What the GIF?! How to Use Visual Content In Your Marketing Campaigns Posted on February 17, 2016June 3, 2016 by Jessica Lunk Today we live in a visual culture – screens are everywhere, ranging from smartphones, tablets, laptops, computer monitors, to gigantic home televisions. Wherever we go, there is an image or video close by to snag our attention. This makes visual content one of the most important marketing techniques for small businesses. The Graphics Interchange Format AKA the GIF was developed in 1987 and in the past couple years, the internet has waged a full on love affair with these animated images. Some say it with a soft G, others a hard G but we’ve all noticed them on social media, emails, blog posts, websites… pretty much everywhere! So why should you bring them into your campaigns? GIFs get noticed Sites with GIFs look better than those without; people stay on your page longer and are more likely to browse your site. A site that is noteworthy impresses potential customers and clients so they are more likely to buy In the past companies in business for long periods of time were seen as safe and trustworthy – today they are seen as antiquated and out of touch – sites with eye-popping images are seen as modern and trendy. And today modern and trendy are seen as more trustworthy, giving you more sales. People love GIFs You don’t need to know how to make a GIF to use them. Sites like Giphy or Reddit provide a platform to search and browse through GIFs from all over the internet. Here are some best practices to consider before you start bringing them into your marketing messages: Use your own voice. GIFs help you connect with your audience. When you get on the phone with them after they see a GIF in your marketing campaign, don’t leave them confused if you come across completely different. Be relevant. Make sure your GIFs match the message. If you have to explain it, it’s not funny. I love telling jokes, but when I miss the mark, I’m delivering a joke to the wrong audience. Knowing your audience is key. Keep copy short and sweet. Let the GIF speak for you, so keep your copy down to one or two short sentences for the most impact. Find inspiration in your favorites. Let your audience know what you are into – your favorite TV shows, movies, music, sports, etc. Or better yet, find out what your audience is into to find inspiration! Giphy has it all. Everybody loves pizza. Everybody. Get noticed, make someone laugh, and create a meaningful connection with the simplicity of a GIF. Showing your authentic personality is what will strengthen the approachability of your brand, no matter what industry you are in.
6 Tips For Price Testing Your Subscription-Based Digital Marketing Services Posted on February 16, 2016December 5, 2018 by Katie Culp If your marketing agency currently offers digital marketing services as a subscription (or retainer), you know the benefits of using a subscription-based model to generate dependable, recurring revenue. But, how do you know if you’re maximizing profits? Testing your subscription or retainer pricing can ensure that you’re priced appropriately and making the most of every new client that enlists your monthly services. While there is no hard and fast rule, there are several key aspects to consider when testing your pricing. Here are 6 tips to help you determine what price will give your digital marketing agency the greatest chance for success: 1. Ensure Profit The first thing you need to know is the profit margin that is required to keep your business going. Knowing your boundaries and your opportunities for profit will give you a bracket to consider in picking out your subscription price: Know your profit margin Calculate customer lifetime value Create a sales forecast You may find that you can’t afford your ideal price due to your costs. This will bring up essential discussions about cutting costs or being creative with your marketing. 2. Scope Out the Competition Price testing doesn’t occur in a void. How your competition positions their services has an impact on your pricing as well. Before you test a new pricing model, compare it to what your competition offers to hypothesize how a pricing change might impact your business’s ability to acquire new customers. What pricing model has worked well for your competition? What can you learn from them as you approach your own pricing? If priced very similarly to the competition, how can you differentiate your service offering? Can you price your services higher than the competition and continue to look attractive to potential customers? Can you afford to undercut the competition, and do you risk starting a pricing war that drives down prices in your niche? 3. Test Different Pricing Models You can speculate the investment your customers are willing to make in your service, but you never know for sure until you test. Will potential customers protest at a price increase, or will they subscribe without batting an eye? Can you get enough new customers in the door to compensate for a price decrease? Does it make sense to decrease pricing for customers who commit to your service for 3 months, 6 months or a year? Can you add or remove features or services to your packages to offer more than one price point? Choose the pricing model you want to test. Then, leaving everything but the price the same, launch your new pricing model in the wild to compare results of the new pricing with the old pricing model. 4. Look at Return on Investment As you’re testing new pricing, you need to look at more than just the end dollar amount earned. Take into account the cost to acquire a new customer, revenue and profit. The lowest subscription amount in your experiment might be best, even though you make less per subscription because it sells more subscriptions. The highest subscription may be the best choice, even though you might sell fewer subscriptions, because it may cover your costs and you may want to market your product as a high-end good. 5. Determine Impact on Marketing, Sales and Support Changing your pricing model doesn’t just affect revenue, but also has an impact on your marketing, sales and support. For instance, if you increase the price, you may need to position your services in a different way – emphasizing the benefits to potential customers seeking value over price. Or, you may want to take a more hands-on approach to customer service to deliver a white-glove experience that matches customer expectations. Likewise, if you decrease pricing, you’ll be focused on increasing volume. Your marketing and sales may change to emphasize features and pricing over benefits to attract price-conscious customers. To sustain lower prices, you might also need to decrease touch points with your customers in order to scale your business more efficiently. 6. Measure Stickiness Do new customers stick with you longer on the new pricing model? Increasing the lifetime value of your customers can boost your bottom line and increase average monthly revenue. For example, say you lower your monthly fee and get more customers in the door – but they cancel their service after two months. You might be better off with a higher price point that attracts fewer customers who stay for the long haul and have a greater lifetime value. Bonus Tip When you are determining the correct price, there is a theory that you should have an experimental price that is too high. This gives you a ballpark on where your top price should be. Reach a little higher than you think the market is willing to spend so you can find out the highest amount potential clients are willing to pay per month. If you haven’t found that number yet, you may not be maximizing your profit potential. Setting a subscription price is hard work, and impacts the marketing, sales and support of your digital marketing services. Test more than one option to find out which pricing model maximizes profit for your business.
How to Write a Popular Blog Post – Without Writing Posted on February 15, 2016August 25, 2022 by Jessica Lunk How do you become a leading voice in your industry? For that matter, how do you even get your foot in the door? The answer is content —blog posts, eBooks, whitepapers, articles, infographics and more. BUT – what if you don’t like that answer? What if the thought of sitting at your desk and hammering out a blog post on your keyboard sounds about as appealing as gouging out your eyeballs with a dull spoon? Then this post is for you! Finding the motivation to Write relevant blog posts and consistently share great content positions you and your business as an industry leader. But finding the time and mustering up the talent to put together great content can be really tough. That’s where lists – those irresistible listy listicles – come in. You don’t have to be much of a writer to create content that gets eyes on your brand and people to your website. By curating content, you can leverage excellent articles that already exist to keep current and potential customers engaged. You’ll become trusted voice in your industry, a disseminator of trusted and reliable information. And you won’t have to do the dirty work of writing original content. Creating a List Post that Gets Found and Shared Online Just like where you sit at lunch dictates your popularity in high school, the company you keep online can make or break your brand. The power of list posts is that by linking to and mentioning other websites, thought leaders and influencers, you give lift to your own brand and gain exposure to new audiences. Here are 9 types of list posts to create and share with your audience: Ask influencers: Tweet a question to people in your space that have a big presence and compile their answers into a blog post, like we did with our post, The Most Important Online Marketing Lessons of 2015 for Small Businesses. Ask your audience: Your customers and prospects want to hear from people who are just like them. Ask your audience a question to come up with a list of engaging, fun content – similar to when we asked our audience of small business owners about their Thanksgiving Traditions. Tap into employees: Ask your employees one question and put their answers in a blog post. We did this with our blog post, What Our Core Values Mean to Us. Use comment sections and reviews: Is there a topic that’s sparking conversation? Show your readers what others are saying about a hot topic in the comment section of your blog or other blogs, linking back, of course. For instance, we compiled what our customers were saying about us on several review sites in this blog post. Make a list of resources: Are there business tools you use that you would recommend to your customers? For instance, a bank might have a list of the 20 most affordable colleges within 100 miles, or a used car dealer may have the 10 best subcompact cars with links to each company that builds them. We put together a list of the 8 Marketing Podcasts Every Entrepreneur Should Hear for our audience of small business owners. Help your audience find more content: Where do you go to find content about your industry or niche? Create a list of blogs or resources for your audience, like our list of 21 Great Small Business Blogs. Be an inspiration: What keeps you motivated and moving every day? Put together a list of quotes or a fun list of internet memes. We shared small business inspiration in our Monday Motivational Quotes post. Find examples: You know a good thing when you see it in your niche. Curate and share those instances of excellence using images and links to tell a story. For instance, at Hatchbuck, we know good content marketing when we see it, so we put together this post on 12 Awesome Examples of Content Marketing Done Right. Link to old posts: If your business and blog have been around for a while, you probably have a good amount of blog content. Find a theme and make a list – kind of like we’re doing in this post right now! When it comes to content marketing and blogging, creating a list of curated content might sound a little bit like cheating. But, the reality is, these types of post aren’t just easy to create, they’re easy for your audience to digest and share. Mentioning other brands, leaders, and even your own employees can get new people to share your content, broaden your network and help your list posts gain instant popularity. When you don’t want to write a blog post, make a list. You’ll save time while growing your audience and showing potential customers your value.
20½ Small Business Tips For Blogging Posted on February 12, 2016June 20, 2018 by Jessica Lunk Content is the driving force behind your marketing strategies. You want something to send your potential customers in an email. You want to connect and reach more people on social media. You want a way to communicate the value you provide as a business owner in a conversational way. Blogging is a great way to expand your reach, build a relationship with your audience, and start converting more website visitors. Starting a blog is the easy part. Creating a place where potential customers return for valuable content is where there hard work comes in. Here are 20.5 tips for blogging we put together to keep in mind as you start building up your blog content: Know your audience. Create personas. Write to that one person. Your blog posts will resonate more when you know who you want to reach, their motivations, and how to speak to them. Set a goal for your blog and create your strategy. Start with picking the right platform for your blog. There are so many platforms out there for you to use depending on the personas you create. Just make sure it’s mobile-responsive! Make a big list of topics you want to blog about. Then start writing potential headlines for each topic. These lists are great to have when you hit a block and are not sure what to write about next. Decide if you or someone on your team will write for the blog. We encourage having more than one person on your team write for the blog to cover all aspects of your business. If you are looking to increase your content strategy, think about hiring a freelancer to cover a couple posts a month. Your headline is just as important as the content within. Make sure it is enticing enough for your reader to click through. Shoot for 500-750 words. Throwing long-form content (1000+ words) into the mix is great for SEO. Experiment by patching together multiple blog posts or writing on a topic that you have a lot to say about. Collect emails. Adding a form with a clear call to action to subscribe on your blog will help you start building an engaged list. Write seasonal and timely content. These are good on social media so you can expand your reach using trending hashtags. Write evergreen content. You will build SEO points so your blog post will strengthen in rank as time goes on. These blog posts have a longer lifespan and enhance your email marketing campaigns. Include guest authors. Current customers, influencers, or partners help you get another perspective on your blog and builds your audience up. Tell a story and get personal. You audience will feel connected to you with a funny, touching, or passionate story. Bring in research and stats but make sure to always link to the source. Lists are still hot on social. Create a list with images, gifs, etc… The more creative and relevant you can get with your lists, the more it will stick out. Include great photos as a featured image or in the post. If you can, take your own photos. If not, find free photos using the Creative Commons or The Stocks. Call out influencer and companies with similar audiences. They will be more willing to share your blog post and start building a working relationship. Just start! Once you start blogging more and more, you will begin to develop your voice and your style. It will change as you learn how you want to write for your blog. Be consistent. When you start your blog, write a few blog posts and determine how often you will be able to publish a post. Then set your goal! Be your authentic self. You can try to be someone else, you can try to be something else, but nothing will resonate more than just being yourself. Create a distribution strategy and process for all your new content. It will vary by how often you post but it will ensure your content is getting in the right places! Great, valuable blogging is not an overnight strategy. When you ramp up your blogging and content strategy, it will take a few weeks and even months to start seeing progress. Don’t get discouraged! Some days you will feel like you are the first person at the party, but then your audience will slowly start to trickle in. Have any questions about blogging or content strategy? Send the Hatchbuck Marketing team your question on Twitter. We are always happy to help!
Google Analytics Can Be Overwhelming: Start With These 5 Features Posted on February 10, 2016May 27, 2016 by Jessica Lunk Unless your small business is focused on internet marketing already, it will probably feel like you are staring at a foreign land when you sign up for a free Google Analytics website tracking account. The bottom line is, Google Analytics can be pretty complicated for even those with a lot of technical website experience. But, before you give up or throw your computer out the door, take heart! You can overcome the overwhelming initial impressions of this insanely beneficial website tracking platform by just getting to know five basic features. 1. Acquisition Whether you are getting high traffic numbers to your website or your numbers seem to be falling, it is helpful to see just how visitors are getting to your site. The Acquisition report shows you what route visitors took to pay you a visit. For instance, you can see if visitors hit the site through a search engine, email, social media, another website that links to your site, or if they came to your site directly. The Acquisition report also shows what page on your website these visitors entered your site on. Is traffic arriving at your site from social media campaigns? Email marketing? Organic search? Knowing which channels most of your traffic is coming from can show you where your marketing efforts are paying off, and which channels are worth investing more in. Are there opportunities to turn traffic into customers? Seeing which landing pages are getting a lot of traffic can clue you into places to optimize for conversions. So if you have a blog post that’s picking up a lot of organic traffic from a Google search, you might want to add a lead magnet to that page to turn more of that traffic into leads for your business. 2. Behavior Keeping tabs on what users do once they have landed on your site is crucial to keeping your website visitors happy. Discrepancies between the number of hits on your site and how many people actually navigate away from that initial landing page could mean that there is something wrong with the customer experience. By looking at this report, you can see what it is about the website that is keeping users engaged and what features may be sending them off in a different direction. Using the Behavior Flow tab, you can see the typical path of a visitor to your site. This tool makes it simple to identify pages where most users are dropping off, providing you with areas to optimize. For instance, if most visitors enter your site on your home page, then navigate to your product page, only to bounce, there may be opportunity to simplify your product page, adjust your messaging, or add a video to keep visitors on your site and on the path to conversion. A high bounce rate or low time on your site means that visitors aren’t seeing what they’re looking for. Use this data to evaluate the effectiveness of your website content and design. Simplify design and test images and messaging to increase pageviews, time on site, and decrease bounce rate to improve the user experience. 3. Audience Who is looking at your website? Google Analytics Audience data can tell you a lot about the people visiting your website. Data is not presented on an individual level, but in aggregate you can learn helpful insights like: Demographics You can see the average age and gender of people visiting your website. Geo Location Where are your visitors located? How often do locals visit your site and how are they accessing your web pages? All of this can be incredibly helpful to know when you are working toward marketing your small business online. Interests Audience reports can also show general areas of interest your audience has. Behavior Is it the first time on your site, or have most of your visitors been to your website before? How frequently to people come back to your website? The audience reports from Google Analytics give you the inside scoop on your audience. This data works both ways – helping you determine if you’re attracting the right type of visitor to your site as well as giving you insights about the type of person who is interested in your product. 4. Real-Time Data Analysis There are a lot of analytical services that are used by small businesses, but not all of them offer a real-time reporting feature. With this feature on the Google Analytics dashboard, you can take a look at what is happening on your website almost as it happens. The information takes mere seconds to update and you can see who is visiting your site and what they are doing while they are there hanging around, all in real time. 5. Conversions When you set up specific goals with on your Google Analytics dashboard, Google will take this information and provide you with a conversion report that shows you how effective your online marketing efforts are. With this report you can track customer objectives that you have put into place, such as new member sign-ups or app downloads. You can then go back and apply goal conversion rates to the other reports. For instance, you can go back to Acquisition reports to see which channel is converting at the highest rate. Or you could look at Audience data to see which city most of your conversions are coming from. While the initial experience with Google Analytics may leave you feeling perplexed and overwhelmed, just keep the basic features in mind in the beginning. Before you know it, you will be navigating through and pulling out analytic data about your website like a pro and using it to drive your website to a completely new level of success.
9 Practical Ways to Boost Website Conversions Posted on February 9, 2016June 15, 2016 by Nicci Troiani If you have a business, you have a website – that’s a given. But is your website doing its job? A good website design is optimized to convert as many visitors into customers as possible. While there is no one silver bullet to conversion optimization, there are a host of elements that can be tested to improve conversion rates. These small improvements add up to big gains in customers over time, so if you’re just letting your website sit stagnant, you’re missing out on opportunities to add revenue to your business. Improving the conversion rate of your website doesn’t have to be difficult. Here are 9 practical ways to improve website conversions: 1. Measure Your Conversion Rates We all know the saying that you can’t improve what can’t be measured. The first step to improving website conversions is to track your current website conversion rate. Google Analytics is a free website tracking tool that gives powerful insights about the traffic coming to your website – including conversion rates for specific goals, like signing up for a free trial of your product or subscribing to your email newsletter. Here’s how to set up goals, track, and improve the conversion rate of your website: Create a Google Analytics account and add the tracking code to your website. Decide on the conversion goal or goals you want to measure. Set up your conversion goals in GA. Here’s a simple guide on setting up goals in Google Analytics. Run an a/b experiment to test one new variable to your website at a time. Here’s a great video from QuickSprout that shows how to run an a/b test with a Google Content Experiment. As you make changes to your website, continue to run a/b tests to see how each change increases or decreases your overall conversion rate. 2. Highlight a Call-to-Action Don’t leave it up to website visitors to take the next step. Tell them what you want them to do with a clear, consistent call-to-action on your website, such as “schedule a demonstration,” “set up a consultation,” “talk to a salesperson,” or “start a free trial.” Here are a few areas to test to increase the percentage of visitors who click on your CTA: Changing button color Increasing or decreasing font size Adding or changing images Tweaking copy Moving button and/or form placement Adding popups or scroll boxes to your site Even a super small change, like changing button text from “Order Information” to “Get Information” can drastically affect conversion rates, as demonstrated by these 10 call-to-action case studies. Just changing one word can impact conversion rates 3. Test Images A picture is worth 1000 words, and with so many distractions online, images are essential to helping you get your point across to visitors quickly, before they bounce. Images can help visitors understand complex ideas, show off your company’s culture and values, and help potential customers identify themselves as your ideal buyer. However, don’t assume that your image works. Everyone has a unique perspective, and testing images on your site ensure that you’re connecting with your audience. A few image tests you can run are: People vs. a product Man vs. woman Person looking at the camera vs. looking at a product Illustration vs. photography Black & white vs color This list can go on, but the main takeaway is that experimenting with different images can help you to connect more quickly and more deeply to your ideal buyer, increasing conversions on your website. For instance, we tested an image of our app vs. an image of a customer. The verdict? The image of the Hatchbuck app unexpectedly converted 14% better than the image of a person. This could be because the image of the app helped website visitors understand that we were a software company more quickly and showed our product right away. The bottom line is that you don’t know what will convert until you test. 4. Adjust Copy You can have a great picture, but compelling copy is key to get website visitors to convert. Really great copy is benefit-driven, and instantly conveys to the customer how using your product or service will change their life. The best product descriptions are short and to the point, but don’t leave important information out. Pro Tip: Use headings to help make your copy easy to scan. Smaller chunks of copy are much easier to digest, while long paragraphs will cause your website visitors to bounce. Does changing your home page heading help more visitors convert? Are you using the most effective call to action text? Kissmetrics’ Beginner’s Guide to A/B Testing Web Copy is a comprehensive resource on areas you should be testing your website copy. 5. Add a Video Viewers of product videos are anywhere between 64% – 85% more likely to buy. That makes video a must-have in your marketing toolbox. Adding video to your website can help you convey complex ideas to visitors and explain the tangible benefits of not-so-tangible products and services. If you do add a video to your website, don’t leave off pictures, captions, and copy; the video is additional to those other basics. Pro Tip: Don’t have a video automatically play when someone goes to your site. That can slow down a device, or the volume can interfere with Pandora or another application they are using. The video should only be accessible if the user “opts in.” Finally, remember that desktop users aren’t going to watch more than 2 minutes of online video – so keep your videos short and sweet. Kabbage includes customer testimonial videos to their home page. 6. Offer a Lead Magnet Not every potential customer that visits your website is ready to make a purchase immediately – but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get the conversation started. Lead magnets are an excellent way to built trust with visitors to your website so that they’ll think of you first when they are ready to buy. So, if a website visitor doesn’t bite at your main offer, you can capture their interest with a helpful ebook, checklist, email newsletter, etc. You can use Google Analytic goals to see which of your resources are converting website visitors into leads at the highest rate. Less Accounting has a checklist they use as a lead magnet on their website. 7. Install Live Chat Live chat is a simple tool you can use to quickly answer questions and help visitors convert before they bounce off of your website. While someone who is reading a blog article is probably just doing research, a person on a product page is likely primed to buy. If you can engage them in conversation on live chat, you can help give them the information they need to take the next steps to become a customer – before they exit your website. We use Live Chat on the Hatchbuck product tour page. 8. Use Mobile Responsive Design Users now spend more time on mobile than on fixed devices. So, if you’re sending emails to your audience, sharing blog posts on social media, and are appearing in search engine results, it’s uber important to have a mobile optimized site that’s responsive for all types of devices. You don’t need a mobile app but your site should easily load and look good on all devices. 9. Nurture the Leads You Capture What you do after a lead visits your website is just as important as their experience on your site. Not every visitor who converts on your website will become a customer…right now. Lead nurturing helps you squeeze more opportunities out of your sales pipeline by staying top of mind with prospects. So once they’ve downloaded a lead magnet, filled out a sales form, made a purchase, or even if they’ve gone with a different solution, you can keep in touch with relevant content and convert these leads in the future – giving further lift to your website conversion rate. If you need help turning more online leads into customers for your business, check out our free email course, Lead Generation 101. Finally, first and foremost, the design of your website should be intuitive and therefore, relatively simple. No matter how creative your website is, if it isn’t easy to use, people won’t use it and website visitors won’t convert. Make it simple and easy to use across all devices, then test out images, video, copy, add lead magnets, include live chat help, nurture every new lead and watch those conversions rack up.
Brand Loyalty Isn’t Dead. How to Create a Lovemark with Your Customers. Posted on February 8, 2016July 19, 2021 by Jonathan Herrick Growing up, I always wanted to rock the same shoes — Air Jordan’s of course. When one pair wore out, my next pair was an easy decision — the next model of MJ’s. I was not only rockin’ the coolest shoe on the planet, but looking back, the brand connected with me. After all, what kid didn’t think he could Be Like Mike? Nike drove my…er, my mom’s…buying decision. Then, I loved my Air Jordan’s — and nothing could convince me otherwise. Today, well, it’s a different story. The power has shifted from the business to the customer and everyone is on brand overload. Internet, social media, and TV make it easier than ever for your audience and customers to tune out your message, delegating your business to the commodity game. With information at our fingertips, it’s always easy to scour the internet for the cheapest option. That doesn’t mean brand loyalty is dead. It does mean that in order to create brand advocates that come back and repurchase from your business, you have to show the real story behind the brand they buy, now more than ever. Consumers want to connect with businesses on a meaningful level. Which means as business owners and leaders we need to build brands that are more than just logos and taglines. We need to tap into the heart and soul of our audience, imprinting our lovemark on their mind. The question is, how? Champion the Customer No longer can you push your message and brand onto your audience. Brand loyalty is a two-way conversation that requires building an authentic relationship with your customers and online visitors across all channels. Instead of focusing on the one-time sale, think of your brand as a platform you can use to engage your ideal customer at every point in your relationship with them. This means that you don’t stop connecting with consumers once they make a purchase, but continue to surprise and delight them after the sale. Zappos is a great example of championing the customer. They don’t just deliver shoes, they deliver happiness. The customer is at the heart of Zappos’ brand and it shows. It starts with perks like free shipping, and is carried out in Zappos’ legendary customer support stories. The Zappos team repeatedly goes outside the box to wow and delight customers, fostering great brand engagement and loyalty. Build Trust Consumers today are inundated with choices. To simplify the decision making process, they look to both online reviews and their peers to get an inside look at what it’s like to do business with your brand. Negative reviews on review sites, comments on social media, or a customer sharing a bad experience with their network can sink your brand. It is more important than ever to be authentic and build trust with consumers. So don’t be shy in owning up to your mistakes when you have a problem. We are a forgiving society. Customers appreciate it when businesses are actually honest and authentic-giving a more human side to your brand. When it comes to fostering brand loyalty, it’s super important for your business to earn the trust of your customers and to keep it. Building trust starts well before a customer lands on your website or walks into your establishment. It starts with building awareness of a brand that other customers love doing business with. Deliver an Awesome Product A key to capturing not just the wallets but the hearts of your customer is a commitment to delivering great products. Take a look at Apple. They have done a masterful job at innovation and a relentless pursuit at building products that their customers want and need. Last fall, Apple released the iPhone 6. While there are other smart phones on the market that have stepped up their game and closed the gap to compete with the iPhone, it didn’t stop loyal fans from lining up in droves before iPhone 6 even came out. That’s because Apple’s laser focus on simplicity through product innovation has built a lovemark for its brand. In fact, Apple leads all phone manufactures with a 90% brand retention rate. Foster Goodwill A recent article from the Harvard Business Review indicates that the majority of consumers don’t just desire a relationship with a brand, but seek to share values with the business. That means that in order for your business to stand out from the crowd, you need to clearly communicate what you stand for — in other words, connect to people with your brand values. Recently one of my teammates here at Hatchbuck shared with me her experience Chevrolet’s recent #DayItForward campaign. The #DayItForward campaign is designed to engage Chevy’s audience in a discussion around what they would do to make the most of the extra day in February (this year being a leap year). So Lindsey from our team reached out to thank Chevrolet for making a difference, one of our core values here at Hatchbuck and a value that Lindsey does an amazing job of living out every day: Chevrolet responded right away with a personalized message, letting her know there was some RAK — Random Act of Kindness — on the way. In fact Chevrolet sent her a $10 Starbucks gift card to grab a latte and to be used to impact the person behind her in line: Lindsay reached out to me, blown away by the online experience she had with Chevrolet. Why? First, Chevrolet tapped into Lindsay’s heart and shared value-To “Make a Difference”. Second they made the communication personal and meaningful. Is Lindsay going to spring for a new Chevrolet? No, probably not the minute she signs off of Twitter. But it has increased her loyalty to their brand and it’s delivered an unforgettable experience. She also not been shy about sharing it with others who may be in the market to drive home a new car. Tap into the Data When you leverage technology such as social media, CRM and marketing tools that capture valuable insights and behavior about your online visitors and customers, you can better understand what motivates them to buy and what they value. Ultimately, today’s access to data about your audience can move you from a brand with a one-size-fits-all message to a brand that delivers a personalized, engaging experience. The proliferation of tech tools plus the rise of content marketing has given businesses new ways to engage with consumers right where they are with just the right message. Studies show that content is a big driver in brand loyalty. Beyond just the product you sell, a healthy content strategy helps to solve your audience’s biggest challenges and allows you to establish yourself and your brand as a thought leader, giving you a voice in the most important conversation for your audience. Creating brand engagement only happens when your business works to develop a two way street and personally communicates with customers and potential customers. Today, brand loyalty is no longer a given. Brand loyalty is earned when your business delivers a great product, establishes trust, and connects with the shared values of your audience. Your customers are looking for brands to be transparent and follow through on what they stand for. Alexander Jutkowitz of Harvard Business Review puts it this way: “People expect convenience from a transaction, but what they crave is meaning.” Brand loyalty isn’t dead, so put your lovemark on your customers to win back their hearts. Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
Feeding the Masses: Build an Empire with Social Media Marketing Posted on February 4, 2016August 5, 2022 by Jessica Lunk Your website is elaborate and beautiful in its functional design. You have a steady list of customers who have signed up for email alerts from your business. Your marketing efforts are pretty set and ready to grow, right? Unfortunately, if you are skipping out on social media marketing, you are potentially walling off a whole sector of consumers and clients that spend most of their internet time on social media. If you really want to build your small business into an income-generating empire that has the ability to reach the masses and feed them enticing information, social media is the way to go. You may think that sticking your foot into the social media marketing door sounds a little too offbeat compared to your usual marketing strategy, but this is actually the key to seeing major changes. If the whole social media marketing idea is lost on you, there are a few facts that you will find interesting. Social Media gets more attention than anything else online. Period. The average person usually has about five social media accounts that they check regularly, accounting for more than 28 percent of the total time spent online. So even if people don’t check their emails, hit up a shopping site to see what’s on sale, or even try to find a quick answer to a weird question their kid asks, they will almost definitely be on social media at some point in the day. The key to consumer marketing is to be visible in the right places, and social media is almost guaranteed to be one of these places where you will at least catch a customer in passing. Social Media isn’t just for young people. When you picture customers fiddling away on social media, scrolling through the feeds and checking in with their friends, you may conjure up an image of a fairly young sector of people. But, about 48 percent of internet users over the age of 65 do have at least a Facebook account, and many have other sites they frequent, such as LinkedIn and Twitter. Therefore, when you market on social media, you are actually marketing to an incredibly diverse crowd of probably every age group. This is good to know if you operate an age-specific business, such as something associated with medical supplies or senior living, but is just as helpful if your business needs to market to all ages. Develop your buyer personas to better reach different age groups on Facebook. Something popular on Social Media will not go unnoticed. As a society, we are social creatures and we all enjoy finding ideas and interests that we have in common with other people. This is why social media marketing is such an effective tool for small business owners looking to grow the size of their brand and reputation. One person sees what you have to offer, they like your page or share it with their 300 friends. These friends then follow the same patterns, and before you know it, one simple post about a specific product or business event has spread like wildfire all over the pages of a site, very hard to ignore and definitely leading to interest in your business. Social Media is not a short term strategy. Social media users are driven by instant validation through likes and comments — the more one can get, the better they feel. However, the same can’t be said for a business page. It’s slow to get your followers engaged and you often need to pay a little to get the ball rolling. Staying consistent in your social media outreach strategy is key. Even if you just like or comment on a potential customer’s post a couple times a day with the intention of starting a conversation is better than just pushing up content. Likes are more valuable than you would think because it’s like a little wink to capture the attention of a potential customer. It’s also helpful for developing a relationship with your customers. Showing a little love goes a long way! Don’t shy away from a strong social media presence. It’s a cost-effective and easy channel to manage. There are many tools, like Buffer and Hootsuite, that can automate your posting strategy, leaving you time to make meaningful connections one-on-one. Get in front of more people and have fun with it! (But mind your manners).
How I Grew Our Facebook Likes by 6400% Posted on February 3, 2016June 28, 2016 by Jessica Lunk The mysteries of Facebook. Would you believe (assuming you don’t remember) that this powerhouse of global sharing technology which has overrun our very existence has only been around since 2004? Just eleven years into its history, Facebook is ranked as the number two most visited website in the world, with 1.44 billion active users each month. Alexa, an internet ranking website, says that Google is the only web page with more hits. Facebook is a juggernaut of marketing power that anyone can use. What was started as a photo and information sharing site among college friends, has also quickly turned into an important advertising tools for all businesses. It’s the best way for a smaller business to connect with their customers on a daily or weekly basis. As Facebook grows, they find more ways to keep their users active and engaged with the platform. Your job is to get in front of the right people with your Facebook page by providing relevant, quality content. You also want to stand out against everything you are competing with on the Facebook algorithm – it’s not just your competitors you should pay attention to. So how do you figure out how to create the perfect Facebook audience, reach more prospects and attract more customers to your business? When I first started Hatchbuck, we had 174 Page Likes. Now, we have over 11k followers. Here are the steps I took to grow Hatchbuck’s Facebook Likes by 6400%: Target The Right Demographic You find pockets of people everywhere on Facebook that react and respond to content they see in their News Feed. To ensure you find the right audience for the content you are producing, you must start developing your buyer personas. You can find all kinds of people so creating specific buyer personas becomes important in order to increase ROI. You’ll want to effectively engage a small portion of these users instead of trying to reach them all. Start with the demographics of your customer base and the demographics of you best customer. As a business owner, you know the difference between a great customer and one that sucks your resources dry. It’s key to pay attention to your promoters. Then, do some research on them. See what they like and dislike about your product. What features are their favorite? Why did they choose you over your competitors? You may also want to get some psychograpic data on them. What are your customers interested in? Is there a common theme? For instance, if your ideal customer is an HR professional who is a middle-aged woman, maybe there is a strong possibility that she also loves music. This is very useful data to know because that’s how you can connect with your ideal audience. The Strategy As you know, Facebook has cracked the whip on organic reach, making it harder for small businesses to get in front of their Facebook audience. By using some marketing spend effectively each month on Facebook Ads will help you get in front of the right people, so you can grow an engaged audience. Start with your content strategy. You want to be providing relevant, quality content for your ideal audience. You can stand out from your competitors and start to develop your place in your sphere as a thought leader. You may need some freelance help getting started or a marketing partner. A strong, content marketing strategy is a long term investment but it gets the ball rolling for more visitors to your site, increased brand awareness and recall, and higher engagement from your audience. Get those Likes. Pump your Facebook Ad budget into a Likes campaign. Play with their audience builder, A|B test ad copy and creative, and start seeing what works for your business. You can set something up and let it run for a while before making adjustments to your audience. If you find a sweet spot with the right ads and audience, increase your spend to get the most out of that pocket. I’m always adjusting and testing new audiences on Facebook and I tailor the messaging to that audience. Once you start seeing the stream of relevant likes come in, the more excited you will become about your Facebook strategy. Be sure to keep your targeting in the United States or even try your city and community if you are more locally based. The key is to get the most ROI out of your marketing spend and you don’t want to boil the ocean with your online ads. Now Boost! Once you have a decent sized audience built, start pulling back from your Likes campaign and adjust it to the quality content you have started to produce. It’s good to have this buffer time so you can start to develop the right type of content for you and your business. You can start to see how often you need to post on your blog. We try to post once a day on the Hatchbuck blog! While this strategy may be overkill for your audience, still consider challenging yourself with more content. The more quality content you can share, the more reach you will have. Feature a blog post on your Facebook page with a boosted post. The reason you want to have an audience built up is so that you can target these boosted posts directly to your audience. This practice gives you a higher relevancy number on your ads and gets more eyes on your content. You will get more post likes and also comments. See how this system starts to hum? A targeted audience comes in through the Page Likes campaign and then they become engaged when they see your Boosted Content. Boost is a great word for this process because it does help boost your engagement, your reach, and your confidence as a small business thought leader.