Tag Archive for: Digital Marketing

Tips on Managing Negative Social Media Comments

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Social media is a unique public environment that has its own culture and expectations. And at some point in social media managing, you’ll have to deal with negative comments on your brand’s page or posts. While some of these comments may be from blatant trolls, others will be clear criticism of your product or service. It’s important to know how to effectively deal with these comments. Here are 5 tips on how to manage negative comments on your social media. 

Don’t ignore or delete. 

The worst thing a brand can do is ignore their negative comments. This can aggravate the commenter even further and may lead them to continue to leave negative comments in more places. This can also look bad to other users and existing customers. You want to remain transparent with your audience. Deleting messages rather than addressing them head-on conveys that you might have something to hide. 

It’s important to note that this doesn’t remain true for all negative comments. If a comment is inappropriate, offensive or derogatory, it should be deleted. To make this decision, exercise your own judgement or refer to your organization’s code of conduct. 

If it’s your fault, apologize sincerely. 

The saying goes, “the customer is always right.” Even if you disagree with their point of view, it’s still best to apologize. This is the first step in resolving a conflict. Keep a calm, cool and sincere tone throughout the conversation. When someone is bashing something you’re passionate about, this can be difficult, but it’s crucial to not let your emotions get in front of professionalism. 

On the other hand, you don’t want to admit fault for something you had no control over. If that’s the case of the complaint, lead with something like, “We’re sorry to hear you weren’t satisfied with your experience.” This shows you still care, but doesn’t recognize that you or a team member did anything wrong. 

Take offline if necessary. 

It’s best practice to resolve the conflict privately. Try to shift the conversation off of social media to another place. Whether this be through direct messenger, email, over the phone, etc. After you apologize, close the response by asking the customer to contact you through one of the mentioned forms of private communication. You never want to get in a further argument in the comments for others to see. Depending on the issue, the customer may write dozens more negative replies, which can reflect poorly on your brand. 

Be personable. 

No one likes their frustrations to be met with automated replies. This also looks bad to anyone else that reads the conversation on social. It’s beneficial to have a plan for negative comments, but you want to personalize the message as much as possible. This shows real empathy, authenticity and sincerity. You want to show that you really do care about your customers. See the following conversation between Delta and a customer. 

source:https://www.socialpilot.co/

It’s evident that these messages were written by a real person and are not automations. They effectively communicate with the customer and show that they genuinely want to help. 

Be timely. 

Timeliness is key with negative comments. Most users expect a response within 2 hours. If necessary, follow up with the relevant departments to give your customer a satisfactory answer. Word travels fast on social media, which is also why it’s so important to respond quickly. A slow response can make it seem like you don’t care or are ignoring the complaint, both which can quickly damage a company’s reputation. 

Be sure to consistently monitor your reputation throughout the day, whether it be through Google Alerts or other social listening tools. This will help to ensure no negative messages go unnoticed. 

Final Thoughts

Negative comments are unavoidable, but if managed the right way they can actually do more for your brand than positive ones. Responding to positive comments is easy. Dealing with negative comments is how you show company integrity, sincerity and personability. This is where long-term customer loyalty stems from. So if you want your company to succeed, watch what people are saying about your brand on social media. React to all the comments you get and be attentive to the problems of your customers.

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

Facebook Ads Boycott: Why Marketers Are Pulling Their July Ad Spend

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The list of companies planning to suspend their Facebook ads for the month of July continues to grow. This boycott stemmed from Facebook’s inaction to address hate speech on its platform. 

A civil rights coalition, which includes the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the NAACP, launched the #StopHateforProfit campaign last week when it called on major corporations to put a pause on advertising on Facebook to send a message to the platform that its lack of action is not going to be tolerated. Within a few days The North Face, REI, Patagonia and a few others were the first big-name brands to join the stand. 

So what is this boycott all about and should you get behind the movement? 

Where This All Started

Social networking platforms have been under fire over the past year for allowing false statements made by politicians, the president in particular, to be published with no consequence. These types of campaigns stem all the way back to the election of 2016, with Trump and Clinton. More recently, the main focus of the push came from the president’s recent comments on the BLM protests, which Facebook chose to leave up in the matter of public interest. 

Activists have been pushing for Facebook to follow Twitter’s lead and draw a definitive line on hate speech that cannot be crossed in on-platform discussion, even by the president. Quickly following Trump’s post, Twitter prevented users from viewing the tweet without reading a brief notice that the post glorified violence. Twitter further tightened restrictions on the messages from Trump and the White House by blocking users from liking or replying to them. A few days later Twitter added their first fact-checking labels to Trump’s election-related tweets as well.

Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, on other hand did not feel the same way about censoring the president’s posts. Zuckerberg says Trump’s posts did not violate Facebook’s policy and will remain online, uncensored. 

They ultimately decided to leave the post up because the company’s position is that it “should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies,” Zuckerberg wrote. 

The Boycott 

Last week the NAACP and the ADL officially announced their #StopHateForProfitCampaign with a full page ad in the Los Angeles Times. The campaign was meant to target advertisers, specifically big-name brands. Just two days later, The North Face tweeted, “We’re in. We’re out @Facebook #StopHateForProfit.” The North Face’s commitment applies to ads on Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram, the brand said in a statement, though it will continue to create organic content on Instagram. The list now expands to: 

  • REI 
  • Upwork 
  • Patagonia 
  • Dashlane 
  • Magnolia Pictures 
  • Eddie Bauer 
  • Arc’teryx
  • Ben & Jerrys 
  • Eileen Fisher 

What Will Happen to Facebook? 

It’s not a massive wave of advertisers yet, which means it won’t hurt Facebook in a revenue sense. But it will have perceptual impacts, and could spark more backlash from the platform’s partners and users. Facebook has already admitted that it has a deepening ‘trust deficit’ with ad partners, which it will need to address. The company has already been seeing a slowdown in ads due to the impacts of COVID-19 and the recession. If the list of big names continues to grow, Facebook will have no choice but to listen. 

What Should You Do? 

The decision to join in on this movement is a more personal one. If you support the #StopHateforProfit campaign and feel that it’s important to use your voice as a business, this is the perfect way to do that. On the other hand, this isn’t about calling out or judging marketers whose business relies on Facebook advertisement. For many joining in, this is a very low-risk decision, but for others it’s not financially justifiable. 

More from Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

7 Marketing Metrics to Focus on for the Rest of 2020

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Tracking key metrics is crucial for any successful marketing campaign. There are countless KPI’s you could be tracking, but not all are essential. While it does vary from campaign to campaign, we’ve narrowed it down to 7 critical metrics that must be tracked to get a solid understanding of your campaign, to better identify where you should be spending your ad dollar. 

1. Qualified Leads 

Generating leads is one of the first and most difficult steps of a marketing campaign, but getting qualified leads is even more important. Qualified leads are leads that you’ve seen some level of engagement from, and have a high chance of making a purchase decision. You can calculate the rate of your qualified leads by using this formula: (Qualified leads / Total leads) x 100 = Qualified lead rate. That will help you get a better understanding of the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives. A few tips for gaining qualified leads include: 

  • Creating more personalized messages. Giving leads personal attention makes them feel more important and much more likely to continue down the sales funnel. 
  • Putting greater effort into finding them. Instead of cold-calling or sending out bulk email blasts, go through your lists to identify those that have a higher chance of converting. 

2. Customer Acquisition Costs 

Customer acquisition costs (CAC) looks at how much, on average, it takes to convert a lead into a customer. You can find it by calculating: Amount spent on lead generation / Number of new customers as a result of lead generation = Cost of customer acquisition. It’s a metric that can help you avoid wasting resources on programs and campaigns that aren’t delivering. It should not be relied on alone, though, as there are number caveats. A company’s CAC can be poor if they’re expanding into a new area, are in early stages of SEO work, the company is undergoing reorganization, etc. CAC should be viewed in comparison with the company’s overall strategy. 

3. Referrals 

Referrals are something that often get overlooked by companies, but this is an important metric, especially in digital marketing. There are a lot of ways to track referrals. Traditionally, they can be tracked using referral or coupon cards. However, they’re often run and tracked online. The most commonly used program involves a customer signing up online, then inviting their friends via a unique code/link. To track this an excel or spreadsheet is easiest to use. You can calculate your rate of referrals with: Total number of customers / Number of referrals = Referral rate.

4. Customer Lifetime Value 

Customer lifetime value refers to how much revenue the typical customer will bring into your business over the course of their lifetime. The simplest formula to measure CLV is the following: Customer revenue per year x Duration of the relationship in years – Total costs of acquiring and serving the customer = SLV. This shows how many customers you need to break even and make a profit. 

5. Time Spent on Site and Bounce Rate 

Time spent on site is a good indicator of whether or not people are interested in what you have to offer. If they’re spending a significant time on your site, as well as browsing to other pages, it’s likely they’ve found a good amount of value in your brand. Bounce rate is related to time spent on page, but refers to someone who made it to your homepage, but immediately leaves. If you have a high bounce rate, this is a big indication that either your home page is poorly designed or you are focusing your digital marketing on the wrong people and need a shift in strategy. Both of these metrics can be tracked with tools like Google Analytics or Clicky. 

6. ROI 

Return on investment is one of the most important metrics to track for a business overall. It allows you to identify which tactics are generating revenue and which are poorly performing. You can then adjust budgets and strategies as necessary. It’s important to note that you shouldn’t immediately quit a marketing strategy if it has a poor ROI right off the bat. You should take some time to think if there’s anything you can do to adjust to make it more successful. 

7. Conversion Rate

Conversion rate tracks the percentage of people that make it to your landing page and turn into a real customer. A low conversion rate is bad for obvious reasons; your landing page isn’t working and you’re not making a profit. It’s important to A/B test multiple landing pages, because you never know what people are going to like best. Sometimes it can just be a small tweak to turn a poor performing landing page into a high performing one. Try different colors, fonts, images, etc. Other things that may cause a low conversion rate is if your ask is too large. It’s best to start with something small, such as a subscription or sign up, then move those customers to bigger purchase asks. 

Final Thoughts

Like previously mentioned, all strategies and campaigns are different. But one thing all marketing programs have in common is their metrics need to be tracked and adjusted based on the data that’s found. If you need assistance in any area of digital marketing, our team at Onimod Global is here to help. We’re experts in SEM, SEO, analytics, social media marketing, and more. Learn more about what we do and contact us today. 

Tips to Increase Your Brand’s Engagement on Social Media

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Promoting your brand through social media has become vital for overall business success. But just being on social channels isn’t enough anymore. The key to real success is through user engagement. This can help increase your brand awareness, customer relationships, and conversions, ultimately improving profits. 

Something that often gets lost to marketers is this: engagement is much more than just likes. Engagement is also comments, shares, follows, re-tweets, clicks, private messages, etc. And these types of engagements are often more valuable than likes. That sounds great, but how can brands accomplish all this? We’re here to help. Here are 5 tips for boosting your brand’s engagement across all social platforms.  

1. Talk about interesting topics, not just your brand. 

It’s common for businesses to frequently or exclusively post about their products or services. That’s not really not what social media is for, or what users want to see. The best content is exciting and informative. Ask yourself if it’s something you’d want to see or would share. It’s also important to ask yourself how it makes you feel. What getting people to engage, click, and convert comes down to is emotion. You should constantly be evaluating if your content is making you feel something and if that is worth sharing. If it’s not, editing and reevaluating may be needed. Most importantly, the content you’re creating and putting out to your audience should have value. The value is either making your audience happy, gives steps on how to get there, or anything else that’s beneficial. 

2. Join and hold Q&A’s and surveys. 

Joining Q&A sessions is a great way to provide your audience with value and get more brand awareness. You can spark discussions with prospective customers, all before competitors, you can become the go-to seller. Consumers are more impatient than ever and don’t want to wait for answers. That’s why, if it’s possible, you should have a dedicated response management person/team. While answering questions quickly is important, it’s also important to answer them accurately and clearly. We advise you to complete ongoing research for the most commonly asked questions and develop sample answers that can be customized for each question/situation. 

3. Share other people’s content. 

Constantly creating interesting, high quality, and engaging content is not easy. If there’s someone else providing quality answers to a query or other relevant content, make use of it. Your audience will see that you are there to give them what they need, no matter where it comes from. If your feed provides relevant and valuable information, whether it’s yours or not, people will be more attracted to your brand and be more encouraged to follow you. Keeping your feed diverse and from different contributors keeps audiences interested.

4. Make your customers feel engaged. 

To boost engagement, you need to be social. This means directly responding to all messages, comments, etc. Whether it be negative or positive, responding is essential. Show appreciation for the positive comments and suggest solutions for negative ones. It’s also important to respond to posts that aren’t addressing you directly, but indirectly or through hashtags. When responding you should present yourself as personable and approachable, ultimately humanizing your brand. Addressing comments with the person’s name is a great way to do this. It shows that the comment wasn’t computer generated and that someone really is listening to them. You should also try to match the person’s tone/emotion. If their comment was lighthearted and included emojis, feel free to use them back. This is a great way to generate a longer conversation and may even get other audience members involved. 

When it comes to negative comments, it’s smart to have a plan on how you’re going to deal with them. You want to be able to respond quickly to stop the issue from growing. You want to respond to show others that you’re not just ignoring the problem, but it’s also best to take the conversation offline and solve the problem privately. 

5. Post frequently and at optimal times. 

Posting frequently across all channels is vital for overall social media success. This shows your audience you’re relevant and up-to-date on the latest trends. This also helps your audience members stay up-to-date with you. Loyal customers want to know what’s happening with your brand the moment it occurs. Whether it’s a promotion, a new product/service, expansion, etc. This helps your audience stay connected and strengthens your relationship with them. 

A large part of engagement is posting at optimal times (when your audience is online and active). Most people are online during lunch hours or later at night, but it’s important to do research on your audience specifically. A/B testing may be necessary. Experiment with posting times to see which performs best and generates the most engagement amongst your audience. 

Social media moves quickly. If users think your page is inactive, they will unfollow you. Which is why it’s important to be posting as frequently as you can. Everyday isn’t necessary, but a few times a week is best practice. 

Final Thoughts

No matter what industry you’re in, social media is beneficial. It only continues to grow in value as times change in 2020. Brands that are focusing on growing their social media engagement are benefiting from better marketing reach, ROI and higher brand awareness. All which makes it easier to reach prospects and customers. Boosting and sustaining engagement is difficult and does take time, but it’s not impossible. It takes knowing your audience, a strong strategy and ongoing effort. In the end, it will be worth it. 

More from Onimod Global

As experts in social media marketing, our team knows where and when your customers need you most. We help create visibility for brands where their customers are searching, interacting and engaging. If you’re struggling in social media or any area of digital marketing, contact us today.

YouTube Select: YouTube’s New Premium Advertising Program

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YouTube just recently launched their new premium advertising program, YouTube Select. “Helping you connect with your audience is our top priority. This is especially important as digital takes precedence in how we interact, communicate and stay connected.” Vishal Sharma, YouTube’s Vice President of Product Management wrote. The purpose of YouTube Select is to make this easier for brands. Offering more flexibility to reach hard to find audiences, with the confidence advertisers’ buys are brand-safe. 

New Features

Emerging Lineups: YouTube Select packages content in what it calls “lineups.” These are tailored by market for topics such as beauty & fashion, entertainment, technology, sports and more. They’re now introducing a new offering, called “Emerging Lineups.” These provide an easier way to extend the reach of campaigns among upcoming or niche channels.

Sponsorships and Programs: There are also custom sponsorships and programs available to help brands target audiences across top YouTube apps and vertices, such as YouTube Kid, Sports, Music, and Originals. 

TV Audience Targeting: According to YouTube, over 100 million people in the U.S. watch YouTube and Youtube TV every month. They also have a higher household reach and share of watch time than the next 3 ad-supported streaming services combined, according to Comscore. To take advantage of this surge, a dedicated streaming TV lineup is being introduced as another offering for advertisers. Streaming TV combines the best of YouTube TV and lineups content, both on TV screens. That means being able to easily reach your audience with a single, scalable offering on the big screen across the best content. This includes popular creators, YouTube Originals, live sports, feature length movies, timely news and more.

They’ve also recently announced Brand Lift measurements on TV screens, which will soon be available globally for the app and YouTube TV. Ultimately to give advertisers better help measuring their brand results. 

Better Buying Options: In addition to more capabilities on the TV screen, there will also be more choices on how advertisers purchase their ads. It will vary by region, but many countries are making certain YouTube lineups available via Google Ads, Display & Video 360 and reservation.  

Why this is Important to Marketers

Connected TV viewing continues to increase considerably, especially in the midst of the pandemic. Over the last year or so YouTube has started focusing more on marketing objectives, rather than media. Ultimately to become a stronger and more strategic marketing partner for brands. YouTube Select is making it easier to ensure brand-safety when ad buying. Granting marketers access to advanced suitability controls, as well as the option to only serve ads on videos that have been machine classified and human-verified across all lineups. Overall, it offers an easier way for you to authentically connect with your audience at scale. 

According to YouTube, brands are already seeing results. “In 2019, global lineups delivered an average awareness lift of 13 percent and an average purchase intent lift of 9 percent. And in an MMM meta-analysis we commissioned with Nielsen in the U.S., YouTube Select lineups had greater ROI than TV in 73 percent of MMMs that measured YouTube Select lineups, Other Digital, and TV in 2016-2018.” 

Whether you’re new to the YouTube advertising space, or have been here for a while, YouTube Select is definitely something you should consider. 

More from Onimod Global 

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

Social Media Marketing: Should Your Business be on TikTok?

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TikTok is the fastest growing social media network in the world right now, with the app having been downloaded over 1.5 billion times in the App Store and Google Play. If you’re not already there, you’re probably wondering, should my business be on TikTok? We’re going to help you answer that question. Let’s discuss the app, its audience, and what kind of business can benefit from adding TikTok to their social media marketing strategy. 

What is TikTok? 

For those unfamiliar, TikTok is an app that allows users to create and post videos within a news feed. Users are allowed to create clips 3-15 seconds long and compile clips into a video up to a minute in length. Users can add music or sounds to the videos that are available within the app. Most of the content is comedic or dance oriented, but the variety of content is growing. For example, we are starting to see videos featuring creators using or reviewing their favorite products. 

Who is on TikTok?

Just a few years ago, the majority of TikTok users were around the age of 13. Today, 60% of the app’s monthly active users in the U.S. are 16-24 year old. Another notable demographic is that 55.6% of users are male and 44.4% are female. This is an appreciable difference compared to other social platforms that show a female-favorable user base, such as Instagram with a 65%-35% sway. It’s also worth noting that 43% of users are in India. No one is certain why this is, but 40% of new downloads are based out of India. All in all, the largest number of users come out of the U.S, India, and Douyin, China. 

How Can Brands Use TikTok? 

There are four main ways brands can utilize TikTok:

  1. Directly: You can create your own channel and upload relevant videos through the channel.
  2. Influencers: Influencer marketing is growing in popularity on TikTok. Major brands like Google, Coca-Cola, Universal Pictures, and Sony have worked with popular users to raise brand awareness and extend reach of their recent promotions. 
  3. Paid Advertisements: There are three main types of paid ads brands have to choose from on TikTok as of now: 
    1. Launch Screen Ads: These appear when a user initially opens the app. Users can tap on the ad to get sent to an external webpage or participate in a hashtag challenge. 
    2. Video Ads: In-feed videos are also offered as a native way to advertise content on the app. You can pay to have your content promoted on the “For You” page.  
    3. Branded AR: Brands also have the ability to create branded lenses, filters, and stickers, which are similar to Snapchat. 
  4. Hashtag Challenge Plus: While this is still a paid feature, it is strictly e-commerce focused. Brands can sponsor a hashtag or a theme that creates a challenge for users to create videos participating in the challenge. Users can then browse products associated with the brand. 

Is it Right for Your Business? 

To answer this question, you need to ask yourself as a marketer or business owner a number of other questions. Will you be able to create original content that promotes your brand? Do you understand the style of content on TikTok? And most importantly, what is your target audience? If you’re looking to target Gen Z or Millennials, TikTok is a great way to gain mass exposure. Additionally, it’s a great way for brands that have a corporate tone to create a more youthful and fun feel for themselves. If your brand strictly targets an older demographic, it may not be worth the investment just yet, but it may be in the near future. 

More from Onimod Global 

At Onimod Global we are experts in social media marketing. We know which platforms are best for brands, and create visibility for brands where customers are searching, interacting, and ultimately converting. Find out more about what we do, or contact us today!

 

4 Ways PPC Will Rescue Your Business During Economic Crisis

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People may be clicking, but when are they buying? Are consumers buying too much too fast? When do they really decide to convert and make a purchase? When will brick and mortar stores reopen and foot traffic resume? As some questions are answered, they are replaced by new questions under such fast-changing circumstances. The good news: Search marketing is adaptable, measurable, and when done correctly, VERY cost effective. Even with shifting data models, PPC pros can use timely trends to guide strategic decisions.

Trends Emerging

One very helpful tool for marketers during COVID-19 is the Tinuiti COVID dashboard. Here they provide a look at trends in paid Facebook media since the pandemic took hold. It requires you to sign up for free with email, and offers insights into media spend. They have discovered some emerging trends from the data across some volatile sectors. April proved far different compared to March; May will undoubtedly look far different compared to April. The following trends, according to the data shared by Search Engine Land:

Automotive: Spending plunged month over month by 41%, but surged almost 50% week over week across the past two weeks.

Travel: Spend almost evaporated, down 82% month over month, but is showing signs of a cautious uptick.

Consumer packaged goods: Up 27% month over month, and up 50% week over week.

In some cases, it seems that the natural reaction is to slash media spend. But clear thinking and data prove to prevail while figuring out the best strategies for your company.

E-commerce

Fast impact on e-commerce is dizzying to say the least, since e-commerce covers basically everything on the market.

  • Google announced search results on the Google Shopping tab will now include free listings, so any business that sells things should fast-track getting their Merchant Feed into Google. Read more about this hot topic on our news page here.
  • Product hoarding has shifted to “next best alternative” purchasing. For example, consumers got creative about toilet paper shortages, driving interest in bidets and other solutions-oriented products.
  • Market-dominating providers are suddenly prioritizing what gets shipped and when. Smaller providers that can ship fast have the potential for an edge over Amazon, Walmart and other large companies.

Here are some PPC tips from Onimod Global:

  • Make sure you are only showing the ads for things people can actually buy. There’s no point showing ads for toilet paper if none is in stock, or for your new summer shoe line launch if your warehouse is on lockdown.
  • Pay attention to setting better bids and prioritize the campaigns that can still convert.

Home services

Quarantine has people searching around the house looking for anything and everything to fix up. This includes but not limited to: Carpet cleaning, painting, dusty air ducts, spring prep for outdoors. Some are DIY projects, but many are best handled by the professionals, including emergency repairs.

Onimod Global’s PPC tips:

  • Stay on top geo-based performance that is affected by any local regulations impacting performance in your service areas.
  • There’s no point showing ads when all you can do is disappoint a prospect with the inability to fix their problem soon. Ensure your ads are suspended while your limited staff is completely booked.

Hospitality

It’s very evident as to why spend in the hospitality industry is almost completely evaporated. Remember that this is only temporary! History tells us that people will venture back out. It is human nature to do so. Travel is a necessary escape, and essential for business at times. People need hope, that they will soon be able to do this again. Here are our tips:

  • Stay on top of shifting search queries to avoid paying for ad clicks from consumers looking to cancel.
  • Keep audiences for Google Ads up-to-date with your customer/prospects database. This will ensure you’re showing the most relevant ads at the right time to the right groups of consumers.
  • Remember that there are customers who are ready to buy, just maybe unable to because of local restrictions. We suggest to consider shifting away from last-click conversion attribution.

Local brick & mortar businesses

Most likely the largest impacted in business are the brick and mortar businesses forced to close for the near future. Family-owned restaurants may lack infrastructure for delivery services at scale.

Some tips from Onimod Global for PPC are:

  • Build audiences from customer data. Even your manual customer email list in Google Sheets can be uploaded to a Facebook campaign for more effective targeting.
  • Agencies can deploy Rule Engine (for Google and Bing) to automate optimizations. It’s another way to offer lower-cost agency services that can scale.
  • If you’re new to social media advertising, contact Onimod Global to ensure your advertising budget is spent in the most efficient way possible.

More from Onimod Global

Need help from experts on PPC and how to optimize your advertising budget? Contact Onimod Global today, we are here to help you navigate this uncertain time. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

To catch up on the latest digital marketing news and trends, click here.

E-Commerce Marketing Strategy: Where to Start

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With the recent lift of the nation-wide shut down, the country is slowly opening up on a state by state basis, but the majority of businesses still remain physically closed. Due to the uncertainty surrounding the situation, you may be considering, or have already entered into the e-commerce space.

There is an increasing number of people online and numbers will most likely continue to grow as the year goes on. In light of this growing audience, many businesses are boosting digital ad spend and their online presence in general. Making the e-commerce space even more crowded than before. This can be intimidating for those just getting started, which is why Onimod Global is here with helpful tips for getting your e-commerce marketing strategy started. 

Step 1: Choose Your E-Commerce Software 

There are endless e-commerce platforms out there to choose from. When you’re comparing software, it can be hard to tell how seemingly minor differences in features can have a major impact on overall performance, but they can. When it comes down to it, what’s best for you will depend on a variety of factors, such as the industry you’re in, the size of your inventory, etc. We’re going to talk about the three most popular e-commerce software platforms and give pros and cons to each, but there are many online articles that discuss others and go into greater detail on each. 

BigCommerce: Ideal for larger retail brands. Also a good choice for those who have a brick and mortar store and are looking to expand operations. The interface is user-friendly and allows you to customize your shop without having to know code by using templates in design your store. 

Pros:

  • Excels with multi-channel selling
  • User-friendly 
  • Scalable 
  • Variety of quality themes 
  • Comprehensive abandoned cart feature 

Cons: 

  • Can get pricey 
  • No 1-click selling/up-sells 
  • Cart abandonment feature isn’t included in entry plan

Shopify: If you plan to drop ship, rely on Facebook Ads, or Instagram marketing, this may be the best choice. Two big downsides are weak SEO and rigid URL structure, meaning it’s not as user-friendly. You can change some sections of it, but not others. 

Pros:

  • Quick load time
  • Easy set up
  • Many certified partners 
  • 1-click selling 
  • Allow multiple channel and social selling 

Cons:

  • Poor SEO 
  • Unable to customize checkout process
  • Apps can get costly
  • A developer is needed for advanced features 

3dcart: Has many practical features, such as unlimited storage, no transaction fees, and advanced shipping solutions. The main downside is it’s not for beginners. Set up and customization takes a lot of time to understand and get used to. 

Pros:

  • A nice blog feature 
  • Supports any integrations you would need 
  • Good business user management tools (email, QuickBooks, inventory_

Cons:

  • Dated templates 
  • Lacks customer support 
  • Not beginner-friendly

Step 2: Optimize Your Site for Search and Mobile

Online shoppers are constantly bombarded with advertisements, promotions, product options, etc. This means when they do make it to a site, they’re not going to wait around for a slow performing site because they can easily go somewhere else.  46% of shoppers have said they’ll never return to a slow website. Going even further, Google reported that for every one second delay in page load time, conversions can fall up to 20%. While there can be many causes of a slow site, these are the most common: 

  1. Heavy Page Image: Optimizing images will allow the pages on your website to receive bytes faster, and this makes your page more efficient with a faster load time.
  2. Large Files: We highly recommend a JavaScript compression or a minimization tool to help decrease your download size.
  3. Plug-Ins: Enabling caching with a plug-in allows pages on your site significantly faster. This saves you copies of pages with the same request, which allows your server load in a much more efficient manner.

It may be beneficial to get a professional digital audit done to identify any areas your site might be lacking and to get help with finding the right solution. 

Step 3: Identify Your Niche 

E-commerce sites with hundreds of products, dozens of categories, and no real focus rarely find success, at least not when they’re just starting out. Unless you have a massive budget, you have to find a niche to be profitable. Choosing your niche is one of, if not the most important step of starting your online store. You can start this process by researching different niches and identifying successful companies in that space. You don’t want to pick an overly crowded area, but you don’t want to pick a space with no competition either. This can indicate there’s no market there. The more specific you get, the less competition you’re likely to face and also gives the benefit of having shoulder niches. These are spaces that are similar to you, but not identical. This gives you the opportunity to work with other businesses in those niches to cross-promote, become an affiliate, and grow your customer base. 

Step 4: Utilize Social and Content Marketing

As we mentioned before, people are online now more than ever. Not only are they shopping, but they’re also spending time on social platforms. If you haven’t read last week’s blog, we go into greater detail on social media strategy, but for now we’ll just go over some general tips: 

  • Not every social network is the right one. E-commerce sites are highly visual, so choose social platforms that are image focused and give you the opportunity to show off your products, such as Instagram and Facebook. 
  • Be helpful. Give customers credible, detailed information about the things they need. Make it clear you’re there to help them. 
  • Be active. It’s important to let customers know solutions are available whenever, wherever, even if that means in the late evening or early morning. 

As far as content marketing goes, some might think it’s not needed if you’re just selling products online. Actually, content is extremely valuable for e-commerce sites. Content is one of the number one contributions of SEO, and when your business is strictly digital, SEO is essential. Here are some tips for using content to market your store: 

  • Write relevant blogs. 
  • Create guest posts for external websites. 
  • Publish product-related videos on YouTube. 
  • Include a keyword-driven FAQ section. 
  • Optimize product page copy. 

Final Thoughts

Even if you’re only shifting to e-commerce due to the pandemic, it can have great benefits for your overall business long after it’s over. E-commerce businesses have several marketing tools at their disposal. Using digital and inbound marketing just the right way, you can create campaigns that are designed to help your online store attract customers and grow better.

If you find yourself struggling with marketing in any area, you may want to consider outsourcing for your digital marketing needs. At Onimod Global we are experts in everything from SEM, social media marketing, Google shopping advertising, and more.

Learn more about what we do, take a look at how we’ve helped other brands, and become a client today!

Common Facebook Ads Mistakes and How to Fix Them

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The benefits of advertising your business on Facebook are endless. With over a billion active users, cutting edge features, and detailed targeting ability, why wouldn’t you market yourself there? Despite all its advantages, many businesses still struggle to gain qualified leads from Facebook Ads. 

Advertising on Facebook isn’t as easy as everyone believes it to be, but it can be worth it. If you don’t put in proper time and effort into your ads, it could result in the waste of a lot of budget. Here are the most common Facebook Ads mistakes made by marketers and how to fix them. 

Audience Selection is too Narrow or too Broad 

Facebook provides extremely detailed targeting capabilities. Most people believe that the more specific you get with your targeting, the more effective it will be. This, however, could actually be your downfall. When your audience selection is too narrow you risk exhausting the segment too quickly, driving up your cost per click. The other issue that can result from overly-specific targeting is lack of responses. No matter how pin-pointed your audience is, only a small percentage will respond. When it comes to upper funnel advertising, numbers are the most important, and if your audience is too niche, the numbers are not on your side. 

On the other hand if your audience is too broad, you risk serving your ad to people who aren’t interested in your offer. Again, you could drive up the cost per click because of a poor audience-message match, or you risk paying for clicks that won’t convert to leads or customers.

Wrong Bid Strategy 

Oftentimes marketers just go with the default option when it comes to bid strategy. This is fine in some cases, but if the automatic option for lowest cost isn’t delivering results, it might be time to rethink. Here are the the other available bid strategies and what they’re best used for:

  • Bid Cap: Best for when you want to set a max bid across auctions to control cost and reach as many users as possible at that bid. 
  • Cost Cap: Best for when you want to maximize cost-efficiency or you need to keep cost within a specific threshold. 
  • Target Cost: Best for maintaining a consistent cost. 
  • Value Optimization within Min ROAS: Best if ROAS is the primary measure of success and you’re able to pass back transaction values to our platform. 
  • Highest Value: Best for getting the highest ROAS, want to spend full budget and when unsure of min ROAS/bid amount.

Too Large of an Ask 

Facebook users don’t have the same intent as those on search engines. If you’re asking for a large commitment from someone that has just been exposed to your brand for the first time, you’ll likely get poor results. When you’re still at the top of the funnel, you should be focusing on smaller asks, such as newsletter sign-ups, likes, comments, shares, etc. Once they have had more engagement, you can begin pushing larger asks, such as purchases, event sign-ups, etc.

Failing to Test Your Campaigns 

Launching ads on Facebook is easy. Finding a successful strategy, however, is not. The only real way to know what works and what doesn’t is by testing it. This sounds like more work, but Facebook actually makes A/B testing simple. A/B testing lets you change variables, such as your ad creative, audience or placement, to determine which strategy performs best and improve future campaigns. An A/B test lets you quickly compare both strategies to see which one performs best. After choosing which variable you want to test, Facebook divides your budget to equally and randomly split exposure between each version of your creative, audience, or placement. A/B testing can then measure the performance of each strategy on a cost per result basis or cost per conversion lift basis with a holdout. If you don’t test your way to success from the beginning, you may never figure out how to make Facebook Ads work for your business.

Final Thoughts 

The Facebook Ads platform is simple, but getting quality conversions can be difficult, which is why many businesses struggle with it. Luckily, these common issues are easy to resolve. Remember, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to campaign optimization. The best strategy for you ultimately depends on your products, website, customer lifecycle, objectives, and intended user experience. 

At Onimod Global we are experts in SEM and social media marketing. We know which platforms are best for brands, and create visibility for brands where customers are searching, interacting, and ultimately converting. Find out more about we do, or contact us today!

Tips for Making Your Content Stand Out

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Right now, everyone is shifting the focus of their content to COVID-19. Rightfully so, as it’s impacting everyone and everything around the world. People are looking for answers and businesses feel compelled to respond. This creates a new dilemma, however. The “market” of coronavirus content is now heavily saturated. Consumers are constantly being bombarded with new articles and updates around the situation everyday. From this arises the question for many marketers: Should I continue to create content around the same thing everyone else is?

This is a difficult issue and there’s no simple, one-size-fits-all answer. We do know that content is still essential for long-term SEO success and in a time like this, you don’t want to fall silent. The key is finding a balance between creating relevant content but also standing out among the masses. Here are some tips for doing that: 

1. Focus on your audience’s current and most pressing needs. 

Content marketing is really just about helping your audience solve their problems. Currently, everyone is facing unprecedented challenges. There are no pre-existing rules or guidelines for businesses in this situation, so we have all been continually adapting and shifting our strategies accordingly. Marketers need to closely monitor their audience members, what they’re asking, and what they need. 

Your main focus should ultimately be creating content that helps your current and potential customers. Every time you publish a piece of content, ask yourself “is this helping my customers?” If the answer is no, and you’re just putting out content for the purpose of putting out content, it’s not worth it. 

2. Incorporate reliable research and accurate data. 

There is always massive amounts of inaccurate information circulating around the internet. When sharing or creating content, make sure it’s based on real research. Users want science and data to help them make the best decision, especially during times like these. Having solid evidence that supports your claim is extremely important. 

3. Don’t ask for anything in return. 

The biggest mistake a brand can make right now is appearing like they are trying to capitalize on the pandemic. Strive to deliver value without asking for anything in return. Instead of focusing on promoting your products or services, your main priority should be bringing value to users. 

4. Continue to publish regular content. 

Businesses are concerned that posting regular content will make them come across as insensitive or tone-deaf. While you should be careful with what you’re posting, continuing with regularly scheduled content is important for multiple reasons. The first is that, during this stressful and chaotic time, it’s nice to have tid bits of normalcy or light-heartedness. As long as the content is still sensitive to the current situation, it’s more than ok if it’s not addressing or focusing on the pandemic. The second reason being that SEO is still extremely important, and content is key for SEO success. If you delay or stop altogether publishing content, you’re only hurting yourself. 

Final Thoughts 

Right now, times are strange. Everyone is constantly searching for answers, but comfort as well. Making yourself stand out in an extremely saturated market is difficult, but not impossible. The key is finding balance between relevancy and uniqueness, while still providing value to users. Accomplishing this isn’t easy, but we can help. At Onimod Global we’re experts in social media, SEO, and content marketing. We help brands connect with their customers where and when they need them the most. Take a look at how we’ve helped other companies, and learn more about what we can do for you.