‘Tis the Season for Sales! Tips for Running a Successful Holiday Campaign

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, especially for small brands and local businesses! For them, holiday spending is key to a profitable year. According to an American Express Shop Small Impact study, roughly 75% of small business owners have said that they need holiday spending to return to normal in order to stay in business in 2021, and almost half of them expressed the need for above-average spending.

However, there’s good news. As we slowly rebound from Covid-19 restrictions, the National Retail Federation said that it expects holiday sales during November and December to rise between 8.5% and 10.5%, for a total of between $843.4 and $859 billion of sales.

Thankfully, it’s easier than ever for businesses to meet their end-of-the-year sales goals. Online holiday marketing campaigns can reach thousands — even millions of people — within a small business budget. To get results, business owners need to execute holiday campaigns to achieve maximum benefit. Here are a few tips for running an effective holiday digital or social media campaign. 

 

Define your Campaign Theme, Target Audience, and Goals

To define your campaign theme, conduct a SWOT analysis highlighting your brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Perform a SWOT analysis before you commit to any sort of company action, including a holiday marketing campaign. Use your SWOT analysis to discover recommendations and strategies, with a focus on leveraging strengths and opportunities to overcome weaknesses and threats.

 

Create a Marketing Plan

It doesn’t have to be exhaustive, but take time to execute the following steps to ensure a successful campaign:

  • Write a simple executive summary.
  • Set metric-driven marketing goals.
  • Create an actionable marketing strategy.
  • Create a public relations strategy plan.
  • Create a media outreach plan.
  • Set accurate key baselines and metrics.
  • Set tracking or reporting guidelines.

 

Create an Offer

What is the best offer you can advertise that will entice shoppers to consider and purchase what your company has to offer? Once you pin down the “deal”, consider the content that will grab attention and stand out in the crowded holiday commerce crowd.

 

Create a Landing Page

Draw from your offer, imagery, and copy to create a dynamic landing page for your campaign. Incorporate keywords that will be picked up by search engines. Search Engine Optimization is the process of getting traffic from free, organic, editorial, or natural search results in search engines. It aims to improve your website’s position on search results pages. Remember, the higher the website is listed, the more people will see it.  

 

Create Holiday Hashtags

Different types of hashtags tend to perform well on specific social media platforms, and some platforms see more success when multiple hashtags are used in one post. Creating a branded holiday hashtag or two can double your holiday social media campaign visibility, giving you better engagement and profits throughout the holiday season.

Keep in mind that the word “branded” is key to making this campaign a success. While you can use generic hashtags such as #happyholidays and #2021 on platforms like Instagram, these aren’t the hashtags that will generate significant results for you. You’ll need special hashtags that incorporate your products or service, relate to your brand, and are used consistently across social media platforms.

 

Incentivize 

Find an option that encourages customers to spend more in order to get that little something extra. Here are some ways to make this work for you include:

    • Make the free item a gift card or certificate, which encourages buyers to purchase from you again in the future.
    • Give samples as a gift rather than something full size.
    • Set a specific dollar amount that must be spent in order to receive the gift.
    • Offer a percent-off coupon for shoppers who sign up for email or text messages on future promotions.

 

Now go get ’em!

Just because your campaign is holiday-themed doesn’t mean the rules for marketing change. Your campaign still needs to abide by marketing best practices. Also, think about the holiday campaigns you’ve loved throughout your life. If you can draw inspiration from something you love, chances are you’ll be able to create something incredible. Ultimately, a lot goes into a successful marketing campaign; whether it’s digital or otherwise, it’s best if it comes from the heart.

Measuring Your Website’s Success

After reading our blog on how to build a dynamic website, you now have one of your own. Congratulations! Your next step towards your business’ success is to learn how to best monitor your website’s performance, on its own and against competitors – especially with more than 1.8 billion websites on the Internet.

When you’re ready to understand how your website is performing, you must first look at your SEO (search engine optimization) and build a solid ranking on Google. Next, gauge the performance by measuring and quantifying the specific KPIs (Key Performance Index) on a weekly, monthly, and annual basis. 

Tracking key metrics over a specific time period will give you valuable insights, help you understand your audience behavior, and allow you to capitalize on opportunities while tracking improvements. 

 

Where are your visitors coming from? What content are they engaging with? Who are these visitors? How many visitors are they? When you use data to start to answer these questions, you can start to make informed decisions about how to effectively market to your audience and ultimately, convert your audience. 

– Andima Umoren, Digital Director

 

The Metrics 

Everyone measures success in their lives differently, but if you have a website, knowing what you should measure and monitor can mean the difference between growth and failure. Here are some fundamental metrics and how they help you improve your website.

 

Unique Visitors

Unique visitors indicates the number of individuals who visited your website at least once during the reporting period. If the visitor comes to your site multiple times during the reporting period, it is only counted once. However, if they visit your site again using a different device or browser, they will be considered a new visitor.

This metric gives you an idea of your website’s audience size during the period under review and is most accurate for pure visits, yet more accurate than page views. In the unique visitor metric, no matter the action taken, a person only represents one potential customer.

Keywords

The metric “keywords” tells you the specific words that visitors type into search engines to lead them to your website. This is a great way to learn to target a specific audience. You can also identify which keywords visitors type into the search box on your website, which helps your SEO, helps to determine your most popular content, and helps you understand the content visitors are looking for that might not yet be available on your website.

Pro-tip: To check which keywords you’re ranking for, you can use the Google Search Console. Just log in using your Google account and click performance on the left sidebar. This shows your ranking and specific keywords for your website. 

Time on Website

Time spent on the website is one of the major keys to the success of your content. It gives you the average time visitors spend on your website, and you can learn which pages are most popular (people spent the most time on) to help you identify content that your target audience is interested in. Addressing the content on these pages can help improve conversions and help you build a community of brand supporters.

Referral Websites

The Referral Websites metric tells you where your website visitors came from, in other words, were they referred from a search engine, social media, or another business site for example. Knowing the referral pathways can help you target your marketing campaigns to these pathways (which is great for SEO) or even to the types of consumers who frequent those referral sites.

Conversion Rate

Conversion Rate is the percentage of people who landed on your website and then took action. The action could either be by the visitor purchasing your products or services, donating money, or subscribing to your e-newsletter. Whatever the goal of your website, the conversion rate tells you the percentage of consumers who performed this action. Low conversion rates can indicate that the offer you provide is not compelling enough, the content may not be resonating, or the visitors you’re attracting is not the right traffic.

Bounce Rate

The Bounce Rate metric tells you the number of people who land on your website and then leave before investigating further. For example, instead of clicking on another page or blog post, users return to search engine results pages or proceed to another website.

This can mean that the page they land on does not engage them sufficiently or is not informative enough for them to bother remaining on your website. A high bounce rate is a content opportunity area that is critical to the success of your website.

Exit Pages

The Exit Page, just as it sounds, is the page visited last before leaving your site. Pages with high exit rates can help identify weaknesses in your site. Users are leaving these pages for a specific reason. Whether they’ve read something they don’t like or there simply wasn’t a clear next step for them to take, reviewing and updating these exit pages can help increase your business’ conversions.

 

Keep in mind that the trick to using these metrics properly is identifying which ones can help you specifically assess whether your website is meeting the needs of your business. It’s a good idea to focus on generating insights from the metrics you’re measuring—insights that you can convert into actionable knowledge for improving the user experience on your site. Now that you’ve got the tools, implement the practices that help you build a successful website! 

How to Create Impactful Blogs for Your Audience

We know that digital marketing strategy is critical to connecting with consumers in today’s climate. According to a recent inbound marketing report, nearly 80 percent of companies that use blogging as a part of their marketing strategy reported acquiring customers through their blogging efforts. 82 percent of businesses admit that blogging is critical to their business. That’s why it’s so important to put together a strong blog strategy that connects with your audience, and encourages them to engage with your company or organization. 

Here are three major ways to create impactful blogs for your business:

 

Incorporate Timely Topics and Conversations

Source: Hubspot 

It’s important to stay abreast of the current events and news that are relevant to your audience and incorporate them into your content. For example, if you are a fashion brand, and a major celebrity or influencer drops a fashion line, you might consider a review, or find another way to tie in the timeliness. You should also leverage national observances that pertain to your audience, and build engaging content around them. For example, if you’re a nutrition or food brand, you should incorporate Better Breakfast Month into your September planning.

Introducing conversational elements in your blog such as a comment section, or continuing a conversation on social media, can help engage your audience even further. 

 

Use Captivating Titles

Source: Hubspot 

Let’s face it. First impressions matter a lot. It’s how others judge what they’re not familiar with. Having a captivating blog title entices the reader to read your blog and reshare to their audiences. You could have the most valuable, ground-breaking content included in every post you write, but without an attention-grabbing title, no one would know. 

Additionally, titles can positively impact your Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which allows for the maximum number of individuals using search engines to come across your blog. You should craft your headline to include specific elements that help your post rank higher on Search Engine Results Pages (SER). This could help drive more organic traffic to your site.

 

Utilize Search Engine Optimization

Source: OpenVine Internet Solutions

Search engine optimization (SEO) allows your blog to get the most traffic possible. You can optimize your blog by utilizing keywords in your post. Google Adwords is a great tool to help you research strategic keywords and monitor what others are using in your industry. 

Try to include keywords in titles and subtitles, introductory and conclusion paragraphs, and metatext. Also, include hyperlinks and information relating back to your social media channels.

 

Make Your Content Digestible 

Source: StackLA

People don’t read content on the internet like they would read a magazine or book. And with our attention span getting shorter and shorter, it’s important to curate digestible content that’s easy for your audience to read and take in. 

Consider formats such as list-based articles, bullets and numbering, bolded subtitles, etc. Also, try to incorporate engaging visuals when possible, such as gifs, videos, and photos. 

 

How Can Social Media Benefit Your Business?

Most people understand that a strong social media presence is crucial to maintaining a brand or business during today’s day and age. Developing a strategy to connect through social platforms can be one of the most important, cost-effective, ways to maintain relationships with current and potential customers. 

To fully leverage the benefits that social media can provide, strategy and consistency are key. Below are four key elements to consider when developing a professional social media presence.

 

Determine the Proper Platforms

Source: https://skedsocial.com/blog/social-media-channels-for-your-business/

Part of developing a smart social media strategy is understanding the functionality of each channel and how they align with the organization’s goals.

For example, Instagram is the best place for high-quality photo and video content. You can also utilize the IGTV feature for longer videos, Instagram Stories for shorter daily content and engagement, and host live video sessions with your audience. Instagram is also great for connecting with younger audiences, including millennials and Gen Z.

Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, is the king of social media with more than 1.59 billion users mostly in Gen X and Y age range. Facebook provides a platform for connecting with family, brands, and friends. Nearly 70 percent of U.S. adults use Facebook. If you’re trying to reach middle-aged adults, this platform is definitely where you want to be. Facebook analytics tools are also very comprehensive and easy to use. The platform also offers live video sessions with your audience, and a story feature – similar to Instagram’s. 

Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube are additional platforms that should be researched and considered when developing your targeted social media strategy. 

Twitter is a platform that is fast-paced similar to a newsroom. Businesses can engage with global audiences, allow space for consumers to act as brand ambassadors, monitor competition, and handle customer service inquiries quickly and efficiently. 

The visual search engine and productivity tool, also known as the social platform Pinterest, holds an audience that is looking to be inspired and moved by content. Here, you can not only pin your products to your company’s board, but you can share blogs and create relationships by repinning informative posts from other users. 

YouTube is great for video content that focuses on the culture of your business, shares industry talks and podcasts that showcase your business’ organizational and community efforts, and highlights product launches. With 1 billion visitors monthly, YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine and the 3rd most visited website worldwide! Having content on YouTube also improves your business’ search results through Google.

 

Content Planning

Source: Sprout Social https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-content-strategy/

Planning your content ahead of time is one the most important parts of content strategy. It’s unproductive, unrealistic, and quite stressful to try and post in real-time, every day. For the bulk of your content, you can create a master content calendar that outlines your content per channel on a monthly or weekly basis. Of course, each channel speaks to a specific audience and can be used to help your organization reach certain business goals.

When you’re planning your daily content, consider weekly focus days. For example, maybe it would be beneficial to establish every Tuesday as “Industry Talk Tuesday”, where your audience can look forward to a post, short video, photo or quote that provides news and updates about your industry or business and is relevant to your brand. You can also try something more fun, like “Motivational Mondays” for example. This way, your audience can expect your brand to uplift them for the upcoming week!  

Additionally, you can incorporate timing hooks and observances into your planned content. A good example for a health and wellness company could be to develop a campaign for National Wellness Month (August) and Self Improvement Month (September), in addition to the regularly scheduled content. 

Maximizing Engagement 

Source: Hootsuite https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-engagement/

It’s one thing to be active on social media, but it’s another to actively engage your audience on a consistent basis. Engagement is what lets you know that your audience is paying attention to your content, and likes it! 

Engagement can be measured through likes, comments, shares, retweets, mentions, use of campaign hashtags and click-throughs. A key to maximizing engagement is knowing your audience. Research and analyze the types of content your audience responds best to, and incorporate that. For example, if you’re targeting millennials or Gen Z, it would be beneficial to include Instagram reels into your social media content strategy. Find ways to creatively integrate your content in a way that your audience will easily digest. 

Utilize engagement features such as questions, polls, contests and giveaways, and other ways to encourage participation. Show your audience that you value their engagement by quickly liking and responding to comments and messages, spotlighting responses to polls and questions, etc. Be sure to stay topical with your content, and when appropriate, chime in on current events that are relevant to your brand. Consider creating a funny meme or gif that people can react to. 

 

Cost-Effective

Source: Bakers Labs https://bakerlabs.co/using-social-media-as-a-cost-effective-means-of-marketing/

We’ll end with the reason that everyone is considering social media marketing in their business: cost-effectiveness! Social media campaigns produced by your team members, so there’s essentially no additional cost there. Content creation and monitoring tools themselves are many times free, and if not are relatively inexpensive and easy to track for ROI. Social media campaigns can assist in bringing down overall marketing spending. 

This is particularly relevant for regional businesses that use social media platforms such as Facebook to target exactly who they need to based on audience demographics.

 

Octane’s dedicated Digital Team has the professional experience to assist you with creating a social media plan for your organization, creating graphics, writing posts, and assisting you with creating and maintaining a social media presence and reaching your business goals. If you would like to schedule a consultation, please contact us! 

4 Tips to Help you Build a Dynamic Website

In this digital world, a business’s ability to not only have an online presence but also build and maintain an engaging and well-functioning website can be a huge aspect of success… or lack of success. Statistically speaking, over 50% of potential clients will not purchase from you or recommend your services if you have a poorly designed website or one that is not user-friendly.

There is no need to worry, though! Almost anyone at any technical skill level can create and run a website in today’s day and age! Pairing the use of DIY website builders with the below tips for success will get you started on the right foot with a strong digital presence.

 

Plan it Out

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

Planning a website is just as important, if not more, as creating one. The best way to start building your business’ website is by answering the following questions:

  • Who is the audience?
  • What is the tone?
  • What goals will the website help the business accomplish?
  • What features need to be present?
    • Subscriptions
    • Shopping cart
    • Gallery
    • Blog
    • FAQs
    • Social media links
    • Booking or contact page
  • What message will it convey?
  • What pages are needed and how should they be laid out?
  • How will the “lay of the land” look and feel to visitors?

Once the above questions are answered thoroughly, organize the information like a storyboard for your website. This will help you not only check off what your site needs to be most successful but also ensure that you have the proper content created and plugged into each necessary piece before you launch.

 

Keep it Simple

Keep in mind that the best-performing websites are customer-centric and designed to inform visitors in an interesting and engaging way. According to studies, over 80% of Americans have negative feelings about companies with poorly performing websites and mobile apps. A user-friendly website ensures that the visitors can get the information they need or want without having to search for it – basically, build your website to make it super-easy for people. This includes content strategizing, speed, placing important information front and center, and making sure the site has the proper mobile optimization.

 

Mobile-Friendly Pages

Our world is driven by technology. Everyone has a smartphone or tablet which is why mobile internet traffic has surpassed traffic on desktops consistently each year. Ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly is not only convenient for your potential customers but a necessity for your business due to the way mobile technology is used today.

The algorithm for Google also encourages sites to be mobile-friendly. By complying, your content will be more shareable and more effective, and your website will perform higher in search results. You will also remain competitive with other companies in your industry that have integrated a mobile version of their site and have a successful digital marketing program.

The best ways to ensure that your site is working properly across all technologies are

  • Compress images
  • Make site responsive – meaning the website will automatically change to the size of the screen it is used on
  • Make the important information upfront and center – this prevents users from having to search your website and keeps a good bounce rate
  • Be sure to TEST! – before your site goes live, make sure you test it across every technical tool to ensure it is properly optimized

 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is critical for the quality and quantity of your website traffic! It uses organic search engine results to expose your brand to a wide range of your target audience. So it basically makes it easier for people who are interested to find you. Knowing what your desired customers are searching for online can help you create the content that they want to see and thus allow you to connect to them and build brand loyalty.

The best suggestions to have a good SEO ranking are to

  • Create and publish content that is related to your audience
    • You can do this by thinking of what phrases or words your target audience will search for online when looking for your product or service. Add that word or phrase to your URL, page title, page headings, and page subheadings. Repeat the keyword or phrase throughout the copy of the page you’re trying to get more traffic to – but don’t overdo it! Be sure to keep the communication as natural a relatable as possible.
  • Content updates
    • Add reminders in your calendar to make content updates to your website regularly. Doing this will indicate to search engines, like Google, that your site is true and applicable. Once that signal is given to search engines, it will bump your website up on the list of searchable sites.
  • Links
    • Within the copy of the page, be sure to write out link destinations and add a hyperlink to said destination. Avoid using “click here” as a way to add links on your website as search engines do not hold it as link-worthy.

To learn more about SEO and Usability, check out this blog.

 

It’s clear that a compelling website is important for your business’ success – especially nowadays. To get started on creating the most powerful way to reach your audience online, here are some suggestions for website builders, or connect with our dedicated digital team. Happy creating!

Tell Your Brand Story in a Compelling Way

The past few years should have shown business owners and leaders that connecting with your audience and building a supportive community through transparency is the best way to gain and keep loyal customers.  Instead of hopping on every trend in an effort to outrank the competition, brands would do better to connect with audiences by simply sharing their values, thus creating a competitive advantage that no other brand can match. You’re probably thinking, “how can I make my brand story attention-grabbing and engaging in a successful way? How can we attain that natural captivation of our audience?” Here are 3 tips that can help you answer these questions.

 

Be Real

The best way to connect with consumers through your brand story is by first understanding your brand thoroughly and then simply telling your brand story. Be introspective when asking yourself, “What does my brand stand for?; – who are we as an organization?;  what do we do?;  who do we do this for?;  why and how do we do it?” 

Self-identity generally occurs during the creation of brand values. Once those values have been confirmed and communicated to internal teams and external audiences, a brand has to consistently stand on them. These values should be authentic, meaningful, and valuable to your brand and your audience. A brand’s values should also be considered when making business decisions, when speaking about certain social issues, and when deciding your business’ niche. 

 

Be Simple

Has your mother ever said, “Quality over quantity,” or “keep it simple” to you? Well, now is the perfect time to apply mom’s advice! 

Keeping your brand story as digestible as possible will allow your brand to be more “human” and will allow more people in your target audience to connect with you. It also helps to easily articulate your brand message across multiple platforms. Simple stories are far more trustworthy for consumers, as well.

Our professionals recommend brand stories that incite emotion, provide solutions and measure success. It’s easiest to format it as a short story that introduces the problem your brand aims to fix, the solution you’ve created that will work towards that fix, and, the finale, the success that the solution has produced. The end of your simple story should not be the end-all, however. It should, instead, be the end to the appetizer, leaving room for the entree and dessert. In other words, let people know that you will continue this work to solve whatever issues your brand is working to improve. 

 

Be Transparent 

Today’s consumers are not those that waste time with pushy marketing tactics. Instead, they appreciate the integrity and authenticity of the brands with whom they choose to build loyalty. Attempting to be a doppelgänger of another brand will prove to quickly fail.  Audiences are quickly able to search and compare a company’s tactics using digital tools and social media. 

Our professionals recommend thinking of your brand as a person in order to give it a unique angle, what does the brand look like (this will be the visual piece of your brand story used for media and digital marketing efforts)?; what does the brand sound like (this is the communications aspect – the voice and tone of the brand)?; and what is important to your brand (this helps you determine which conversations to lead or become a part of regarding political or social issues, community efforts, etc.). 

 

While thinking through all of this, have fun but be careful not to get lost in the rabbit hole of creativity. Be sure to keep the fun ideas that will ultimately boost your brand to success. Let your audience see that while many companies are doing the same things, no company can do it like you!