Tag: marketing

Facebook Marketing: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners

With over 2.74 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the world’s most popular social media platform. From a marketing perspective, there are many opportunities to engage with new audiences and expand your company’s reach.  

How do you capitalize on these opportunities? By devising a Facebook marketing strategy. 

For beginners, this can all seem a little daunting but don’t worry. If you’re new to Facebook marketing, let me walk you through using the tools available to your advantage.   

What Is Facebook Marketing?

Facebook marketing is a catch-all term for the different ways you can market your business on Facebook. It includes: 

  • Facebook Ads
  • Business Pages
  • Facebook Marketplace
  • Facebook Groups 

There’s a marketing strategy for every budget, whether you’re looking for a free social media marketing solution or you want to set aside a regular sum for paid Facebook Ads. 

Why Should You Use Facebook Marketing?

Firstly, over 90 million businesses are already on Facebook. Around 1.88 billion users access Facebook at least once per day, and at least 17 percent of users join Facebook to connect with brands and products.

In other words, businesses are actively pursuing customers across this social media platform, so it makes sense to build your own presence there. 

What’s more, 45 percent of internet users across the globe turn to platforms like Facebook to find out more about products they want to buy. You can help them discover your brand by advertising effectively on Facebook.

Types of Facebook Ads

Facebook lets you choose from four main ad types. 

Image Ads

Static image ads are ideal for driving traffic to your website. 

They must be in JPG or PNG format, and the headline shouldn’t exceed 40 characters. Since you only have 125 characters for the main message, they’re best for clear and concise calls to action (CTAs).  

Video Ads

With video ads, you can showcase a product, promote customer testimonials, or boost your brand. Video posts, in general, have a 6.09 percent engagement rate on Facebook, which is impressive, but you’ll lose viewers if it’s a poor-quality video with an unclear message.  

Carousel Ads

With carousel ads, people can scroll through a host of images to see the same product from multiple angles. 

While this is great for e-commerce, carousel ads aren’t ideal for showcasing different products or listings e.g., properties in real estate marketing.  

Collection Ads

Image collections are great for showing products in your e-commerce store, but as with image ads, you’re limited to a short headline and a 125-character primary message, so they’re not suited for conveying much information. 

The ad type you choose depends largely on your campaign goal. For example, an image is great for driving home a visually compelling CTA, whereas videos are useful for engaging audiences. 

There’s no set cost for Facebook Ads, either. Since you bid on ad slots across the platform, how much the ad costs depends on how much you’re willing to pay to secure the slot you want.  

Steps to Start Facebook Marketing

To use Facebook Ads, it’s best if you set up a Facebook Page for your business if you don’t already have one. Set one up by heading here.

Access Ads Manager

First, you need to access Ads Manager. 

Ads Manager is the “hub” to create, manage, and track Facebook Ad campaigns. You can log in here.  

Choose Your Ad Objective

Next, determine what you want from your campaign by setting your ad objective. There are three categories to choose from:

1. Awareness Goals

  • brand awareness
  • reach

2. Consideration Goals

  • traffic
  • engagement
  • app installs
  • video views
  • lead generation
  • messages

3. Conversion Goals 

  • conversions
  • catalog sales
  • store traffic

Click the green “Create” button and choose your goal:

How to Start Facebook Marketing - Conversion goals

Name Your Campaign

A name helps you keep track of the campaign within Ads Manager. 

Once you’ve chosen a name, confirm if you want to test different versions of the same ad against each other using A/B testing. This is optional, and you can change your mind later. 

Move on to the next screen.

Set Your Budget and Schedule 

First, choose which Page to promote. This is probably your company’s Page.

Then, set either a monthly or daily budget for your Facebook Ad campaign, and determine when you want your campaign to start. You can set an end date, too.  

If you want, you can schedule your ad based on time zones to ensure your target audience is most likely to see it. For example, if you’re targeting a U.S. audience, you can run your ads during U.S. daytime hours, and so on:

How to Start Facebook Marketing - Set Your Budget and Schedule

Choose Your Audience

Build your target audience based on gender, age, location, and language. Once you’ve got a broad sense of your ad reach, you can customize your audience based on user behaviors and interests to improve your chances of reaching the right people. 

If you’re happy with your ad reach, move on.  

Select Your Ad Placements

Decide where your ad should appear. For beginners, you might be best choosing “Automatic Placements” so Facebook can determine where you’re likely to get the best traction.

If you’re more knowledgeable, you can customize placement based on, for example, device type, social media platform (Facebook or Instagram), and operating system:

How to Start Facebook Marketing - Select Your Ad Placements

Determine Your Brand Safety Controls

You can specify content you don’t want your ad to appear alongside, such as violent, sensitive, or offensive content. 

From this screen, you can also customize your bidding strategy a little more. For beginners, though, it’s a good idea to stick with the default options at first and make changes later if required.

Create Your Facebook Ad

Finally, choose your ad format, type in the ad copy, and enter your images or videos. Once you’re happy with the ad, click the “Publish” button to go live.   

Congratulations, you’ve created your first Facebook Ad!

Tips for Creating Great Facebook Ads

To get the most from your Facebook Ads, here are some tips to bear in mind. 

  • First impressions matter, so use quality, high-resolution images for every ad. 
  • Highlight your value proposition clearly and avoid overly busy, cluttered graphics.  
  • Keep your CTA highly visible and compelling to grab a user’s attention.
  • Bring your products to life by showing people using them in your video ads.   
  • Include user-generated content where appropriate to build a sense of community.
  • Make your videos and images vertical, so they display properly on mobile devices. 
  • Monitor which version of an ad works best by deploying A/B testing.

Examples of Great Facebook Marketing Campaigns

Want to see how businesses just like yours are making Facebook advertising work? Here are two companies putting some of the tips I’ve just outlined into action.      

The Teaching Company

To advertise its one-month free trial, The Teaching Company, a college-level course provider, ran a variety of image ads to appeal to different demographics:

Examples of Great Facebook Marketing Campaigns - The Teaching Company

The value proposition is clear, the CTA is unmistakable, and the company makes it easy for customers to sign up for the trial. As a result, the campaign generated 15,540 new subscriptions, which was 10 times more than its average monthly subscription numbers. 

The takeaway? Keep your ad fresh by switching out the images regularly, and always include a clear CTA.  

GoPro

To build hype around its HERO9 camera, GoPro ran a contest called the “Million Dollar Challenge.” In exchange for sending in raw GoPro footage from a HERO9 camera, people entered a contest to win a share of the $1-million prize pot. 

Twenty-nine thousand people entered the contest, over 668,000 Facebook users viewed the video, and 56 winners took home nearly $18,000 each. 

The lesson? Use video ads to bring your audience closer to your brand and reach diverse new demographics. 

Other Ways to Use Facebook Marketing to Grow Your Brand

As I explained earlier, Facebook Ads are definitely not the only way to grow your brand through the platform. If you’re looking to make the most of your Facebook presence, here are some other strategies to try out. 

Start a Facebook Group

Give your customers a place to interact by setting up a Facebook Group for your business. 

You can use Groups to:

  • build hype around products.
  • promote brand events 
  • start conversations about your business 
  • engage with your followers

It’s free to start a Facebook Group. 

Join the Facebook Marketplace 

If you sell products online, check out the Facebook Marketplace. The Marketplace lets you quickly connect with potential customers who are already primed to buy, and you can also reach local buyers more effectively through highly targeted listings.

It’s free to list on the Marketplace, too. 

Use Your Business Page

Your Facebook Page is essentially a free marketing tool. 

At the most basic level, you can use it to share content and engage audiences. However, depending on your business type, you can also use it to:

  • set up appointments 
  • answer questions
  • share promotions
  • nurture people to download an app.    

What’s more, you can link to your Marketplace listings to help turn Page visitors into loyal paying customers. 

How to Track the Success of Your Facebook Marketing Campaign

When you run a Facebook marketing campaign, you want to track metrics such as:
– ad impressions
– ad frequency
– click-through rate (CTR)
– conversion rate
– cost per conversion

Facebook offers three main tools for tracking metrics like these: Ads Manager, Events Manager, and Facebook Business Suite. 

  1. Ads Manager

    The Ads Manager “reporting” feature lets you view, at a glance, how your ads are performing. From video ad views to website conversions attributed to a Facebook Ad, you can view all the relevant stats by creating a report. 

    To create a report, simply open Ads Manager, go to “Analyze and Report,” click “Ads Reporting,” then select the data you want to report on:
    facebook marketing guide ads manager

  2. Events Manager

    With the Events Manager tool, you can set up a pixel to analyze what actions people take on your website. 
    For example, whenever someone adds an item to their cart or completes a sale, the pixel records this as an action or “event.” You can view this data in a report and then target these users with customized ads in the future. 
    Access Events Manager here.  

  3. Facebook Business Suite

    The Facebook Business Suite lets you quickly view key data about your Facebook account, including:
    -audience demographics  
    -post and content engagement
    -paid ad performance

    What’s more, if you have an Instagram account, you can access key insights through the Facebook Business Suite, which helps you unify your social media metrics tracking. 

    You can also use alternative tools like Google Analytics to measure ad performance and conversions if you prefer.

More Facebook Marketing Resources

Need some extra help with your Facebook marketing? Here are some other resources to read. 

  • Facebook Business Help Center: The Help Center has a range of guides and troubleshooting articles to help you navigate the platform.
  • Facebook Blueprint: Facebook Blueprint offers online courses and training programs to help you build effective campaigns.   
  • Shopify Blog: Do you run an e-commerce store? This Shopify post can help you tweak your e-commerce ads most effectively.  

For even more help, check out my personalized consulting services. 

Frequently Asked Questions About Facebook Marketing

What Is Facebook Marketing?

Facebook marketing offers a variety of ways for businesses to reach customers and advertise their products across Facebook. From ads to Facebook groups, you can choose which tools you want to use based on your digital marketing objectives.

How Do I Start Using Facebook Marketing?

Open a Facebook Business Page then access Ads Manager. Choose your objective, name your campaign, set your schedule, pick your ad placement, and you’re good to go. 

Is Facebook Marketing Free?

It’s free to set up things like a Facebook Page or Group for your business. You need to pay to use Facebook Ads, though. The cost is generally calculated per click or impression, depending on the type of ad you select.

How Can I Create Great Facebook Ads?

Less is often more. Keep images and videos clear and uncluttered, and make sure you highlight your CTA and value proposition. Choose the right ad type for your objectives by figuring out your goals beforehand. 

Facebook Marketing Conclusion

If your audience is on Facebook, then you should really try out Facebook marketing for your business. Try a variety of Facebook Ads and measure your progress regularly to ensure you’re getting the most from your campaigns. 

Got a limited budget? You can still utilize Facebook Pages and Groups to draw traffic, nurture leads, and ultimately increase sales long term. 

Are you ready to give Facebook marketing a try?

24 Inbound Marketing Strategies Your Startup Needs to Start Using Today

Are you ready to skyrocket your success?

If so, you need to focus your efforts on inbound marketing strategies for your startup.

Why?

It’s one of the best ways to take market share from bigger companies, and you don’t need a hefty Facebook Ads budget to compete.

Instead of broadcasting to the customer, as traditional outbound marketing does, inbound marketing focuses on creating reasons for the customer to come to you.

According to HubSpot, which coined the term “inbound marketing” back in 2006, the strategy consists of four stages.

inbound marketing method infographic

It’s a proven system that works for the best companies in the world, and it has launched dozens of startups to stellar success.

Inbound Marketing Strategies for Start-Ups

Now that you know what is inbound marketing and how it works, let’s dive into the best strategies for inbound marketing for startups.

1.Use Facebook to Create a Target Persona

The first and most critical part of creating compelling content is understanding what your target customers want to learn.

You need to have an in-depth knowledge of your market so you can react quickly.

Here’s how you learn more about who your audience is by reviewing your Facebook Page Insights.

First, go to your Facebook page. At the top, you’ll see a button labeled Insights. Click on it.

In the sidebar that opens, click on People.

use facebook to create a target persona for your inbound marketing strategy

From there, you’re going to want to look at the Your Fans column. Check to see where the percentages lie to understand what demographics apply to your business.

use facebook demographics to create a target persona for your inbound marketing strategy

This can give you a general feel for who is interested in your startup and start forming the basis of your target persona. But that’s not all we need.

Next, we will find out what interests these people and how you can write content that appeals to what they care about.

2. Survey Your Current Customers and Leads

The easiest way to get to know your target market is through a survey.

This doesn’t have to be complicated. If you already have an email list, you can send them a simple form through SurveyMonkey.

To make this work, you only need to ask one question: “What is your biggest struggle?”

Your goal is to understand the problems they’re facing so you can create compelling content that targets their deepest interests.

3. Conduct In-Depth Interviews to Inform Your Inbound Marketing Efforts

Once you have the general feelings of your target market, it’s a good idea to start seeking out individuals you can contact for more in-depth information.

I recommend looking for a few clients or customers you’ve already acquired.

Ask them if they’d be OK with a 10-minute phone call or a video chat about their current struggles. Mention you’ll offer them advice if you can.

(Usually, customers are excited about this. It’s like a free consultation for them.)

Once you’re on the call, try to find out exactly what their biggest struggles are. Ask them to describe those struggles in the clearest language possible.

Get to exactly what frustrates them and what solutions they tried before but didn’t work.

You’ll use this data to create content.

4. Create and Share Compelling Content

The quality of the content you create is the most important feature of your inbound marketing strategy.

If you create generic, self-serving articles and videos, you’ll never see success.

No matter how hard you promote this content or how you designed it to rank well in search engines, you’re going to struggle to find new clients and customers.

The best-in-class content marketers work tirelessly to adapt their content to the target audiences they want to attract — and where they are in the customer journey.

use inbound marketing strategies to create viral content

5. Writing Enticing Headline

Understanding the customer journey and their needs is critical to making great content, but it’s not the only strategy you’ll need to draw in new customers and leads.

The most important piece of the work you create is the headline. This is what will drive the most clicks and draw in new traffic.

You should spend lots of time crafting a headline that appeals to your most targeted customers.

One of the best ways to do this is to include a bit of negativity, according to data by WordStream.

positive vs negative headlines can help with your inbound marketing strategy

Of course, you shouldn’t always have negative headlines.

But if you have a list of mistakes or talk about the worst strategies that could hurt your customer, this can be an effective way to drive traffic.

According to Demand Metric, companies with blogs generate 67 percent more leads per month than those who don’t.

If you’re going to produce this content, you need to make sure it works to its best ability.

7. Make Your Content More Visual

Humans love visual content. For your content to appeal to your ideal readers, make sure there’s more to it than just large blocks of text.

Including lots of images, charts, and graphs is a technique I use to make my content more appealing, and I’m not alone.

90 percent of bloggers include images in their posts, and those who add multiple images report stronger results.

The more visual your content, the more likely it’s likely to improve your inbound marketing efforts.

using elements in your inbound marketing strategy
using visual media in your inbound marketing strategy

6. Write In-Depth Data-Driven Articles

Instead of writing short posts, you should be doing extensive research and producing in-depth content.

According to research by Curata, long-form content generates eight times more page views, nine times more leads, and three times more social media shares than short-form content.

long form content produces more inbound marketing leads

You should be writing articles that are a few thousand words long and supported by lots of data and analysis.

This is not only better for your SEO rankings, but it’s also more helpful for your customers.

The better your content, the more likely your readers are to share it with friends, recommend your site to others, and implement what you say.

8. Use Storytelling in Your Content

Just because you base your content around data and analysis doesn’t mean it needs to be dry and academic.

You should work to produce the opposite type of content. You want to create articles that tell a story.

Why?

Using storytelling in your content (from sales pages to social media posts) is a way to create an emotional connection with your audience.

Storytelling has another powerful function. It creates brand recall. Research by Stanford University shows people are 63 percent more likely to remember a story than a statistic.

Not convinced?

Chris Haddad (a relationship coach) went from a 2 percent conversion rate to 8 percent by changing his sales page to include a relatable personal story.

How can you use this tactic in your startup? Look for opportunities to weave in stories when talking about your product or business.

Sure, your benefits and features are great, but the emotional connection you create with storytelling will close the sale and help grow your startup through inbound marketing.

bootstrappers guide inbound marketing example neil patel

9. Make a Habit Out of Guest Posting Consistently

When you look at the data, you’ll find that guest blogging is the best inbound marketing strategy.

This is because it provides you with backlinks, authority in the space, and relationships with key influencers.

But most people go about it the wrong way. If you aren’t using smart strategies to spread your startup’s message through guest posting, you might as well not do it.

If you want to reap the benefits of guest posting, you need to write consistently.

This is how the most successful startup owners have made guest blogging work well for them. Instead of a few posts, they wrote prolifically and gained ground quickly.

If you do a Google search for guest posts by Danny Iny, you’ll find dozens of pieces of content across the web.

guest post by danny iny Google Search showing the power of inbound marketing

This massive, consistent guest-posting strategy allowed him to grow his business Mirasee into the powerhouse it is today.

On his homepage, he displays an in-depth list of all the sites where he has been featured.

the power of inbound marketing and guest blogging

Dedicate some of your time to creating compelling content for other blogs to reach as many customers as possible.

10. Pitch to Blogs with Engaged Readers

Another problem I see with entrepreneurs who want to use guest posting as an inbound marketing strategy is that they don’t look for sites that will give them much ROI.

The truth is that every guest post requires work, and that’s work that needs to give you a distinct benefit in visitors or leads.

If you post on a blog that has a dead audience, you won’t get any benefit, and you’ll have wasted your time.

I like to look at the comments on different sites. For example, if I wanted to write a guest blog for WordStream, I can see their posts get lots of relevant comments.

find blogs with engaged readers for inbound marketing guest posts

This tells me the readers are engaged, and a blog post here might result in readers clicking through to my startup’s website and purchasing from me.

11. Maximize Your Results from SEO with Keyword Optimization

You need to understand SEO to achieve any success with your startup in today’s search-driven marketplace.

The most important things to focus on are basic on-page SEO and backlinks for your site and your content.

How do you do that? Keyword optimization.

You want to find specific long-tail keywords which you’d like to use for targeting your content.

Why?

Long-tail keywords have a three to five percent higher click-through rate than generic searches. 

The more specific someone is in their search, the more likely they know what they want and are close to converting into a customer.

12. Promote Your Content to Build Backlinks

Backlinks are perhaps the most important factor in your search engine results.

At the simplest level, backlinks are other sites that link to your site. There are lots of ways to increase the number of backlinks you get to your content.

backlinks for inbound marketing content

By promoting your content to other relevant influencers, you can increase the number of people that link back to you.

The exact number of backlinks you need to be successful on the search engines varies depending on the keyword, topic, and the competing sites that are ranking well now.

With careful prompting, though, you can easily outrank pages on massive sites with more authority.

Not sure where to start with backlinks? I’ve created a free backlink checker tool you can use to find out who is linking to your startup’s competition.

13. Acquire Inbound Marketing Leads with Free Content

When it’s time to convert your visitors into leads, you need bulletproof strategies to get people to give you their email addresses.

The best method I’ve seen is to offer free content in exchange for this contact information.

If your startup is in the B2B sector, or if you appeal to customers who want or need in-depth analysis before purchasing, you can make an effective lead magnet from a report.

This is a great way to get leads because the comprehensiveness of your work seems like a great deal for an email address.

HubSpot’s list of marketing statistics includes a pitch for their “State of Inbound Marketing” report. This is a detailed guide with massive amounts of high-quality data.

hubspot state of inbound marketing report

But they aren’t giving this away for free. To receive the report, you need to provide a detailed amount of information that HubSpot will use to follow up with you on their products.

use reports to collect leads for your inbound marketing

This is an effective way to drive your visitors into your sales funnel and reach them even more effectively.

14. Host a Free Webinar

One of my favorite inbound marketing techniques for startups is free webinars that encourage customers to learn in real-time.

This is great because it lets them see your face and understand your personality. Besides, lots of people will download a guide and never read it.

But if someone signs up for a webinar, you can see if they watch the whole thing.

I have used this kind of training on my homepage in the past. I didn’t call it a webinar, though. I just used the term “training.”

host a free webinar or training to collect inbound marketing leads

This is a great way to increase your leads as visitors must enter their first name and email address to access the training.

host a free webinar or training to get inbound marketing leads

Since this is such a valuable teaching piece, people who come to my website are happy to provide their email address to learn SEO better.

15. Launch an Email Course

There’s another form of content you can create that will drive new customers.

Even better, it won’t require the extensive research that a report demands or the complicated backend software necessary for a webinar.

That strategy is to create an email course. This is a simple way to provide extra value without spending tons of time creating something with design elements or video.

A great example is a free masterclass Mariah Coz offers. Because it’s a course, it makes the content feel more valuable.

create a free masterclass for your inbound marketing strategy

If you’re currently giving away an e-book for your startup and you’ve found that it isn’t converting well, consider breaking down the content into sections.

Then use each section as a separate email. You may find that an email course or a masterclass converts even better than an ebook.

16. Start an Influencer Marketing Campaign

According to a survey by Influencer Marketing Hub, 75 percent of brands have a dedicated budget for influencer marketing, and 90 percent of respondents believe it’s an effective form of advertising.

If you do this the right way, it can be a free or paid method to get people excited about your brand.

If you’re going to launch an influencer marketing campaign, you need to understand what will make it work best.

First and most importantly, you need to make sure you’re appealing to the right influencers.

This is easy to get wrong, as the people you think you’re appealing to may not be persuasive to your target audience.

The earlier research you did on your audience should be a great starting place to understand who they pay attention to, but you might need to do even more work than that.

How do you find the right influencers for your startup? You can:

  • Google phrases like “top [niche] influencers.
  • Browse hashtags on Instagram related to your niche.
  • Use Influencer platforms to connect with creators.
  • Search key phrases on Ubersuggest to find blogs that appeal to your target audience.
use Ubersuggest for inbound marketing

17. Build Relationships with Influencers

Once you know which influencers are best for your brand, you need to start targeting them specifically.

While you can just run into promotion and start spamming them with requests to share the content you created, this won’t be very effective.

You’ll irritate them and ruin the relationship.

Instead, you need to start slow and gradually build a relationship with the influencers you’d like to promote your content.

One of the best ways to reach influencers is through targeted communication on social media. You can let them know when they inspired you to write.

You should also do everything you can to help those influencers by providing communication that’s always focused on their needs.

While it may seem frustrating to always focus on them, you’ll eventually start to build a relationship that allows you to make a small request.

If you’ve built great relationships from the start, they’ll be happy to oblige.

18. Build Effective Email Campaigns

You already know that email marketing is critical to a successful inbound marketing campaign for your startup.

But are you using it effectively?

Email marketing has a massive ROI. 

According to Litmus, the average ROI was $42 for every $1 spent on emails.

ROI on email marketing as an inbound marketing strategy

But to make it work, you need to be strategic with how you promote your brand through email.

19. Send Helpful Content to Subscribers

First and foremost, you need to be useful to your subscribers. When someone signs up, you need to provide them with a reason to stay on your email list.

If you’re constantly spamming them or sending worthless content, they’ll unsubscribe and probably never return.

Instead, send emails with valuable information they can’t get anywhere else.

Buzzsumo does a great job with this in their articles and emails. Their weekly update includes a report on engagement on Facebook, based on 880-million posts.

create valuable emails to improve your inbound marketing strategy

That’s a hugely valuable piece of content I want to read.

More importantly, I want to stay subscribed to the newsletter, and I’ll keep looking forward to their emails.

This is the kind of reaction you need to build with your subscribers. If they’re looking forward to your marketing, you’re doing it correctly.

20. Stick with Email Marketing for The Long Term

You need to be in the email game for the long term.

If you’re not consistently providing great content with your inbound marketing, you’re going to be frustrated.

Instead of pitching your product immediately after someone signs up on your email list, send them a welcome sequence that gradually introduces them to what you have to offer.

According to Invesp, the average cost of a lead drops 80 percent after five months of consistent inbound marketing.

average cost of inbound marketing

If you want to save massive dollars on your marketing strategies, you need to get ready to work for a while on each prospect.

Be patient, and you’ll be thankful for the results.

21. Make Your Website Convert Like Crazy by Making it Mobile Friendly

Ultimately, the goal of much of your inbound marketing strategy is to drive people to your startup’s website.

If you’re not converting people once they arrive, however, what’s the point?

Conversion is the key to successful inbound marketing since it’s the transition from visitor to prospect.

inbound marketing helps boost your conversions infographic

You need to make sure your website is ready to convert your traffic into leads and customers.

It’s the only way to make your startup grow with the traffic you’ve worked so hard to acquire.

The first and most important way to ensure you’re getting the conversions you deserve is by making your website mobile accessible.

If your startup’s site isn’t responsive, you’re going to struggle to convert the traffic you’ve worked so hard to drive there.

According to WVO, out of 100 leading websites, only 11 were responsive. Perhaps even more telling, only seven of 148 companies felt the need for mobile optimization.

Infographic Why a Website Redesign won't fix your inbound marketing

In short, the vast majority of websites aren’t appealing to mobile users, and they aren’t putting in the work they need to make these changes.

Instead of actually converting their mobile customers, they’re losing out on valuable traffic.

Don’t let that happen to you. Make sure your site is responsive and that it works well on mobile.

22. Install Hello Bar

If you want to get more conversions from the traffic you’re sending to your site, you should consider installing Hello Bar.

use hello bar to increase inbound marketing leads

This is a simple tool that allows you to add a signup form at the top of your website. Since it’s unobtrusive, it won’t distract from the user experience.

But since it’s always at the top of your pages, it will drive massive conversions.

It’s a great way to get a few new leads each day.

23. Drive Conversions with Content Upgrades

If you want to skyrocket the conversions you’re getting from the content you publish on your website, look no further than a content upgrade.

Unlike a traditional lead magnet, a content upgrade will optimize your highest-converting pieces of content.

A great example is the “700+ Power Word Cheat Sheet” used in the article on the topic over at OptinMonster.

700 Power Words That Will Boost Your inbound marketing Conversions

Because the people reading this article are interested in finding out more about the words that can make their writing more effective, this is a great way to encourage them to sign up.

You can do the same thing. To make this work, find a popular article and create a custom bonus that adds to the piece of content you’ve already written.

Link this in the article, and watch the new leads for your startup skyrocket.

24. Test and Refine Your Inbound Marketing Strategies

It’s no secret that I think testing is the only way to improve all kinds of marketing.

This applies to the inbound marketing strategies you’re using for your startup as well.

You need to monitor your results and make gradual improvements to different components of your campaign.

If they don’t work as expected, you should refine those strategies and try something new. But even if they do work for you, I recommend going back and making improvements.

Keeping an A/B split-test running at all times is a great way to make small but consistent changes to your marketing strategy and to make sure everything is working at its best.

Inbound Marketing Strategy FAQs

What is an inbound marketing strategy?

An inbound marketing strategy attracts prospects to your brand by creating valuable content that is relevant and helpful.

What are the five inbound principles?

The five principles of inbound marketing are standardize, contextualize, optimize, personalize, and empathize.

What are the types of inbound marketing?

Videos, blogs, pillar pages, eBooks, social media, press releases, infographics, newsletters, research papers, podcasts, webinars, and expert interviews.

How do you develop an inbound strategy?

You need to know the purpose of your content, your target audience, and how your content fits in with the buyer’s journey.

Inbound Marketing Strategies Summary

If you’re launching a startup, you want to make sure you’re implementing the best practices for extremely fast growth.

By now, you know that inbound marketing is the most effective way to increase your visitors, leads, and buyers.

You’ll need to attract customers by understanding their deepest needs, aspirations, and struggles. Using that data, create epic content that draws them in like a magnet.

Extend your reach to other sites, present your content around the web, acquire new customers, and build your influence and authority.

You’ll need to include SEO best practices so that customers can find you through search engines as well.

Once you have the traffic, convert those visitors with free content and influencer marketing that drives leads.

With a compelling email campaign and a high-converting website, you can grow your business like never before.

Which inbound marketing strategies will you use to grow your startup?

How to Write Perfect Paid Social Media Marketing Objectives (With Examples)

Having a marketing plan isn’t enough for success. You need strategic marketing objectives to help you set, plan for and achieve your business goals. And you need to have them not just for your overall marketing plan but also for specific portions, such as paid social media marketing.

This guide will offer you a detailed breakdown of what marketing objectives are, what are the best practices for creating effective marketing objectives, and a few examples of what successful marketing objectives look like. 

We have also included tips, tricks, and strategies to make your marketing plan more efficient with tried and tested marketing objectives. 

What Are Marketing Objectives?

Marketing objectives are a set of trackable, measurable, clearly defined goals to help you expand your business. These can include, but aren’t limited to:

  • Profit-based goals: making sales
  • Growth-based goals: increasing subscribers, fans, etc.
  • Awareness-based goals: gaining unique visitors

Such marketing objectives often use a popular method of goal setting known as SMART. SMART stands for:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Attainable
  • Relevant
  • Timely

You should tailor your SMART goals to your unique situation, but here’s an example to get you restarted on your marketing objectives:

Smart Goal Structure

S – Specific: Visits, Leads, or Customers

Do you want to increase traffic, nurture traffic into leads, or convert leads into customers?

M – Measurable: Provide a Number

Decide on an exact number to measure and increase.

A – Attainable: Understand Benchmark

Research your past analytics to make sure the goal is realistic with your resources.

R – Relevant: Relates Back to Overall End Goal

Make sure each goal relates back to overall end goal.

T – Timely: Include a Time Frame

Pick a date that is realistic to reach your goal.

Why Is It Important to Set Paid Social Marketing Objectives?

When you launch a paid social media marketing campaign, it’s essential to start with solid marketing objectives so you create a strong strategy to meet or exceed your marketing goals. 

For example, if you want to increase your newsletter subscribers, focus on building a robust email sequence and craft marketing content in a way that should convince your audience to hit subscribe. Having this marketing objective clarifies your key goals and can help you build an effective social media marketing strategy. 

If you don’t have any marketing objectives, you may end up wasting time, money, and effort on the wrong marketing campaign (for example, increasing passive visitors instead of engaged subscribers). 

To better direct your resources toward building successful ad campaigns, you need to understand the types of marketing objectives you can set and what they mean for your business. 

10 Types of Paid Social Media Marketing Objectives

Marketing objectives are crucial to clarifying and meeting your business goals. This section is here to help you narrow down your choices and dig deeper into what each type of marketing objective looks like in practice. 

1. Marketing Objectives to Increase Brand Awareness

This is one of the most common types of marketing objectives. No matter how great your business is, if customers don’t know about you, they can’t buy from you. That’s why paid social media marketing objectives aimed at increasing brand awareness often come first, especially for new business owners. 

Like other marketing campaign metrics, these can be customized and measured according to your key business needs. For example, if you’re a new brand looking to increase brand awareness, you need to tailor your social ad campaigns to attract new visitors. 

Here are a few examples of what a brand awareness-based marketing objective could look like:

  • Increase social media visitors by 25 percent.
  • Improve page visits by 50 percent.
  • Increase the number of target demographic visitors by 20 percent.

The metrics to track these marketing objective plans are pretty straightforward. For instance, here is an example of keyword metrics tracked by Ubersuggest.

Your website’s analytics page will offer you all the details about your progress (or decline in growth) so you can adjust your marketing objectives and strategies accordingly. 

If you notice you’re falling short of the goals too frequently, it may be a sign you’re setting unrealistic goals. Try to reduce the number and see what happens. 

2. Marketing Objectives to Increase Repeat Visitors

Attracting new visitors isn’t enough; you must find a way to make them stay (and eventually convert). If you’re at that stage, you can create marketing objective plans to improve on-page retention and increase your number of regular visitors.

Here’s what that goal could look like:

  • Improve click-through rates from existing visitors.
  • Increase social media engagement among regular users. 
  • Reduce bounce rates to retain customers. 

This graphic by CXL explains how to calculate your click-through rates.

Fortunately, most websites today track visitors, making it easy to see if your marketing objective plan is working. If you find a particular metric is hitting the mark, regroup and consider what needs to be fixed. 

3. Marketing Objectives to Increase Subscribers

Once somebody starts visiting your page regularly, that’s a great time to ask them to subscribe to a premium level of whatever you offer. They’re already a free subscriber showing interest in your products, so they may be more likely to subscribe to your paid service than new users who don’t know or care about your business. 

Marketing objectives to increase subscribers could look like:

  • Increase subscribers by 15 percent over the next month. 
  • Reduce unsubscription rates by five percent over the next three months. 

You can track these metrics from your subscription services’ analytics page to see what is working and what needs to change. 

4. Marketing Objectives to Promote a New Product

When you launch a new product or service, you have an opportunity to create a timely and relevant paid social media marketing campaign. 

If you’ve just launched (or are planning to launch) something new, here are a few marketing objectives you can set:

  • Increase new product landing page visits to 100,000 per day.
  • Boost social media engagement related to the new product by 40 percent. 
  • Sell 25 new units per day through organic traffic. 

Such marketing objectives and strategies are often time-bound and only last for a few weeks or months, but you should track them like you would a long-term campaign to learn what works and what needs to be improved upon for the next time you run a short campaign. 

5. Marketing Objectives to Increase Sales

Now that you’ve launched your new product and successfully promoted it, it’s time to focus on increasing sales. Most companies across several industries think of increasing sales when they discuss marketing. 

Although marketing can serve several purposes, most businesses primarily use paid social media campaigns to boost sales, so this step is quite important. 

If you’re at a stage where you’re prioritizing sales, here are a few examples of marketing objectives aimed at boosting sales:

  • Increase conversion rates by three percent in the next three weeks. 
  • Connect with 25 influencers to increase social media sales.
  • Increase affiliate sales by 12 percent in the next month. 

These marketing objectives can be directly tracked by how many units or subscriptions you sell. We recommend keeping track of your results to know which marketing objectives and strategies work best for you. 

6. Marketing Objectives to Increase Revenue

Even if your sales have increased, it doesn’t mean your revenue necessarily has. If you notice you’re not meeting your revenue goals, it’s time to devise new SMART goals, such as:

  • Increase profit margins by 1.5 percent.
  • Reduce marketing costs by two percent per month. 
  • Bring down customer acquisition cost to $5 per new buyer. 

Here’s an example of how these marketing objectives can be tracked, explained through a graphic by Chorus.ai. 

7. Marketing Objectives to Optimize the Conversion Funnel

Once you’ve set practical marketing objectives and begun working on your paid social media marketing campaign, you may notice the customers still aren’t converting. Maybe you’re attracting ample visitors, but your repeat customers are low. Perhaps you have a growing number of subscribers, but your customer acquisition cost is too high. 

In these cases, it helps to set marketing objectives to optimize your conversion funnel. Here are a few examples:

  • Identify and fix one weak spot in the conversion funnel per month. 
  • Increase conversion by 15 percent by spending a fixed sum on marketing. 
  • Reduce customer acquisition cost by three percent per month. 

You can track these metrics by closely observing your conversion funnel. Note which step of your funnel is losing visitors and aim to fix that with one of these marketing objectives.

8. Marketing Objectives to Grow Your Digital Presence

Today, 2.14 billion people shop online, making digital marketing essential. If you have a successful brick-and-mortar business and want to expand your digital reach, this marketing objective could be right for you. 

Here are a few helpful examples of what digital reach marketing objectives could look like: 

  • Post four blog posts per month to drive audience engagement.
  • Increase social media followers by 25 percent.
  • Reach 150 new users daily. 

These marketing objectives can be tracked by recording and comparing your social reach. 

Most social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram offer free analytics to help you understand how your audience interacts with your content. Use this data to adjust your marketing objectives and strategies. 

9. Marketing Objectives to Reach International Audiences

If you’re launching a new product or service that could benefit users abroad, create a marketing objective to reach geo-targeted audiences. Once you’ve defined the demographics you wish to reach, you can set the following marketing objective plans:

Understanding international markets can be tricky, so you may have to experiment with marketing objectives and strategies before finding something that provides the best return on your investment. 

10. Marketing Objectives to Increase On-site Time

Once you have an effective conversion funnel that meets your sales, revenue, and engagement goals, you can look for ways to increase each users’ on-site time. The more time somebody spends on your page, the more they’re likely to come back and buy something from you. 

For this, you can set marketing objectives like: 

  • Reduce bounce rate by 4 percent every month.
  • Increase user reading time up to 30 minutes per visitor.

You can track how long visitors stay on your page through your website’s built-in analytics tool. Measuring your marketing objectives solely through on-site time can be tricky, though, as many people leave their tabs open or are too busy to give their full attention to your page. So, we recommend you don’t focus on this objective too heavily unless you’ve completed all the others we discussed above. 

How to Pick Your Paid Social Marketing Objectives

Now that you understand the 10 essential marketing objectives, it’s time to choose one for your company. 

  1. Consider your business goals

    When selecting a marketing objective, consider your business goals. Ask questions like: Do you need to increase sales, or should you prioritize social engagement?

  2. Get perspective

    Consider the entire team’s perspectives before honing in on one goal. 

  3. Narrow it down

    Narrow your options to the top three choices you can work with. 

  4. Test your goals

    Start with one to see what works and what needs to change. If your goals aren’t supporting your overall growth plans, tweak and try again.

  5. Repeat the process with new objectives

    Setting goals should be an on-going process, not a one-time deal.

Tips to Help You Meet Your Paid Social Marketing Objectives

If you want to increase the effectiveness of your paid social media marketing objectives, make sure you:

  • Periodically check in with your team members to make sure everyone’s on the same page. 
  • Track your progress toward SMART goals to identify problems and possibilities for growth.
  • Include external experts’ suggestions to improve your process.

FAQ about Social Media Marketing Objectives

This guide covered a ton, but you’ve still got questions. Here’s a quick FAQ to help you get started.

Can my business have more than one marketing objective?

How many marketing objectives you set depends on your business goals and planning capacity. Larger businesses with bigger teams may be able to plan and execute multiple marketing objectives and strategies at once. In comparison, newer businesses with smaller teams might perform better by working on one goal at a time. 

Who should set the marketing objectives for a successful social media ad campaign?

When you launch a new social media ad campaign, involve everyone in the decisions about marketing objectives. The leaders and managers should specify the big-picture goals, while the marketing team can dig deeper into the details of how to execute your businesses’ marketing objective plans. 

What are the most important marketing objectives?

Every company prioritizes different goals at different stages of its growth. Creating brand awareness and expanding your digital reach could be solid marketing objectives to aim for if you’re a new business. If you’re an established company, increasing sales and profits may better serve your key business goals. 

What to do if my business isn’t meeting any marketing objectives?

If you notice your company is consistently falling short of your marketing objectives, it’s a sign warning you to change strategies. If you’re significantly behind your goals, it may be better to change your marketing objectives entirely. Track your goal metrics, see where your plan is failing, and set SMART marketing objectives to improve accordingly. 

How often can you change your marketing objectives? 

For your marketing objectives to succeed in accelerating your business growth, they have to be effective and profitable. If you notice you’re spending increasing time and effort trying to meet your goals without seeing great returns, reconsider your marketing objectives and perhaps swap them for new ones. 

Social Media Marketing Objectives Conclusion

Setting SMART marketing objectives can truly change the way you reach your target audience and encourage them to do business with you. 

You need to be especially SMART about your objectives when creating paid social media marketing campaigns, as you’re spending money regardless of how well things go.

Marketing objectives help clarify your message and simplify your goals while making them more effective in the long run. 

Which marketing objective will you choose for your business today?

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How to Write Perfect Paid Social Media Marketing Objectives (With Examples)

Having a marketing plan isn’t enough for success. You need strategic marketing objectives to help you set, plan for and achieve your business goals. And you need to have them not just for your overall marketing plan but also for specific portions, such as paid social media marketing.

This guide will offer you a detailed breakdown of what marketing objectives are, what are the best practices for creating effective marketing objectives, and a few examples of what successful marketing objectives look like. 

We have also included tips, tricks, and strategies to make your marketing plan more efficient with tried and tested marketing objectives. 

What Are Marketing Objectives?

Marketing objectives are a set of trackable, measurable, clearly defined goals to help you expand your business. These can include, but aren’t limited to:

  • Profit-based goals: making sales
  • Growth-based goals: increasing subscribers, fans, etc.
  • Awareness-based goals: gaining unique visitors

Such marketing objectives often use a popular method of goal setting known as SMART. SMART stands for:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Attainable
  • Relevant
  • Timely

You should tailor your SMART goals to your unique situation, but here’s an example to get you restarted on your marketing objectives:

SMART goals structure related to marketing objectives

Smart Goal Structure

S – Specific: Visits, Leads, or Customers

Do you want to increase traffic, nurture traffic into leads, or convert leads into customers?

M – Measurable: Provide a Number

Decide on an exact number to measure and increase.

A – Attainable: Understand Benchmark

Research your past analytics to make sure the goal is realistic with your resources.

R – Relevant: Relates Back to Overall End Goal

Make sure each goal relates back to overall end goal.

T – Timely: Include a Time Frame

Pick a date that is realistic to reach your goal.

Why Is It Important to Set Paid Social Marketing Objectives?

When you launch a paid social media marketing campaign, it’s essential to start with solid marketing objectives so you create a strong strategy to meet or exceed your marketing goals. 

For example, if you want to increase your newsletter subscribers, focus on building a robust email sequence and craft marketing content in a way that should convince your audience to hit subscribe. Having this marketing objective clarifies your key goals and can help you build an effective social media marketing strategy. 

If you don’t have any marketing objectives, you may end up wasting time, money, and effort on the wrong marketing campaign (for example, increasing passive visitors instead of engaged subscribers). 

To better direct your resources toward building successful ad campaigns, you need to understand the types of marketing objectives you can set and what they mean for your business. 

10 Types of Paid Social Media Marketing Objectives

Marketing objectives are crucial to clarifying and meeting your business goals. This section is here to help you narrow down your choices and dig deeper into what each type of marketing objective looks like in practice. 

1. Marketing Objectives to Increase Brand Awareness

This is one of the most common types of marketing objectives. No matter how great your business is, if customers don’t know about you, they can’t buy from you. That’s why paid social media marketing objectives aimed at increasing brand awareness often come first, especially for new business owners. 

Like other marketing campaign metrics, these can be customized and measured according to your key business needs. For example, if you’re a new brand looking to increase brand awareness, you need to tailor your social ad campaigns to attract new visitors. 

Here are a few examples of what a brand awareness-based marketing objective could look like:

  • Increase social media visitors by 25 percent.
  • Improve page visits by 50 percent.
  • Increase the number of target demographic visitors by 20 percent.

The metrics to track these marketing objective plans are pretty straightforward. For instance, here is an example of keyword metrics tracked by Ubersuggest.

Paid social media marketing objective for apple

Your website’s analytics page will offer you all the details about your progress (or decline in growth) so you can adjust your marketing objectives and strategies accordingly. 

If you notice you’re falling short of the goals too frequently, it may be a sign you’re setting unrealistic goals. Try to reduce the number and see what happens. 

2. Marketing Objectives to Increase Repeat Visitors

Attracting new visitors isn’t enough; you must find a way to make them stay (and eventually convert). If you’re at that stage, you can create marketing objective plans to improve on-page retention and increase your number of regular visitors.

Here’s what that goal could look like:

  • Improve click-through rates from existing visitors.
  • Increase social media engagement among regular users. 
  • Reduce bounce rates to retain customers. 

This graphic by CXL explains how to calculate your click-through rates.

Click through rate calculation for paid social marketing objectives

Fortunately, most websites today track visitors, making it easy to see if your marketing objective plan is working. If you find a particular metric is hitting the mark, regroup and consider what needs to be fixed. 

3. Marketing Objectives to Increase Subscribers

Once somebody starts visiting your page regularly, that’s a great time to ask them to subscribe to a premium level of whatever you offer. They’re already a free subscriber showing interest in your products, so they may be more likely to subscribe to your paid service than new users who don’t know or care about your business. 

Marketing objectives to increase subscribers could look like:

  • Increase subscribers by 15 percent over the next month. 
  • Reduce unsubscription rates by five percent over the next three months. 

You can track these metrics from your subscription services’ analytics page to see what is working and what needs to change. 

4. Marketing Objectives to Promote a New Product

When you launch a new product or service, you have an opportunity to create a timely and relevant paid social media marketing campaign. 

If you’ve just launched (or are planning to launch) something new, here are a few marketing objectives you can set:

  • Increase new product landing page visits to 100,000 per day.
  • Boost social media engagement related to the new product by 40 percent. 
  • Sell 25 new units per day through organic traffic. 

Such marketing objectives and strategies are often time-bound and only last for a few weeks or months, but you should track them like you would a long-term campaign to learn what works and what needs to be improved upon for the next time you run a short campaign. 

5. Marketing Objectives to Increase Sales

Now that you’ve launched your new product and successfully promoted it, it’s time to focus on increasing sales. Most companies across several industries think of increasing sales when they discuss marketing. 

Although marketing can serve several purposes, most businesses primarily use paid social media campaigns to boost sales, so this step is quite important. 

If you’re at a stage where you’re prioritizing sales, here are a few examples of marketing objectives aimed at boosting sales:

  • Increase conversion rates by three percent in the next three weeks. 
  • Connect with 25 influencers to increase social media sales.
  • Increase affiliate sales by 12 percent in the next month. 

These marketing objectives can be directly tracked by how many units or subscriptions you sell. We recommend keeping track of your results to know which marketing objectives and strategies work best for you. 

6. Marketing Objectives to Increase Revenue

Even if your sales have increased, it doesn’t mean your revenue necessarily has. If you notice you’re not meeting your revenue goals, it’s time to devise new SMART goals, such as:

  • Increase profit margins by 1.5 percent.
  • Reduce marketing costs by two percent per month. 
  • Bring down customer acquisition cost to $5 per new buyer. 

Here’s an example of how these marketing objectives can be tracked, explained through a graphic by Chorus.ai. 

Marketing objective to improve revenue chart

7. Marketing Objectives to Optimize the Conversion Funnel

Once you’ve set practical marketing objectives and begun working on your paid social media marketing campaign, you may notice the customers still aren’t converting. Maybe you’re attracting ample visitors, but your repeat customers are low. Perhaps you have a growing number of subscribers, but your customer acquisition cost is too high. 

In these cases, it helps to set marketing objectives to optimize your conversion funnel. Here are a few examples:

  • Identify and fix one weak spot in the conversion funnel per month. 
  • Increase conversion by 15 percent by spending a fixed sum on marketing. 
  • Reduce customer acquisition cost by three percent per month. 

You can track these metrics by closely observing your conversion funnel. Note which step of your funnel is losing visitors and aim to fix that with one of these marketing objectives.

8. Marketing Objectives to Grow Your Digital Presence

Today, 2.14 billion people shop online, making digital marketing essential. If you have a successful brick-and-mortar business and want to expand your digital reach, this marketing objective could be right for you. 

Number of online shoppers for setting marketing objectives

Here are a few helpful examples of what digital reach marketing objectives could look like: 

  • Post four blog posts per month to drive audience engagement.
  • Increase social media followers by 25 percent.
  • Reach 150 new users daily. 

These marketing objectives can be tracked by recording and comparing your social reach. 

Most social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram offer free analytics to help you understand how your audience interacts with your content. Use this data to adjust your marketing objectives and strategies. 

9. Marketing Objectives to Reach International Audiences

If you’re launching a new product or service that could benefit users abroad, create a marketing objective to reach geo-targeted audiences. Once you’ve defined the demographics you wish to reach, you can set the following marketing objective plans:

Understanding international markets can be tricky, so you may have to experiment with marketing objectives and strategies before finding something that provides the best return on your investment. 

10. Marketing Objectives to Increase On-site Time

Once you have an effective conversion funnel that meets your sales, revenue, and engagement goals, you can look for ways to increase each users’ on-site time. The more time somebody spends on your page, the more they’re likely to come back and buy something from you. 

For this, you can set marketing objectives like: 

  • Reduce bounce rate by 4 percent every month.
  • Increase user reading time up to 30 minutes per visitor.

You can track how long visitors stay on your page through your website’s built-in analytics tool. Measuring your marketing objectives solely through on-site time can be tricky, though, as many people leave their tabs open or are too busy to give their full attention to your page. So, we recommend you don’t focus on this objective too heavily unless you’ve completed all the others we discussed above. 

How to Pick Your Paid Social Marketing Objectives

Now that you understand the 10 essential marketing objectives, it’s time to choose one for your company. 

  1. Consider your business goals

    When selecting a marketing objective, consider your business goals. Ask questions like: Do you need to increase sales, or should you prioritize social engagement?

  2. Get perspective

    Consider the entire team’s perspectives before honing in on one goal. 

  3. Narrow it down

    Narrow your options to the top three choices you can work with. 

  4. Test your goals

    Start with one to see what works and what needs to change. If your goals aren’t supporting your overall growth plans, tweak and try again.

  5. Repeat the process with new objectives

    Setting goals should be an on-going process, not a one-time deal.

Tips to Help You Meet Your Paid Social Marketing Objectives

If you want to increase the effectiveness of your paid social media marketing objectives, make sure you:

  • Periodically check in with your team members to make sure everyone’s on the same page. 
  • Track your progress toward SMART goals to identify problems and possibilities for growth.
  • Include external experts’ suggestions to improve your process.

FAQ about Social Media Marketing Objectives

This guide covered a ton, but you’ve still got questions. Here’s a quick FAQ to help you get started.

Can my business have more than one marketing objective?

How many marketing objectives you set depends on your business goals and planning capacity. Larger businesses with bigger teams may be able to plan and execute multiple marketing objectives and strategies at once. In comparison, newer businesses with smaller teams might perform better by working on one goal at a time. 

Who should set the marketing objectives for a successful social media ad campaign?

When you launch a new social media ad campaign, involve everyone in the decisions about marketing objectives. The leaders and managers should specify the big-picture goals, while the marketing team can dig deeper into the details of how to execute your businesses’ marketing objective plans. 

What are the most important marketing objectives?

Every company prioritizes different goals at different stages of its growth. Creating brand awareness and expanding your digital reach could be solid marketing objectives to aim for if you’re a new business. If you’re an established company, increasing sales and profits may better serve your key business goals. 

What to do if my business isn’t meeting any marketing objectives?

If you notice your company is consistently falling short of your marketing objectives, it’s a sign warning you to change strategies. If you’re significantly behind your goals, it may be better to change your marketing objectives entirely. Track your goal metrics, see where your plan is failing, and set SMART marketing objectives to improve accordingly. 

How often can you change your marketing objectives? 

For your marketing objectives to succeed in accelerating your business growth, they have to be effective and profitable. If you notice you’re spending increasing time and effort trying to meet your goals without seeing great returns, reconsider your marketing objectives and perhaps swap them for new ones. 

Social Media Marketing Objectives Conclusion

Setting SMART marketing objectives can truly change the way you reach your target audience and encourage them to do business with you. 

You need to be especially SMART about your objectives when creating paid social media marketing campaigns, as you’re spending money regardless of how well things go.

Marketing objectives help clarify your message and simplify your goals while making them more effective in the long run. 

Which marketing objective will you choose for your business today?

How to Use Wolfram Alpha for Marketing Research

Are you searching for new ways to make sense of the marketing data you’ve been aggregating?

With the continuous growth in artificial intelligence (AI) and the ever-collecting stores of data, there’s a better way to view and use existing marketing data.

While many online tools promise functionality to allow users to see data in a whole new way, search engine Wolfram Alpha actually delivers.

Through a combination of AI, algorithms, and an extensive knowledge base, this unique engine can provide marketers with valuable data points, as well as answers to complex computational queries.

Interested?

You should be.

In this post, we’ll explore Wolfram Alpha offerings and break down five ways the search engine can best benefit data-minded marketers.

What Is Wolfram Alpha?

Wolfram Alpha self identifies as an answers engine.

While the term engine may conjure images of Google’s search results, Wolfram Alpha wasn’t created to compete with Google—in fact, it has highly different functionality than the search giant.

Launched in 2009, the engine serves up lists and tables, providing users with specific, numeric-based answers to their questions. Given this emphasis on numbers and data, this engine isn’t necessarily for purchase-minded searchers; rather, it’s a data-driven engine that can provide insights.

Wolfram Alpha works through harnessing the extensive stores of collected expert-level data and algorithms to answer questions, conduct analyses, and build reports.

Versatile in its usability, this search engine can be used by students to solve equations just as easily as it can help you find nutritional information about M&Ms.

While you may not care about the caloric values associated with M&Ms, you should care about how these incredible data stores can benefit marketers.

While the free version of this engine is filled with useful actions, Wolfram Alpha Pro users can also upload data, get custom visuals for presentation, and access unique web apps.

Below, we break down the five top ways marketers can benefit from the unique tool that is Wolfram Alpha.

5 Ways to Use Wolfram Alpha for Marketing Research

While some marketers may love a deep data dive, some may detest it. Regardless of which camp you belong in, Wolfram Alpha can take the guesswork out of data analysis for you.

What’s more, the engine removes the guesswork from data points, providing more reliable figures than other sources.

Below are the five best ways Wolfram Alpha can help you optimize your marketing campaigns.

1. Upload Files for Automatic Analysis and Computation

Whether you’re tracking the success of your content, the performance of your social channels, or break-even analysis, aggregating all of your marketing data can be difficult.

With the Wolfram Alpha engine, the heavy lifting is done for you, letting you focus on other aspects of your marketing plan.

Check out this simple tool for calculating cost per thousand impressions (CPM):

Wolfram Alpha CPM Calculator

A breeze, right?

In addition to the engine’s standard calculators, you can select from hundreds of existing widgets from the Widget Gallery that come with a simple embed code that you can easily copy and paste.

These widgets operate as shortcuts for your most-used formulas or can be built into your site.

wolfram alpha - break-even analysis widget

Regardless of the computations you seek, Wolfram Alpha can complete simple to complex equations, making your job that much easier.

2. Research Keywords

As you most likely know, keyword research refers to the process of finding and analyzing terms individuals enter into search engines. This process lets marketers discover which terms to target to reach their ideal audience.

After you’ve identified the most important topics that relate to your audience and identified the related keywords, it’s time to dive deeper.

While you can certainly turn to Google’s “searches related to…” list that manifests at the bottom of your query page, you can also look to Wolfram Alpha to help you get creative about related terms that your audience may be searching.

Wolfram Alpha offers information about words that can be of particular interest to marketers. The two that top our list include word frequency and the thesaurus function:

  • Word frequency: This tool enables searchers to learn the historical usage of a word, tracking its ebbs and flows in popularity over time. This can benefit your keyword research, as it speaks toward a word’s popularity (or lack thereof) and can be a strong indicator of search volume.
  • Thesaurus: This feature not only allows users to search term synonyms but to either narrow or expand that search through hypernyms or hyponyms. Beneficial to marketers in its broadening and narrowing capacity, Wolfram Alpha helps you discover related terms you may have otherwise bypassed.

3. Visualize Data

While data for data’s sake is one thing, taking data and turning it into something consumable for your company or client takes data utility to the next level.

Wolfram Alpha doesn’t just compute metrics; it can chart them too.

Do you have some marketing results you want to see charted over time, with the ebbs and flows of success reflected in an easily consumable manner?

Plotting functions with Wolfram Alpha is super easy: Simply enter the particular function you want to graph and let the engine do the rest for you. The number and type of graphs that Wolfram Alpha can build are seemingly endless.

If you find yourself overwhelmed, here are three standard graph types Wolfram Alpha can help you build that are incredibly effective or digital marketers:

  • Stacked charts: These can help demonstrate cumulative composition throughout a time span, such as leads from marketing channels.
  • Pie charts: They are incredibly versatile and can help demonstrate everything from budget allotment to the percentage of users using respective social media channels.
  • Distribution graphs: These allow marketers to show a single variable with a multitude of distribution points.

4. Use Localization

Perhaps you’re interested in doing some out-of-home advertising for your latest campaign. You want to be sure that the population in the area you’ve identified as a potential site aligns with your audience.

You could turn to Google, but you should turn to Wolfram Alpha.

While Google can serve up different results to queries depending on where you’re physically standing, it can’t make every site it aggregates data from do the same. Wolfram Alpha, however, does not rely on other sites for its wealth of data, which makes the engine’s localization analysis more accurate to your query.

Let’s return to the out-of-home advertising example: Imagine you want to know the per capita income per a specific area to know if your product will work within the parameters of the population’s budget.

While Google will give you pretty decent results, Wolfram Alpha will provide you with more precise ones with accompanying information (like currency) reflecting your current location.

wolfram alpha - average nyc income

5. Compare Data

With the advertising revenue function of Wolfram Alpha, you can determine the projected outcomes of your advertising campaigns, as well as all the associated metrics.

Okay, maybe not that impressive. However, you can also compare campaigns to one another, identifying areas for improvement and relative and collective successes and failures.

The search engine’s comparison function doesn’t end here.

While on traditional search engines like Google and Bing, you’d be hard-pressed to find a sales tax comparison for three United States cities, but Wolfram Alpha serves up this data quickly and easily.

In addition, if you’re in need of a comparison between two data sets, Google has to have a relevant site indexed to provide that information, or you have to manually compare the sets. With Wolfram Alpha, you can compare multiple data sets for results. The engine also generates graphs, historical data comparisons, ratios, and tables.

If we continue with our ongoing out-of-home advertising example, you can compare regional information regarding population age, income, and various other helpful demographics that allow you to make informed decisions about areas for potential advertising.

How to Use Wolfram Alpha for Marketing Research

Regardless of what data points you’re searching for, the Wolfram Alpha answers engine has an algorithm for you. What’s more, savvy marketers can harness its incomparable data stores to dig deep into metrics, conducting better research for better results. Areas that can benefit marketers include:

  1. Uploading files for automatic analysis and computation:

    With Wolfram Alpha’s insane computational ability, you can input almost any equation and gain instantaneous results.

  2. Researching keywords:

    Tired of your go-to keyword research tools? This engine can help you dive deeper into your understanding of which words resonate with your audience.

  3. Visualizing data:

    Pie chart? Scatter plot? Wolfram Alpha can help you see and present your marketing data in new, simple ways.

  4. Using localization:

    Get better data about your consumers from Wolfram Alpha’s deep data stores. What’s more? The engine automatically translates that information into the most relevant representation of your location.

  5. Comparing data:

    With Wolfram Alpha, you can compare almost anything through the engine’s deep data stores. Compare locations, audiences, and outcomes for improved marketing success for all your campaigns.

Wolfram Alpha for Marketing Research Conclusion

While Wolfram Alpha isn’t a traditional search engine that will send marketers scurrying to rank on its pages, the engine can still provide marketers and individuals alike with a plethora of knowledge that can help drive your next digital campaign.

As you explore the inner workings and functionalities of Wolfram Alpha, be sure to keep an eye on how the engine can help you dive deeper into data that will allow you to understand your audience, deliver effective presentations, or simply conduct better research.

As the platform continues to evolve, keep an eye on the blog to learn about the new advances and offerings the platform is creating that can help you harness the power of data to supercharge your next campaign.

What’s the most effective way you’ve used Wolfram Alpha for marketing research?

10 Examples of Brands Using TikTok Stitch and TikTok Duet for Marketing

Have you been debating using TikTok to grow your business?

With so many social media platforms out there, many businesses are hesitant to embrace yet another site. However, features like Stitch and Duet might make the platform worth the investment.

Here’s what those features are, why they matter, and a few examples of them in action.

What Is TikTok Stitch?

Stitch is a TikTok editing feature that allows people to trim and edit other people’s videos and incorporate them into their own content.

For example, you might be posting a video on how to dominate on social media, and you see I’ve got a great video on the same subject. With Stitch, you can take a short snippet of my video, add it to your post and say “Look my boy Neil says this, so it’s something we should be doing with our marketing.”

One of the ultimate aims for social media marketers is for a piece of content to go viral. Normally this is achieved through people sharing your content and perhaps adding their own comments.

Stitch allows a piece of content to go viral in a very different way by incorporating video snippets directly into their posts.

What Is TikTok Stitch

Since the original creator gets credited, it has the potential to amplify your reach. This adds to the viral nature of TikTok, making it a powerful tool for marketers.

What Is TikTok Duet?

TikTok Duet works on the same principle as Stitch, allowing you to use other people’s videos on your own. The difference is, with Duet, the two videos play in a split-screen format.

TikTok Stitch and Duet

Returning to the previous example, rather than cutting to a clip of me talking about social media marketing for your video, we can be on the screen at the same time, sharing the stage.

Like TikTok Stitch, Duet takes sharing to another level and encourages viral content. Rather than just sharing my video to your page (as you might on Facebook), you can add your comments and flourishes, and then amplify the message to your audience.

This can be an incredibly useful tool for marketers, and it’s another example of the innovative features that are attracting people to TikTok. (Here are my thoughts on why you should be marketing on TikTok.)

Why Should You Use TikTok Stitch and TikTok Duet for Marketing?

Your social media marketing goals rely on three key ingredients: reach, engagement, and action.

You want to reach as many people as possible, get them engaged with your content, and encourage them to take a desired action.

Simple, right? Well, as we all know, it’s not always that simple.

That’s why features like Stitch and Duet that boost engagement and increase your reach are extremely welcome.

You don’t have to dig too deep to realize why users love Stitch and Duet. Social media brings people together, and what better way to do that than through collaboration? People can get even closer to their friends, celebrities, influencers, and brands; and this is the basis of viral content.

For brands, it’s an opportunity for people to engage with your content in a different way, and when they Stitch, you get the credit, plus the free brand exposure that comes with it.

What Kinds of Companies Should Use TikTok Stitch and Duet for Marketing?

A big part of marketing is reaching your target audience where they “hang out.” With 689 million active users (and growing fast), there’s a good chance your market is on TikTok.

One thing to consider when choosing which social media platforms to use is demographics. TikTok has a much younger active user base than other platforms like Facebook (60% of users are from “Gen Z,”), so you need to understand how to market to this group.

Even if your target audience is slightly older, don’t be quick to write off TikTok. Facebook gained its popularity almost exclusively among the younger age groups, and look where it is now.

By embracing features like TikTok Stitch and Duet now, you’re getting in ahead of the competition and growing your profile on a platform that’s expanding fast. As TikTok continues to roll out features, it’s offering more for marketers.

10 Examples of TikTok Stitch and Duet for Marketing

How can you make TikTok Stitch and Duet work for your marketing? These brands incorporated Stitch and Duet into their marketing to create viral videos and reach more people.

1. NBA: Tell Me You’re an NBA Fan Without Telling Me You’re An NBA Fan

This NBA video style is a common way of getting people to stitch your video. Your brand gives people a prompt, in this case, “Tell me you’re an NBA fan without telling me you’re an NBA fan,” and your followers stitch it into their video before responding.

Here’s the original video from the NBA:

@nba

First time #NBAAllStar Zach Lavine wants to know what makes you an NBA Fan! Stitch your reply to this video! ⭐️NBA All-Star, Mar. 7 6:30pm/et on TNT!

♬ original sound – NBA

Your followers see the prompt and create their own video with their responses. Here’s how Chicago Bulls mascot Benny the Bull responded using Stitch (sorry, Detroit fans.)

@bennythebull

#stitch with @nba #NBAAllStar

♬ original sound – Benny the Bull

It’s a simple format, but it’s a great way to drive engagement. Every TikTok Stitch is free publicity that expands your reach.

2. Amazon Prime Video: Michael B. Jordan Clip

Amazon Prime is undoubtedly perfectly placed for TikTok Stitch. After all, it has access to an endless amount of video.

This clip of Michael B. Jordan certainly got the viral effect, gaining a lot of traction around TikTok.

Here’s a stitch with over 73k likes (remember every time your clip is stitched, you get credit).

@mckenzibrooke

#stitch with @amazonprimevideo I think he scared my dog… LMAO 😱😅 #primevideo #withoutremorse #ad

♬ original sound – McKenzi Brooke

Amazon clearly has access to lots of star names and iconic videos, but the principles remain the same. In this case, the original clip makes people wonder what is going on in the scene, and then people use Stitch to respond by acting out the rest of the scene on their own.

3. Urban Decay: Prince 4 Ever Collaboration

Makeup brands tend to do very well on TikTok, and Urban Decay is no different. The Prince 4 Ever Collaboration release is a great example of how TikTok Stitch can be part of a product launch.

Here’s the original video:

@urbandecaycosmetics

FIRST LOOK at the limited-edition Urban Decay X @prince.4.ever collaboration. 💜🕊 Link in bio #UrbanDecay #UDXPrince #Prince

♬ UD x Prince available May 27th – Urban Decay

It’s just a quick look at a new product, but it built excitement, and people got behind it, stitching clips into their videos:

@urbandecaycosmetics

FIRST LOOK at the limited-edition Urban Decay X @prince.4.ever collaboration. 💜🕊 Link in bio #UrbanDecay #UDXPrince #Prince

♬ UD x Prince available May 27th – Urban Decay

If you’ve got unique products, this can be a powerful way to create a buzz around a new release.

4. Demi Bagby: Influencer Power

I could have chosen from a whole host of influencers here because they play such a big part on platforms like TikTok.

When someone with nearly 12 million followers creates content, people get involved. On many occasions, people are using Stitch to share Demi Bagby’s videos.

Here’s one of many examples

https://www.tiktok.com/@joemarimuyong/video/6946526606785629442?_d=secCgYIASAHKAESMgowONUyjWSOPzZ7lgZ50QSPZOIfn1ry7qMF4fxI6qwOXymKFabr%2BCnx7EK773knvNtfGgA%3D&language=en&preview_pb=0&sec_user_id=MS4wLjABAAAAfxb6j_kqOk03cnZi89NW8IWORFdVOABY8mSQ0jYtWqmdDPU2azjFJaLPKjE_N3VX&share_app_id=1233&share_item_id=6946526606785629442&share_link_id=DDF80763-F618-4EEF-ADE7-9C454963F632&source=h5_m&timestamp=1620986922&tt_from=messenger&u_code=difk1e8h4k3g56&user_id=6962059548836480006&utm_campaign=client_share&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=messenger&_r=1

It’s no surprise that brands such as Sony Pictures and Gymshark are sponsoring these influencers to reach a wider audience.

5. John Derting: Everyone Loves Beautiful Scenery

John Derting is a photographer and videographer with over 1.7 million followers on TikTok. His videos offer a unique view of the beauty in our world, and it’s something you can tap into with your brand.

By stitching these amazing videos into your content, you can add something extra to your TikTok presence. If you’re conscious about your environmental footprint and dedicated to protecting the beautiful things we have in the world, then this could be an ideal way to use TikTok Stitch.

@johnderting

Is this the perfect snow storm? 😌👌🏼🤯❄️😍! Way more on my Instagram 😉! #alaska #fyp #nature #calm #epic #art

♬ Cornfield Chase – Hans Zimmer

6. Puma: Can You Recreate the Puma Logo?

It started with an epic fail of a barista trying to make a coffee with the Puma logo on top. The original video earned more than one million views, so Puma did more videos on it, this time using Duet to show their followers attempting the challenge.

Videos don’t have to be complicated to appeal to your audience, they’ve just got to be engaging, and this proved to be the case for Puma.

@puma

🚨BAKERS, ARTISTS, & BARISTAS🚨 Can you recreate the PUMA logo like @1leogonzalez? If so, let’s 👀 it!! Best posts will get featured on @puma 🙌

♬ TWINS – Kaygon

The video has nothing to do with selling clothing, but it’s a brilliant way to increase brand awareness.

7. Vessi: Duet Giveaway

Vessi is a Canadian shoe company, and they’re doing a great job on TikTok.

One of its most successful campaigns has been its duet giveaway.

@vessi

#duet with @agajillian Show us your #vessifootwear and you could win a free pair too! #giveaway #nomorewetsocks #waterproofshoes #tiktokwellness

♬ my strange addiction – Billie Eilish

This is another simple, but incredibly, effective strategy. Your followers do a duet showcasing your products and have the opportunity to win free products.

It’s a win-win. You get to expand your reach and show off your amazing products, and your followers get to win free prizes.

8. San Diego Zoo: #sandiegozooduetsweepstakes

Another brand using duet challenges to increase engagement is San Diego Zoo.

When you’ve got lots of lovable animals hanging around, there’s plenty of great content—but sometimes it takes more than to get engagement.

#sandiegozooduetssweepstakes encouraged people to sing along with noisy bird, Crikey. It’s another example of how you can use TikTok Stitch and Duet to get people interacting with your brand. Take a look:

@sandiegozoo

Duet and tag #SanDiegoZooDuetSweepstakes for a chance to win 4 Zoo passes. Ends Fri 10/09! By entering, you agree to the terms: sdzoo.com/TikTokDuet

♬ original sound – San Diego Zoo

9. ESPN – Dunk Contest with Hoopin_Nate

What do you get when you show footage of a young kid doing some crazy dunks?

Viral content.

ESPN knows the power of incredible sporting feats, and it does a great job of turning short video clips into viral content.

This video expanded its reach through duets like this one:

@funnymangaitlin1

#duet with @espn omg😵

♬ gangstas paradise – favsoundds

10. Fortnite: Getting Involved with Challenges

The #alternativewoahchallenge has 89.3 million views on TikTok.

So what did Fornite do?

@fortnite

Crow Foe Flow? Let’s go! @realadamrose #alternativestothewoahchallenge

♬ alternative woah challenge – Adam Rose

They joined the trend and made their own video using the hashtag.

The original video got over 470,000 likes, and the duet earned it another 310,000 likes.

@realadamrose

#duet with @fortnite sooooo this happened??!! my emote is now available on FREAKING FORTNITE!! #alternativewoahchallenge #fortnite

♬ alternative woah challenge – Adam Rose

That’s a lot of views and a lot of likes.

How to Measure the Success of Marketing With TikTok Stitch and Duet

To get the most out of your TikTok marketing, you need to have a Pro account access their analytics. As with any social media platform, you’ll need to constantly optimize your strategy to make sure you’re reaching as many people as possible, and this isn’t possible without analytics.

How to Measure the Success of Marketing with TikTok Stitch and Duet

TikTok analytics provides insights into how your content is performing, although there are no metrics that specifically measure Stitch and Duet at the moment.

Your analytics can give you a good feel for what content works well and what doesn’t though, so keep an eye on metrics like:

  • total like count of post
  • total number of comments
  • total shares
  • total playtime
  • total video views
  • average watch time
  • average engagement estimates

To get Stitches and Duets, you need engagement with your videos, so use the feedback in your analytics to improve what you’re doing.

TikTok Stitch and TikTok Duet for Marketing: Conclusion

TikTok is growing fast. Which is no surprise with features Stitch and Duet that drive viral content.

These features don’t just work for users though, they’re also brilliant tools for marketers. We all want to grow our social presence and drive engagement, and these tools can help you do just that.

You want to be on the social media platforms that offer the most benefits and increasingly, TikTok is likely to be a top contender.

If you are creative with your content creation and use features like TikTok Stitch and Duet, you have the opportunity to reach a whole new audience.

Have you started TikTok marketing yet? Are Stitch and Duet helping drive engagement?

Influencer Marketing: Examples and Strategies for 2021

You’ve likely heard the term “influencer” thrown around a lot the last few years. It generates mental images of YouTube stars promoting energy drinks and Instagram stars raving about weight loss supplements.

This is called influencer marketing, and it can be a very successful strategy if you execute your campaign correctly. Let’s find out if you should try this strategy yourself.

What Is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is the process by which brands leverage well-known figures who have influence over their target markets to promote their brands.

This doesn’t mean you need to be able to afford to pay Michael Jordan to promote your new athletic wear line.

In fact, many of the most successful influencer marketers are not extremely famous.

Take, for example, Murad and Nataly Osmann. There is a good chance you recognize the style of their photos:

influencer marketing - example of specific image style

One simple photograph of Nataly leading her boyfriend by the hand has morphed into a massive online following — and a branding empire.

According to Adweek, “They’re working with top marketers like Macy’s and Napa Valley Beringer Vineyards to create compelling ads, and they’re launching a platform to match brands with bloggers.”

The #Followmeto project has also morphed into TV and book deals. The couple hosts a 20-minute travel TV show on Channel One Russia that takes viewers behind the scenes of their online photos.”

Sometimes, the best influencers aren’t people at all. Toast, a well know dog, uses her Internet fame to promote a variety of brands, including coffee, bottled water, and even thigh chafing sticks.

influencer marketing - Toast the dog's Instagram

Instagram isn’t the only place you can find influencers.

Lance Stewart, a well-known influencer, has more than 50 thousand followers on Facebook alone:

influencer marketing - lance stewart facebook

He is also active on Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter.

Finding influencers isn’t necessarily about finding the most famous person.

Instead, it’s about finding a person your audience trusts and leveraging that influence to promote your brand.

Outline the Goals of Your Influencer Marketing Campaign

I’ve discovered that influencer marketing works well for brands that don’t have much of a following.

You’re leveraging someone else’s platform for your own gain.

However, before you create the content, before you find an influencer, and before you do anything else, you need to outline the goals of your influencer campaign.

Why?

It’s simple: Every decision you make is informed by your goal.

The platform you choose, the influencer you partner with, the type of content they create; all of these factors come into play.

Let’s work from an example to make this easier to illustrate.

Say you’re working with a client (let’s call them Client A) in the gaming industry — specifically in the smartphone app gaming industry.

Mobile gaming is a pretty competitive industry. iTunes offers 18 categories of games and hundreds of popular puzzle games.

itunes categories of gaming - influencer marketing

Company A has been in business for five years and has a solid portfolio of games of medium success, including one highly popular game that was downloaded 25 million times.

They have a new puzzle game coming out, and they want to leverage influencer marketing to get tons of downloads and create buzz around the new launch. Ideally, this buzz would extend to their brand and give their entire game portfolio a good boost.

How can you help them get the most out of influencer marketing?

First, let’s outline the goal.

The goal should have three parts:

  • find out the influencer’s demographic data
  • determine what the influencer will help you do
  • plan how the influencer will help you do it

Example Goal for Company A’s Influencer Marketing Campaign:

There are a plethora of formats to outline your goals. In this example, Company A has written the goals of the campaign in paragraph form:

This campaign will partner with a young, highly connected influencer with access to the tech-savvy millennial group. Ideally, they will be into technology and use an iPhone because downloads from the Apple Store exceed those on Android.

Through this campaign, we will exceed the download numbers of our last game by 45% in the first 30 days.

The campaign will include at least 1 video of 30+ seconds to showcase how the game is played, and two or three other social posts on Instagram and Snapchat where our demographic is most active.

This goal is detailed. It includes specific numbers and platforms. There is a chance that some of these factors will shift.

For example, you might find out that YouTube is a more effective platform for your video game company to use for influencer marketing.

Changing the details of your goal is fine, but the outline should serve as a starting point for all the other decisions.

This template will help you outline your goal:

Influencer marketing campaign goal plan

Who is the influencer?

Name:

Age range:

Popular on what platforms?

Campaign end goal:

Number of posts:

Which platform:

Special considerations:

Now that you have your goal outlined, it’s time to move on to finding your influencer.

How to Find Effective Influencers for Your Brand

Choosing the right influencer is vital to the success of a killer influencer marketing campaign, but it is far from easy. Ryan Schneider, Chief Brand Manager at Insomniac Games, says this:

[A] lot of leg work goes into finding the right influencer…If I were a PR person, and I was trying to find the right reporter at The Wall Street Journal, I could do that … probably within one Google search or two mouse clicks. Targeting the right influencers can be a lot more complex.

According to Tap Influence, there are four main ways to find influencers: searching manually, using databases, tapping networks, or exploring marketplaces.

Manual Searching

This method requires conducting individual searches, scanning web pages for information, and then adding the information to a spreadsheet. It’s extremely time-consuming and not very effective.

Start by creating a spreadsheet in Google Docs or Excel, then create a column for each piece of information you want to pull about each individual influencer.

Column names will likely include:

  • Name
  • Industry of influence, including the specific niche (for example, if a gaming influencer’s audience is mostly female, or under the age of 16)
  • Total followers (combination of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, or the top platforms your audience uses)
  • Facebook link
  • Instagram link
  • Twitter link
  • Snapchat link
  • Pros
  • Cons
  • Email/contact info
  • Special notes: Do you already have a relationship with them, or do they regularly post about topics closely related to your brand? Add any other information you want to include here.

Next, search Google and relevant social platforms for keywords, mentions of your brand, and related hashtags.

In a highly competitive industry like mobile gaming, you should go after high-tier influencers so you’ll have the most reach. Compile a list of these people.

The next step is to search on the most popular platform for our target audience. In this case, I head to YouTube.

The most effective strategy is to look at videos with the highest engagement, either from my brand or my competitors’, and then look at who shared or engaged with those posts.

From there, I would be able to find the top influencers.

I am using a fictitious example, so I can’t search for our brand.

Since we are in mobile gaming, I am going to search for Two Dots, a popular puzzle game. Based on a quick search of the brand name, I see a possible influencer:

influencer marketing - using youtube to find influencers

The top video is old and won’t be a good fit for our gaming site.

The second video is from the actual brand Dots. It’s also not a good fit.

The third, from ZoeTwoDots, might represent a good fit. Her videos showcase strategies for different games, her channel is active, and the channel has more than 200,000 followers. Looks promising!

I would add her to the spreadsheet and keep going.

Keep in mind, all this research garnered me just one possible influencer to target.

Manual research is extremely labor intensive. However, for smaller brands looking for very niche influencers, this is likely the best choice.

Databases

These are tools that will do the site-scraping for you by pulling publicly available data. These can be good places to start, but vetting each influencer can prove time-consuming.

Basically, instead of manually doing the searches, databases do the heavy lifting. They’re less time-intensive than manually searching and are cheaper than other options.

One example is Inpowered.

Inpowered has a list of clients it has worked with in the past, including case studies:

influencer marketing - case study showcase

For our mobile gaming company, this doesn’t seem to be a good fit. A more traditional brand might find this database useful.

Lean on Your Networks

This method of connecting with influencers sits in between databases and marketplaces. A network has built relationships with influencers, but you have to go through their profiles to reach out.

Networks tend to focus on specific genres, such as Dad bloggers, lifestyle influencers, or food enthusiasts. Examples of popular influencer networks include Activate.

After a little research, I come across a good fit for our mobile gaming company: MatchMade.

influencer marketing - example network logo

They make it super simple to search for exactly the type of influencer I want, including allowing me to sort my options based on reach, location, subscribers, and engagement.

Another benefit of networks is that they often offer more tracking and analytics. Matchmade offers a full dashboard:

influencer marketing - matchmade dashboard

There are a lot of pros to choosing a network — you are able to select exactly the type of influencer you want based on many different factors. Tracking is included, making it easy to see if you are reaching your goals.

However, this also tends to be the most expensive option.

Marketplaces

A marketplace offers the best features of a database by pulling in real-time information, but it allows you to avoid middle men. Marketplaces tend to offer less tracking, but they are also more affordable.

Examples of market places include Tribe, HYPR, and Brand Snob. Much like dating sites, marketplaces allow you to look at hundreds of profiles of different influencers.

Here is an example of an influencer profile on Tribe:

influencer marketing - using a marketplace

I can easily see her reach and an example of her work. This is much easier than sorting through thousands of Google search results.

Choosing the best method for finding an influencer that fits your needs can be complicated. Ultimately, you are looking for a partner, and just like any partnership, you need to take your time and consider all the options.

The final decision is likely going to be based on what resource you want to spend — time or money.

Getting the Most Out of Your Influencer Marketing Campaign

You have outlined your goals, chosen an influencer, and started to build a relationship with them.

Now it is time to create your actual campaign. Here are tips for getting the most out of your killer influencer marketing campaign.

First, be authentic. The reason traditional ads aren’t as effective today is that people crave authentic connections.

Even though you are paying for the influencer to talk about your brand, you must keep authenticity in mind to be effective.

Shannon Fure of Convince and Convert says it best:

If an influencer doesn’t fit a brand’s ethos, the authenticity factor is going to plummet. Choosing the right influencer is the first step toward maintaining authenticity.

Second, choose the platform you use carefully.

Pay attention not only to where your audience is most active but also what type of content performs best on each platform.

Take, for example, this video created by Harry’s Razors:

On Facebook, the video got three thousand views.

On Instagram, Harry’s chose to post a screenshot of the same video:

influencer marketing - examples on different formats

Even though Instagram supports video, they tend to perform better on Facebook.

According to Murray Newlands, “different platforms are used to reach different audiences and demographics, and the same goes for what product or service you’re marketing: beautiful photos of your product belong on Instagram, while eye-catching videos will perform better on Facebook.”

Take the time to build a real relationship with the influencer. This gives you and the influencer a chance to see if you are a good fit and increases authenticity.

Angela Stringfellow of CODA Concepts suggests:

Start slowly by following them on social media, sharing their content, commenting on their blogs, and engaging them in relevant conversations whenever possible. Establishing a relationship of mutual trust is the key to successfully engaging your market’s thought leaders as brand advocates.

Empower your influencer through information and access to your brand, but don’t take creative control. Ideally, you’ve chosen an influencer who is already engaged with your brand.

If not, make sure they truly understand your brand’s voice and what you stand for.

Invite them to your offices, offer tickets to your events, and share interesting stories about your brand and the people you help.

But remember, they are popular with your target audience for a reason. To keep the interaction authentic, you need to relinquish creative control.

Influencer Marketing Conclusion

Influencer marketing might seem like just another buzzword born of a generation obsessed with smartphones. However, the practice is nothing new.

Put simply, people trust people more than they trust brands. Influencer marketing allows you to leverage that trust to create goodwill towards your brand.

The steps I outlined above will help you find the best influencer and get the most out of your partnership.

Have you implemented an influencer marketing campaign? What were your results?

15 Useful Clubhouse Tools to Help Your Marketing

Clubhouse is an interesting app that acts as a combination of podcasting, Facebook Messenger, and Snapchat mixed into one. 

This audio-based platform is growing dramatically. In fact, the app has more than 228,000 reviews and a 4.9-star rating on the App Store. 

If you’re looking for a unique way to reach a highly targeted audience through the use of audio, this could be your avenue. In this article, I’m covering the most useful Clubhouse tools to make your marketing efforts simpler and more effective. 

Why Should You Use the Clubhouse App for Marketing? 

The Clubhouse app puts a unique spin on social networking by restricting communication to nothing more than audio. You also need to know how to get a Clubhouse invite, which essentially requires you to reach out on social media and get your name out there. 

It creates a bit of exclusivity that makes it all the more rewarding when you finally make it onto the platform. If you receive a Clubhouse app invite, you’ll be able to join chat rooms covering a wide variety of topics ranging from SEO to commercial plumbing. 

Once you join a room, you’ll be able to sit back and listen or raise your hand and try to get into the conversation. As you get more and more involved in the community, you’ll have the opportunity to become a moderator or even create your own room and invite your followers in to listen to what you have to say. 

As you can probably tell, there’s marketing potential here. Like Twitch and Snapchat, the conversations you have on the platform are gone once the chat ends. This presents a unique opportunity for you to bring people in and potentially operate the social network like a live webinar. 

One big plus is that a camera isn’t a feature of the platform, so you don’t have to worry about being seen on screen. The platform is similar to podcasting, which has grown by 29.5 percent in the last three years. Clubhouse is more engaging than podcasting, though, because it allows listeners to comment and get involved in real-time, whereas most people listen to recordings of podcasts. 

15 Marketing Clubhouse Tools 

In this section, we will discuss some of the specific Clubhouse tools you can use to create a memorable experience on the platform. As marketers, our goal is to draw attention to ourselves and as much of it as possible. These tools make listening more enjoyable for your followers and keeps them coming back. 

1. Humans on Clubhouse 

If you’re coming to the platform with a specific goal in mind, you might want to use Humans on Clubhouse. This tool offers 1:1 connections to anyone within a particular niche. Whether you’re trying to network, build a following, or find an influencer, this Clubhouse tool can help you. 

Once you’ve identified someone you’d like to connect with, you can reach out to them and hopefully determine how a networking relationship could be mutually beneficial. From there, you can host events together, piggyback on each other’s audience, and more. 

2. Clubhype 

A big downside to the Clubhouse platform, in general, is how challenging it can be to get the word out. Since the platform is kept relatively exclusive, there are extra steps you’ll want to take to ensure everyone knows you’re hosting an event. 

Clubhype makes this easy. This Clubhouse tool allows you to enter your Clubhouse link, and it generates a sleek and attractive preview image you can share to social media. The image contains the date and time of the event, the title, and all the important members included in the event. 

Let’s say you secured a great guest in your event. You’ll want to share it with your social media to get as many people into the event as possible to hear what the VIP has to say.

3. ClubLink

The goal of all Clubhouse tools is to make lives easier for you and anyone you want to join your event. ClubLink is another tool that helps create an attractive preview you can share on social media to get people to join. One unique feature is that it optimizes the time zone based on the host, so you won’t have to convert anything or worry about missing a session. 

Clublink also has multiple sharing options based on the platform you’re sharing it on. No matter if you’re using Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, the tool makes it simple for you to create an attention-grabbing preview to get more viewers to join your event. 

Marketing Clubhouse Tools - Clubhype

4. Find Clubhouse 

This tool is similar to Humans on Clubhouse, but instead, it helps you find specific clubs based on topics you’re interested in. From a marketing standpoint, it would be good to use this in the beginning so you can find groups that relate to your business and could help you find listeners who may want to join your club as well. 

Marketing Clubhouse Tools - Find Clubhouse

There are tons of different ways to search, and they even promote clubs based on how much they’re trending. All you need to do is go over to the Find Clubhouse site and search based on your interests. From there, you can join clubs, see what the moderators are doing, and get ideas for how you’ll start to create your own audience. 

5. Ask Clubhouse 

Next on the list of Clubhouse tools is something that makes it easier for you to engage with your audience. If you’ve ever hosted a live event, you know how challenging it is to address all the questions as they’re pouring in. 

Ask Clubhouse helps you do this by creating a board where people can ask their questions, and you can address them later on in the event or even at a later date. Best of all, you’ll answer the questions so everyone else can hear, which reduces the need to answer the same question over and over again. 

6. Clubpad

Marketing Clubhouse Tools - Clubpad

A huge part of creating an inviting and fun environment in Clubhouse is being able to engage and entertain your audience. When there isn’t any video, people rely strictly on your audio to keep them engaged. Adding little sound effects to make things funnier and more interesting could help keep people aware and awake. 

While these types of Clubhouse tools might not seem like a big deal, it’s the little things that make a difference. If you’re using Clubpad and have a competitor in the same niche who isn’t, maybe that’ll be your advantage. 

7. Clubhouse Glow

clubhouse tools clubhouse glow

This is a simple tool that allows you to create a color ring or filter over your Clubhouse avatar. Why would you want to do that? Why not? Generating attention and being able to stand out in a room is an important aspect of marketing. 

Clubhouse Glow can help differentiate you from the rest of the crowd by adding a nice visual effect to your avatar.

8. Clubhouse Bio Builder 

Clubhouse Bio Builder is an iOS app that helps you format text, choose the font, and create the most enticing bio possible. People are going to read your bio before joining your club, so you’ll want to make sure you’ve written the best bio possible as well. (Another tool coming on this later!)

Using the bio builder, you can use bold, italic, and emojis in your bio to draw more eyeballs to the text and help your profile stand out. It’s simple, easy to use, and a great way to get more people to notice you. 

9. Clubhouse Avatar Maker 

The avatar maker is another tool that helps you put a ring around your profile photo. With this one, you can choose from a variety of different templates based on where you’re promoting yourself, your personality, your niche, and your personal preferences. It makes setting up your profile easier so you can spend more time focusing on your content. 

10. Crofile

Crofile is similar to a couple of the previous Clubhouse tools, but it has a unique spin. 

You select your photo, choose from preset customization options, and add a status to your photo as well. You can put on there that you’re working on something, you’re away, or that you’re busy. Once you’ve customized your photo to your liking, you can save it and upload it to Clubhouse. 

11. Comet Events 

Marketing Clubhouse Tools - Comet Events

This is a powerful event management tool that helps you measure the results of your rooms in Clubhouse. You can start with a free account by simply entering your email address. From there, you’ll be able to take the link of all your events in Clubhouse and create a new Comet link where you can track all the data. 

The only catch here is that you need to share the link specifically within Comet Events so it can keep track of everyone who RSVPs for the event. If you share the original Clubhouse link and people sign up, that data won’t be tracked, and you’ll have an inaccurate number. 

This tool is helpful especially if you’re planning based on the total audience or doing a giveaway, and you need to know exactly how many people are planning to join the event. 

12. Host Notes 

Host Notes is another event management system to make it easier for people to RSVP and join your events. One important key to remember in marketing is that you need to make it as easy as possible for people.

If you create too many hoops to jump through, most people will simply back out and never move onto the next step. Host Notes allows you to create sharable links and attach resources from the conversation during the event. 

13. Clubhouse DB 

This Clubhouse analytics tool lets you get a bird’s eye view of the most popular users and clubs based on how many followers they have and when they registered.

If you’re trying to find ways to grow your club, this tool may help you because you can join other clubs, identify what they’re doing differently, and then start implementing that yourself. 

14. CH Bio Generator

Marketing Clubhouse Tools - CH Bio Generator

Even if you’re a writer or content marketer, writing bios is not something anyone likes to do. Many of us don’t like to talk about ourselves or tell everyone what we do, what we’ve accomplished, or why they should listen to us. Why not have someone else write it for you or use a tool that generates a personalized bio?

CH Bio Generator takes a lot of the thinking out of the process by using templates to make it easier for you to write your bio. Keep in mind that the bio is one of the most important ways to get discovered on the platform, so you’ll want to make sure you have a good one. This Clubhouse tool can help you. 

15. Rooms of Clubhouse 

Rooms of Clubhouse is similar to Humans of Clubhouse. The tool helps you search based on topics and keywords to find rooms with events scheduled or currently happening. The database is somewhat limited, but it will probably progress over time.

While this tool is especially helpful for users trying to find information, it can also help you as a marketer find similar groups and people to reach out to for collaborations. 

15 Clubhouse Tools to Test

If you’re looking to reach a unique audience, these Clubhouse tools can help.

  1. Humans on Clubhouse

    Make 1:1 connections with people in your niche.

  2. Clubhype

    Enter your Clubhouse link, and it generates a sleek and attractive preview image you can share to social media.

  3. Clublink

    Create an attractive preview you can share on social media to get people to join.

  4. Find Clubhouse

    Search for clubs related to your interests, see what moderators are doing, and more.

  5. Ask Clubhouse

    Engage with your audience by creating a board where people can easily ask questions.

  6. Clubpad

    Add reaction sounds to your clubhouse rooms to increase engagement.

  7. Clubhouse Glow

    Create a color ring or filter over your Clubhouse avatar to grab attention.

  8. Clubhouse Bio Builder

    Add bold, italic, and emojis in your bio to draw more eyeballs to the text and help your profile stand out.

  9. Clubhouse Avatar Maker

    Choose from a variety of different templates to add personality to your avatar.

  10. Crofile

    Select your photo, choose from preset customization options, and add a status to your photo as well

  11. Comet Events

    Track Clubhouse event metrics and create beautiful event landing pages.

  12. Host Notes

    An event management tool that creates sharable links and attaches resources from the conversation during the event.

  13. Clubhouse DB

    Get a bird’s eye view of the most popular users and clubs based on how many followers they have and when they registered

  14. CH Bio Generator

    Easily create top-notch bios with this template-based bio generator.

  15. Rooms of Clubhouse

    Search by topics and keywords to find rooms with events scheduled or currently happening

Conclusion

Social media marketing still has plenty of potential. With new platforms like Clubhouse emerging every day, it doesn’t look like it’s slowing down. If you’re trying to reach a highly targeted audience, the platform makes it easy to narrow down and find exactly that. 

You can use some of these Clubhouse tools to make your life even easier. 

Are you on Clubhouse? What tools have you used to help your marketing on the platform?

15 Useful Clubhouse Tools to Help Your Marketing

Clubhouse is an interesting app that acts as a combination of podcasting, Facebook Messenger, and Snapchat mixed into one.  This audio-based platform is growing dramatically. In fact, the app has more than 228,000 reviews and a 4.9-star rating on the App Store.  If you’re looking for a unique way to reach a highly targeted audience … Continue reading 15 Useful Clubhouse Tools to Help Your Marketing