Campaign

10 Reasons All Businesses Need a Solid Social Media Marketing Campaign

If you want your business to be wildly successful, you need to have a killer social media presence.

Selling fancy socks to teenagers? You can grab their attention on Instagram.

Trying to market a new brand of medication to the elderly? A lot of older people have turned to Facebook for their social interaction.

Social media isn’t a passing fad, it’s a phenomenon that you need to master if you want your business to excel. It can be difficult, however, to know what to do if you’re inexperienced. Luckily, social media marketing isn’t an unconquerable subject.

Here’s why you need to start your campaign immediately.

Benefits of Social Media for Businesses

If you still aren’t convinced that you need to beef up your social media presence, you’ll probably change your mind after reading the rest of this post.

1. Web Traffic

Your product is wonderful. You know exactly who your audience is and what you want to say to them. There’s just one problem- how are you going to find them?

Solely relying on Google searches to find customers is risky. Yes, if you sell dog leashes and someone searches for a leash for Fido, you can buy advertising space to reach that person.

But what about the woman who’s casually browsing the internet, not thinking about her dog at all? Google isn’t going to be enough to open her wallet. But she might open her wallet when she sees pictures of awesome-looking leashes on Instagram.

2. Huge Conversion Rates

Traditional advertising is impersonal. Ads are targeted toward large swaths of the population and fade into the background.

Social media advertising, when done correctly, is aimed towards YOU. Your interests, your likes and dislikes are taken into account. This allows people to become more comfortable with your brand.

That familiarity with your brand can lead to impressive conversion rates.

3. Improved Customer Recognition

If you could, you would probably plaster your brand’s logo everywhere in sight. Obviously, that’s not practical in the real world.

Social media is different. Knowledge of your company can spread fast and organically. Because the posts that you share can be seen by thousands or even millions of people, you’ll be able to reach an audience that you otherwise wouldn’t.

Someone who’s just casually browsing their news feed might hear about your brand because one of their friends re-posted your ad.

4. More Authentic Customer Relationships

Social media allows you to connect with your customers directly. You can answer their questions, respond to their jokes. A lot of people love it when known brands contact them personally.

People buy more from companies that they feel a connection to. You can foster that feeling by engaging in natural social media interactions.

5. Decreased Costs

A solid social media marketing campaign is often a lot cheaper than traditional marketing efforts. The time commitment is less and even if you decide to pay for targeted advertising, the cost is usually less than, say, renting a billboard or magazine space.

You can even build a grassroots campaign and spend nothing at all first. Just devote an hour or two a day to trying to reach new customers.

6. Media Coverage

Tv networks and newspaper outlets scour social media sites to find out what’s trending. A lot of national news stories were born on sites like Twitter and Facebook. If you post the right witty response or impressive story, you might go viral.

If that happens, there’s a chance that your post will be picked up by a news organization. Your brand could blow up from a single post.

7. Better Customer Service

A disgruntled customer wants to the ability to contact you and get a response immediately. The days of waiting endlessly for a letter in the mail are over.

If you have a strong social media presence, this isn’t an issue. Make sure an employee is constantly monitoring your accounts and paying attention to alerts. A lot of unhappy customers is more likely to send you a tweet or direct message on Instagram than an email.

Your fast response can turn in an ugly situation into a happy. If your customer feels like their complaint has been heard, there’s a good chance that their anger will disappear.

8. Keep Up With Your Competition

If you’re not on social media yet, you can bet that your competition is. You really can’t afford to slack off in this direction or you’ll lose out on business.

The good news is that a lot of small businesses are butchering their social media campaigns, which gives you a lot of room to dominate your market. Many small business owners set up social media channels then barely use them.

They might post a coupon occasionally but they rarely interact with their followers and all of their posts are obviously intended to sell you something. If you can do it better, you can out-compete them.

9. Develop Brand Authority

Show off your expertise by answering questions about your industry on social media. If you sell organic cat treats and a Twitter user asks what’s the best food to feed your cats, you should answer.

This establishes your brand as a recognized authority in your field. In addition to exposure, you might even be able to snag a new customer.

10. Connect with Industry Leaders

Social media can help you reach the leading voices in your industry. You don’t need to cozy up with your competition but it might be useful to connect with important brands and individuals who are related to your business.

Your brand can develop a real presence. This will help to get the word out about your brand.

Social Media Marketing

You can’t avoid using social media marketing if you want your business to be great in 2018. There’s simply no way to get around it. So get started!

One way to boost your social media channels is to post interesting, shareable content. We can help with you that. We have countless articles designed to help you create content that people actually want to read.

Should You Incorporate an SMS Campaign In Your Marketing Strategy?

In the ever-changing digital landscape, attention is everything. The late 90’s was the golden age of email marketing. Companies enjoyed open rates of over 95%. That’s what you call getting the audience’s attention.

In 2018, an SMS campaign can be as effective as email marketing was back then. With nearly 90% of millennials having their smartphone to hand 24/7, and 80% of them reaching for it as the first thing they do every morning, the attention is firmly placed on smartphones.

With that in mind, businesses are awash with how they can grab the attention of the market. Many worry that emails go unopened, and Facebook is too distracting to be able to grab a users attention for any longer than a few seconds.

That’s why SMS marketing may just be the approach you should be taking in 2018. Time to flip your marketing on its head and get some attention.

How Can an SMS Campaign Improve Your Marketing Strategy

With the worldwide spend on digital marketing expected to hit 306 billion US dollars in 2020, marketing executives are getting creative in developing the best techniques to reach their desired audiences.

Content marketing has become huge in the last few years and continues to be one of the main focuses for marketing departments, but a new and emerging trend of SMS marketing campaigns has been hitting the ground in 2018.

To explore why SMS is becoming so popular for businesses, we’ve compiled seven reasons why you should be including an SMS campaign in your marketing.

Let’s jump in.

1. SMS Messages Reach Your Customers

Text messages have an open rate of 98%. With rates like that, you can see how far an SMS campaign can push you towards reaching your customers. Customers are much more likely to react and act when receiving a message that comes from an SMS message.

With more and more email marketing campaigns clogging up customers inboxes, marketers need to explore new options to reach their desired audiences. SMS messages could be a hidden gold mine.

2. Keep It Short and Sweet with SMS

Most service providers have a limit on SMS to 160 characters. What this means is much like Twitter, if you have something to say, you better keep it short.

This helps to make you get to the point with your message and really drive home a point with your audience.

Make sure to include strong call-to-action in your SMS campaign, consider using a service like Betwext texting to grab your audiences attention fast.

3. Immediate Results and Immediate Action

When you send out an SMS, you are almost guaranteed the majority of your consumers are going to read the message immediately. What that means is if you can create a strong call-to-action you can almost immediately see results.

With most people reading text messages within the first three minutes you’ll find out pretty quickly if your campaign is doing what you want it to do or not.

You could even use the SMS to drive immediate action by inviting customers to a flash sale that finishes at 5 pm that day. Companies like Dominos pizza do this constantly and it’s a very successful way to get immediate results.

4. Off the Charts Customer Satisfaction

One of the most underappreciated parts of the SMS campaign is the level of customer satisfaction it garners. In a world where paper receipts and keeping track of files has become tiresome, companies interacting with their users with text messages has revolutionized customer satisfaction.

You can see businesses from food delivery services to dentists utilizing SMS to keep their customers in the loop and to give great service.

5. SMS Campaigns Are Cost Effective

When company spending becomes a concern many companies turn to the marketing department to make cutbacks. The great news about SMS marketing is it’s a very cost-effective way to reach your audience.

For companies with tight budgets and non-profits who rely on donations, you don’t need to invest in big teams of people to craft your marketing message. An SMS campaign will allow you to send out your message to your audience by only spending a few cents per message.

ROI for SMS campaigns are usually much higher than other marketing messages, so not only do you save money by hiring no marketers, you can make money from doing an SMS blast.

6. Open and Response Rates Are High

You’ll find that many marketing channels incorporate a spray and pray strategy. The beauty of SMS marketing is that regardless of your internet connectivity or the time of day, you have much higher chances of getting your message seen.

With people checking their mobiles constantly throughout the day, text messages have a much higher chance of catching the attention of your audience. When you compare that email marketing open rates sit at on average 27-38% compared to 90%+ for SMS messages, it’s easy to see why so many people are turning to SMS.

You’ll also find that with SMS campaigns your response rates will be better. SMS response rates are far superior to alternatives like mobile advertising. Prompts to download an app, for example, are about 3X more effective via SMS compared to mobile advertising.

7. SMS Is Unobtrusive

One of the greatest strengths of SMS is that it’s unobtrusive. To opt into an SMS campaign requires you to give prior authorization.

What that means is that an SMS campaign will only target people who have a genuine interest in your product or service, making your messages less likely to annoy them.

This makes SMS a great alternative to direct calls from a call center which is widely regarded by many as a nuisance. The great thing about SMS is although many people open them straight away, they don’t demand immediate action.

So if your customer is in the middle of something, they can put it on hold till later.

Time to Make Your First SMS Campaign

With people increasingly becoming aware of businesses using SMS, the time to get started is right now for any businesses wanting to expand their marketing efforts.

For more information on how to get the best out of your businesses marketing strategies, check out our other posts.

How To Create A Successful Social Media Marketing Campaign For Your Antique Business

Are you looking for a way to get more customers through the door of your antique business?

Running an antique business can be difficult, especially if you’re just starting out.

Statistics show that the antique industry isn’t enjoying the boom it’s had in the past, so it can be tough to attract a steady flow of customers.

Luckily, a social media marketing campaign can go a long way in promoting your business.

Read on to learn more about how to create a successful social media campaign.

1. Know Your Market

Posting ads for your antique business on Facebook are definitely worth the effort. But posting ads without a target market or niche isn’t so helpful.

Begin by identifying your market for a specific campaign. Are you targeting college students hungry for vintage furniture? Retirees nostalgic about their past?

Choose a specific market and then identify a need or struggle these individuals may have. For example, those college students may be looking for an affordable way to furnish their new apartment and look classy.

In your campaign, you’ll play up this need or struggle and show how you can satisfy it.

2. Do Your Research

No matter how large your marketing and development team is–it may just be you–it’s important to research the field before plunging in.

Research competition in your area. What are other antique stores doing for marketing, and how can you be better? How is Westland Antiques doing?

What ads do you see for antiques on social media? Are there any in your area currently?

Assess the competition but also consider demographics in your area.

3. Establish Goals

Before you start posting wildly on Facebook, set up some clear goals. What outcome do you want to have with your social media marketing campaign?

Be as specific as possible. If you want to attract more customers, put a number on it. If you want to boost sales, also put a number on it. Maybe you just want to acquire emails to build a list of leads.

Establish clear and actionable goals directly related to your needs as a business.

4. Pair It With Email

Social media campaigns aren’t just about making Instagram posts. Start by sending an email to current subscribers to give them a heads-up about your social media campaign.

Then, make sure that your campaign gets you new email addresses. You’ll want to send follow-up emails after you obtain these to stay with these leads and turn them into recurring customers.

5. Write Relevant Content

The key to successful social media campaigns lies in the content. It’s important to generate fresh, intriguing, and useful copy for your customers.

Yes, customers will perk up when they see discounts or special offers. But don’t forget about the power of video, for example, or images of your current antique inventory.

A top-notch content strategy will keep your customers coming back for more and get more email addresses on your list.

Your Social Media Marketing Campaign

Social media is a powerful tool, and it’s important to leverage it as you’re establishing your customer base in the antique industry.

Make sure you do your research and identify your market before launching your social media marketing campaign. Have clear goals that go along with your strategy and always follow up marketing efforts with email.

Want to learn more about what inbound marketing can do for your antique business? Sign up for free advice today at Article City!