Brian Meert's Blog, page 57

The 10 Best Facebook Marketing Books That’ll Help Improve Your Ad Results

MAR. 19, 2021

Austin Distel / Unsplash

In 2021, it goes without saying that you simply need Facebook as part of your digital marketing strategy. But there’s a huge learning curve when it comes to running Facebook ads. Luckily, there are numerous books out there to help. Here are our favorites.

Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising by Perry Marshall, Keith Krance, and Thomas Meloche

This ultimate guide will teach you about both direct marketing with Facebook and how to use the platform in general. If you need an overall Facebook how-to for business, pick this book up.

Promising Review: “I got this book as I was already familiar with one of the authors through his [podcast] – and truly glad I made the investment. There is so much changing in FB marketing – and so much that is still new to most of us. These guys have your back and will help you keep up on the stuff to come.”

Buy it on Amazon

The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising by Brian Meert

This book will help you reach 2 billion potential customers across Facebook and Instagram through its suggested advertising strategies. Plus, there are insider tips from Facebook pro (and the author of the book) Brian Meert that you won’t find anywhere else.

Promising Review: “Awesome book on Facebook advertising! I love love love the fact that this book is printed on demand and will be updated as Facebook changes so that the information is always current, no matter when you purchase the book! I have never seen that before! This book also has really great step-by-step instructions for creating your ads, with pictures so you’re never confused! I’m so glad I have this book and will recommend it to every business owner I know!”

Buy it on Amazon

500 Social Media Marketing Tips by Andrew Macarthy

If Facebook is just part of your digital marketing strategy, and you’re using other social platforms as well, these marketing tips will give you well-rounded advice in bite-sized morsels.

Promising Review: “As a brand new business owner, I knew social media needed to play a big part in my marketing strategy. I’m the average Facebook user, casual Snapchatter, and complete novice at Instagram and Twitter. A person could easily read this book in a few hours, but I found I wanted to constantly pause to take notes. I also found myself compelled to share the info with friends who are small business owners. Immediately I found the tips in this book to yield results. I honestly couldn’t [recommend] it higher to anyone new to using social media as a marketing tool.”

Buy it on Amazon

The Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Advertising  by Jessica Ainsworth

If you’re a total newbie to the world of Facebook advertising, this book will hold your hand as you take your first (and next) steps. It’s a quick read, too, so if you need to expand your Facebook marketing knowledge ASAP, you can emerge that much smarter after an afternoon.

Promising Review: “This is THE BOOK for you if you, like me, were clueless about Facebook ads! I knew I wanted to use Facebook ads but had no idea where to start. I love how this book not only walks you through everything you need to know about Facebook ads but also has great information [that] any entrepreneur can benefit from, like really drilling into your target audience and how to identify them and use Facebook ads to target that audience – as well as differences between a Facebook page and group. The information is laid out simply but with all the right detail. I highly recommend this book!”

Buy it on Amazon

Facebook Marketing Step-by-Step by Bryan Bren

Running Facebook ads isn’t worth much unless you’ve honed in on your target audience. In this book, you’ll learn how to do just that, along with getting a step-by-step guide on how to set up, manage and learn from your Facebook ads. You’ll also explore engaging marketing strategies, like running contests.

Promising Review: “What a great resource full of valuable information and followed up by an automated series of emails. Highly recommend this book to anyone interested in FB advertising tips and techniques.”

Buy it on Amazon

Social Media Marketing Workbook by Jason McDonald

Don’t think that you have to do all the work when it comes to this book ­– while it does have workbook components, it’s also jam-packed with information about social media marketing, Facebook included.

Promising Review: “As a business owner who has not had to bother too much with social media up to now and who was beginning to feel left behind, I have to say a great big ‘thank you’ to Jason. Your book is easy to read and digest. And the support materials you offer to registered users are amazing. In less [than] a week, I have identified my best social media options and a plan is in development. A social media cloud has been lifted. It’s going to be hard work to get to where I want to be. But this book will always be there for me to dip into. Thanks again!”

Buy it on Amazon

More Books We Think You’ll Love

Don’t miss these must-reads, either:

Facebook Marketing for Dummies by Stephanie Diamond and John HyadonFacebook Marketing: World Class Strategies for Optimizing Your Page, Getting Lots of Likes and Creating Compelling Facebook Ads That Product Powerful Results by Susan HollisterFacebook Ads Made Simple: How to Create High-Converting Facebook Ads in an Hour or Less by Andrea VahlThe End of Marketing: Humanizing Your Brand in the Age of Social Media and AI by Carlos Gil

Since your Facebook marketing education is never truly over, we think you’ll get a lot of help from our Complete Guide to Facebook Ad Targeting.

6 Tips to Keep in Mind Before Selling Your Products on Amazon

MAR. 17, 2021

Amazon is an ideal marketplace for sellers who want to make money from their products and tap into a large audience without having to build it from scratch. There’s a lot that goes into selling on Amazon, though, and while they have a ton of guidance for beginners, you can never know too much – especially when it comes to gaining happy customers and earning money.

Decide What to Sell

This may seem obvious, but some sellers know that they want to sell on Amazon without being too concerned about what they’ll sell. But even though Amazon has an enormous user base, it’s not a surefire way to make money. In order to be a successful seller, you have to carefully choose the products you list, avoiding anything that’s too offbeat or too popular. 

Why? You’re going to have a difficult time selling either type of product. Items that are interesting to you but that aren’t in demand by customers are going to be nearly impossible to rank and sell. On the other hand, items that are incredibly popular are going to have too much competition. The sweet spot is sticking to products among the top 1,000 bestsellers on Amazon without going for the ones that countless other shops have listed.

Get Ready to Check Orders Every Day

Before you start selling on Amazon, make sure you’re up for the task. Possibly the biggest commitment is checking for and fulfilling orders daily. If you use the FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) service, this becomes easier, but you’ll still have to stay on top of the orders and customer contact you receive. You should get an email from Amazon when an order comes through, and you can also sign up for text messages, but it’s most reliable to check the Seller Central dashboard daily in case you miss something.

Consider Using FBA

Speaking of FBA, put some thought into whether or not you’re going to use it. FBA stores your inventory, packs and ships orders, and also handles returns. This, of course, costs money, but what you end up saving is time (and headaches). If you’re at all worried that you won’t be able to manage your inventory and/or shipping responsibilities, let Amazon handle it all for you. 

Bonus: Buyers will be treated to faster delivery, which means a better chance of getting positive reviews. And shining reviews are what help your products rank higher while encouraging other potential customers to go through with a purchase.

Be Prepared to Adjust Pricing

As an Amazon seller, it’s imperative that you have a flexible pricing strategy in order to stay competitive. There are a few different ways to do this:

Manually reprice items as competition changes. This is a fine strategy if you have a small number of items because it’s easy to track the competition and make pricing changes manually.Rule-based repricing is an automated way of having your products’ prices updated. After setting predefined rules for how and when prices will be adjusted, they’ll be changed according to how the competition is pricing their products. Ultimately, the idea here is to have the lowest price.Algorithmic pricing is another automated pricing strategy. This one, however, using algorithms that take into account not just on-Amazon competition, but a variety of other market conditions. 

Whichever method you choose, know this: Amazon pricing is not a set-it-and-forget-it task. You’ll need to update pricing regularly if you want to continue selling.

Understand the Buy Box

You already know this, but Amazon allows multiple sellers to list the same product (which is why competitive pricing is so important). All of those sellers aren’t just competing for customers, though – they’re also competing for the Buy Box for a particular product. When a customer looks up an item on Amazon, the Buy Box is located in the same area where they add the product to their cart.

When a seller “wins” the Amazon Buy Box, that means that they become the default seller for that item. Clearly, this means you’ll (likely) make more sales than other sellers.

It’s not entirely certain how Amazon chooses which seller to list in the Buy Box, but there are a few ways to increase your chances of winning it:

Make sure your bestselling items are always in stock and that the inventory is updated in your Seller Central.Price your products competitively – the Buy Box usually lists the lowest-priced item.Offer various shipping options and speeds, and consider offering free shipping.Stay on top of customer service – Amazon probably picks Buy Box sellers with good Account Health (which you can find in the Performance area of your portal).

Even if you nail each one of these tips, that’s not a guarantee you’ll win the Buy Box for every (or any) product, but they do put you in a much better position to.

Take High-Quality Photos of Your Products

It’s pointless to set up your Amazon products before you have quality images of them. Product photos have a major impact on buying decisions. On top of sticking to Amazon’s image guidelines, you want to make sure you’re taking high-def photos, shooting your product in a variety of ways and placing it against a white background so nothing distracts from the subject. On top of the main image, which must be just your product on a plain, white background, consider adding lifestyle photos and even an infographic if it’ll help explain how to use it.

Wrapping Up

There are a lot of different elements to effectively selling on Amazon. But getting as prepared as possible ahead of time will make it easier to manage the must-do tasks once you actually start listing and selling your products. And once you do get your products up and your shop live, there’s plenty of advice to help you master your new role as an Amazon seller.

Copywriting Tips For High Performing, High Conversion Video

MAR. 15, 2021

Thirdman / Pexels

Over half of today’s consumers want to see videos from brands they associate with, and a tremendous 87% of marketers reported a positive ROI from their videos. This makes video one of the most lucrative forms of content marketing in 2021. 

Now that you know the benefits video can bring to your marketing strategy, ever wonder the secret to a killer video? Before you can even think about capturing the flashy camera shots, aesthetic b-rolls, and innovative video effects that you wish to use, you’ll need a well-written script to keep your video organized. This is because scripts are the backbone of any video. They possess helpful lines and cues that ensure you don’t stray from the overarching story that you hope to tell. 

A well-written script will solidify a clear pathway for your video’s journey, correlate your lines with coinciding camera shots, cues, and angles, and help your actor avoid rambling and filler words

Since scripts are primarily composed of the lines you will read on-screen or as audio narration, having solid writing skills will come in handy. Whether you’re writing your first script or a seasoned pro, here are five copywriting tips for video scripts that will tell your brand’s story in the best light. 

1. Write As You Speak

Though written on paper, scripts are always meant to be read aloud and should be written with conversational and natural copy. It is important to always keep this reminder at the forefront of your mind, as it can be easy to forget when you are deep in the thickets of the writing process. 

To avoid the dreaded reading-off-a-script feeling, make sure to practice reading your script aloud a lot to ensure that it flows naturally from your mouth and represents that tone of your brand. Also, avoid any cliché phrases or buzzwords that you know you wouldn’t say in conversation with your consumers if they were sitting right across from you

2. Stay Focused on Your End Goal 

Videos should serve a clear purpose in your marketing strategy: to educate, inspire, and assist consumers with a pain point or need. The copy that makes it into your script should always go back to the original goal and intent of your video. When writing your script, it is helpful to check in with each line by asking yourself

Will this sentence propel the message of my story forward?Is this piece of information essential for my viewers to hear? What fluff or filler words can be scratched to make things more focused? 

It is also important to pinpoint the stage of the sales funnel your consumers are in. If they’re at the top of the funnel, your video script’s goal won’t be as focused on making a sale as a script that is meant for consumers at the bottom of the funnel. 

3. Make a Strong First Impression

Due to our dwindling attention spans, you don’t have much time to get your point across to audiences. In fact, studies found that you have only around 10 seconds to grab your viewers’ attention. This means that your copy should intrigue consumers right out of the gate. Some ideas for hooking viewers from the start include: 

Outlining who you are and what you care about as a brandPromising a story, surprise, or benefit that will accompany the video Presenting a problem or pain point that your video will address and solve 4. Tell a Powerful Story 

Compelling copy has the power to transform your video into more than just a piece of marketing content — it can help your script tell a story. Simply put, a story has the ability to connect with the hearts of your consumers. It reminds them that you are so much more than just a brand selling a product — you are a unique team of individuals with shared values and beliefs. 

Storytelling can be accomplished by staying authentic to who your brand really is. Don’t be afraid to entertain audiences through playful humor and glimpses into your personality. You can also use copy to elicit an emotional response from your audiences and create a clear story arch by outlining a solid beginning, middle, and end of your script.

Video marketing is here to stay, and for good reason!  Videos are undoubtedly more eye-catching and attention grabbing than other forms of content, so much so that it has 12 times more shares than both written text and photos. You don’t have to be a career copywriter to implement these strategies. Put these tips into action and put yourself in a position to execute the best marketing video possible! 

By Liz Slyman

5 Critical Steps to Planning a Powerful Content Marketing Process

MAR. 11, 2021

Effective content marketing can result in many benefits, including increased visibility, traffic to your site, and conversions. It can also help build credibility and trust while strengthening your recognition as a brand.

However, sometimes in the race to have content published regularly, marketers forget other crucial content marketing aspects. They forget that quality rather than quantity is the key. Furthermore, there is no need to create content only to meet a publishing schedule. Instead, your aim should be to create content that offers your customers and business value. But how can you, as a marketer, achieve this? You need a content marketing process. It’s a plan that guides you from content ideation to results measurement and optimization.

Let’s look at the essential questions you should ask yourself before creating a content marketing process.

What Outcomes Do You Want from the Content?

Do you want to drive traffic to your site, increase conversions, grow your authority on a topic, or something else? Your content marketing needs a purpose, clear goals that you can work toward achieving and metrics that help you track your performance.

Who Are Your Customers?

To understand your ideal buyer, conduct research to help you determine

The content that resonates with themTheir interests and needsTheir demographicsThe information they search forThe devices do they use

These questions can help you understand your ideal buyer. Then you can find ways to structure your content in a way that will engage and drive them to action.

How Should You Scale Content?

Your content marketing process needs to be flexible enough to meet the ever-changing customer and market demands. To do this, establish an efficient workflow that helps you produce content fast, and this entails researching high-value, well-performing keywords; writing engaging content that offers value, and marketing and promoting what you write. This brings us to the next question:

What Channels Should You Use to Distribute and Promote Content?

If you don’t distribute and promote your content, no one but your team will see it. There are many options, including blogs, email marketing, social media, third-party distribution channels, pay-per-click, etc. However, your choice of channels should depend on your audience and how they seek information. 

How Do You Measure Success?

You can use tools such as Google Analytics or social media analytic tools to determine if your content helped you meet goals. Tracking metrics can also help identify the kind of content that works, the channels that perform better, and areas needing improvement.

But now that you have all this information at hand, how do you structure your content marketing process? The infographic below includes an easy five-step process you can leverage when structuring your content marketing process. Check it out!

Image Courtesy: ShaneBarker.com

How to Build a Strong Instagram in 2021 and Beyond

MAR. 9, 2021

Pixabay / Pexels

How happy are you with your brand’s Instagram account? Do you have the number of followers, engagement rate, reach, and conversions you’re after? Or are you lagging behind your competition, always trying to catch up to the latest trends?

If you find yourself in the second category, it might be time to adjust your strategy. After all, with a global tendency towards increased screen time, 2021 could be the perfect year to get the most out of your Instagram tactics. If you build a strong community on the platform, you might just see all your efforts finally starting to pay off.

But what can you do to achieve your desired results? Here are the tips for strengthening your brand through one of the most popular social media platforms in the world.

Go Back to Basics

There’s no denying that businesses need to be on Instagram, especially if they want to reach users between the ages of 18 to 34 who have a strong tendency towards logging in more than once per day. But the thing is, creating a profile and posting regularly isn’t enough. For a brand to be able to make data-based decisions, they need to have the right insights. That’s impossible without properly setting up their profile.

That’s why one of the must-dos for 2021 will be changing to a business account on the platform. In addition to insights, this will allow you to: 

see your follower demographicsadvertise your posts and storiesset up an online shopadd actionable CTAs to your contentadd clickable contact information to your profileautomate processesuse third-party apps to schedule postsMake Instagram a Key Part of Your Digital Strategy

According to a Facebook report, after seeing a product or service on Instagram:

79% of users sought more information65% visited the brand’s site or app46% made a purchase37% visited a physical location31% followed the brand online29% mentioned the brand to someone

Looking at this data, it becomes clear that the potential of the social media platform is huge. It’s not just a way to get closer to buyers, but Instagram can play a crucial role in SEO and sales as well. So, what can business leaders do to use the social media platform’s full potential?

Well, for one, they can utilize it in a way that will drive traffic to their website. For example, a post or Story can be a great way to preview and link to a blog, e-commerce store item, or a relevant piece of content. This is what Tasty does in their Stories sections, with short video previews that feature interactive poll stickers and lead users to long-form content posted on platforms like YouTube.

@buzzfeedtasty / Instagram

Alternatively, Instagram can be a great way to support a variety of marketing campaigns. For example, Transparent Labs created a nine-week online event to help their audience build healthy habits by issuing a weekly challenge. Then, they encouraged users to share their progress through social media, offering prizes and discount codes in return. 

@transparentlabs / Instagram

 

The great thing behind such a campaign is that it accommodates several goals at once. It helps the company with lead generation, boosts website traffic, increases social media following, encourages engagement and UGC, and offers the opportunity to give back to fans, increasing loyalty and customer satisfaction.

Use All the Available Formats

Instagram started as a social media platform that primarily focused on sharing images. However, in 2021, it’s much more than being just that. Today, it is a multimedia space that lends itself to a wide variety of formats and applications, making it the perfect distribution network for high-quality, engaging content. So how do you make the absolute most of it?

In addition to practicing consistency and cohesion, brands need to look for ways to make their Instagram posts attract interest, build consumer trust and loyalty, drive engagement, and, ultimately, generate sales. And that means investing in content that’s likely to attract attention.

For one, the must-follow strategy for making the most of Instagram is to use Stories and to do so often. According to the platform itself, there are more than 500 million daily Stories users. One-third of the most-viewed Stories come from brands. And, the reply rate for the format is 20%, an impressive statistic in itself.

But what makes a great Story? Well, it turns out that users have a strong preference for posts that actually tell a story. So, try to find ways to serve them content that they’ll find entertaining, educational, or valuable.

A brand that’s doing a great job with its strategy is Cat & Cloud, a California-based business that runs several coffee shops. What’s interesting about this brand is that they’ve decided to skip the purely aesthetic approach as is common in its industry. Instead, the brand produces a podcast and uses the Instagram Story feature to share it with its 39k followers.

@catcloudcoffee / Instagram

As for the content that stays around for more than 24 hours, research shows that the carousel format is the most worth investing in. According to Socialinsider, the average engagement rate for carousels is 1.92%. Images fall at 1.74% and videos at 1.45%. What’s more, the numbers go even higher with posts that use all ten slides or combine images with videos.

Finally, if you’re thinking about getting started with IGTV, 2021 may not be the perfect moment to do so. In 2020, this format displayed the highest decline in engagement rates – a whopping 75.6%. Unless you’ve got a really great idea for making use of the media type, you may be getting a higher ROI on Facebook or YouTube.

Focus on the Right Things

There are several misconceptions about Instagram for business. A common one is that you need to spend a lot of money if you want great results. But that’s not necessarily the truth. Research conducted in 2020 shows that the COVID-19 pandemic caused a significant shift in the way consumers interact with brands. A McKinsey report shows that, in the past year, most people chose to spend money on essentials and items of value, while the Edelman Barometer reveals just how impactful brand trust has become.

But what does this mean for social media marketing? For one, it’s a strong indicator of what today’s buyers are after. (Hint: it’s not flashy advertising.) In 2021, social media users will want to create bonds with brands. Not only will they have positive reactions towards companies that inspire trust, but moreover, they’re likely to make their buying decisions based on a brand’s purpose and mission.

Moving forward in 2021, brands can use Instagram to promote a higher level of transparency. Using features such as Live Videos, Stories, and Carousels, companies can offer plentiful information, behind-the-scenes looks, and interesting insights

Moreover, they can engage in genuine interactions with followers and fellow brands and start conversations using Polls, Questions, and similar stickers. Skincare brand Naturium, for example, allows followers to submit questions, then shares answers and tips provided by experts.

@naturiumskin / Instagram

Another excellent way to use the platform to drive connection and trust is to make it a space for collaboration. For instance, paddle board manufacturer GILI regularly shares user-generated content and even invites adventurers to send in their snaps using a dedicated hashtag.

@gilisports / Instagram

Although their following is still small, it’s a highly engaged group of watersports enthusiasts with whom they have built genuine relationships. Plus, it shows just how much you can do by working with micro-influencers and a limited social media marketing budget.

Alternatively, brands can use Instagram to strengthen community ties by supporting local artists, small businesses, NGOs, or followers themselves. No better example of this comes to mind than We Rate Dogs. An account that initially started off as a way to admire cute pups, it turned into a powerful platform for helping animals get the highest chance for a healthy and happy life, with a loyal following of almost 2 million fans.

@weratedogs / Instagram

 

The Future of Instagram

There’s no denying that social media apps are powerful tools brands can use to drive their business forward. And the fact is, they’re rapidly transforming into irreplaceable marketing and sales channels that are continuing to grow.

Nonetheless, business leaders and marketers must remember that the one thing keeping these platforms relevant isn’t their technical capacity. Rather, it’s their appeal to audiences who are tired of traditional consumer-brand relationships and want to be considered more than just a way to monetize products.

With this in mind, it becomes clear that the true potential of Instagram (or any other social media app) lies in its ability to build connections, communicate with, and grow closer to audiences. Because, ultimately, with such an approach, companies can get something much more valuable than a marketing channel. They can get immediate, unfiltered consumer feedback, helping them grow into an irreplaceable part of their customers’ lives.

Amazon or Shopify: Which Is Right for Your Business?

FEB. 4, 2021

Roberto Cortese / Unsplash

Both Amazon and Shopify are incredibly popular choices when it comes to selling online. Shopify estimates that it has 820,000 merchants using its software for their stores, while Amazon has more than 2.5 million active sellers. This makes them two of the top three methods of selling online. 

That said, while both are great choices to sell with, deciding which is the best for your business can be tricky. That’s where this guide comes into play. It helps you evaluate the pros and cons of both Amazon and Shopify, as well as discover which is right for your business.

What Are Amazon and Shopify?

Amazon is a marketplace, which allows you to list and sell all of your products on the site, competing against many other brands. Amazon will manage the majority of the ordering process for you, and if you use FBA (fulfillment by Amazon), the platform will even take care of shipping your products, too. With Amazon, setting up and selling is a simplistic process. All you need is an account and products, and you’re pretty much ready to go.

Shopify is a store-building software that allows you to personalize and construct your online store as you choose. Setting up a store using Shopify can be a little more time-consuming than with Amazon, but you do get the freedom to roam in terms of creativity. As your Shopify store will be standalone, you don’t have to worry about things such as on-site competition. However, you do need to direct traffic to your store by yourself.

The Pros and Cons of Selling on Shopify

As Shopify is well established in the market, you can expect plenty of available features when building your store on the platform. But those features are just some of the perks. Here are some of the main benefits of selling on Shopify:

An extensive 90-day free trialFlexibility in store design and expansionA range of prices for all store sizesOwnership and control of your storeEase of useMobile friendlyAvailable multiple languages24/7 customer serviceAn e-commerce university to build business skills

In contrast, here are the disadvantages of selling on Shopify:

You will all of your own marketing.You will build traffic from scratch.Some add-ons can cost you extra.You don’t have an existing brand reputation to get you off the ground.Some features are unavailable on cheaper plans.If you use a third-party payment provider, you will be charged transaction fees.As you expand, costs will also increase significantly for a Shopify plan and for marketing.The Pros and Cons of Selling on Amazon

As a pre-existing selling platform, some of Amazon’s benefits are there for all to see. But let’s take a look at some of the benefits of Amazon:

Little to no experience required30-day free trial of Amazon proAccess to a worldwide audience without any marketingPiggybacking off Amazon’s brand reputationEasy setup and useEasy customer service, refunds, and returnsFulfillment by Amazon for storage and deliveryRepeat customers because of the platform’s trustworthy reputation

In contrast, here are some of the disadvantages of Amazon:

High fees for selling on the platformTighter rules and regulations for listingsA lot of competitionPrice monitoring to remain competitiveMinimal personalization of your storeThe Costs of Selling on Shopify

Shopify is a well established brand in the shopping market and therefore has varied plans depending on the individual seller’s needs. The plans cost between $29 and $299 a month, with transaction fees on top of that. Here are Shopify’s available plans in more detail.

Basic Shopify plan

Basic Shopify costs just $29 a month, but as the name suggests, it only includes the bones of Shopify. You will also pay 2% transaction fees on any sales that do not use Shopify payment, as well as additional fees for credit or debit card usage. The plan includes a shipping discount of up to 64%, offering you your own online store, with features such as

Unlimited products listingsA blogTwo administrative accountsManual order creationAn SSL certificateGift cardsAbandoned cart recoveryFraud Analysis24/7 customer supportDiscount codesHardware supportPOS LiteShopify Standard Plan

Shopify’s standard plan and costs $79 a month, plus 1% transaction fees on all sales that don’t use Shopify’s payment system. You will also pay additional fees for credit or debit card payments. This plan includes a shipping discount of up to 72%, as well as your own online store, and these features:

Everything included in the basic planThree extra staff administrative staff accounts,  five in totalReportsManual foreign exchange ratesInternational domainsAdvanced Shopify plan

At $299 a month, this is by far Shopify’s priciest and most extensive plan. On top of the monthly fee, you must also pay a 5% transaction fee on any sales that do not use Shopify payment, plus credit or debit card fees. The plan includes a shipping discount of up to 74%, plus your own online store, and these features:

Everything included in the standard plan15 staff administrative accountsAdvanced report builderThird-party calculated shipping ratesThe Costs of Selling on Amazon

There are a number of factors at play that decide how much it will cost you to sell on Amazon, which includes your location and domain of choice (for example, USA and Amazon.com or UK and Amazon.co.uk), whether you sell on an individual plan or a professional plan, and whether you use FBA (fulfillment by Amazon).For this guide, the focus will be on sellers in the United States and Amazon.com.

Individual Sellers

The cost per sale for individual sellers is $0.99, plus a percentage for referral fees. You can also choose whether you want to use fulfillment by Amazon or not. If you do choose to use FBA, you will pay additional fees that are dependent on the product you are selling. Larger products will cost more to store and ship, therefore FBA will be higher in price for such products. 

Professional Sellers

Those with a professional seller account will pay a flat fee of $39.99 a month, plus referral fees. For this price, you also get access to reporting tools, promotional tools, and custom shipping rates, on top of being able to list your products on Amazon. Like in the individual plan, referral fees are calculated based on product category. You can also choose to pay for FBA if you wish.

The Key Differences Between Amazon and Shopify

The main difference between Amazon and Shopify is a fairly clear one. Amazon is a marketplace, whereas Shopify is a software that allows you to design your store as you please. This difference leads to a lot of other significant differences between the two, including setup, ease of use, and design.

Set Up

Setting up to sell on Amazon is much easier than on Shopify. This is because you have a ready-made marketplace to sell on. All you need to do is upload your products correctly and wait for the approval. To make uploading even easier, you could consider a feed management tool to ease this process and reduce manual work, without compromising the quality of your listings. In contrast, on Shopify, you have to create your store from scratch. Even if you use a Shopify template, the setup is more time-consuming and challenging than on Amazon.

Ease of Use

In truth, once setup is completed, both platforms are very easy to use. Shopify will be a site of your design, so you will be able to work your way around it easily. However, Amazon doesn’t even require the initial setup, so it’s even easier to use. Plus, fulfillment by Amazon takes away even more of your worries by resolving all storage and delivery issues for you.

Design

Amazon lacks flexibility in terms of design. There is little to no customization allowed on the platform, and even image regulations are tight. Shopify is the total opposite in that regard. The platform offers numerous themes for you to design your store, as well as add-ons and much more. 

Payment Options

When it comes to checking out, Shopify allows pretty much any kind of payment you can think of. If you want your shop to have a payment option, it’s available. The platform even eliminates transaction fees for those using Shopify payments. Amazon also offers many payment options. However, there are still a couple of popular ways to pay that the platform doesn’t offer, such as PayPal.

Pricing

Shopify offers tiered packages for its pricing, with different features at each level. You will also be charged for add-ons, plus card fees and transaction fees. Amazon has two payment options: the individual pay-per-product-sold plan, and the professional pay-per-month plan. On top of that, you will also pay referral fees and FBA fees if you use them. Nonetheless, in most cases, Amazon will work out cheaper in terms of fees than Shopify, as the latter requires numerous add-on apps to complete your store. 

Reputation

Amazon comes with a ready made, globally recognized brand with a huge reputation. Many shoppers actively choose to buy on Amazon and trust the platform completely. Therefore, you will require much less marketing. In contrast, any Shopify store will be new and unique. That means you are required to build your own reputation and market your brand.

Which Is Right for Your Business?

Determining which platform is right for your business comes down to a number of factors. You should try to consider the pros and cons of each platform, against the needs of your business. Here are our recommendations.

Choose Amazon If…You don’t have time to do all the marketing yourself.You want a low-cost entry into the market.You want to focus on other elements of your business while someone else takes care of storage and delivery.You want to utilize a huge pre-existing audience.You do not care about branding and customization.You can deal with hefty restrictions.You feel you can come out on top against a lot of competition.Choose Shopify If…You’re happy to build a store and a reputation from scratch.You’re willing to spend more for getting precisely what you want.You want to control more elements of how you sell.You want freedom to customize your brand as you wish.You have the marketing skills to draw customers in.You have plenty of time to research, create, and optimize.Is it Possible to Use Amazon and Shopify Together?

Amazon and Shopify together is definitely possible. In fact, many argue that it may be the best option in many cases, as it is a great gateway into the market and should be part of your multichannel strategy for your Shopify store. It gives you a better understanding of your business potential and helps you build up an audience. However, it doesn’t provide you with the brand identity you need to really take that next step as a company. But combining the two, you get the best of both worlds.

You can even integrate the two platforms together to maximize their potential. This could help turn more passive Amazon customers into full-time lovers of your brand and help you build on your sales further.

Final Thoughts

Deciding between Amazon and Shopify can be difficult. Both options have their pros and cons, and both are very reputable brands. Evaluating the key differences in pricing and features may help you decide. But if not, both brands offer extensive free trials. That means you can get to know your options practically, and work out which one benefits you and your business the most. 

Remember, if you are still struggling to separate the two after all the comparisons and trials, you can always utilize both the options and maximize your e-commerce impact.

9 Instagram Marketing Hacks for Local Businesses

FEB. 25, 2020

Austin Diste / Unsplash

The days when most people discovered local businesses around their neighborhood only offline are long gone. Today, potential local customers do online research before visiting your local business. According to the Local Consumer Review Survey, 93% of people use the internet to find local businesses and 87% of consumers read online reviews. 

Since modern customers spend a considerable amount of time on social media, these channels have become important in local business discovery as it’s convenient for consumers to use them. The Instagram community has reached one billion monthly active users which means your local customers are most likely to be on the platform. 

Simply put, your local business should have an Instagram presence to reach your target audience and turn them into customers.

Why Use Instagram for Local Business Promotion?

If you’re thinking about creating a social media marketing strategy for your local business, it’s time to focus on Instagram marketing, as it has a variety of benefits for businesses operating in a specific area:

Increase brand awareness: Instagram is a global network with one billion monthly active users, which means practically every local business can find its audience on the platform. As a result, it helps promote your company and get more customers.Reach your local customers: According to Instagram, 90% of users follow at least one business in-app, which means people are interested in brand communication on the platform. When it comes to local businesses, your potential customers are also happy to discover your brand and therefore having an Instagram presence helps reach a wider audience of local customers. Support local businesses during COVID19: Instagram takes care of businesses who use this platform, so it has introduced features like the “support small business” sticker and gift e-cards that support local businesses during uncertain times and turn their followers into supporters.

Now that you know the importance of Instagram for local businesses, here are nine Instagram marketing hacks that help to reach your target audience and turn them into customers:

Talk About Your Local Business in the Bio Section

The average attention span is eight seconds, so you don’t have much time to hook your target audience and spark their interest in your brand. Since the Instagram bio is the first thing people see when visiting your account, it’s important to talk about your business. To make the most out of your bio section, switch to an Instagram business account. It unlocks business-specific features, like categories and CTA buttons, so you can provide visitors with detailed information about your local business, just like in the example below: 

Val Razo / AdvertiseMint

Here’s how to talk about your local business in the bio section:

Choose a relevant category (cafe, bakery, hotel, bookstore, etc.)Describe your business in 150 charactersUse a branded hashtagInsert a website link for more website trafficInclude relevant contact buttons Add location to your Instagram bioUse Story Highlights to Showcase Services

The best way to reach your target audience and tell potential customers about your local business is to interact with engaged users. Thus, consider creating Instagram Stories. Being limited to 24 hours in its lifespan, Instagram Stories creates a sense of urgency that encourages people to watch. In fact, 500 million use Instagram Stories daily. 

If you want to save your best Stories and help people find out more about your business without spending much time, lay a bet on Instagram Story Highlights, a folder section of stories that appear below your bio section. Here’s how one hair salon uses Instagram Story Highlights to provide visitors with more information about its services. Voodou has separate folders for client selfies, reviews, info on opening hours, and products.

Val Razo / AdvertiseMint

To create similar eye-catching Story Highlight covers for your folders, use a photo editing tool like InstaSize (iOS) as it allows you to make covers that fit your brand identity without putting much time and effort.

Optimize Instagram Posts for Local Search

Instagram is an international social media platform, which means people from all over the world use it daily. To make sure your posts reach the right target audience who lives close to your location, it’s important to optimize posts for local search. Here are the main features for local search optimization:

Geotags in posts and StoriesGeo hashtags (#Chicago, #USA, #Brooklyn, etc.)Tagged geofilter for Stories

Plus, when it comes to promoting your local business on Instagram, it’s highly important to publish posts when your target audience is active on the platform and interested in learning more about local businesses in the neighborhood. To make sure your posts go live at the right time and therefore reach your local community, not only should you know the best time for posting, but you should also consider using one of the best time-saving tips and schedule your posts in advance with social media tools.

Feature Your Happy Customers 

Local customers pay close attention to reviews. If your local business has many satisfied customers, it’s more likely word-of-mouth marketing will bring more visitors to your business. When it comes to Instagram, one of the best ways to show that your customers are satisfied with your business is to share their happy photos on your profile. Not only does it help people feel valued, but it also shows other potential customers that other people choose your business, which means it’s worth giving a try.

To encourage more customers to take photos of themselves in your location, check out small business loyalty program ideas and implement the best one that turns your customers into brand advocates. For example, a coffee shop can give a free cup of coffee in exchange for sharing a photo in your location with a tag.

Spread the Word about Your Branded Merch

With a sense of belonging, when people want to be a part of something important, branded merch is one of the best ways to support your company and help your customers be a part of your business. What is more, branded merch is a great way to promote your company and earn more money.

As specified in the Sellfy’s guide to custom merch, wearing your own merch in your Instagram photos or videos is one of the most appealing strategies that give people a sneak peek of the cool designs while parking interest in your products. What is more, this strategy sets an example for your customers who can also take photos of themselves wearing your merch and therefore spread the word about your business among their followers. Check out an example below:

hme5 / Instagram

Turn to Local Influencers for Endorsements

Living in the era of influencers, when people trust the recommendations of leaders as much as their real-world friends, influencer endorsements have become one of the most effective forms of advertising. As a local business, it’s a good idea to team up with influencers whose followers are more likely to live within your specific area and therefore might be interested in your company. Moreover, it helps reach a wider audience without spending much time or effort. 

Here are the top three types of Instagram influencers and how to collaborate with them:

Nano-influencers (up to 1k followers): These influencers have personal connections with most of their followers, so their recommendations sound trustworthy. What is more, nano-influencers are more likely to do product endorsements in exchange for branded freebies or free goods.Micro-influencers (1-10k followers): These influencers have a small yet loyal following, which will help them attract more local customers to your business. Thus, it can be a good idea to invite them to visit your store and do a review.Macro-influencers (less than 10k followers on Instagram): They may have access to website linking on Instagram Stories, which means you can ask influencers to talk about your business in Stories and add a link to your website. It can result in more traffic to your local business.Give Away Gift Cards or Coupons

Instagram giveaways have great potential for businesses. According to one research, accounts that do Instagram giveaways grow 70% faster, and these posts generate 3.5 times more likes and 64 times more comments, which means higher engagement rates.

If you want to promote your Instagram account with giveaways, that’s great. But if you want to turn your participants into local customers, think about prizes you give away. For local businesses, it can be a smart idea to give away gift cards or coupons so that only people who live or work within your location will be interested in participation. Here’s an example of this strategy in action:

streetandco_ / Instagram

 

By giving away gift certificates, not only do you attract the right audience, but you also give your participants freedom of choice, which can positively affect customer appreciation and therefore turn your participants into brand advocates.

Go Live to Show Local Events

Live stream is a powerful marketing tool these days. Being available for a short period of time, live stream encourages users to join your session, as people are afraid of missing out on something important. Live stream is just another great way to show your local business in real-time and therefore attract more customers. To engage your community, ask your marketing team to make up several topic ideas for live sessions: Show your events, take users behind the scenes, show your workday, etc. 

When you know what your customers are interested in, you can create a live session that encourages more people to join it, which means business promotion for your local business.

Reach Your Customers with Ads

One of the easiest and fastest ways to reach customers on Instagram is to create eye-catching Instagram ads, especially since you can set up Instagram advertising and target people based in specific locations and demographics.

Let’s take a look at TreatWell, for example. The company ran Instagram ads to spread the word about its services and encourages viewers to book beauty appointments online. The campaign resulted in 19% more bookings than its goal.

Source: Facebook for Business

If you have a loyal customer base, that’s great. This means you can also create push ads and turn your customers into Instagram followers who can also share your company’s news with their friends and family. 

The Bottom Line

Modern customers turn to social media channels to discover new local businesses. Since the number of Instagram monthly active users is predicted to grow, having an Instagram presence isn’t optional for local brands anymore – it’s necessary.

For local businesses, Instagram gives an opportunity to reach more customers who are interested in businesses in a specific area, no matter where your business is situated. Thus, check out the above-mentioned Instagram marketing hacks and jump on the bandwagon to find your customers online with ease.

By Val Razo

5 Ways to Use Live Chat for E-Commerce Conversions

FEB. 24, 2020

In recent history, live chat has increasingly become one of the best customer support innovations that allow businesses to service queries as they face them in real-time. However, the overarching benefits of live chat far exceed just that. How, you might ask? It’s an excellent way to boost your e-commerce site’s conversion rate without having to go through the hassle of conducting a split-test on your landing page. It lets you foster meaningful relationships with your consumers so that they can speak to you personally for a customized experience.

Image Source: Super Office

In addition, customers prefer it over most communication channels. In fact, a J.D. Power survey found out that live chat is the leading digital communication channel for online customers, with an unprecedented 42% of customers preferring it over email (23%) and social media (16%).

Why Is Live Chat So Useful?

With competition between businesses rife in every sector, marketers need to focus on improving their conversion rates to transform prospects into paying customers. Live chat is a communication platform that enables consumers to correspond with the customer service team in a way that is faster and more convenient than the conventional means of contacting support teams.

Image Source: Kleiner Perkins

Live chat greatly eases correspondence between parties and offers easy access to online support channels, as well as quicker access to live support by reducing agent response times. All customers need to do is start a conversation via a live chat widget instead of having to contact the company or ask them to call back anytime they have a question.

According to an Invesp survey, implementing a live chat feature on your website can lead to a 20% increase in conversion rates. By enabling users to talk to you in real-time through a live chat tool, you not only satisfy their increasing demands, but you also gain a competitive edge while doing so.

5 Ways to Use Live Chat for E-Commerce Conversion Optimization

If you’re grappling with low conversion rates, it’s highly likely that the issue has to do with optimization. Here, we will take a look at five ways in which you can leverage live chat software for your conversion optimization efforts to improve sales:

1. Decrease response times.

If there’s one thing you can be sure about when it comes to online shopping, it’s that consumers will have concerns about their potential orders. Although they may not always ask these questions, the lack of information is a primary reason behind e-commerce cart abandonment, which hovers at an alarming 70%.

Once you integrate a live chat software with your website, consumers can prompt chats with you and ask questions anytime they want to. Receiving the answers to these queries quickly via the live chat interface will allow the customer to make an instant decision while they are in the mindset to buy, thus leading to higher purchase rates.

2. Provide personalized customer service.

According to a Segment study, 71% of customers feel annoyed when their shopping experience isn’t personalized. That is why it is important to provide not only the highest level of customer service, but also the best possible personalized customer service that you can.

It is extremely easy to introduce a touch of personalization to your conversations. By integrating a live chat software with your current CRM, you can extract relevant customer details such as name, email address, geolocation, product search history, information about your previous chats, etc.

Equipped with this knowledge, you can tailor customer services, starting with a customized greeting. When consumers see this, they realize there’s someone out there who’s going to tend to their questions. This also has a direct effect on conversion rates, with a survey by the American Marketing Association showing that companies employing live chat witnessed a 20% rise in conversions as compared to companies that didn’t.

3. Leverage chat invitations.

Chat invites are a great place to start interactions with consumers who may not even know that they need additional support. These chat invites are essentially short prompts that allow the customer to have a word about them. They’re also a fantastic review tool to analyze why customers may be abandoning carts.

You can utilize them in a variety of circumstances. For instance, you can create a greeting message template that shows up on the screen when someone oscillates between product pages, or when a site visitor shows a high rate of interest in a particular product or service. In such situations, you can provide assistance that could lead to a purchase.

4. Enable decision making through powerful analytics.

The more premium live chat tools will have smart analytics capabilities that can help you discover which pages do website visitors visit the most, how they get there, and the amount of time they spend there. This offers sales reps enough context and information to prompt live chat sessions.

The analytical capacities of a powerful live chat software will offer your sales reps with crucial insights into consumers who have been comparing your product against similar ones of different brands. Your sales reps can then accordingly utilize the information they gained to offer answers, assist them in making the right decisions, and close more sales.

5. Track team effectiveness.

The quality of the customer service you offer will decide if your customers will return to purchase from you. If the loading speed of your website is slow, or if your billing processes are obscure, or if your team doesn’t service queries fast enough, it can result in a below-par customer experience.

Fortunately, there exists a way of monitoring the efficacy of your chats. By tracking the performance of your customer support team, you can tally how many chat sessions your agents initiated, how soon they responded to them, how did customers enjoy the chat session, and how many chat sessions ended up in a conversion. Based on this experience, proactive steps can be taken to increase the quality of customer service in order to directly influence the conversion rate.

Conclusion

Live chat and its popularity show no indication of slowing down. As of today, it is considered as one of the best tactics to offer proactive customer service and improve site conversion rates. If businesses follow a data-driven method and build benchpemarks, they are guaranteed to achieve instant results and enjoy the benefits mentioned above.

How to Run a Successful Facebook Contest

Feb 22, 2021

Nataliya Vaitkevich from Pexels

Running Facebook contests is a proven way to get likes, followers, and generate buzz around a product or brand. It’s also a budget-friendly social media marketing idea, as you’re in charge of choosing the budget and the prize. In this post, we’re going to share nine tips on how to run a Facebook contest to help make yours a success. Keep reading, and you’ll find some giveaway examples for inspiration. 

1. Set Contest Goals

A Facebook contest must have a well-defined goal to help your business. If your goal is to get more followers, ask yourself  why. Why is that goal important to your business? Every time you ask yourself this question, you’ll come up with a better goal. Keep going until you have one that’s aligned with your business objectives. You can start with these common Facebook contest goals:

Get 1,000 more followersCollect 1,000  email addressesGenerate brand loyaltyIncrease website traffic by 10%Improve brand awareness

Important thing: Make goals measurable where possible. This is done by adding a number, for example, “Get 200 new followers” instead of “Get new followers.”

One Facebook contest could potentially achieve all goals we’ve listed above. If you decide to go for them all, try to prioritize the ones you think are the most important. 

2. Choose a Prize 

The prize for winning your Facebook contest should be exciting enough to convince your target customers to participate. Keep these things in mind when choosing a prize:

Prizes shouldn’t be expensive but relevant to the target customers. A pricey and irrelevant product might not be able to attract the right leads.Offer custom or limited-edition products. People love getting unique and special prizes, so you can offer a limited edition prize or allow the winner to choose a design (color, engraving, etc.). Offer coaching sessions. B22 businesses can give away a one-on-one session with an expert, an excellent idea to building a reputation.Consider combining several prizes in one. A prize package makes the contest more appealing. 

Coming up with a prize that meets these criteria is easy. If you’re running a beauty store, give away a top-selling product like nail polish or makeup item. Online retail stores can give away gift cards (so the winner could pick up a prize themselves) or a personalized item like a bag or water bottle. 

3. Pick a Contest Type

A Facebook giveaway is the easiest type of contest, but not the only one. The best choice depends on your goals. For example, a photo contest might be better for increasing engagement while a caption is good for spreading brand awareness. 

Popular contest types:

Sweepstakes. The winner is chosen by a random draw (usually via services like random.org.Photo contests. Ask followers to share a photo with you, either via private messages or on the brand’s page. The winner is determined by the community.Comment-to-win. Have your followers answer a question in the comments, and the best one wins.Caption. The winner is the person who comes up with the funniest or most creative caption for a photo.4. Write Contest Rules

Let potential participants know your guidelines and requirements. The best way is to write a bullet list with rules.

Keep these in mind while creating Facebook contest rules:

Entry rules. Describe the action required to enter your contest, i.e. make a purchase, comment on a Facebook post or blog article, etc.Publicity rights. Require these rights to be able to announce the winner.Deadlines. Specify when the contest will start and end.Laws. Every Facebook contest must comply with all applicable federal, state, and local laws – indicate in the rules description.Process of deciding the winner. List the judging criteria to explain how you will decide the winner.Prize. Describe the contest prizes for the winner, runner-up, and other contestants, if applicable.

Facebook algorithms and policies are important to follow to make sure that your brand’s contest is successful. For example, check Facebook contest rules on the Policies page – there are a few specific rules for promotions.  For example, Facebook prohibits having “share contest on your timeline” as a condition to enter. That’s why “share to enter” style contests aren’t recommended. 

Source: Facebook General Policies for Pages, Groups, and Events

5. Build a Contest Landing Page

A contest landing page is a web page designed to promote a contest and collect the data from participants. Brands design landing pages to collect participants’ email addresses, communicate with them, and promote the contest more effectively. The pages could have different designs, from complex ones with videos to simple ones with a sign-up form. 

For example, this simple landing page with a single major element (the sign-up form), achieved a conversion rate of 19%. 

Online businesses also use many landing page techniques to encourage participation. 

One technique is using live chat.

You can answer questions about the contest in seconds, which helps reduce hesitation to enter. Adding a live chat feature to any website is simple and free, so many businesses choose this option for customer engagement. In fact, studies show that 45% of website visitors prefer live chat to other contact channels.

Another way to get valuable customer data is the A/B testing of contest landing pages. 

You might find out that a specific marketing copy generates more engagement than others. A/B testing generates 25% and 40% more leads for B2C and B2B businesses, respectively, so consider creating multiple landing page versions to find more effective marketing tactics. 

6. Publish and Promote Your Contest

The campaign to advertise your contest starts when you hit that “Post” button. Use all the channels available to you – emails, blog articles, website pop-ups, chatbots, Facebook posts, advertisements, etc. 

Write a short message announcing the contest and encourage people to participate. Wandering Bear Coffee, an online coffee store, promotes contests with emails like this one. 

To promote your Facebook contest:

Describe the main prize (or add the photo)Make sure that promotion emails contain a link to the contest landing page (if applicable)Encourage sharing the contest with friends – 81% of customers trust recommendations from friends and family.7. Communicate with Participants

A positive contest experience for every participant is an essential goal to drive engagement and leave a lasting impression. In fact, 71% of online customers who had a positive experience with brands on social media are likely to recommend them to others. 

To create a positive experience:

Engage with participants in commentsGet in touch via email, i.e,. send a thank you note to everyone who participated.

Your ultimate goal should be to contact every participant to thank them for their interest. Some online businesses even send discount codes for entering. 

8. Announce the Winner Properly

Good ways to celebrate the winner of your Facebook contest:

Write a post to congratulate themMention them in an email newsletterWrite a short blog post.

Try to get a “celebration photo” from the winner before announcing the results (ask them via email). It would be a great way to make an excellent announcement. 

Use friendly and positive language to write that announcement – it’s a better way to communicate with customers than “legal style” (“We’d like to inform that [winner] has been selected…”). 

9. Evaluate Contest Performance

As many as 48% of marketers measure brand-related metrics – and for a good reason. 

A Facebook giveaway performance metrics, for example, can help provide more customer insights and show where you can experiment with ads and promotions.

That’s why you should take a look at contest-related performance. Check audience data to see who’s been most active and therefore could be targeted with future marketing campaigns. 

Facebook Giveaway Examples

Let’s now check out a few examples of Facebook giveaways to see how other brands are using this tactic.

Breville: Like and Follow Contest

Breville, a company selling kitchen appliances, teamed up with other brands to give away a bunch of products. Facebook users have to like the post and each brand’s page to enter. This way, the contest organizers can get more followers and increase brand awareness. 

Beauty Bay: Like, Comment and Share

Beauty Bay, an online retailer that sells beauty products, gives away a generous gift: £1000 worth of products. 

There’s a special requirement to have a chance to win the gift. Besides common rules such as liking and following the brand’s page, Beauty Bay also wanted the participants to comments on three posts. 

Hotwire: Photo Contest

Hotwire, a travel company, asked its Facebook followers to share vacation photos to engage customers. The reward for the win is truly unique and amazing: the lucky winner will have their photo turned into an art piece by an artist. 

How to Run a Facebook Contest: Final Thoughts

When your Facebook contest is over, you still have some work to do. As we mentioned, check all contest data from Facebook to evaluate performance and find some insights for future campaigns. 

Reflect on the experience and ask yourself if the contest generated the desired results, what worked well, and what could be improved. With answers to these questions, you’ll have an excellent start for your next Facebook contest. 

The Key Parts of an Ecommerce Content Strategy with Examples

FEB. 19, 2021

If you’re producing content without a real strategy, you’re putting words, images, or videos into the ether that serve no purpose. Ultimately everything you produce should serve the end goal of driving awareness and transactions.

There are countless websites with blogs that haven’t published anything in years, and there are even more dormant social profiles that haven’t posted, possibly ever. Created simply so business owners can say “yes, we’re on Facebook”.

The content you produce has to be tied back to a purpose and achieving business goals. These goals could be greater engagement on social media, driving more traffic from organic search, or fueling your sales funnel. With the right content marketing strategy, it’s possible to increase customer engagement, generate leads, and grow direct sales. 

The Importance of an Ecommerce Content Marketing Strategy 

If we break it down to its very basic form, content marketing is the process of creating original, high-quality content aimed at your target audience, appealing to their interests, and addressing their pain points. From a content point of view, it’s not a hard sell. For ecommerce websites that can be done with PPC, Display, or affiliate activity. These channels will most likely be KPI’d on transactions or revenue generated.

Content is usually a soft sell by providing valuable information or entertainment that earns goodwill and engagement. Here KPIs will more likely be traffic, reach, and engagement. The ultimate goal of this engagement though is to both convert potential customers into paying customers and to retain existing customers by building brand advocacy. In a nutshell, the whole strategy behind the content you produce can be summarized below:

Addressing your target market’s needs and problemsShowing you are a reliable source of informationPositioning yourself as an authority that can help themConverting interest to transactionsBuilding valuable ongoing relationshipsBuilding your brand identity 

When you read it in five steps, it sounds easy. In reality, a content strategy takes a ton of planning, patience, and persistence. Don’t be afraid to test things either. By opting for a test-and-learn approach and refining your content marketing according to what you have learned from previous efforts or mistakes, you can continuously improve its effectiveness. The benefits of a well-executed content strategy for ecommerce include:

Driving new traffic to your websiteEncouraging and building trust in your brandDriving transactionsCreating evergreen content that will always be valuable

Without a strategy behind the content you produce, there will be a risk your content will lack real focus and purpose. This could lead to a lack of clarity, potentially causing confusion within your messaging and turning potential customers off. You may even lose some ground to competitors who have a strategy in place.

Building Your Content Strategy Step 1: Identify your target audience.

To create effective ecommerce content you need to know who your buyer is. This can be done by creating a buyer persona, or maybe even a few of them. This persona is a fictionalized representation of buyers based on any real data and marketing insights you can get access to. After you’re happy with the persona you’ve created, you can start to create content aimed at them. Of course, here you will need to take into account what part of the purchase stage they are in.

Most ecommerce content is aimed at the top of the sales funnel, so you need to be careful with sales messaging and focus on providing value and solutions. If you are aiming at growing your business, pay meticulous attention to the marketing funnel.  Think of how you can refine your sales funnel to provide your consumers with personalized customer service and consistent experience at every stage of their journey, and it will add you points. When you’re building your persona, you’ll want to think about the following aspects:

Demographics: Gender, age, location.

Personality: Are they super productive? Skeptical or optimistic? Identifying personality traits like these will guide messaging and tone of voice they will resonate with.

Pain points: This is a big one. What currently frustrates your customers? What are they struggling with? If you know the answers to these questions, you can provide the solution.

Content consumption: Knowing where your customers are, the websites they visit, the apps they consume content on will help you identify the key areas you need to be and the type of content that needs to be produced for these specific channels. 

When you enter the mindset of your target market, you can easily create a content strategy that is mapped out against their paint points and consumption habits. You’ll also be able to create a customer journey map with their buying process in mind so you can create content for each stage of their journey.

Step 2: Identify their online habits.

Remember, the whole goal of producing content is to get more eyeballs on your brand. That’s why you need to figure out where your audience spends most of their time, but also how they use these platforms. If you want to target the younger demographics, you may think Snapchat is the best channel to focus on and distribute your content. But you could be making a mistake. Do you know exactly how they are using Snapchat? Research has shown that 49% of Generation Z women say that they prefer to use Snapchat for sending videos of themselves with another 43% saying they prefer using Snapchat for posting selfies. So, a large proportion of this audience doesn’t use Snapchat to engage with brands.

In the same report, 48% of Generation Z women said that Instagram was their preferred social network for engaging with and following brands. Even though Snapchat has a greater marketing penetration of your target audience, it doesn’t matter if they’re not using that platform to interact with businesses online. It would also be the case if you wish to target those between the ages of 40-55. LinkedIn may look like the best choice, but this is not used for purchases or engaging with brands.

Step 3: Create content and distribute.

Once you have your content all planned out, you need to start thinking about how to get as many eyeballs on it as possible. This can be through sharing on social media, including blogs in emails you send, utilizing influencers to amplify your reach, and even boosting the odd post. You’ll need to think about what type of content works best where, and where it can have the best impact on potential customers. Take a look at the below content marketing funnel, you’ll see most of the content we are going to talk about is either TOFU or MOFU. Again, there’s not much selling going on in these stages. It’s purely focused on engagement.

A quick note on the bottom of the funnel: Here is where other channels such as PPC, affiliate marketing will be key for ecommerce stores. This is where people put their money where their interest and trust is. At this purchase stage, it also makes sense to use a live chat or chatbot so you are readily available to answer any last-minute questions or barriers to purchase. Basket abandonment emails, retargeting ads, or any onsite personalization are also in your arsenal at this stage.

Examples of an Ecommerce Content Strategy

What happens when you nail your content strategy? Well, in short, you can certainly expect a lot more traffic, you’ll build your brand identity, and you may even get a few more customers along the way. There are a variety of places ecommerce stores need to be producing content for. Below we’ll take a quick look into one company that is pretty much doing everything right.  You’ll see they are producing content for every channel that their target audience is on. It’s getting great engagement, the messaging is on point, and no doubt building great relationships with both existing and potential customers.

GymShark is a shining example of an ecommerce website using a complete content marketing strategy to get in front of and engage with its audience effectively. Essentially any gym-goer or active person may be interested in buying GymShark clothing. So, GymShark ensures they get in front of this audience by providing useful content that its target audience is searching for. This goes back to finding and solving problems.

Blog

Starting a blog is easy to do. But again planning here is key. You’ll need to spend a good deal of your time carrying out keyword research and identifying your target keywords. There are plenty of tools that can help you do this, such as ahrefs or SEMRush. Gymshark has a dedicated sub-domain to store all its informational content. A quick look at their blog, and you can see it drives a considerable amount of traffic for them, according to ahrefs. 

If we break down what type of content is driving this traffic, you can see it’s all helpful content that gym-goers are seeking answers for.

Without a blog, GymShark will be limiting its website to appear for purely commercial terms such as “men’s gym t-shirt.” Adding a blog means they can go after every fitness-related term in the world if they wished to. What’s more, this traffic is also worth an estimated $48K.

Having a consistent flow of content is a key part of any SEO strategy or package so should not be overlooked for ecommerce websites. No matter what industry you are in, people will be searching for answers to questions. A blog is your chance to provide answers to these questions, build goodwill and traffic.

Facebook

Gymshark tailors its posts to whatever social media profile it’s posting from. They are active on pretty much every social media platform around and post consistently and regularly. If you wish to do the same, you’ll need a lot of ideas and probably the help of a social media posting tool. Facebook isn’t all about content though, you might be able to use Facebook Marketplace to sell your products. 

LinkedIn

Yep, they are even on LinkedIn as well. You can see they use the same type of post and design the question to be tailored to the platform’s audiences. 

As well as posts, Gymshark uses LinkedIn to share staff updates and career advice, which completely caters to LinkedIn’s audience and the type of content they expect to see.

Instagram

If you’re planning on using Instagram, your photography game needs to be on point. This is one of the most visual platforms out there, and you don’t want people scrolling through your content like it doesn’t exist. Of course, GymShark can heavily rely on its many influencers here to create engaging Instagram photos and provide a steady flow of content. If you’re working with influencers as well, great. If you’re not, Instagram can still be a vital channel for you, you’ll just need to get a bit creative.

You’ll need a strategy here as well to grow your Instagram followers, especially if you don’t have the budget to work with influencers. So, some quick and easy ideas to incorporate into your social calendar are be the following:

Ask your followers a question.Post a product tutorial.Go behind the scenes.Conduct an AMA.Conduct an interview with an industry leader.Jump on a trend.Cross post from other social media sites.Pinterest

This is another social media platform that is heavily focused on visual appeal and images. It might not be the right fit for every ecommerce business out there. The whole experience on Pinterest is clickable, which means if you get it right, you can drive a significant amount of traffic to your website.

One of the best things you can do on Pinterest is tag your product or website images that show on walls, which automatically creates an underlying link that points to your specific product page. If the image is appealing and they like the look of your product, they can navigate straight to it and hopefully make a purchase.

Gymshark splits boards into product types and collections. You also need to make sure you are utilizing catalogs. Catalogs allow you to turn all the products listed on your ecommerce site into shoppable Pins. 

Twitter

Gymshark has three different profiles that all serve different purposes. Social channels are often a place where consumers can and willingly share their experiences, both good and bad. For ecommerce stores, this mostly relates to customer service, chasing deliveries, or just general stock questions. By splitting out these channels, Gymshark can focus on what each profile is for, which will ultimately make their customers happier. Having a dedicated channel for customer services will, for the most part, give unhappy customers a place to get a quick resolution. 

On Twitter, Gymshark doesn’t act like a brand. It acts like a person, someone who reflects the ideas and feelings of its buyers.

By tweeting like this you get much better engagement with your customers and potential buyers. If you’re a fan of a brand, who wants boring company update tweets? 

Spotify 

What do most people do when they work out? Listen to music.  Gymshark of course knows this and has a bunch of playlists for Spotify users to engage with. They even have playlists specifically created by their most well-known influencers, which encourages those relationships between their fans and influencers, ultimately increasing the standing of Gymshark.

TikTok

TikTok has pretty much taken over social media this year. It’s another place where users can fall down a rabbit hole of content. This won’t be for all ecommerce brands, but if you can come up with some clever ideas or get involved with challenges you could quickly grow your following.

Gymhark’s TikTok is full of engaging and fun videos from its influencers. No sales messaging here — it’s purely entertainment and engagement. This is a perfect place as a brand to reflect your target audiences’ idiosyncrasies and behaviors. AKA, show a bit of personality!

YouTube

YouTube is still the end all, be all for video content. Videos are a great way to engage with your target audience and spread your brand message. It can be an expensive channel, as video production takes a lot of time and budget, but it’s definitely a rewarding channel if you get it right. Gymshark again consistently puts out videos and uses its influencers to create good content that gets engagement.

Now, not everyone has access to world-famous influencers, but you don’t need massive names in your space to grow your YouTube subscribers. Micro-influencers can be an option or even using a staff member that’s willing to go in front of a camera could be the easiest way to start. As long as you have a good idea that your audience should engage with, you should be good to go. 

Closing Thoughts

Don’t be afraid to test and learn. Brands that have the best social profiles often don’t act like brands at all. If you can’t fully commit to a social media strategy or be willing to ruffle some feathers, you may be limited in what you can achieve. 

If you’re fully committing to a content strategy, it’s a big project. You’ll need to book photographers, videographers, manage editors, your social media team, schedule posts, and more! Make sure you’re well equipped as a department to deal with all these tasks. 

Although a social media tool can help you schedule posts, you may also want to consider having a task management tool or something like Asana, Trello, or Slack to help keep on top of tasks and team management.

Of course, your budget will always factor into this strategy but you can always get creative on a low budget as some of the examples above show.

Once you have identified your target audience, built your personas, and understood where your audience spends most of their time-consuming content, you can formulate a winning ecommerce content strategy. Coming up with some social content ideas can sometimes feel a bit daunting, but the above ideas should hopefully give you some inspiration.