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I recently read a article which kind of always confirmed my suspicions about who were the leaders in video platforms. That study showed that YouTube and Facebook were considered the first- and second-most effective video platforms for marketing—in that order. Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter were middle-of-the-pack finishers when it came to effectiveness. But one interesting result was that Snapchat was in last place for usage. Nearly 90% of respondents said they'd never used Snapchat's video advertising features. Snapchat has long focused its efforts on mature markets in North America and Europe, where more money is spent on video advertising and where consumers tend to have more advanced smartphones capable of handling the app's intense data and processor requirements. The study also showed another weakness of spending advertising dollars on Snapchat at least those who were trying the platform for marketing. Only 27% thought it was an effective channel, raising questions about the platform's ability to deliver a solid ROI.
The article also showed that LinkedIn was an often overlooked as a video advertising platform. In the study, just 38% of marketers polled posted video content on LinkedIn, 75% of them thought it to be a successful way of reaching target audiences. While LinkedIn is most often thought of as a business-focused platform, it has also avoided many of the brand safety problems recently suffered by YouTube and Facebook, perhaps increasing its appeal among marketers. Kind of food for thought on using video and where marketing and advertising dollars seem to be most effective. -Roy
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 Before you can create any kind of a great Facebook advertising campaign, you need to know what your goals are and how to read those goals. (analytics) You’ll need to measure to determine how successful the campaign is. Avoiding these steps can really take a toll on your ROI. Take advantage and use Facebook Insights.Generating sales: Your approach will vary depending on whether you’re in the B2C or B2B sector. When in the B2C, your best bet is to use page post ads to promote in the news feed, where you can use larger images to promote your products and services. When in the B2B sector, you should use both page post ads and right-hand column ads to focus on acquiring more leads you can nurture through the sales funnel to convert to sales. Your goal is to send more traffic to your website or landing page, and you should target based on interests, age range, and gender keeping in mid that is appropriate to do so.
Building more brand awareness: Use page like ads to get more likes for your page. You should aim for likes only from highly targeted people, so it means using targeting competitors, similar interests, and custom audiences to get newsletter subscribers to like your Facebook page. Exclude people who are already fans of your page to avoid wasting your hard earned advertising bucks. Getting more engagement on your posts: Use link ads, photo ads, and video ads to get more engagement for your posts. Your ad creatives should be extremely visual with stellar photos. If you’ve built a relevant audience, start by advertising to them. If not, target people who fit your ideal customer persona based on interests, age, gender, and purchasing behaviors. Getting installs of your mobile app: Use the mobile app ads for install ad type. Once your app is published in the app store, you should implement Facebook event tracking. Use app screenshots in your creative, and target based on the audience you believe to be most interested. Thought check. Mobile apps although a bit costly if you are a small business owner, are great to have but also it is for more on lines sales or retail type businesses-e-commerce. If you are a consultant or in the service type of industry, having a app for smart phones may not work for you. Keep Desktop and Mobile Ads Separate Facebook gives you the option to run various advertising in different locations. You can run on mobile newsfeed, desktop newsfeed, right column, and Instagram. It’s a good idea to keep your desktop and mobile ad campaigns completely separate, even if you’re aiming to achieve the same goal. Again, your budget needs to come into consideration. Keeping them separate allows you to optimize your ads, bids, and conversions based on device. Your ads and calls to action are likely to perform differently on desktop than they would on mobile, so your ad setup needs to fact that in. If you’re using the Power Editor to design and build your ads, then you can choose the device targeting on the ad set menu. Test Different ImagesImages will draw attention to your ads, but no two images will perform the same way. That’s why you should test the same ad copy with different images, to see which ones your audience responds to better. Then, stop running ad campaigns that use the images with the lower click through rates and conversions, so you can maximize your ROI. Use Lookalike AudiencesA Facebook Lookalike Audience is a list of users who have similar characteristics to your website custom audience. You can use it to find other people who are already like your customers, or to find people like the ones who are already like your page. If you want to create a lookalike audience, login to the Facebook ads manager and click audiences. From there, click “Create audience” and choose “Lookalike audience” from the dropdown menu. Then, choose the source of your look alike audience, such as the people who already like your page, or the people who’ve visited the thank you page on your website. Choose your target company, and select your audience size. The smaller audience size you choose, the more targeted it will be. Use the Remarketing PixelAny potential customers who’ve visited your website from any traffic source, but didn’t convert, are likely comparing prices and providers. They’re in the research phase and are trying to get the best possible deal. So, by the time they’re ready to actually make a purchase, chances are high they’ve forgotten about you. The Facebook remarketing pixel allows you to target people who’ve visited your website in the past on Facebook with ads. This is an excellent way to make the most of traffic that originally came to you from AdWords. All you have to do to setup a remarketing pixel is login to your Facebook advertising manager, click on Audiences, then click “Custom Audience and Website Traffic.” From there, you’ll be able to start the process of creating a remarketing pixel. You’ll need to install the code in the footer of your website. It may take a day or so to start pulling in data, but you can then go back to your website traffic menu and choose “people who visit specific web pages.” From there, you’ll be able to create lists of people who are visiting a certain page on your website, and target them or exclude them from your campaigns. One of the best ways to make use of this is to exclude anyone who has visited your thank you page, since they have already converted. You’re not wasting time or money advertising to them. Target Your Email ListFacebook lets you create a custom audience based on your email list. Create a .CSV or .TXT file with a single email address per row. Remove any other data your email marketing platform includes in your exported file. Click “Audiences” and click “Create Audience.” Then choose “Custom Audience” and “Customer List”. From there, you’ll be able to upload your list. You can also upload a list of phone numbers and target those people on Facebook ads, but it only works if their phone number is listed in their account. You can create a lookalike audience based off of these targeted lists, too. Schedule Your AdsOn Facebook, you can segment your ads by days and hours, if you have a lifetime budget, rather than a daily budget option. This issue is why many businesses aren’t using this feature. If you use this approach, you’ll need to think of the total budget of your ad set. If you don’t have a successful performance pattern over time, then don’t use this setting. It’s not a good option for the first run of an ad for testing purposes. If you have an ad you know works, you can set up the days and times you want it o run in the budget and schedule section of your ad set. Use Carousel AdsIf your audience seems to respond well to a series of product images, you can combine those images into a single ad with the carousel ad. This is a newer ad type that allows you to show more than one image at once within a single ad. Ecommerce brands can use dynamic product ads that allow them to cross-sell complementary products, or even retarget customers who click through to their websites, but don’t make a purchase. Ecommerce brands can also improve their Facebook marketing strategy using multi-product ads. This allows you to show multiple products in a single ad, giving customers more to choose from. You can also use these ads to show different benefits of a single product. An Adobe study showed these ads are more cost efficient per acquisition, saving you up to 35 percent in cost per click because of higher engagement. And, they can boost your click through rate as much as 50 percent to 300 percent. Advertise on Instagram, TooSince Facebook owns Instagram, you can create the same ads on Instagram that you can run on Facebook. You can choose to run your campaigns solely on Facebook, or duplicate them on Instagram. If you know your audience can be found there too, then it’s a good way to build more traction. The key with Facebook is to segment, and run multiple ads on a small scale to see what works before spending more money. Always be testing, and paying attention to your conversions. Some portions of this article from "Small Business Trends" When budgets are tight, marketing might be the first expense you look to cut. Let me stop you right there. While traditional advertising methods are costly and hard to measure, small businesses have never had greater access to cost-effective, trackable marketing tools. But with so many digital tools available, how do you know where to start?Email marketing is the tried and true digital marketing channel with an average return of $38 for every $1 spent. Email and social media marketing are just the start. Here are ten marketing strategies that can help you market your small business on a shoestring budget.
1. Craft an elevator pitch You should be marketing all the time — wherever you are. Therefore, you need a compelling elevator pitch. Research shows the average attention span of an adult is about six to eight seconds. That’s all the time you have to grab someone’s attention. If you successfully engage them, then you only have a little over a minute to really sell them on your product or service. Invest the time to craft a killer elevator pitch. The return on your investment will pay huge dividends in terms of creating business opportunities. 2. Leverage your community You don’t have to think big when it comes to your marketing efforts. Think locally. What’s going on in your community? Sponsor a Little League team or a 5k charity walk/run. Print bookmarks and leave them at the local library. Get to know your ideal customer and think about how and where they spend their time. Then search for opportunities to get in front of your customer with your marketing message. 3. Collaborate Put together a group of synergistic, non-competitive businesses in your area and agree to cross-promote. You can use coupons, fliers, reciprocal website links, bundled promotions or social media platforms. By collaborating with each other, you can expand your customer base because you’ll be reaching new people. 4. Network I’m a huge fan of networking. I don’t think there is any better way to build a business than to get out there, shake some hands, and get to know people. Networking requires a time commitment and it doesn’t provide instant gratification, but a strong network is one of the greatest assets any business person can have. 5. Give a speech A lot of people hate public speaking. However, there are many organizations looking for qualified, subject-matter experts who can present to their groups. Take a deep breath and volunteer. You don’t have to be a pro as long as the information you share is helpful to the audience. And the upside — the more you do it the easier it gets. Plus, it positions you as a credible authority in your field. Also consider doing a professional workshop. 6. Create buzzI started my corporate career in the field of public relations and the business has changed significantly because of technology. Today, a small business owner can accomplish a lot without hiring a professional firm. Subscribe to Help a Reporter Out. You can respond to reporters’ queries that are looking for story ideas and resources. Some are small media opportunities, but others are major media outlets that use this service too. 7. Ask for referralsDon’t be shy about asking for customer referrals. The majority of people say they are willing to provide a referral if asked, but very few take the initiative to do it on their own. Referrals make it easier to get in the door with new customers. If you aren’t asking for them, you are missing opportunities. 8. Build relationshipsIt is a lot less expensive to keep a customer than it is to get a new one. That’s why establishing strong relationships with your customer base is crucial. One of the ways you can do that is by keeping in touch with people through email marketing. Ask your customers or clients for their email address when they visit your store or website. Then, make your communications informative, helpful and professional — something your customers will look forward to receiving. Just don't spam them with worthless junk and be annoying as they will dump or block you as fast as they gave you their addy. 9. Offer couponsCoupons are a good way for many businesses to attract new customers. Research shows that people will go out of their way to use a coupon, proving that this method is successful in expanding your customer base. Coupons can also generate return visits. For example, if you give a customer a coupon for a discount to use on future business, there’s a high probability they’ll be back. 10. Give it awayIf someone has the opportunity to experience your product or service, chances are they will want to purchase more. Don’t be afraid to give someone a free trial or a sample. In today’s economy, people are more comfortable purchasing something they have been able to experience first. These ten, inexpensive marketing strategies will help you engage customers, build relationships, and ultimately keep your brand top-of-mind. It’s not always about the money you have to spend on marketing, it’s about the time and effort you put into it and above all, the relevance it has for your customers. Roy Garton FDMC Social and Digital Media LLC www.floridadudemarketingconcepts.com When it comes to online marketing, the purpose and objectives are generally the same as traditional strategies in terms of increasing brand awareness and finding new customers. There are several ingredients that go into a successful digital promotion all the way from planning to sales. Perhaps the biggest benefit online marketing has for small businesses is that it enables them to spend each dollar more efficiently to yield a higher ROI. Here are some ways in which small businesses are making the most out of their online marketing efforts.
Producing strong content Content marketing is the cornerstone of every online marketing strategy. Producing stellar brand material is a surefire way to create loyal visitors and encourage sharing. At the end of the day, the most important goal of content creation is to turn visitors into customers. This can start with small objectives like earning a follow on social media, signing up for a newsletter or taking a survey or poll. Regardless of what type of content you are producing, such as a video, image, blog or social media post, you need to have a clear vision of how your content is going to add value to the life of the reader. Successful small businesses don’t just produce content for the sake of keeping a schedule. Typically, they know exactly what the concerns of their target audience are and they gear their content to address them in a profound, meaningful way. Everyone benefits from quality content Small business can take advantage of their tight-knit followers and cater to their precise interests. Localized SEO strategy A good SEO strategy is the key to getting noticed.. Local SEO is extremely important for small businesses, especially ones with a physical address. The end goal of local SEO is to gain high rankings for searches around your geographic location. When users search keywords or phrases in the area, you want your website to be at the top of the list. Localized SEO is great (but very competitive) for smaller companies such as dental offices or law firms. For example, Abrahamson and Uiterwyk, a Florida injury law practice, has used local SEO to dramatically boost their rankings to increase business. With consistent efforts, they’ve ended up ruling Google’s Map packs and local results for keywords like “injury lawyer Tampa FL.” Google them and see for yourself. Currently, only 17 percent of small business are investing in SEO. Now is a great time to jump onboard and find the best ways you can leverage the Search Engine to increase your online exposure. Website marketing To compete in the rapidly evolving digital landscape, having a strong website is a must for businesses of all sizes. Keep in mind, 51 percent of website traffic comes from organic search. Your positioning depends on the reputation of your website. Perhaps one of the most important factors that go into a website’s reputation (that influences Google Rankings) is speed. Loading time has a huge impact on how users interact with your platform. Page abandonment drastically increases after each second. A great way to optimize website speed is to select a good host for your web server. A lot small businesses miss the mark in this area because they’ve put together a site using a basic CMS like WordPress, but don’t have a good technical team to support them. For a small business evaluating a website platform, the free trials are typically pointless. Building and marketing a good website takes a lot of work and resources. Committing to this task is one of the best investments of time and money you can make for your business. One of the greatest things about online marketing is that it gives small businesses a chance to compete a relatively level playing field as the bigger enterprises. Success is based on smarter rather than total money spent. Having a solid content creation plan and SEO approach is crucial in getting your website in front of the eyes of your target audience. No need to rush it, a strong foundation will almost always lead to good results in the end. Roy Garton FDMC Social & Digital Media LLC www.floridadudemarketingconcepts.com When it comes to the elements that would make a “perfect” mobile ad, US teen and millennial internet users say they care more about whether they can save and access it later and less about the ad’s relevance to them. In May 2016, Verve Mobile surveyed 3,000 US internet users ages 14 to 29 and asked them which elements would be key to a “perfect” mobile ad experience. The responses were a bit surprising. For instance, more than a third said they wanted to be able to easily share a mobile ad, and nearly half (46%) said they wanted to save the ad and be able to access it later. Given that many users find ads to be annoying, it’s hard to imagine that some would want to save an ad and view it later—unless, of course, it had an offer or incentive attached to it. Some responses, however, were more typical of consumer attitudes toward ads. Nowadays people crave personalized content, and teens, as well as millennials, expect that from the “perfect” mobile ad. Indeed, 39% of teen and millennial internet users said they wanted the ad to be customized based on products they want to buy, and fewer—said they wanted the “perfect” mobile ad to be relevant in terms of proximity and location. Respondents also wanted to be able to add coupons or offers to their mobile wallet, as well as directly shop for products, via this ideal ad. Users see a variety of mobile ad types, from interstitial ads to standard mobile banners. Mobile device users are more receptive to ad scrollers than expandable ads. Ad scrollers are a format that appears as a window revealing creative as the user scrolls. More than half of mobile device users who saw ad scrollers viewed a brand more favorably afterward, which was higher than the 46% of respondents who also had the same positive effect after exposure to expandable ads. These are pretty interesting statistics that I found. Mobility, those that use it and advertising itself within those same realms will do nothing but continue to grow in the upcoming years. If you have not sat down and re-thought your advertising budget to include mobile advertising, you really should. -Roy FDMC Social & Digital Media www.floridadudemarketingconcepts.com As video advertising continues to grow across the board, marketers and agencies alike are focusing more and more on social media platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat and Periscope to launch digital media advertising campaigns. A June 2016 study by Trusted Media Brands (TMB) and Advertiser Perceptions showed large percentages of US agencies and marketers increasing their budgetary commitments to digital video advertising overall, and to programmatic video advertising specifically. A majority of agency respondents said their video and programmatic video ad budgets would increase in the 12 months following the survey, while nearly all other agency respondents said budgets would stay the same. The numbers were more modest among marketers, with larger percentages keeping budgets at current levels than increasing them. Another study done by Videology showed that viewability was the most prevalent campaign objective for US digital video advertisers, with 43% of respondents choosing that parameter. Clickthrough and viewthrough rates ranked second and third, respectively. Those results aren’t surprising, but it’s noteworthy that in the previous quarter VTR registered higher than CTR in Videology’s study. This could be an indication that video advertisers are starting to prioritize direct-response objectives—typically not a forte of video advertising, but increasingly under consideration as advertising shifts to in-feed social environments such as Facebook, Twitter and, most recently, Pinterest. Their study showed a large and growing amount of digital video advertising campaigns running across all screens: desktop, laptop, mobile and connected TV. Along with their focus on extending ad buys across screens, marketers are also increasingly interested in social video advertising. A May 2016 study by Animoto found that over 70% of US marketers it polled planned to use social video ads in the coming 12 months, with Facebook leading the way among specific platforms, followed by Google’s YouTube and Facebook-owned Instagram. While that portion of Animoto’s study was forward-looking, the company also tracked current usage of paid social video ad platforms by US marketers and found, again, that Facebook led by two-thirds representation, followed by YouTube at 39%, Instagram at 21.7% and the others at less than 20% each. While it’s arguable whether or not YouTube is a social ad platform, it’s clear that advertisers see Facebook as the pillar of their social video ad efforts, with YouTube not far behind. Another area in which Facebook is disrupting the landscape is live video. The TMB/Advertiser Perceptions study cited earlier showed that majorities of US agency and marketing executives were considering investing in live streaming ads. Relatively few were ruling out this platform, so it’s reasonable to expect this to be a hotbed of interest in the coming months. The study didn’t specifically cite Facebook, but the social giant has already emerged as a key player in the live video area, having launched its Facebook Live platform in early 2016. Roy Garton FDMC Social & Digital Media www.floridadudemarketingconcepts.com Many of the small businesses, what I like to call the Mom & Pops of this world have little or no marketing budget to speak of and even more due to no fault of their own, don't have much of a grasp in this fast paced world we call social media. Be it content marketing, creating social platforms, even getting out to do network marketing, these small business owners barely have time to open and close the shop much less try and maintain a social presence. So here are some ideas for all of you small business owners on how to do some creative on line marketing without writing a check out to some huge marketing firm.
While it's effectiveness has dropped a bit, a Google My Business Page is still a free and good way for people to find you. Google + and Google My Business go hand in hand. From a business aspect both pages are still used by businesses for marketing. The good news it is free. You will need a free Google account. It allows people to not only find you on Google Maps but it allows customer reviews, interaction and content posting. If your business is retail Yelp and Angie's List is effective as well. Use LinkedIn and Facebook for social networking to start if you have not done so already. These two platforms along with Twitter are the "big 3" of any small business owner to start his/her on-line platform. Do not mix your personal Facebook account with your business page. Sure, invite your close friends and customers to your new site to spread the word but keep it professional. Create special on line discounts and use content to build relationships and trust with your customers. I will assume your small business has a web site and if not, shame on you! You can create free web sites with platforms such as Webs, Weebly or Word Press. You won't have your own domain but at least you will have an on line presence. They all feature drop and load templates to easily create websites that look nice. Lastly that email account you have. Are you using it to market and send specials or a newsletter? You can create newsletters using services like Mail Chimp for free. Make sure your customers have given you permission to send them newsletters and that they can opt out. Good luck and get social on line! Roy FDMC Social & Digital Media www.floridadudemarketingconcepts.com Is your marketing plan implemented correctly? Have you busted your hind end on what you thought was a great effort only to come up short on your ROI? Maybe you just need to take a deep breath and look at a few key points and ask yourself some questions about what did and did not work. Here a few pointers I have come across in my experience with marketing plans and perhaps they can work for you as well. They are very basic but when you execute your plan of action , think about these points first and 9 out of 10 times you should see a better effort.
1. Content. How effective is your content in your marketing campaign. Are you clear and concise and do you have a call to action for your customer? 2. Is your content relevant to what you are trying to convey to your customers? Are you trying to build relationships with your customers through networking with them? What techniques are you using to build those relationships in social media? Are you using the latest technology to launch that content? Digital Media, mobile platforms such as Vine, Instagram or Snapchat are hot right now. 3. Who is your customer? Do you know your verticals and channels to sell to? I mean do you really know your market? You might be surprised how many SMB's don't know their client mx. Age, gender, who is buying what, where they live, etc.. All of this is important before you execute and start spending on a good marketing campaign. 4. What is your competition doing? Always know and follow your competitor's marketing campaign. You may not have their budget but you can sure follow them like everyone else and see what is working for them. What works for them since they are your competition. will probably work for you. Follow some of these basic steps before you launch and you should be pleasantly surprised that those hard earned dollars spent on your marketing plan will get you a more solid ROI. Good luck! Landing pages are designed to keep things simple, yet sell your brand or organization. The story you tell on your landing page or call to action has to be inviting yet brief. Today's visitors to your landing page are easily distracted, have very short attention spans so you have to grab their attention quickly. Of all the landing pages out there, your website is probably the most difficult to sell and other social media platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter are the easiest.
Here are some tips that will help you keep your landing pages fresh and within the platform for which it is sitting. Remember, each platform attracts a different type of visitor. Their demographics could be different, their reason for dropping in could be different so always keep that in mind. Someone visiting your website could be looking for more detailed information about your business yet if they stop by your Twitter landing page, they might be looking for quick tip or something in connection with your business that is socially prevalent that you are kind enough to "tweet" about. As for the tips: Keep your content Fresh and consistent with your customer or fan base. Keep your images nice and clean and in line with your landing page theme Don't make your landing pages a huge advertising "gimmick". It turns people off Keep your blogging or conversation basic and upbeat If using a lot of images or video, keep in mind that platforms such as YouTube or Pinterest might be a better choice for obvious reasons. Always keep you mobile users in mind when designing your landing pages. While most are compatible to mobility, the less you have, the better it looks on mobile. Mobility also means use of user-friendly applications such as radio buttons or check boxes over text inputs. They don't have the time or the space to do all that. Make engagement easy for your mobile users for call to action items. Make the buttons and check boxes large enough so they can be easily tapped. Don't try to be everything to everybody. Choose several social media platforms along with your website and call it good. Know your market in relation to what you are offering. Use analytics to know how your sites are doing. Free programs like Google Analytics or Pingdom give you excellent data to help you know what your site is doing. I hope these ideas are helpful and after you have redesigned your landing pages try an email campaign and let your client or customer base see the new "you!" Coming up with a marketing plan for your products or services is essential in being profitable. This within itself is a "no-brainer." How to accomplish and implement that plan however is what many small businesses struggle with. There is no magic formula as each business has different goals, different products, different demographics and the list goes on and on. Some of more inexpensive considerations may include print media, social media, radio or TV ads. Also do not forget networking with your business associates, leads groups, or direct mail campaigns. All of these options can help your marketing goals. Some basic questions to ask yourself before you begin are these.
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