Saints star running back Alvin Kamara has a new job with NASCAR in which he will connect with fans and share his own fan experience digitally and on social media.
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Being a marketer is an interesting job.
On the one hand, you’re expected to keep up with trends. When a new social media platform starts to take off, you’d better be there promoting your brand.
Still, you can’t just blindly follow those trends. Popular platforms become saturated with dozens of competitors, and standing out becomes nearly impossible.
Don’t get me wrong; social media ads can work wonders. I’ve just noticed there are plenty of underutilized marketing platforms right now. The most noticeable of which is YouTube ads.
YouTube ads are one of the most overlooked ad formats in digital marketing, and it’s easy to figure out why.
The massive focus on social media ads combined with the challenge of creating compelling high-quality video content makes YouTube ads a tough sell to small business owners.
Can YouTube ads be tough to grasp? Sure, at first. Luckily, once you get over that initial hurdle, YouTube ads offer some pretty unique marketing tools you can’t find anywhere else.
That’s why today, we’re taking a deep dive into the world of YouTube ads, from ad types to strategy. We’ll even walk you through creating your first one!
If you’re unfamiliar with YouTube, their primary advertising format is known as the TrueView ad. Before we can understand the value of skippable in-stream ads, we need to take a closer look at YouTube’s TrueView ad approach.
TrueView ads were created to solve a massive problem. Before TrueView ads, users lacked any meaningful way to control their advertising experience. Without a way to meaningfully interact with the content, ads ran the risk of being both frustrating and irrelevant.
YouTube was hoping to present itself as a valuable advertising platform, but its original approach to advertising severely limited the effectiveness and efficiency of brand marketing efforts. No brand wants to waste precious time and money selling to viewers who simply aren’t interested.
Here’s the simple explanation: Your brand only pays for TrueView Ads when viewers watch for at least 30 seconds, watch your entire video, or interact with your ad via call-to-action (CTA).
The first variation of the TrueView ad is the skippable in-stream ad. At a minimum of 12 seconds and a maximum of six minutes, in-stream ads play before a viewer’s video on YouTube.
These ads feature a countdown timer on screen, as well as a link to the brand website. You can also tag on a companion banner ad, but it’s worth pointing out these companion banner ads won’t be on all YouTube pages where your in-stream ads are served.
Of course, the most important part of this variant is the option to skip the video ad after five seconds. If they choose to skip and don’t interact with your ad, you don’t have to pay a dime. Assuming you uploaded the video to your YouTube channel, once the viewer watches for 30 seconds, a view is attributed to your view count.
TrueView Discovery ads are promoted throughout YouTube, appearing as an image thumbnail with up to three lines of text. These ads function as an entirely optional way for viewers to consume your brand content.
Discovery ads are visible on the YouTube homepage, at the top of a viewer’s YouTube search results, and on the suggested videos list on their video’s watch page. The best part? Your brand doesn’t spend a dime on these ads unless viewers interact with them.
That’s what makes this advertising approach so useful to brands and marketers. TrueView ads work to protect both the viewer’s time and your brand’s money.
If the TrueView approach just doesn’t interest your brand, YouTube has plenty of other options. Non-skippable ads function a bit differently on this platform. They might look just like skippable ads on the surface, but you’ll be limited to a 15-second ad window for non-skippable ads.
Beyond that, you’ll be dealing with a cost per thousand (CPM) payment structure, forcing you to pay for every thousand views.
The only scenario where you’d want to use something like this is when you’re dealing with a proven target audience or when your brand is looking to maximize its reach. Otherwise, there’s a strong chance you could waste time and money selling to the wrong prospects.
As you research YouTube ads, you’ll likely come across bumper ads and wonder what purpose they serve. What makes them different from the traditional non-skippable in-stream ad?
The most significant difference is the duration of your ad window. Instead of 20 seconds, bumper ads are expected to last less than six seconds.
Why would this distinction matter? Well, a viewer’s time and attention are valuable commodities. YouTube needs to protect their user experience, primarily by providing users with relevant information. YouTube limits these bumper ads to avoid frustrating viewers with non-skippable ads.
The key to making bumper ads work is creating something memorable. The format might not support long-form stories, but there are plenty of ways to portray your brand in five seconds.
Think of YouTube Masthead as YouTube’s premium advertising experience. Imagine your ad being the first thing viewers see whenever they use the platform. It’s a marketer’s dream come true, and with good reason.
Of course, there’s a reason you’ve never seen a small business on that masthead. That premium experience comes with a premium price tag. At about $2 million per day, masthead ads are extremely expensive and far beyond the average brand’s marketing budget.
Think of these like Super Bowl ads: impressive reach and traffic, but not reasonable for most marketers. YouTube’s other advertising formats are more cost-effective, easier to experiment with, and generally more valuable to your brand’s marketing journey.
With all the different variants and the added work of creating a compelling video ad, some marketers might wonder why they should use YouTube ads over social media ads. After all, that’s a ton of extra work when you could just make some simple visuals on Facebook ads.
While it’s certainly easier to make ads on social media, YouTube is a powerful tool for brands looking to promote high-quality video content to a massive audience. In fact, in a side-by-side comparison, an Agorapulse study found YouTube ads produced more views, more clicks, and higher conversions than Facebook Ads!
You’re ready to get started with your YouTube video ads. You’ve done all your audience and keyword research, and you know what the messaging should look like. Now you just need to pick an ad format.
When you’re first getting started, settling on a format to use can quickly become confusing. Should you use TrueView ads because you’re only charged per interaction? Are impressions more important or is traffic your only priority?
If you’re completely new to the world of YouTube ads, this breakdown of video ad formats by marketing objective exists to help you take that first step forward. Not to worry, your brand will start to identify what works well over time via testing and data collection.
One of the most compelling reasons to experiment with discovery ads is their potential as a brand consideration tool.
Instead of focusing on squeezing in a quick ad before someone else’s video, you can integrate your ad content into the YouTube search experience. This is where your keyword research can really shine. Create content that revolves around those low competition keywords with high volume.
When viewers click on your ad, they’ll be taken to your YouTube channel to watch that video. The goal here is less about CTAs and conversion and more about providing a closer look at your brand. If you have great instructional videos or interesting presentations, a discovery ad can work wonders for you.
For the sake of clarity, let’s define a few terms before we move on. Brand awareness is about maximizing visibility for your brand. Ideally, it lays the foundation for effective lead generation.
The main objective of lead generation is to both identify likely prospects quickly and offer properly defined metrics. Both lead generation and brand awareness are powerful tools when used correctly, but it’s vital you understand when to best use them.
Think of brand awareness as the top of the marketing funnel, leading into quality lead generation.
If your primary marketing goal is casting a wide net, non-skippable ads can effectively raise awareness for your brand. These ads can appear pre-roll, mid-roll, or even post-roll. If you’re worried about placement, YouTube serves these ads whenever they believe viewers are most likely to watch.
Maximizing brand awareness is great, but if you want to turn your traffic into interested prospects, you’ll need ad content that truly converts.
TrueView in-stream ads are perfect for this because they’re designed to be skippable. They introduce a level of reliability to the marketing experience. This potential prospect found the first five seconds of your ad compelling and was willing to stick around.
My favorite part? If a viewer doesn’t want to consume your content, they can just leave, at no cost to you. If the viewer does want to interact, they’ve now provided you with some very valuable information. They’re genuinely interested in your brand!
Let’s say you’ve already established an audience via digital media. You want to get a message out to them, maybe to announce your latest shoe release or phone launch. You need to maximize your budget, but you don’t really need to educate your target audience on the brand.
This is one of the scenarios where bumper ads perform well. The bumper ad doesn’t allow for much in terms of storytelling or education. What it can do is allow just enough time to hype up a new product or service.
We’ve already established that Masthead ads aren’t for the average small business. While they may not be a cost-effective way to market your brand, they do highlight a lesson about ad budgets in marketing: specifically, the concept of ROI.
On the surface, spending millions of dollars on a single ad can seem ridiculous. What if the messaging doesn’t land perfectly? What if you were wrong about the target audience’s pain points? It seems like such a massive risk. Still, massive brands are doing this regularly. Why?
Well, consider how these massive brands approach marketing. With millions on the line, their latest marketing campaign is composed of detailed, layered strategy with one element at its center: data, and lots of it.
This data, likely collected over several years, confirms they’ll receive a positive ROI from this investment. Where small brands see risk, massive brands see growth opportunities.
Of course, it’s not like only massive brands are entitled to that level of confidence. The commitment to making data-driven decisions is what elevates any marketing strategy.
Masthead ads aren’t impressive because they’re expensive. They’re impressive because they show that with enough data, even the biggest risks become manageable.
Let’s say you’ve never created a video ad before. All this video ad strategy sounds great, but it won’t make you a master visual content creator overnight. Fortunately, you don’t need to spend months learning how to edit to make compelling videos. When in doubt, a little external guidance goes a long way.
Google is hard at work getting YouTube Video Builder, their accessible video creation software, ready for the public. In the meantime, tools like Promo and Animoto walk you through the process of building strong video ads in minutes.
YouTube ads track plenty of metrics for you automatically, everything from watch time to engaged-views data is available, if you’re interested.
Unfortunately, that much information can be overwhelming when you’re new to the platform. When you’re first getting started, focus on view rate for skippable ads. This is essentially your true engagement rate, determining how well you can turn viewers into interested prospects.
If your view rate is low, there are a few possibilities. Maybe your headline doesn’t draw people in. Maybe your video doesn’t capture the viewer’s attention quickly enough. Remember those first five seconds need to be compelling.
For non-skippable ads, the focus is still on engagement. The only difference is that you’ll use click-through rate (CTR) to determine whether your ad connects your target audience.
If your CTR is unusually low, there are two possibilities. Either the video is being delivered to the wrong audience or the video itself is not connecting with your target audience. I advise testing for both by experimenting with different target audiences and creating multiple videos.
Ready to get started? Here’s how to create your first YouTube ad.
Log into your brand’s YouTube account and click on the camcorder icon on the top-right of YouTube. Then, click “Upload Video.”
From there, you’ll be taken to the upload window where you can now upload your video. Make sure you fill in title, description, and tag information.
Sign in to your Google Ads Account and select “New Campaign.”
You’ll see an option to choose a campaign goal, but just click on “create a campaign without a goal’s guidance” for now. You can now select a campaign type, so select “Video” or “Display,” based on your goals.
For our purposes, we’re going to focus on the “Video” option. At this point, you’ll be asked to select a campaign subtype. Select the most appropriate option and click “Continue.”
Now that you’ve created your campaign, it’s time to configure it properly. Start by giving your campaign a name for easy data collection.
Then, confirm your bid strategy, ad budget, and campaign duration. From there, also confirm your networks, locations, and languages.
Content exclusions are in this section as well. This determines where your ads are shown. If your brand is typically family-friendly, you’ll likely want to choose limited inventory. If your brand is more mature, expanded inventory could be a good fit. You can also exclude certain types of content and labels here.
When targeting your audience, start by defining their demographic information including age, gender, parental status, and household income. Google also lets you experiment with some more specific audiences like “bachelor’s degree” or “health care industry.”
Use keywords, topics, and placements to further narrow down your targeting.
Set your maximum bid. In the “Create your video ad” section, find your YouTube video and choose the appropriate video ad format (as listed in the above sections.)
Once your video ad format is selected, fill in the “Final URL” and “Display URL” sections. You can also include your call-to-action and your headline here.
You can auto-generate a companion banner, or upload your own below.
Once you’re ready, click “Create Campaign” and you’re all set!
Listen, I get it. Wrapping your head around YouTube ad creation can be a bit of a challenge at first.
The idea behind this guide is to arm you with a strong foundational understanding of how YouTube ads function, and how you can make your own.
Feel free to bookmark this guide if you ever need a refresher course, especially when it comes to campaign and video creation.
Fortunately, YouTube ads function just like any other digital marketing platform. Focus on your key metrics, test regularly, and above all else, respect the data. The path to consistent growth might not be glamorous, but it certainly gets results.
What digital marketing platform do you think is underutilized right now?
Your website can be your strongest sales asset or your weakest link.
A high-converting website works even when you’re sleeping, bringing in sales and growing your business 24 hours a day.
While the average conversion rate is around two to five percent, some of the highest performing websites online see conversion rates as high as 11 percent.
This means top advertisers are outperforming competitors by more than double.
If you want to increase your conversion rates, you need a strong CRO program to guide you.
A CRO program can improve ROI for your e-commerce business by targeting website performance and testing user experience methods that encourage online conversions.
Below, we’ll cover why CRO programs matter, how to create them, and what success in this space really looks like.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) programs are digital marketing strategies that help to improve conversion rates on websites or apps.
Usually, a CRO program finds drop-off points or obstacles on a website, analyzes how and why they are occurring, and then helps you develop new ways to ensure future conversions.
This is done through A/B testing, data analysis, customer journey mapping, consumer research, and more.
The key is to figure out:
From there, tactics such as analytics, PPC tracking, heat mapping, and user recordings help read on-site behaviors.
Using a combination of these tools and pairing them with a testing schedule is one of the most effective ways to improve your website conversion rates.
CRO programs are essential to growth because they improve customer experience, conversions, and sales.
Conversion rate optimizations can even lower your customer acquisition cost by improving conversion rates with visitors already on your site.
For example, if your website gets 1000 visitors a month and has a five percent conversion rate, you’ll get 50 conversions per month. If you can increase your conversion rate by five percent, you’ll double your monthly conversions without spending more to acquire new customers. You can see this at work in this conversion rate optimization funnel.
CRO programs give you insights into what is working on your website and what is not, allowing you to optimize your budget allocations.
As competition online grows, CRO programs are becoming increasingly important.
These days, it isn’t enough to offer a good product or service; you also need an engaging website that loads quickly, funnels users towards your end goals, and offers value and insight.
According to Unbounce, 70 percent of consumers report a slow load time decreases their chance of buying. From that same cohort, 32.3 percent claimed they are only willing to wait four seconds for a page to load.
Seventy-seven percent of mobile shoppers say they are more likely to purchase from websites that allow them to purchase quickly.
Well-placed CTAs can increase website conversions by 232 percent.
A strong CRO program can tackle all of these solutions while putting user experiences first and creating a clear framework for improving on-site experiences.
Once you understand how, when, and why your customers enter or exit your site, you’ll be able to make improvements to help it reach its maximum potential.
With a well-structured CRO program, you have the ability to:
Any business that wants to improve its online conversions can benefit from a CRO program.
More specifically, CRO programs are great for e-commerce businesses, businesses with email marketing programs, and businesses involved in paid media programs, as CRO is a natural accompaniment to these programs.
CRO programs can also improve SEO efforts, as they improve page load times, on-page performance, UX/UI, and readability.
Any business looking to improve its online conversions or SEO can benefit from a CRO program. This list can include:
Businesses that stand to see the largest benefits from CRO programs are those that have a large number of monthly web visitors.
CRO programs usually work best with scale. For example, a five percent increase in conversion rate on a site with 100 monthly visitors is only five extra conversions per month. Yet, a five percent increase on a site with 100,000 monthly visitors is 5,000 extra conversions per month.
Additionally, CRO programs are most effective for websites with one clearly defined goal. For example, an e-commerce website looking to sell more products, a B2B business may want to increase demo appointments or drive email sign-ups. Whatever your goal, it should be obvious to incoming visitors.
Keep in mind CRO programs are best suited for businesses seeking to build long-term value. Clients need to understand the value of their website and how it affects consumer relationships. Using several CRO strategies, for example, is often more effective but those strategies take time.
While CRO programs can be incredibly helpful to growing businesses, there are some drawbacks.
First, CRO programs can be costly and time-consuming. It’s not about quick wins, but rather ongoing testing, optimization, and education.
Many businesses don’t have the internal expertise to launch a CRO program. This often means hiring third parties is necessary, which increases the cost.
For those with in-house expertise, it can be difficult to shift resources towards a dedicated CRO program.
For businesses on a tight budget, or those without time to oversee these programs, CRO programs may end up being unfulfilling.
That said, creating a structured CRO program can alleviate some of the costs and drawbacks associated.
Below, we’ll outline some of the steps needed to integrate a CRO program into your business.
Research shows that the top marketers in the world set clear goals and that goal-setting marketers are 375 percent more likely to report success.
If you’re ready to start your own CRO program, you’ll want to lead with strategy.
Here’s how to get started.
For a CRO program to be successful, you need buy-in from top members of your organization and staff.
Top management controls budget, resource allocation, and sign-offs for your programs. Cooperation on this level is essential to see a CRO program through from start to finish.
Likewise, coordination with team members and among departments will be necessary to complete your program. CRO programs often include members of data management teams, UX teams, webmasters, and customer support.
To ensure your CRO program runs smoothly, educate all team members and higher-ups on the goals and benefits of the CRO.
CRO programs often involve data, strategy, design, copywriting, and web development.
If you know your company is interested in CRO, establish this in your hiring processes.
Even better, search out top talent well-versed in CRO and consult their expertise when considering new team members.
The more alignment you have with your team from the start, the more likely you will see success in your CRO program.
A successful CRO program requires a well-defined process.
This process should start by outlining key issues on your existing website and how they contribute to gains and losses in your conversion funnel.
From there, develop hypotheses to tackle these issues, and design a calendar to keep your team on schedule.
Your entire process should revolve around A/B testing. Once you start testing, you’ll likely find more places to optimize. Document these opportunities in as much detail as possible, then add them to your calendar.
Pay attention to any new opportunities for optimization and ensure every decision is data-backed and aligned with your overall business goals.
Whether you plan to watch visitor activities on your website through heatmaps or want to know how your lead forms are performing, CRO tools are an essential part of your program.
CRO tools show an average ROI of 223 percent, so don’t be afraid to invest a bit of money to get the tools you need.
Here are a few CRO tools to consider:
-heat maps
-scroll maps
-A/B testing tools
-multi variant testing tools
-split testing tools
-funnel analysis tools
-Google Analytics
-form analysis tools
-visitor recording tools
All good CRO programs start with research.
This can come in three forms:
-experience research
-qualitative research
-quantitative research
Experience research usually involves site walkthroughs, usability analysis, and heuristic analysis to understand the workings of your existing site.
Qualitative research may use online surveys, polls, customer support insights, and user testing to understand how your users interact with your site and what makes them leave.
Quantitative research involves web analytics and mouse tracking to see exactly where and how users convert.
This data will give you the foundation for your CRO program and let you know exactly where to focus your efforts.
From there, it’s all about testing, re-testing, and optimizing your website.
While increased conversions are the most obvious metric of CRO success, too much focus on conversions can lead your CRO program astray.
Other metrics, such as bounce rates, time on site, shopping cart abandonment, cost per conversion, and clicks should be considered when measuring the success of your CRO program.
Remember, what matters most is the quality of conversions, not the quantity.
It often costs far more to bring in new customers than to keep the ones you already have. Similarly, a five percent increase in customer retention can increase your profitability by 75 percent.
Focus your CRO program on customer engagement, experience, and retention, and you’ll be on the road to success.
CRO programs are an effective tool to improve online conversions.
While they are a big investment, both in time and money, a good CRO program can uncover so many opportunities for business growth.
Whether you choose to run your CRO program in-house or hire a dedicated CRO company, this guide will set you up for success.
As a final note, remember that CRO and SEO can work hand-in-hand when done right.
Don’t be afraid to test and experiment widely with both. You never know what you might uncover.
Have you found success in a CRO program?
At Paper.li, we highly value the power of content in all forms and the importance of building an outstanding personal brand. That’s why we launched The Personal Branding Playbook, where we share a proven method …
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At Paper.li, we highly value the power of content in all forms and the importance of building an outstanding personal brand. That’s why we launched The Personal Branding Playbook, where we share a proven method … The post Grow Your Brand: Here’s How to Distribute and Share Your Content appeared first on Paper.li blog.
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Instagram accounts that hold contests can achieve up to 70% faster follower growth than accounts that don’t hold contests.
If you want a popular Instagram account, coming up with and executing some Instagram contest ideas is a great start.
In this post, we’ll explore how you can use Instagram contests to raise brand awareness for your business.
We’ll also dive into some of the best practices to keep in mind when running your contests.
By the end, you’ll know how to run a successful Instagram contest that will bring your business the attention it deserves.
There are other ways to get more Instagram followers, of course, but few other methods can increase your follower numbers so quickly, and with such minimal effort.
Not only that: Instagram contests can also help you achieve more engagement.
Posts that are related to Instagram contests tend to earn roughly 64x more comments and 3.5x more likes when compared to ‘normal’ content.
On top of that, 91% of the posts that have achieved 1,000+ comments are contests.
All of these stats show that running Instagram contests is one of the best ways to improve brand awareness.
If you’re worried about being stuck in a cycle of constantly churning out contests, all in the name of boosting brand awareness, don’t worry; you don’t need to continuously run contests to reap the benefits that good Instagram contest ideas can offer.
That’s because you’ll notice a trickle-down effect on the rest of your normal content as a result of running contests. People will feel a greater affinity toward your brand due to the goodwill you’ve generated with your contests.
As a result, they’ll be more likely to share and engage with your normal content.
Plus, because contests generate more followers, there will naturally be more people exposed to your content. This increases the likelihood that share and engagement levels will be higher than ‘pre-contest levels.
Before you run your first contest, you need to be aware of some important best practices. Failure to follow some of these best practices could mean that you’re going against the rules of Instagram.
It could also lead to your contest producing lackluster results, which can amount to a lot of wasted effort.
What are these best practices?
The first is to make sure that you write a clear and detailed description for your contest.
When writing the description for your contest, be sure to cover:
Doing things this way makes it easy for you to stay on the right side of the promotion guidelines provided by Instagram.
It is important that you don’t stray from the guidelines, as doing so could put your account at risk.
Here’s a great example of a contest description.
They’ve done a good job of making this detailed, so it’s difficult to fit into one image.
Here’s the first part, which helps establish a reason for the competition while also describing what’s on offer.
This second part does a good job of letting people know what they need to do to be eligible to win.
The next bit tells people how they can gain an extra entry. The terms of the contest are clearly shown, while also indicating how the winners of the contest will be announced.
By studying how others are writing their contest descriptions, you’ll learn a lot about what separates a bad description from a good one.
You also need to ensure you’re giving away relevant prizes that your target audience will feel compelled to have.
If you focus on giving away prizes that are relevant to your target audience, your contest will generate better results.
If the products you’re giving away aren’t specific to your target audience, you run the risk of attracting followers that don’t care about your business or the products or services it provides.
In the long term, this arguably does more harm than good.
Such individuals may unfollow your account after a contest, or simply not engage with your profile in the future.
By picking the right prizes, you can reliably attract the right kinds of followers and generate brand awareness among the best demographic for your business.
All of which helps increase the odds of you earning a return-on-investment from your efforts.
As you might have guessed, giving away items of high value tends to produce higher levels of engagement.
The chart below shows that prizes worth $1,000 or more generally achieve 5.8 engagements per 100 followers.
This figure is quite high when compared to the 1.7 engagements that brands enjoy when they give away prizes worth $99 or less.
If you want to give away a high-value prize, but you don’t have the funds to invest in one, consider arranging a partnership deal with another brand. Provided that you have a large enough follower count, there will be brands that are willing to provide a prize for your contest in exchange for some promotion.
The way you promote the brand that provides the prize should be low-key. In the description of the contest, simply mention that the contest is sponsored by a particular company.
This Instagram post shows how you can pull this off.
You also need to put some thought into how you’re going to announce the contest.
It’s a good idea to use a custom image within the post that announces the contest.
Here’s an example of how you can do that.
As shown above, there’s also the option of adding the terms of the competition to the image, too.
With all of that out of the way, let’s check out some of the contest ideas you can use.
The tag-to-win contest idea is nice and straightforward.
All you’re doing is asking people to tag a friend in the comments section so that they can enter the contest, as well, and become eligible to win the prize.
This contest format does a great job of improving your profile’s organic reach.
That’s because once people are tagged by someone, they’ll likely receive a notification.
These people will then check out your profile and potentially become a follower.
They may also tag others. This will create a viral feedback loop, bringing more people into the competition.
To increase the impact of this feedback loop, you can also ask people to follow your account in addition to tagging someone.
Here is an example of a brand that uses this strategy.
If you want to be brave, you can ask people to tag two people. This, again, increases the potential reach of your contest.
The contest below shows how this can be done.
Once the competition is over, pick someone at random from the comments section. You can use an automated system to do this so that the contest remains objective.
If one of the entry conditions is to follow your profile, cross-reference the winner’s account with your follower list to make sure that everything is in order.
An alternative take on this format, the ‘nominate a friend to win’ contest, can work equally well.
Instead of asking people to randomly tag someone, you can instead suggest that they tag someone they believe deserves to win.
With this kind of format, the winner of the contest will be the person who has been tagged, and not the person who left the initial comment.
With this Instagram contest, you ask people to like your content if they want to enter the contest and have a chance of winning.
You can even use the phrase ‘double-tap to win’ since, on the Instagram app, double-tapping a photo automatically likes it.
There’s also the option of asking people to like your brand on Facebook, making it easy to increase the visibility and, therefore, the impact of your contest.
If you want to boost your follower count, mention that people also need to follow your profile if they want to be eligible to win.
Here’s an example of how that can be done.
This profile has used the combination of asking people to follow and like, thereby increasing the potential engagement this contest can produce.
Instagram is arguably the home of selfies, so this kind of contest is a great match for the platform.
It’s a type of contest that works particularly well with products.
With a selfie contest, you ask people to post a picture of themselves while they’re using your product, or with the product somewhere in the background.
This contest format is especially useful for a business because it helps show potential customers how a product can be used. It’s an excellent form of user-generated content.
When writing the description for a selfie contest, create a unique hashtag and then ask people to use this hashtag whenever they post their photos.
You can find the pictures people have uploaded for this contest by searching for the hashtag on Instagram.
At the end of the contest, pick the picture that you think is best.
Make sure that, when you create the rules for a selfie contest, you add that you might use the content at a later date.
User-generated content can provide an excellent source of social proof. Long after the contest is over, you can repost the content that the contest generated.
Here’s an example of how you can do a selfie contest.
Similar to the ‘like-to-win’ example from earlier, you can combine the format of the selfie contest with the other contest formats we’ve already covered.
You could mention that people need to like the post that announces the contest as well as posting a selfie.
The photo contest is closely related to the selfie contest we just covered.
The difference, however, is that you’re not asking people to take a selfie. Instead, they can take any type of photo they wish.
Like before, you ask people to submit photos using a relevant hashtag that you create.
You then search Instagram using this hashtag so that you can find a winning photo.
With this kind of contest, you don’t always have to offer a physical prize for the winner.
You can just let people know that the prize is that you’ll feature their content on your profile.
Here’s an example of a photo contest of which relates to a Boston News channel.
Here’s another one from the Empire State Building Instagram account.
It may be that you have a product or niche that is perfectly suited to photo contests. GoPro is an example of such a product.
If so, you should place a special focus on running photo contests.
That’s because this format will be especially easy to pull off while also providing you with an abundance of user-generated content that you can feature on your Instagram account.
A voting contest revolves around the following steps:
This contest format is great at generating engagement because you’re asking people to take a lot of social actions. Plus, the people who enter the contest will promote their own entries through their social channels.
However, you could argue that such a format is potentially asking too much from people.
Because of this, you may want to use this contest format only when you have a highly-engaged audience that cares about your profile and its content.
With that being said, another way you can run this contest is by having people submit photos first, and then only you find them using the assigned hashtag.
Based on what you find, you pick 3-5 finalist images and host them on your own profile.
You then ask your followers to like the one that they think is best, and the photo with the most likes wins.
This approach can help you achieve great results with a voting contest without asking too much of your followers.
Here’s an example of a profile that is doing something similar, but instead asking people to submit the photos to the host’s account directly.
Here’s a bit more context.
Here’s an example of how someone might post their own content in the hopes of obtaining a vote.
When running this kind of competition, you can also ask people to post their contest content to Facebook, as well.
Then you can count the likes that people have gathered on that platform and combine them with what they’ve achieved on Instagram.
Doing things this way can help expand the reach of your contest, improving your ability to generate brand awareness.
A caption contest is a contest in which you ask people to caption a photo that you’ve uploaded.
From that point, you can either:
The caption with the most likes is the winner.
While the second option can be a good way to engage your audience, the first option can help prevent people from artificially inflating their likes.
Here’s an example of a caption contest:
You may want to edit the image you use to announce the contest so that it highlights the fact that you’re in need of a caption.
The speech bubbles in the above post are a good example of how this can be done.
If you’re in a position where you need to put together a contest in a short amount of time, a challenge contest can work wonders.
With this contest format, you just need to come up with a simple challenge for people to meet, and the person who solves the challenge wins.
The challenge doesn’t need to be complex. In fact, simpler contests generally draw more social engagement and participation.
The post below shows how this can be done.
All that’s being asked of in this contest is that people guess which number the account owner is thinking of.
It’s simple and fun. The spontaneous feel helps to increase the authenticity of the profile, too, which helps boost long-term engagement.
Here’s another example, this time using a ‘guess the marbles’ challenge.
This contest format is simple and low-effort, making it a good choice for anyone who is new to running contests on Instagram.
You should now understand how to use Instagram contests to grow brand awareness.
As soon as you run your first contest, you’ll find that the whole process is a lot of fun. It’s also probably much easier than you expected.
Decide on a contest theme, create the rules, and establish a dedicated hashtag. Increase user engagement by cross-posting the contest on Facebook.
If you’re feeling nervous about setting up your first Instagram contest, get in touch and we can help you strategize (and assist you with your other digital marketing efforts).
If you can encourage people to invite their friends to participate in the contest, do so. The more people who see your contest and content, the better.
Do you have any tips related to running Instagram contests?
Are you a seller on Amazon?
If so, you need to understand the importance of your Amazon sales rank and how it can help (or harm) your business.
Amazon sales rank (also known as best sellers rank or BSR) is a numerical score representing an item’s popularity in both its overall category and respective subcategories.
What does that mean? Let’s look at Jenga’s performance. While Jenga scored position three in the overall category of Toys & Games, it earned the number one rank in Stacking Games.
With this level of visibility into performance, sellers can view performance on multiple levels.
Amazon sales rank can range from one to over a million, with lower scores indicating superior rank. The metric is calculated hourly using the number of recent sales, as well as historical sales in relation to other products in the same category.
Wondering how you can find your product’s Amazon sales rank?
It’s easier than you think. Simply scroll to the bottom of your product page until you encounter the Product Details section. Then, look for the Amazon Best Sellers Rank.
Now that you’ve found your Amazon sales rank, you’re probably wondering, ‘is this a good score?’ When it comes to sales rank, all things are relative.
If you’re in a saturated category, a “good” score could still be an astronomically high figure. Conversely, if you’re in a small, niche community, a score that may present as low may not actually mean that much. As a general rule, you’ll want to aim for a score under 2,000.
You might think your Amazon sales rank doesn’t have much bearing on your present performance, as is based on past performance. However, there are four distinct reasons why you should care about your ranking.
For Amazon sellers, having a low Amazon sales rank is vital to success on the e-commerce site. Since rankings are used to define product popularity within a specific genre, and comparatively with its competitors, consider your sales rank as a vote of confidence in popularity of your product.
In addition to serving as a testimonial to the popularity of your product, Amazon sales rank provides insight into your competitors by providing visibility of the most high-performing products in your category. By assessing products that hold top Amazon sales ranks, you can then reassess your own campaign through their lens, optimizing your listing and marketing strategies accordingly.
In addition to credibility, consumers are more likely to purchase a product that others have also bought. What’s the likelihood that you would buy a product online without any reviews? None, most likely.
The same premise is at work here—more sales means more reviews, leading to even more sales.
If your products are routinely ranking in top positions in your category or subcategories, buyers will notice. By increasing your products’ positive visibility, you can increase the visibility and awareness of your brand.
While it may feel like your sales rank is completely out of your control and dependent solely upon your consumers, there are actions you can take to drive sales and increase your Amazon sales rank.
Let’s look at six strategies to increase your sales rank.
Eighty-eight percent of consumers trust online reviews just as much as they trust word-of-mouth recommendations from their friends and family. Positive reviews can be the tipping point that causes a consumer to choose your product over a competitor’s.
While Amazon has banned true financial incentivization of reviews (such as offering a discount or payments) there are still options to encourage shoppers to leave glowing reviews. Here’s a few ways to increase your online reviews.
After a purchase is made, send a follow-up email. In this email, you can include a valuable piece of informational content that will grow goodwill between buyer and seller, perhaps leading to future purchases and future reviews.
You can also opt for Amazon to automatically send an email to the purchaser to review the product. This is a quick, easy way to score some valuable reviews.
Including a valuable piece of content in your packaging can also encourage customers to leave a review. Consider including a hand-written note that encourages the consumer to leave a review, which will also further foster that sentiment of connection. Even a printed thank you note with a reminder to review can help.
Amazon Vine is an internal program that offers products for free to trusted Amazon customers in return for feedback. The goal is to encourage honest reviews from real customers and is invitation-only for participants.
The only catch here is that you must be an Amazon vendor to participate in this program.
We believe that keyword research should be the foundation of any online campaign, and selling on Amazon is no different. Identifying the right keywords for your product can be the differentiator between success and failure.
As you craft your Amazon listings, include your keywords in your title and bullets. By including these terms, you ensure more searchers see your listing, which, in turn, increases the likelihood that your product will be purchased.
Photos matter. In fact, 63 percent of consumers report that photos are more important to them when shopping on Amazon than verbal descriptions. It pays to invest in quality photos.
As you select photos to include in your listing, think about what you would want to see as a consumer. Would an image that incorporates an infographic be effective? Would an image of an individual using your product convey value? If you take your own photos, look for tips that will help you take professional-level photos.
Regardless of which approach works best for your product, quality photos can attract and convert attention, drive sales, and increase your Amazon sale rank.
A lot of Amazon product listings showcase some pretty lackluster writing. Common offenses include un-optimized pages, titles stuffed with keywords, and sentences that don’t even make sense (which won’t inspire trust in your company.)
To help your product stand out from the crowd and drive more purchases, write thoughtful sales copy for each of your product listings. Focus on the benefits your product offers and what makes it stand out.
Amazon visitors come with commercial intent. If you can attract them with strong sales copy, they’re that much more likely to convert.
Here’s a fun fact—90 percent of Amazon product listings don’t adhere to Amazon’s description requirements. Just like Google, Amazon makes frequent algorithm updates. Staying current on recommended listing details, including character counts and word limits, can help your products perform better and increase visibility.
When crafting product descriptions and titles, remember that Amazon users are shopping on the platform because it is quick and easy. If your would-be consumer struggles to understand your products, they’re likely not returning for a second look.
To make your titles stand out among the multitudes, try these three things:
Be sure to use Amazon’s best practices when creating product titles. They exist for a reason, so be sure to implement them in your title strategy
The conversion rate in the Amazon Marketplace averages around 15 percent, considerably higher than other e-commerce platforms. The key to ensuring your products see that level of conversion is to ensure and increase visibility. If no one sees your product, no one can buy it.
While there are a number of ways to promote your products on Amazon, we’ve gathered our top three to share with you.
To increase your product’s visibility, consider investing in sponsored product ads. As a seller, you only are charged when a buyer clicks on your ad, so this is a reasonably priced way to get your product in front of fresh eyes.
In the above ad, the sponsored product appears on the first page of search results.
Harnessing the power of your business’ social channels is a great way to get your products seen by more buyers. While you don’t want to inundate your followers with ad after ad, there are a few strategies you can employ to get your Amazon listings noticed.
Increase interest in your product by offering shoppers a Lightning Deal. These sales are time-sensitive and buyers can locate them in Amazon’s Today’s Deals section. These are extremely popular with shoppers as they urge action given their time-sensitive nature.
When you include your product in Amazon’s Today’s Deals sections, you not only will increase your sales, but you’ll inevitably boost your Amazon Sale Rank.
Now that you understand the components that make up your Amazon sales rank, it’s time to start optimizing your store for more purchases.
Whether you start by researching keywords for your e-commerce store or shining up your existing copy, you’ll be on your way to improving product visibility. As that visibility increases, so will your sales, driving your sales rank up simultaneously.
What’s your most successful strategy for increasing Amazon sales rank?
The post How to Find and Grow Your Amazon Sales Rank appeared first on Neil Patel.
No doubt this is a hard time to grow a local business. Coronavirus has likely forced you to make big changes to the way you operate. It’s almost certainly hit your bottom line too.
However, it’s still absolutely possible to grow your local business at a time like this. You just have to be smart about it. In this article, I’ll talk you through how to do that. First, though, here’s a bit of detail on why this is such a challenging time for businesses like yours.
You’re probably sick of reading and hearing the word “unprecedented.” I know I am. Unfortunately, it’s just the best word to describe the current climate for local businesses.
By the end of March, 32 states had locked down in response to the pandemic. Two in five small businesses across the US had temporarily closed by this point, with nearly all of those closures due to COVID-19.
Closing your doors has big financial implications. It is concerning that the vast majority of local businesses aren’t in a position to handle even short-term pressure on their earnings, with around four-fifths only having up to two months of cash available to pay their expenses.
Because of this, it’s hardly surprising that the number of active business owners in the US plummeted by 3.3 million (or 22%) in the two months from February to April alone. That’s the largest drop on record, and it affected practically every industry.
Luckily, if you have access to the right strategies (like local promotions) and tools (such as messaging services like Podium), you may still be able to grow your business even in these uncertain times.
The pandemic might have affected your business growth in any number of ways. Maybe you’ve been forced to shutter your store(s) for a certain amount of time. Maybe your customers are buying less at the moment. Or maybe the industry you’re in means you’ve barely even got a “product” to sell, like cinemas and travel companies.
Whatever the case, if you’re going to grow your local business in the current climate, you need to adapt. Here are tips on how to do it:
I know what you’re thinking: “I’m already worried about cash flow, now this guy’s telling me to invest in a bunch of tools!” Well, what if I told you that by choosing the right tools (some of which are free, by the way), you massively increase your chances of growing your local business?
You likely know that there are thousands of tools designed to drive small business growth, but I’ve focused on the areas where you can really shift the dial:
There are so many benefits to improving your communications with existing and potential customers.
You can generate more reviews, which act as a trust factor and make your business more credible. You can collect payments faster and with less hassle. You can issue more timely (and more effective) reminders, reducing the chances of no-shows.
To solve your customer messaging you can use a tool like Podium. Here’s how I use it:
Oh and an easy way to get started is to just sign up for a free Podium account.
No one likes scheduling meetings at the best of times. Throw coronavirus into the mix and it becomes even more of a challenge. Should it be in-person or remote? Which platform should we use? What date and time work best?
Meeting schedulers are designed to handle the legwork for you. One of the best is Arrangr, which reserves tentative meeting times, automatically frees up untaken slots, and can even suggest the ideal location for all parties.
Another great option is Calendly. Integrating directly with your Google or Office 365 calendar, it gives you a personalized URL that allows customers to see your availability and schedule their preferred meeting time. Best of all, there’s a basic free plan available.
You can’t grow a local business at a time like this without doing some marketing.
Unfortunately, you likely don’t have time to build and execute complex campaigns.
That’s why you need email automation software! One of the most popular tools, Mailchimp, helps you send effective email marketing communications at scale. In fact, Mailchimp claims to boost open rates by 93% and click rates by 174% compared to the average bulk email.
Your customer relationships have never been more valuable than they are right now, so you need to manage them effectively. To do that, you need to invest in a customer relationship management (CRM) tool.
There are a bunch of CRMs aimed at local businesses, but HubSpot Sales Hub is one of the most popular. It’s loaded with sales engagement tools, pricing functionality to help you deliver complex quotes, and analytics software to measure what’s working (and what isn’t).
In more “normal” times, you might not put a lot of thought into your marketing. Maybe you just write the occasional social post or send a couple of email promotions a month.
During times of uncertainty, that just won’t cut it. People have a lot on their minds right now, so that one baseball gif you tweeted isn’t going to have much impact.
You need a proper digital marketing strategy.
Let me give you an example: you sell business supplies to other local businesses.
Because you’re small and local, your big differentiator is your flexibility and bespoke approach. You can source whatever product your customer needs, your delivery times are rapid, and you’re easy to reach. That’s the sort of stuff you talk about in your marketing emails.
Well, wouldn’t it be good if you made that the foundation for a whole campaign?
Maybe you create a bunch of case studies and testimonials that show your unique selling point, (USPs), in action. You build a mailing list of local firms you’d love to do business with, and drip-feed your content to those prospects. Because you’ve built a whole strategy, you know the best times to reach those prospects, the platforms they use, and the sort of messaging that resonates with them.
That approach helps you strike up a conversation, which ultimately means you may close more deals.
Want people to see your name when they search on Google for businesses like yours? If you’re reading this article, I’m guessing you do, and that means you need a (good) Google My Business profile.
Setting up a free profile makes it more likely that your business shows up in relevant searches, along with useful information like:
Once you’ve set it up, optimize your Google My Business profile by:
On that last point, I know it can be hard persuading customers to review your business. They’re busy. They don’t want to spend their valuable time seeking out your Google My Business profile or Facebook Business Page.
Podium makes it a lot easier, helping you provide social proof that demonstrates your brand can be trusted. Text customers asking them for a review and they’ll be linked straight to your Facebook, Google, and Tripadvisor pages, so there’s hardly any clicks (and hardly any work) for them. That’s why Podium has powered more than 15 million business reviews for its users.
Sometimes it takes money to make money. If you’re serious about growing your local business right now, you’ll want to consider investing in some sort of paid activity.
Google Ads can be super effective for smaller firms, especially web-based businesses targeting online traffic and/or conversions. Local keyword phrases like “lawyers near me,” or “realtor in Denver,” are typically a lot less competitive than broader, non-geographic terms like “realtor.” That means you could get a lot of visibility and clicks with a relatively small outlay.
In addition to Google Ads, consider advertising on social platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. Social ads are less intention-based than paid search because your audience isn’t actively looking for the thing you’re advertising.
However, ads on social media often cost less than Google Ads. For instance, if you’re a law firm, you’re paying on average $10.96 per click on Google Ads, but on Facebook, that figure drops to just $1.32.
When times are hard, you need to squeeze every last dollar from your potential customers. Analytics software (like Google Analytics) can help you do that by allowing you to identify trends, plan new strategies, and measure the results of your current efforts.
Let’s say you’re a mechanic. You’ve just added a page to your site to promote a special offer on new tires. A month later, you click into Google Analytics and see that a bunch of people have landed on that page, but your conversion rate is low.
You compare it to other, similar pages on your site. They’re performing much better. Now you know there’s a problem, such as:
By comparing against better-performing pages, you can tweak your approach and improve results.
Now isn’t a good time to invite hundreds of people to a big party. But there are definitely opportunities for community engagement. You just need to get a little creative.
Say you’ve opened a new store in a location you haven’t served before. Maybe you target properties within a certain zip code, or on certain streets, with a special offer that encourages customers to visit your store.
Perhaps in the age of social distancing, you’ve introduced a new takeout service. Why not give customers in your area 10% off their first promotion, or combine it with a loyalty scheme? Tailor your offer to what your customers want right now, then promote it on Facebook, in the local press, via email marketing, or through direct mail.
There are dozens of social platforms out there, but when it comes to growing a local business, you want to focus on those that give you the best reach, like:
Finding the right platform will depend on the type of business you run. On a basic level, if you’re B2B, LinkedIn’s likely your best channel. Otherwise, almost everyone is on Facebook, but if your product is highly visual you might see more success on Instagram, Pinterest, or YouTube.
Whichever platform(s) you choose, you need to identify some tactics that ultimately help you sell more, like:
Growing a local business is never easy, and it’s certainly a whole lot harder right now.
However, if you’ve set up your own business, you’re likely comfortable with hustling for results. You’re naturally entrepreneurial and you’re driven to make this work.
Combine that attitude with the right growth strategies, and execute them effectively, and there’s no reason why you can’t come out of the pandemic in a stronger position.
What plans have you put in place to grow your business? How’s it going for you so far?
The post How to Grow Your Local Business During Uncertain Times appeared first on Neil Patel.
No doubt this is a hard time to grow a local business. Coronavirus has likely forced you to make big changes to the way you operate. It’s almost certainly hit your bottom line too. However, it’s still absolutely possible to grow your local business at a time like this. You just have to be smart … Continue reading How to Grow Your Local Business During Uncertain Times
Instagram is known mostly for engagement. But how do you track it? Let’s cover some Instagram analytic tools you need to be using. Here’s the deal: People love interacting with brands and other individuals. Without engagement, social media doesn’t exist, and engagement matters more on Instagram than most other platforms. In fact, Instagram’s engagement has …
The post 7 Instagram Analytics Tools to Grow Your Audience first appeared on Online Web Store Site.