Social Commerce is truly emerging, and it is likely that this year more and more companies are going to start adopting this tactic of expanding business online. Basically, the goal of Social Commerce is to enable shoppers to use social networks to make eCommerce transactions. This allows your followers to stay on the social network, getting rid of additional and unnecessary purchasing steps. Here are a few ways that you can take advantage of it this year.
Don’t ignore smaller social media sites
It is natural for companies to want to take advantage of the bigger social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, but you shouldn’t ignore the smaller, yet still important platforms either. From shoppable Instagram feeds to ‘Buy’ buttons on Pinterest and YouTube, social commerce is reshaping the online shopping world as we know it. Both Pinterest and Instagram are primarily visual-based platforms, which many people prefer, especially because one of the biggest drawbacks of online shopping is the fact that customer doesn’t get to see the product first hand.
Time your posts
No matter how much money you push into social media in terms of social media advertising, timing and post frequency is very important. Posting at the right time and the right amount will help you to reach more people and generate user engagement. For example, tweeting on weekends has the potential to get you around 300% more engagement than posting on weekdays.
It is worth doing some research into when the peak times are of user engagement for different social media sites, and focusing your attention on these times.
Make use of customer reviews
What is said on social media can have a huge influence on the purchasing behavior of customers. In general, people are more likely to purchase a product if it has been recommended to them by a friend, family member or even by a stranger, which can easily be achieved on a social media site.
A good way to encourage users to refer your brand to others on social media sites is to provide them with incentives, such as discounts and referral bonuses. For example, you can promote your eBay storefront on Facebook and use the platform to offer eBay vouchers if a customer recommends your shop to a friend.
These are but a few of the benefits proper social media exposure grants to businesses. As outlined in the infographic below by 16Best, major social media platforms are becoming more commercial, while eCommerce platforms are becoming more social, and the social commerce trend is gaining in popularity with each passing day.
There’s no going around it:
If you want your business to survive and thrive, you have to use ads. No ads mean your business will get drowned by the competition.
A scenario you don’t want to entertain.
Unfortunately, making ads is not that easy. A lot of bad and boring ads have plagued online spaces.
Fortunately for you, we’ve listed 10 actionable tips that would help you stand out from a sea of bad and boring ads:
Tip #1: Create Headlines That Would Make People Stop
Ever heard of Pattern Interrupt ads?
Pattern Interrupt ads are ads that usually stop you dead in your tracks. Then you read them carefully. Then you’ll want to know who’s behind the ad.
Boom.
Now you know the company. Easy exposure and awareness in one move.
Not sure if Pattern Interrupt works that well?
Business2Community put a great effort into listing emails with weird headlines. The result? Emails that incorporated Pattern Interrupt jacked up the open rate by 50%!
Tip #2: Be Specific About Everything
To write ads that will generate awareness and sales for your business, you have to be overly specific.
Exact figures, exact timelines, exact methods. ‘We will help you earn more online’ is a bland ad. It doesn’t generate attention. You’re merely wasting money.
‘Earn $2k More Online 2 Weeks By Using Our Ad Blueprint’ is a lot better.
It has exact figures that potential clients would expect, an exact timeline to wait for, and an exact method you’re baiting potential clients with.
Be overly specific.
Tip #3: Write Simply.
Jargons are a nightmare.
They confuse people and they turn them off. It’s not only ineffective, it also shows that you didn’t take the time to understand your customers and relate to them. When Elon Musk started PayPal, he used words like ‘Systems’, ‘Architecture’, and ‘Structure’ to sell his company’s services. It didn’t gain track. Nobody took notice. Elon Musk learned from this mistake and reworked PayPal’s message: ‘You can send money to emails’.
The result of PayPal’s new simple message is history.
Tip #4: Test, Test, Test!
Just because you believe in your ad copy doesn’t mean it will work.
You have to back up your intuition with data, with stats, with figures. A beautiful copy in your eyes means nothing if its conversion rate is 0%.
Whatever your ad copy is, you can always test to achieve better performance. Test with a new size, a new color, a new font, a new image. Or you could scrap all the words you’ve written altogether and test a new one.
Testing makes sure that you’re getting the best ad copy for your business.
Tip #5: Let Them Feel The Pain
When you feel sick you either take the meds or visit your doctor, depending on the gravity of the symptoms you’re having.
Ad copy works like that, you push your customers’ pain points so they’ll visit you and buy your products or services.
You make them remember the things they avoid, make them feel pain, so they’d remember that they have to get it fixed – by your product or service.
You don’t have to hesitate to do this. You’re merely helping them out.
You just help them realize their problems and solve them faster.
Tip #6: Show Them You’re an Investment
There are 2 ways to show customers that you are an investment:
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1. By showing them how much they’ll make with you.
2. By showing them how much they’ll save with you.
Most businesses will go for number 1 and neglect number 2.
Take the edge by adding number 2 to your ad copy.
Remind your audience the cost of not having your product or service.
Tip #7: Testimonials & Figures is a Powerful Combination
Social proof is a great persuasive tool.
People don’t like to be the first ones to try something they don’t know. Seeing other people use your service or product makes it easier for them to trust your business.
While testimonials alone can be a powerful tool on its own, spicing it up with numbers makes it an incredibly persuasive tool. Which testimonial do you think will have a lasting impression on a potential buyer:
- Testimonial A: “Using Product X helped my business produce more products.”
Testimonial B: “Using Product X improved my business’s production output by 70%!”
Of course, it’s Testimonial B!
Testimonial B showed a concrete figure on how your product will positively affect your potential customers’ businesses.
So next time you secure a testimonial, ask for cold hard numbers from your happy clients as well!
Tip #8: Make Your Copy A Sight For Sore Eyes
A bad image and a bad font can ruin your chances of getting your copy actually read.
10 years ago, poor image quality and bad fonts wouldn’t make a potential customer squirm.
But today, where everything is rapidly moving towards a quality standard, having a bad image and a bad font is a business suicide.
Especially right now where Google is making huge strides toward mobile marketing, image suited for mobile devices make a huge difference for businesses. Tiny fonts make it harder for people to read your copy on their mobile devices, a bad move.
Always maintain the quality of your copy AND your copy’s visual aesthetics.
Tip #9: Show Them The Future, Not Your Feature
Most of the time, business owners pile on features upon features, neglecting the lifeblood of their business: their customers.
Having features is good and all that, but why should your customer care about your features?
You have to weave a story that shows your customers what their future will be with your product or service.
Let’s say you’re selling a weight-loss program.
Telling them that they’ll lose weight won’t ever be enough.
Instead, tell them that your weight-loss program will allow them to fit in their prom dress again, that they’ll be able to stand in front of a camera without using any visual tricks to make them look slim.
See?
Showing them the future makes a huge difference.
Tip #10: Make. Them. Act.
Don’t you ever, ever forget to make your customers take an action.
You’ve already taken their attention.
You’ve already pushed their pain points.
You’ve already made them see the future with your product.
Now, you’ll leave them without anything to do?
What a bad idea.
Always give them an action to take at the end of every copy.
This is called ‘Call to Action’ and this is the part where you turn readers into customers.
It’s Time to Ramp Up Your Business With Ads
Ads are important to any business, especially for online business looking to increase their customer base and to gain an edge over their competitors.
That’s why you need to have better ad copy so you can attract more audience and convert this audience into loyal customers.
Incorporating just one tip from this list will make a huge difference to your ad’s performance.
Imagine if you’re able to implement all 10.
Now, which tip are you excited to try first?
A/B Testing, Split Testing—if you’re in the world of online marketing or digital advertising, you’ve probably heard of it. Most marketers and advertisers would sing praises for it, for a good reason.
Even the advertising legend has a few words about it:
“Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.”
— David Ogilvy
A Horse Race Analogy
Imagine you’re about to bet $100 on a horse race for the first time.
Out of the 10 horses, 1 of them, let’s call the horse ‘X’, has consistently won 80% of the time. The rest have won around 40–50% of the time.
Having this kind of data, you’d bet on ‘X’.
That’s the kind of insight A/B Testing offers, you’re getting a cold, hard look at the numbers to see which part of your ad works.
Why A/B Test?
The betting logic behind the horse race is the same when making ads.
You don’t create an ad and just wing it from there. You make sure your ad works by testing it. After rigorous rounds of testing, only then you can say that your ad is the best and will give you the performance you’re looking for.
- Don’t know which ad headline works better? Run an A/B Test.
- Don’t know which color is more attractive? Run an A/B Test.
- Don’t know which picture resonates with the audience the most? Run an A/B Test.
A/B Testing removes the guesswork. It gives you the answer, complete with numbers and figures, right away. Instead of letting your creative team argue over which ad works better, let the numbers guide them. Ultimately, A/B Testing saves you time, energy, money, and headaches. Even Facebook offers practical A/B Testing tips on their platform!
Now here’s a good question: How do you run an A/B Test? Here’s a quick step-by-step rundown of A/B Testing:
Step #1: Set 1 Main Goal Only
Yes, you read that right.
When you’re doing an A/B Test, you have to be incredibly specific what your goal is because that’s what you’re going to test on.
Juggling multiple goals means you’re going to do multiple A/B Tests simultaneously. That’s a surefire way to drain your energy, waste your time, and confuse yourself with the results. Whether it’s increasing the conversion rate for sales or increasing impression for awareness, just choose 1.
It’s the only way to keep yourself sane while running effective A/B tests.
Step #2: Declare Your Bias (Your Hypothesis)
Before proceeding with the A/B Test, you must declare your hypothesis.
Your hypothesis is your belief prior to the testing.
- You believe that Headline A works better than Headline B
- You believe that Image X is better than Image Y
- You believe that Color B is better than Color C
Whatever it is, you must have a hypothesis to steer your A/B testing towards the right direction.
Does this step sound familiar?
It should.
It’s the scientific method we learned at school that we should now be applying in the real world!
Step #3: Run Your A/B Test!
Remember that you have to have only 1 main goal (Step #1) and to state your hypothesis (Step #2).
That means if you want better conversion rates, your ad texts should probably be tested. If you’d like to raise awareness by getting your ads exposed, you’d want to test your headline or your ad image.
Here are some tips to ensure you’re effectively running A/B Tests:
- Make one tweak at a time. One headline. One Image. One color. One line of text. You don’t want to drown in a sea of data.
- Run both ads, Version 1 and Version 2, at the same time. If you don’t, your results won’t matter.
- Show them to the same set of people. The same as running both ad versions at the same time, if you don’t run them to the same set of people, your results won’t matter.
- It’s better to conclude when you have at least 100 interactions on both versions. It’s even better if it’s higher than 100. Concluding from interactions less than 100 is just not that reliable.
- To know if one version actually performed better than the other, use this incredibly helpful significance test tool from Kissmetrics.
Think A/B Testing is not Your Cup of Tea?
When you’re not comfortable with a task, it’s best to leave it to the guys who have done it before.
Otavation is an international online advertising company that helps businesses achieve their marketing and advertising goals through innovative techniques and practices. From PPC Ads to A/B Testing, we have you covered.
Contact us today so we can help you run your business better.
You know what a bad ad is.
Anyone can spot it from miles away.
It’s cringe-worthy. Every time you see it, you can taste the bile rising at the back of your throat.
If you’re on Google, you’ll close the tab. On Facebook, you’ll scroll down. On TV, either you’ll switch the channel or turn it off.
If people can spot bad ads and react poorly to it, why do businesses still churn out bad ads like it’s supposed to be an acquired taste?
That’s because they haven’t heard of the HEAT Method:
H: Headlines are your Lifeline
Headlines are your lifeline. Treat it as such.
When writing headlines, always ask yourself: “If I’m in a headline writing contest with $1,000,000 as a prize, will this ad make me a millionaire?” This kind of mindset helps you bring out the best in you, which you’ll need because headlines are everything. If you’re going to create an ad with a boring headline, then don’t create an ad at all.
Boring headlines tend to get lost in the wilderness, wasting the money, time, and effort spent in the ad. It won’t get noticed. It won’t get clicked. No visitors will come. No conversion will happen. No sale will be made.
There are a number of ways to make a headline that will push people to click on. But the best way to do this is to use a headline analyzer. Headline analyzers provide quick feedback for you to know whether your headlines are working or not. The headline of this article has an above average score of 72, and an impressive score of 82, which means this headline will get clicked on more often than not.
The headline analyzer gives great insights and tips on how to create ads which will rate high on their grading system, ensuring your ad headlines will always be on the right track.
E: Engage on The First Line
Because you’ve created a high-grade headline that people will click on, you’re making it easy for users to proceed to the next step: reading the first line.
The first line’s main goal is to move the readers to the second line. That’s it.
That’s why you have to engage readers on the first line. The first line should be a smooth transition from the headline, it should hold the momentum of interest. Make them think.
There are many ways to do this, you can either:
Give them a solid number:
- “7,547 couples have already enjoyed…”
- “8 out of 10 women prefer…”
Or ask them a thought-provoking question:
- “What if we told you there’s a better way to do…”
- “Did you know you don’t have to pay….”
The tactics may vary, but the essence remains the same: engage the reader on the first line so you can proceed to the second line.
A: Agitate on the Second Line
The second line is where you hit the proverbial nail in the coffin. Because online ads typically have limited space, you usually only have a second line to make your case and get readers to act in your favor.
Agitation in ads means you’re going to make them confront an uncomfortable truth or a desirable future. You let them feel emotions. You make them wonder about possibilities. This is the role of the second line: you get people to finally act.
How do you agitate?
A dieting ad might say:
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“… and be able to wear your prom dress once again. We’ll show you how.”
A UFC training ad might say:
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“No one will mess with you after this. Learn these battle-tested techniques.”
An antiperspirant ad might say:
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“Never have to check your underarms in secret. Get your bottle now.”
These second lines have all the essentials: It hits the readers’ main pain point – insecurity while offering a future where the insecurity will be conveniently eliminated. The second line ends with a push to act. In marketing and advertising, the last part of the second line is called “Call to Action”.
Always end with a Call to Action.
T: Talk like your Customer
The headlines, the first line, the second line, and the Call to Action wouldn’t matter if the user can’t relate to them.
When writing ads, empathy is the strongest weapon. Put yourself in their shoes.
How do they feel?
How do they see things?
How would they react?
What words do they use to describe their issues?
These questions allow insights that you would have overlooked if you thought mere writing techniques are enough to create better ads. These insights will allow you to resonate and connect with the user, which helps a lot especially when it comes to brand loyalty.
To get the full benefit of an ad, talk like your customer. There are a lot of ways to do this. You can check their reviews and examine their language on popular sites like Yelp or on popular forums like Reddit or Quora.
But the best way to empathize with your customer is to call them on their phones or meet them face to face. Ask questions. Hear their problems and experience their emotions up close.
Only then you can tell yourself that you can now write better ads.
Master the HEAT Method and you’re on your way to ads that actually rake in the money.
Not all Facebook ads are made the same.
Each one of them has a specific purpose for a specific type of audience. The one-size-fits-all strategy is a bad idea, especially that people today have short attention span: you have to grab their attention, swoop in, and get your message across.
All of these in a matter of few seconds.
That’s why we have to determine the best kind of Facebook ad that triggers the specific action you want your target audience to take. Otherwise, you’ll only be displaying the ad to idle viewers who won’t do anything while burning your ad budget.
To get the best kind of Facebook Ad that will resonate with your audience and compel them to act, you have to take these 3 necessary steps:
Step #1: Determine Your Business’s Stage
According to Harvard Business Review, there are 5 stages of businesses:
1. Existence – When your business just came to fruition.
2. Survival – When your business is now trying to compete with other businesses.
3. Success – When your business now has an edge over the competition.
4. Take Off – When your business is now rapidly growing.
5. Maturity – When your businesses profitability, mobility, and growth have slowed down.
Now, be honest with yourself: on which stage is your business in?
Trying to deflect where your business is currently at will make it harder for you to roll out an effective Facebook ad campaign.
The disconnection between what you want and what your business truly needs will only reveal itself in the long run, especially when you’re about to run out of cash for Facebook ads, or worse, for your business.
Take a closer look at your business and determine which stage your business is in. Only then we can proceed to step 2.
Step #2: Set One Clear Ad Campaign Objective
Now that you’ve determined your business’s correct stage, it’s time to head over to Facebook and start an ad campaign.
One of the best things about Facebook ads is that the platform makes it easier for you to decide on your business’s primary ad campaign objective:
Awareness
Awareness is all about expanding your business’s reach and exposure to spike up the engagement metrics like Likes, Shares, Comments, Reacts, and Mentions. This ad campaign objective works particularly well for businesses in Existence and Survival stages, who badly need brand awareness and exposure.
Every newly-born business will have to start somewhere, but not doing anything about gaining brand awareness is a surefire way to make your life as a business owner difficult. Which new business do you think will quickly win over potential customers, the one with ads or the one without?
Consideration
Consideration is getting customers to take action beyond the engagement metrics of the Awareness stage. This includes redirecting followers to your business website, making people download your app, or getting Facebook users to attend your event.
Businesses in the Survival stage, especially local businesses, can use this as an unfair advantage over its direct competitors who don’t use Facebook ads. Businesses in the Success stage can use this to further their momentum or to gain a solid foothold over other businesses. Done locally, this could lead to an insane amount of foot traffic to brick and mortar stores like restaurants and apparel shops.
Conversion
This is where actual money comes in by turning visitors into customers. This objective ensures that a sale has been made or getting people to actually sign up for your newsletter. Typically, the approach during Conversion stage is the hard sell.
This is the reason why this ad campaign objective comes highly recommended for businesses in the Success and Maturity stage as they already have a base of followers and can afford to push for hard-sell ads.
It’s important that you set only 1 goal from the three campaign objectives. Trying to do all three isn’t only a budget nightmare, it would be a pain to juggle all three at the same time as well. That is the reason why you need to go through step 1, so you won’t go crazy choosing which ad campaign objective meets your needs.
Step #3: Choose The Right Facebook Ad
The final step is all about choosing a Facebook Ad that complements your business’s present stage and your ad campaign objective.
Good thing that Facebook released an ad guide for business owners like you so you’d know what kind of ads are there and the video, image, and text specifications you’ll need before you can deploy your ads.
Image
Facebook Image Ads are the most versatile of all ads. Depending on the copy, Image ads work well with all ad campaign objectives as it’s the type of ad that offers all the necessary information and second-long impact you need to for brand awareness and exposure.
Canvas
Facebook Canvas Ads are another all-arounder due to the ad being optimized for mobiles. As previously discussed, it’s a no-brainer to have a mobile-friendly ad if you know that the bulk of Facebook users are using mobile devices as their platform.
Slideshow
Facebook Slideshow Ads are perfect for Awareness and Conversion ad campaigns for they tell a story that engages users enough to become aware of your brand or convert towards your brand. Slideshow ads may look like Video ads, but their main difference is how easy and cheap it is to come up with a slideshow ads. Plus, they work on any connection speed.
Video
Facebook Video Ads is a beast that seems to take the spotlight nowadays. Due to the significant investment required to come up with a Facebook Video Ad worthy of a user’s time, it’s a costly ad. However, Facebook Video Ad tend to engage users more which makes it the perfect ad for Conversion and Consideration. The only downside is that its full effects work when users have above average connections speed.
Collection
Facebook Collection Ads are made to convert. These ads are typically shown tailor-fitted to each potential customer. It’s a one-size-fits-all type of ad, ensuring you’re getting the most bang for your buck. Collection Ads make it easy for users to view your products and even easier for them to shop.
Carousel
Facebook Carousel ads offer the most products to display in your ad. You can list up to 10 images or videos, each with a specific link. Carousel ads are optimized for the Conversion stage where potential customers can analyze further the product that took their interest.
What’s Next?
With these 3 steps, you’re on your way to a Facebook Ad campaign that’s effective and on budget.
All that’s left for you is to prepare for the horde of customers who are going to flock to your business. 😉
There are 2 potential reasons why you’re reading this:
Your budget’s strapped.
You’re confused.
Either way, the answer requires proper analysis as choosing the wrong action to prioritize on might delay important goals, or, worst of all, burn cash.
In order to help you out, we’ll measure the weight of SEO and Ads against your business’s needs. Here are our findings:
Measurement #1: Deploying Campaigns
When it comes to deploying online campaigns, SEO doesn’t come close to the campaign power of ad usage, regardless whether it’s on Google’s search engine or on various social media.
SEO merely serves as a support system that capitalizes on the foundation your ads provided throughout the campaign. Regardless whether your ad is PPC or other variation of it, nothing beats the immediate attention and exposure they bring which makes campaign deployment effective.
Winner: Ads
Measurement #2: Organic Performance
Getting people to click their way to your site on their own is the domain of SEO. While ads rely on visibility to generate user action, SEO is all about having the right keywords at the right place at the right time. SEO doesn’t influence users, it lies in wait, knowing that they have the correct keywords that users would type in.
While Ads can imitate SEO’s function on Google by being on the very first row of a Google search result, being organically ranked first helps a lot in generating trust and reliance from users. But this heavily relies on a business ranking first. Unfortunately, everyone cannot enjoy the same ranking.
Winner: SEO
Measurement #3: Social Media Penetration
Social Media is where SEO’s limits lie. The SEO techniques that work on search engines don’t translate to the same effect on social media. Yes, social media can help boost your rankings on search engines. But SEO inside social media, not so much. Social media heavily focuses on user engagement that you need to be viral in order to replicate the top place in search engines.
On the other hand, Ads bask in the spotlight as social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have unloaded its ad services which proved to be effective on their respective platforms. The only downside to this is that business owner should really know where their target market is lurking so they can focus their ad budget on that specific social media site.
Winner: Ads
Measurement #4: Total Cost
SEO is all about time, consistency, and effort. Dedicated business will probably hire SEO experts to help them navigate their way, but generally speaking, SEO is virtually cost-free. It will take time, yes, but it shouldn’t cost you a dime.
Ads, on the other hand, will cost you in every step. But when you look closely, you’ll find that the generated visibility and sales outweigh the upfront costs. These result would even be better if you’ve optimised your ads for your target market.
Winner: SEO
Measurement #5: User Reach
This is a close fight for the two.
SEO’s user reach is a two-way street. SEO’s organic positioning show itself to the right users and the right users will find its way to your business, provided that you have optimized SEO. But this is all about grabbing only the customers who perfectly fit your target market profile.
Even with the simplest budget, Ads’ user reach count is unrivaled. Increase your budget a little and you’ll see that the exposure and visibility increases in exponential terms. Ads don’t only help you find and attract your target market, it also increases the odds of converting casual users, and other users in varying levels of brand awareness, into loyal customers.
Winner: Ads
Overall Winner: Ads
Ads take home the trophy with a 3-2 win over SEO.
It was a close fight, as it should have been.
But businesses that are strapped for time and focuses on mobility and exposure will find that ads will always be the first thing they’ll prioritize if they want to gain a serious advantage over their competitors.
And so should you.
Is your business Mobile-Friendly?
Google already deployed its mobile friendliness test for you to discover whether your business passes or not, but what’s important is that you know why you need to know.
Being mobile-friendly gives your business advantages, sure.
But to what degree?
Here are 5 specific reasons why your business should be mobile-friendly:
Reason #1: Bad Formatting Makes a Bad Impression
Admit it, nothing annoys you more than bad formatting.
Maybe the text is too small to read, the image is stretched out, or the whole block of text isn’t properly formatted. Whatever it is, you know these kind of things make a seriously bad impression.
Unfortunately, these kind of things are encountered more on mobile. This happens because business owners and marketers thought that what’s good on desktop is okay on mobile as well—or they are too lazy. What’s alarming is that this kind of problem isn’t exclusive to formatting. Get ready to experience snail-like page speed and videos that just won’t play.
Having a mobile-friendly content is the key. Don’t be lazy.
Reason #2: Google Says So
2 years ago, Google unrolled its ‘Mobilegeddon’ search engine update. This left business owners and marketers frantically shifting toward a mobile-friendly online ecosystem. Those who failed to update were penalized and suffered drops from their search rankings.
Ouch.
And as of this year, it seems like Google isn’t done with the mobile updates yet. It’s now moving to focus on mobile users first – that is a great business move if you know how many mobile users dominate the search engine usage when it comes to sheer numbers and activities.
If there’s one thing business owners and marketers have learned from Mobilegeddon, it’s that when Google says so, you don’t have any other choice but to comply.
Or suffer search ranking consequences.
Reason #3: Most Users Are on Their Phones
The domination of mobile device users when it comes to search engine and social media usage is unprecedented. In just few years, mobile users eclipsed desktop users: over 50% of search engine use was done on mobile devices.
Whether you like it or not, it’s a fact you have to accept and adapt to. As a business owner and as a marketer, you have to make sure your products and services are positioned at where the market is, and that is mobile.
In fact, this research shows that 80% of online users use mobile devices to shop online! It’s a prime opportunity to take a huge slice of the mobile user pie!
Reason #4: All The Action is on Mobile
As if sheer number isn’t enough, studies upon studies show that the most active online user group are the mobile device users.
For starters, 60% of users on mobile devices pay more attention to social media ads. This means your ads are more effective and more efficient when it’s catered towards mobile device users.
As if that’s not enough, 67% of users prefer mobile-friendly sites for purchases and 70% of searches using a mobile device leads to a direct business call. Clearly, mobile is where the opportunity is at, your business will have a difficult time sustaining itself if you let these enticing numbers pass you by!
Reason #5: Ads are Cheaper on Mobile
As a cherry on top, mobile ads are cheaper as well.
This may be due to the Google algorithm updates or probably due to smaller screens of mobile devices. Aside from being cost-friendly, mobile ads offer greater flexibility as you can place them in apps and you can easily decide between display advertising or mobile search advertising.
Considering the number of mobile users and their engagement, it’s a win-win situation for business owners and marketers as they can target those that are ready to convert with ads that don’t cost an arm and a leg.
What Are You Waiting For?
At this point, you probably realized that being mobile-friendly isn’t an advantage to your business. It’s a necessity.
It’s time to get to work and make your business mobile-friendly as soon as possible. Or else risk losing to the mobile-friendly competition altogether.
When it comes to businesses using ads to secure a local niche, there are only 2 options: Facebook Ads and Google AdWords.
There’s no argument there: Google is the most widely-used search engine and Facebook is the most widely-used social media site. And both have features that allow you to be incredibly specific on who you want to target, making it a dear favorite to local businesses.
Now, how should businesses use Google Adwords and Facebook Ads to secure their respective local niches?
Google AdWords
Here’s a scary stat: When you pause your Google AdWords campaign, you’ll lose 89% of traffic.
This is a wake-up call to local businesses that mere content marketing and SEO-friendly practices won’t be enough if their goal is to dominate their local niche. They have to be actively advertising their business if they want to stay ahead of their competitors.
Local Niche Fundamentals
Before starting your Google AdWords campaign, you have to make sure your business name is anchored towards the local area and local product/service you’re targeting. Luckily, there are a few easy ways to do this:
- Get your business on local directories and business listings
- Get on Yelp, the best review site for local businesses
- Register your business on Google MyBusiness and Google Places, these help a lot when it comes to local searches
- Don’t forget to include your business address and contact number in every listing.
Now that we have the fundamentals covered. It’s time for you to start your Google AdWords campaign.
First off there is Geo-Targeting. Geo-Targeting is simply ensuring your ads are targeted at a specific area. Google’s evaluation algorithm will determine whether a search is relevant to your ad according to the user’s location. So, rest assured that geo-targeting is effective and efficient.
Remember, when people see your ads on Google, that’s because they’re searching for something that’s probably connected to your product/service and area. That means you have to be aggressively efficient with your ads.
Here are 2 ways to make sure your Google AdWords campaign is effective and cost-efficient:
1. Be Specific When Grouping Ad Keywords
Grouping the correct ad keywords is essential when securing a local niche. Let’s say you’re a restaurant owner. Just grouping the words ‘restaurant’ and your location isn’t only vague, you might also get outclassed by other restaurants who have been running Google Adwords campaign for a long time.
A one-size-fits-all approach is generally a bad idea. That’s why if you’re a restaurant owner, the words ‘breakfast’, ‘restaurant’, and your location is a better combination. Don’t forget to expand to the ‘lunch’, and ‘dinner’ keywords for maximum impact. As a bonus, link these type of ads to your site where a special breakfast menu or specific breakfast content awaits your users.
2. Be Aggressive With Negative Ad Keywords
There’s no reason for alarm. Using negative ad keywords simply means you’re disqualifying searches that are not relevant to your ads, increasing the chances that the people who see and click on your ads are the right ones. This ensures cost-efficiency, especially for local business who tend to have a lower budget compared to big brands.
Let’s say you’re a tax attorney. You’ll use words like ‘litigation’, and ‘civil’ as your negative keywords. Meaning if someone searches for a litigation lawyer in your area, your ad won’t come up, ensuring any wasted ad on your part.
Facebook Ads
Here’s a stat you should need to know right now: there are 50 million active business pages on Facebook but only 6% of them actively advertise.
What does this mean to local businesses? This means you’re in a prime position to make the most out of this fact: outmaneuver your competition on the social media site with the largest user base!
However, this doesn’t mean that you should be aggressive with your Facebook Ads. Unlike Google where it makes sense to be aggressive due to the primary intent of a local search, Facebook is where people hang out and get entertained. So be cautious of your ad campaigns.
Facebook’s Interest Targeting
Facebook Ad’s advantage over Google AdWords is that it offers a psychographics targeting feature. Unlike typical ads where you can set location and demographics as your targets, on Facebook you’re targeting people who love rock music, who’s into pop tarts or pet lovers,…
This allows you to be incredibly specific and target ads towards people with psychographic profiles that would naturally gravitate towards your niche.
Relevance Score
Aggressive ads are considered an intrusion to a Facebook user’s space and may be flagged as an irrelevant ad.
Facebook Ad’s Relevance Score Feature is an incredibly helpful guide when it comes to making local ads. You get to see in action whether your ad is working well for your target audience. Even better, ads with high relevance score enjoy a wider scope for much cheaper.
AdEspresso tested the impact of Facebook’s relevance score and discovered that a relevance score of 8 generates 4 times more clicks compared to a relevance score of 2.9!
Facebook Ads Type
There are half a dozen types of ads on Facebook. A great rule of thumb when making Facebook ads is to remember that Facebook ads are not primarily geared towards transactions but relationship building. As long as you come up with an ad that resonates and connects with the local audiences, it doesn’t matter which type of ad you’re going for. You’ll do fine.
One Final Note: Review and Test your Ads!
Don’t forget to review and tests your Google AdWords and Facebook ads on a regular basis. A thorough analysis and testing will reveal insights that will help you secure your local niche better.
Reviewing your ads may reveal that using a dialect or a specific lingo as a search keyword or ad content would perform better. Or that a men’s product is searched more by females as a potential gift.
Getting these ad insights is invaluable when it comes to securing your local niche.
What about you? What’s your favorite ad trick to secure your local niche?
On social media, a picture is worth a thousand words. It’s true. Content may be king, but visuals rule. All the latest studies and statistics suggest that images on social media command more attention than text alone. If you want more likes, comments, shares, retweets, and clicks, you want to include pictures with your social media posts. You want to be more visual.
While in the past consumers primarily used text-driven sites, like Twitter and Facebook, they’re now leaning more toward image-focused sites like Pinterest and Instagram. This fundamental shift has created confusion for many brands about how to best use images in a meaningful way. Keeping up with the latest social media trends can seem like a daunting task for many businesses. Working smarter – instead of harder – is one of the best ways companies can maximize their social media efforts. In today’s world, that often means using pictures instead of text.
HOW TO SHINE ON PINTEREST
Curalate’s research on Pinterest uncovered some interesting findings of the types of photos that attract the most pins, repins and likes. They reviewed over a half million images on Pinterest and examined consumer engagement based on 30 different characteristics in the photos. Here’s some of what they found:
WHAT ABOUT INSTAGRAM?
Instagram focuses on the here and now – what’s hot at the moment, what’s going on at the moment and what will be happening in a few minutes from now. It allows companies to tell a visual story. Engagement is high, because Instagram plays to the fact that
a) most people usually have their phone in hand nowadays and
b) short-attention spans find a photo-based app an easy way to process information.
With businesses only recently converting to the platform, it can be hard to know what kind of content will resonate with followers. There is always the fear in trying, failing and having that account as a permanent reminder of the posts that failed to get any love.
What gains attention on Pinterest doesn’t necessarily attract consumer engagement on Instagram. There is a study of 8 million Instagram photos to see which characteristics seem to perform best. Here’s some of what the research uncovered:
5 Types of Popular Visual Content
Use the below-mentioned examples to enhance your company’s appeal on Social sites and see your engagement soar.
1. The Product Shot
Every business and brand has a product to display. Whether you’re selling ice cream or insurance, software or footwear, you have something tangible to exhibit in your social media stream. Don’t just talk about what it is you have to offer your audience. Show it off in pictures!
2. The Spotlight on Your Fans
Everybody likes attention, especially from someone they look up to and admire. Shine the spotlight on your followers and fans. Give their photos a much bigger stage by repurposing them on your own social channels. Retweet them. Tag them. Make it all about them.
3. The Peek Behind the Scenes
Provide your constituents with something they can’t get anywhere else, whether it’s exclusive photos, a big reveal, or something they wouldn’t see otherwise. Take them backstage. Invite them into your inner sanctum. Show them how your products are built. Give them a look at what goes on behind closed doors.
4. The Graphic
Creating your own visuals from scratch is a great way to add variety to your stream and call more attention to your posts. Use PowerPoint, Photoshop, Infogram, and other such tools to add special effects and text to the images you share. You could even go so far as to create your own infographics. A combination of data, words, and pictures is one of the best ways to increase your engagement and reach on social media.
5. The Selfie
Last, but certainly not least, there’s the selfie. The ubiquity of the front-facing camera on smartphones, and people’s seemingly insatiable desire for attention, the selfie is still an incredibly hot trend you don’t waignore.
A lot of things go into a person’s decision to purchase a product, and social proof is certainly one of those important factors. Studies show that 70% of consumers say they look at product reviews before making a purchase, and product reviews are 12x more trusted than product descriptions from manufacturers.
Product reviews are just one example of social proof. However, these statistics do give us insight into the value of social proof when it comes to marketing.
WHAT IS SOCIAL PROOF?
Social proof is the concept that people will conform to the actions of others under the assumption that those actions are reflective of the correct behavior. Thanks to social media, social proof has gained steam over the past couple of years, but in truth, it’s been around for a while in marketing. Psychologists, sociologists and new media marketing experts call this powerful dynamic “social proof.” Most of us don’t call it anything. We simply choose to follow the crowd.
In 2016 and beyond, social proof will gain in importance because customers are becoming more informed all the time. With the power of the internet at their fingertips, customers can know an immense amount of information about your business before ever speaking with a salesperson. Check out these two statistics revealed by consumer research around American consumers:
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Over 70% of Americans say they look at product reviews before making a purchase.
Nearly 63% of consumers indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has product ratings and reviews.
Here are some examples:
Five Types of Social Proof
If you’re a digital company, building and highlighting your social proof is the best way for new users to learn about you. Engineering your product to generate a social proof, and to be shared through social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, YouTube, Pinterest, and others, can multiply the discovery of your product and its influence. Think of it as building the foundation for massively scalable word-of-mouth. Here’s a “teardown” on various forms of social proof, and how some savvy digital companies are starting to measure its impact.
1) Expert social proof
Approval from a credible expert, like a magazine or blogger, can have incredible digital influence. Examples:
2) Celebrity social proof
Celebrity endorsements are a staple of advertising and can be parlayed to great effect online. According to Lee’s article (circa 2011), an endorsement by Jessica Simpson and aesthetician Nerida Joy helped Beautymint attract 500,000 visitors on day one of its launch.
3) User social proof
This is approval from current users of a product or service. This includes customer testimonials, case studies, and online reviews. User social proof is particularly effective when it involves storytelling. We tend to imagine ourselves in other people’s shoes when we read or hear a story. This is why stories are so persuasive and often more trustworthy than statistics or general trends. Individual examples stick with us because we can relate to them. Although statistics can be effective, it can be tougher to really see yourself in the aggregate the way you can with a personal account.
Examples:
4) “Wisdom of the Crowds” Social Proof
This type of social proof is approval from large groups of other people. It’s showing evidence that thousands, millions, or even billions have taken the action that the company wants you to take – making a purchase, subscribing, etc. Ray Kroc started using social proof in 1955 by hanging an “Over 1 Million Served” sign at the first McDonald’s. Highlighting popularity or large numbers of users implies “a million people can’t be wrong.”
5) “Wisdom of Your Friends” Social Proof
Social media has sparked dozens of different ways to provide this kind of social proof. Facebook widgets that show other Facebook friends that “like” a brand, Twitter’s display of people you follow that also follow another person, and the various ways that company offer rewards for referring others to the brand are all examples of this.
CONCLUSION
It’s a powerful marketing tool. One study of 10,000 accounts at a German bank revealed customers who came from customer referrals had 16% higher lifetime value than those who came from other acquisition sources. Additionally, the customers churned 18% less.
In the age of the social web, social proof is the new marketing. If you have a great product waiting to be discovered, figure out how to build social proof around it by putting it in front of the right early influencers. Engineer your product to share the love. Social proof is the best way for new users to learn why your product is great, and to remind existing users why they made a smart choice.
