brands that create human connection are going to succeed. This is extremely true with email. You might get short term benefits from very promotional content, but honest, human, and personalized content creates a following for the long term.”

In our previous blog discussing client Relationship Management, we elaborate on how to use empathy as a tool. Your goal is to design a communication strategy that leads with empathy from an honest place.
 
 

Stay consistent and measure your success.

If you don’t have one already, implement a review process to check for broken links, grammar mistakes, etc. Make sure that you have an approval process that works efficiently. Stay consistent with send dates and times to build trust with your audience.

 

Analyze email performance across all marketing channels.

Did your team write a blog that resonated well with your audience? Perhaps you decide to extend the reach of this article by supporting it with a social media paid campaign. Assess your click through rates - perhaps the topic isn’t as relevant to your customers as you originally thought, or the segmentation wasn’t in the right direction.

The beauty of marketing is the ability to create, test, and analyze to improve your results going forward. Measure results and evolve your strategies.

 
 
 
 

Hurricane Season Preparedness

Ensuring Customers Choose You During a Crisis

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Crisis Preparedness:

Ensuring Customers Choose YOU During a Crisis

Crisis preparedness comes in many shapes and sizes. Smart decisions + planning can help prevent “business casualties.” Marketing a business during a time of crisis has to first begin with a crisis management plan. Let’s examine ways in which you can develop a crisis marketing strategy to ensure that when crisis strikes, the customer chooses YOU.

We’ve discussed in previous blogs the importance of the “pull not push” method as it pertains to marketing during a time of crisis. This begins with compassion when communicating with your customers.  “Trends suggest that how a business communicates with clients during a time of crisis will directly impact the brand’s reputation for the foreseeable future. The goal is to design a communication strategy that leads with empathy from an honest place.” 

Naturally, a crisis will push you into a fight or flight mindset. Now is your opportunity to adapt and be willing to try something new when it comes to your marketing strategy. We know that empathetic messaging is important. However, some trends now suggest that this messaging is becoming mundane thus losing its honesty. So, how do you begin that message to your customers? 

 

Step one:  Construct a crisis communication plan.  

This will serve as an outline for how & when you intend to communicate with your clients, and the message you want to convey.

Focus on  keeping your existing and potential customers updated and informed. 

If your company has employees that interact frequently with clients, consult with them. They are a key piece to the puzzle because of their relationships & conversations with customers. Lean on them for insight into your customer experience - what questions do they have that you can provide answers directly? 

 

Here are 5 suggestions to help you construct a crisis communication plan:

  1. Update  your Google business listing so that when a client searches for your company they receive the most updated information. Include any special offers or messages related to the crisis at hand.
  2. Update your hours + other helpful info on your business voicemail.   
  3. Create a newsletter or a monthly email that highlights useful + positive information, and positions your company as a helpful resource. 
  4. Update your company website with a banner on the homepage that leads to a landing page or aggregate FAQ’s page that is concise and easy to read. Include a way for them to contact you directly online with a form + capture the client information.  
  5. When creating content for these newsletters, think about what questions your customers want answered. Provide these answers in an easily accessible location. (For example, how can customers  purchase from you? What is the best way to get in touch with you? Upcoming events and/or cancellations?)

 

Next, data shows that people increase digital consumption during a crisis.

Take the time to update testimonials from clients you’ve helped in a crisis before to create trust with a potential customer. Capitalize on this trend by preparing a solid SEM strategy & finessing your SEO for effective customer acquisition.

What is SEM? According to HubSpot, “SEM, or search engine marketing, is using paid advertising to ensure that your business's products or services are visible in search engine results pages (SERPs). When a user types in a certain keyword, SEM enables your business to appear as a result for that search query.” SEM strategies include methods like keyword research and analysis (Indexability of your website, popular keywords searched as it relates to your industry and business, and integrating these words into your site), as well as PPC (pay per click) advertising strategies through platforms such as Google Ads. PPC is a form of digital marketing where advertisers “pay per click” on their strategically placed ad.  This is a method of paying for website visitors and potential customers versus relying solely on organic website traffic. Learn more about our Search Engine Marketing services.

 

Lastly, get creative.

Now is the time to bundle and put together packages that add value and incentivize a purchase. Be innovative in your crisis preparedness - focus on a positive mindset and problem solving. In what ways can your company adapt to the current situation to achieve success?

 

 

PandCDigitalLORES

Our Journey to 10k

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Our Journey to 10K

The Post and Courier has recently achieved a milestone of 10,000 paid digital subscribers. This accomplishment can be attributed to a multitude of efforts from our newsroom and marketing team. But, what does this really mean and how is it relevant to you as a business partner?

 

It is no secret that in general we spend more time on the internet today than we did even a year ago. Since January, we’ve seen an increase of over 2,000 new paid digital subscribers - an increase of over 27%. What this trend tells us is that our audience is craving digital news updates and informative resources more than ever before. 

 

Let’s address what this engaged digital audience means to a business owner and how it can be leveraged through digital advertising.  HubSpot describes, “Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers.” 

 

Just like all marketing, your goal is to connect with your target audience in the right place at the right time. 

 

The benefit of advertising with The Post and Courier is our standing trust with our readers and our ability to connect you with your target audience based on the behaviors of our engaged readers. This keeps us connected with our readers' needs and thus the needs of our partners. 

 

Claire Linney, our Emerging Sales expert explains, "For example, we have a Food & Dining newsletter that is sent to readers specifically interested in reading about all things food related (restaurant news, recipes, new breweries, food events).  As an advertising partner, this proposes an opportunity to reach a targeted audience with specific interests by investing in an advertising position in a fitting newsletter.  We’re here to help you navigate your spending and ensure your investments are strategically aligned with goals.."

 

As a company, The Post and Courier continues to be digital first, with focus on increasing and expanding an engaged digital audience.   With the hard work of our newsroom, producing special reporting about topics directly impacting our community and state, our audience continues to grow and see value in our in-depth coverage.  

 

Here are some fun statistics that expand on the significance of this milestone of 10,000 paid digital subscribers and value of The Post and Courier broadened digital audience:

 

With the current state of the economy & recovering businesses, it is more important than ever to make certain your company is investing wisely via digital platforms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charleston's Choice 2019_2

How sponsorships and event partnerships benefit businesses in quarantine

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

How sponsorships and event partnerships benefit businesses in quarantine

Sponsorships are a key pillar in any businesses’ ability to reach new audiences. In a world under quarantine, it can be tough to find relevant events and other sponsorship opportunities. But as the world figures out how to operate under social distancing rules, certain events are finding ways to thrive. 

It's important to consider the benefits that sponsorships can bring your business. Because as with all advertising right now, when the competition is low, it's a great time to put yourself out in front of audiences. So here are some of the top reasons you should sponsor events right now.

Build Consumer Confidence

Any customer that’s willing to attend an event right now likely has trust in the hosting company. Aligning your brand with a company that already has high customer confidence will also help build confidence in your brand. The public perception of your brand will be just as large as that of the event host.

There has been a misconception lately that sponsorships can only build consumer confidence if they are for charitable causes. While customers do value seeing brands align with charities right now, that doesn’t mean that traditional sponsorships are any less valuable for your brand.

Generate Leads

The potential for return on investment with event sponsorships is high. People are there to experience the event and will naturally learn about the sponsoring brands while they are there. Customers are more open to discovering new products and services. 

You have your audience’s attention much more than when they can ignore your ad at home or in a print product. These are all people that you need to follow up with after. Build a solid post-event marketing plan around the leads that you capture. Make sure your sponsorship artwork, video, booth, etc. has a solid way of either capturing contact info or driving people to your website.

Be sure to look at the ROI on your sponsorship and use that info to consider future sponsorships and where to invest your money. Getting in front of the right audience in the right way is something that comes with practice.

Reach your target audience

One of the more valuable reasons to sponsor an event is that you can reach a highly-specific audience.

Claire Linney

"For example, our Bicycle Across South Carolina event has an audience of people who are generally active, interested in outdoors and a healthy lifestyle," event sales manager Claire Linney notes.

"This audience matches well with a business like a chiropractic center who wants to reach active people in the community. We can create custom sponsorships that allow the client to connect with attendees one-on-one to build new relationships and generate new leads. In this example, the chiropractor can connect with “active lifestyle” potential patients.

Gather audience insights

Events are a great place to gather valuable information on your potential client base. You get to see what the spenders in your community value and how they like to engage with brands. Demographic data and audience preferences can help you build nurture campaigns. You can learn how and when to talk to your audience in the way they prefer.

Work with the event host to make a plan for capturing that data. Show that you have an active and growing interest in their audience. This will make future partnerships with the host business easier and more beneficial to both parties.

Our annual Family Expo attracts thousands of parents, and a previous financial firm sponsor saw strong return on their investment. "The in-person data collection allows them to have the contact information of these event attendees to re-connect with a follow-up about their services specific to families," Claire said.

"Because the consumer has already met the financial group in person, they are warmed up and familiar with the business, and more likely to respond. "

Increase Visibility

The bigger the event, the better the visibility you’ll get. As the world continues to open up and allow people to gather (at a safe distance), people will be hungry to attend events. Look at your opportunities throughout the end of this year and beyond.

Post and courier drive-in movie night

Your sponsorship plan doesn’t have to be focused on the present. Although there are unique events that are benefitting from the need to socially distance ourselves. Drive-in movies have made a resurgence, and are a great chance to advertise in a theater-like experience.

Build Partnerships

Event sponsorships are a good way to meet non-competitive companies in your area. Always be on the lookout for new partnership opportunities.

Look at the ways that audiences benefit from learning about all of the brands that are sponsoring the event. Maybe there are creative ways to partner with another brand that drives audiences to each business. 

Competition is low

As mentioned before, the world is in a unique place in which many businesses aren’t comfortable or able to spend dollars on sponsorships. Unfortunately, these businesses will continue to struggle when the COVID-19 crisis fades away, as they won’t have set themselves up for future success. History shows this has been the case whenever businesses stop advertising during a crisis, and eventually fall behind their competition.

Social media opportunities

Being a part of an upcoming event opens many doors on social media platforms that are great for capturing attention. There are tons of unique ways to promote your participation. 

And using the native tools that platforms like Facebook have for events allows you to become a full part of the event’s promotion. Facebook allows event pages or promoted posts to tag a partner business. Whether you are the venue hosting the event or just a paid sponsor, you can appear as an official partner on the event’s social media promotion.

This is a great way to gain new followers. As a part of your promotion, you can potential work out an arrangement for the event host to encourage their followers to follow your business as well. 

Social media users are ready for interaction, and are the easiest leads to warm up and get them to click over to your website.

Find sponsorship opportunities as they become available

If any of the reasons above sound like they would lead to higher sales for your business, then now is the time to start planning your event participation for the year. Event dates may have had to change over recent months, but the world will keep moving forward and people are ready to find a new normal.

To find out more about upcoming events and other sponsorship opportunities in the Charleston area, talk to your Post and Courier advertising sales representative, or contact us here.

driving customer conversions during coronavirus

Driving customer conversions during coronavirus

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Stay at home orders mean more eyes on your advertising and a drastic increase in impressions. So how can you turn those impressions into increased conversions, and retain those spenders?

You’ll have to focus on improving your Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). This means, addressing all of the ways people are observing your brand and optimizing those channels around the increased eye traffic.

Drive Social Media Conversions

People staying at home and working at home are undeniably engaging more with social media. In a time of separation and distancing, we’re more desperate than ever to see what our peers are up to.

Hopefully, you’ve gotten ahead of this and already started increasing your organic and paid social media presence. Any impression is a good one, but targeted social advertising will give you the most valuable impressions. These leads will take the least amount of work to convert into spenders, since the social platform’s tools have already narrowed down your audience to your desired one. 

Keep wording simple

One of the ways you can make your posts and social ads even more digestible is to simplify your wording. Don’t complicate your verbiage with words like “utilize” instead of just “use.” No matter how much you want to appear professional, social media isn’t the place to worry about that. 

A valuable tool to help you simplify your messaging is the Hemingway Editor. This website and app reads your wording, grades its readability, and suggests simpler words and improved phrasing. This can be particularly handy if you need to stay under a character limit.

Don’t forget the CTA

Because the goal is to turn a viewer into a spender, you need to always have a fitting and powerful call to action. The person needs to understand what they’re getting into when they move from ad to website or form. The clickthrough needs to align with the content they stopped scrolling to read, after all. Deception is never the answer.

For advice on developing strong CTA’s, such as ones with urgency, check out this post.

Prepare your website for the traffic

Once people take action and click through or search up your website, the experience needs to be good. Between beefing up your site’s stability and designing it for usability, now is the time to give your website some love.

Speed up your pages

The masses are flooding the collective internet with clicks and scrolls right now. Even if your website isn’t being greatly impacted by increased traffic, it’s still a good time to focus on optimization. The last thing you want a new potential customer to see when they visit your website is a lack of graphics, or even worse… an error code.

Your website, and all others, are hosted by a web hosting company that surely hosts hundreds, thousands, or even millions of other websites. Your website’s stability is dependent on that host’s ability to deliver your site to users. So as all websites within the world wide web get bogged down together, your site needs to be ready for potential slowdowns.

Start by auditing your site’s speed. You can do this yourself by visiting your pages, but a full professional audit will allow you to identify the speed pain points slowing you down. This can include things such as image files that are unnecessarily large and plugins that would work just as well as an embed.

Be mobile friendly

As an interactive medium, most of your web traffic is going to come from social click throughs. This leads us to the important fact that almost all social media usage is done on a mobile device. Data shows that people use their mobile device 80 percent of the time for social media.

This means that as people quarantine, your mobile traffic is likely going to outweigh desktop traffic. Which makes a mobile friendly web experience more important than ever. As an added bonus, mobile friendly websites rank higher in google search results.

Whatever website builder or hosting platform you use for your website already likely takes mobile design into account. But this is an automated process. And the best mobile websites were built with mobile in mind first, then desktop. 

Similar to load speed, give your site a mobile friendliness audit. This can even be done on a desktop by shrinking your browser’s window size down to look like a phone. As a tip, the aspect ratio size for most recent phones is 18:9. Older phones (pre iPhone X, for example) are 16:9, which still works on newer sizes. 16:9 phones are also the same size as standard monitors and television sets, just oriented vertically.

Give your web pages a look at this vertical sizing and see how your assets adjust and resize. Are your buttons and links large enough for a finger to tap on comfortably? Do your logos and images resize in a way they are still readable? 

The truth is, internet-goers are becoming subconsciously used to pages that were built first for mobile, but viewed on a desktop. This is why most articles you read compress content into the middle, leaving a ton of whitespace around the sides. You likely have been finding websites to look cleaner over the last few years, without even giving thought to why. It all comes back to mobile.

Analyze your conversions

In the end, the most important thing you can be doing is looking at your data. Where are people coming from when they visit you online or in person?

Where did they discover you? How long are they spending on your feed or content? You have to track your customers’ journey. Google has shown that the top 10% of well-tracked accounts on google ads have a conversion rate of over 20%.

Your conversions should be easily trackable if you’re utilizing the right tools to drive clicks and other forms of direct engagement from prospective customers. So build up your online presence for both your website and social channels, and keep an eye on your conversions. This is an investment, and the current world circumstances might be setting you up for long term success.

Sticky Notes: A Customizable Advertising Solution

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Sticky Notes:  A Customizable Advertising Solution

As we look for efficient ways to market businesses via print methods in the year 2020 and beyond, Sticky Notes can be an effective resource that provides a quick read with a lasting reference. Although it may feel like an all-digital world, 81% of customers like brands to communicate coupons and offers in both print and digital in order to not miss out on savings.  

Moreover, 60% say seeing an offer in both print and online makes them more likely to make a purchase. These eye-catching coupons take immediate attention from the newspaper reader on the front page, which is rare real estate. Sticky notes are sometimes a company’s only opportunity to appear in such a prime spot. 

How can Sticky Notes be a smart investment & marketing solution? Not only are these fun stickers customizable and double-sided, but they also have a tendency to travel. Because of their design, Sticky Notes frequently move from newspaper to refrigerator and then (hopefully) into the wallet of a client, leaving a direct impression and feeling of exclusivity.

On the front page, there is no competition with other ads. Sticky Notes deliver high visibility and an immediate impact. Adding newspapers to a campaign boosts ROI by nearly 3 times, on average!

Ask yourself, “What are your company’s primary methods for gauging effectiveness of the advertising sales?” If the answers include increased customers, sales, and traffic, this would be a useful solution for you.

Ask your sales representative how your company can get involved - fill out the form below and our team will be in touch with you promptly!

Let’s chat about customizable marketing solutions: