Digital Marketing and PR: Why They Should Always Influence Each Other

PR and digital marketing go together like peanut butter and jelly, like Oreos and milk, like chips and guacamole...oof, is it lunchtime yet? 

So if PR and digital marketing go together so well, why don’t more mission-based brands use these two very important branches of their brand advertising to influence one another?

Well, it can get a bit hard to coordinate if you have separate teams or external agency partners managing either. But we highly recommend putting in the effort to connect digital marketing and PR, because that’s when the magic happens. Here’s why. 

Digital Can Leverage Upcoming PR Events

Take, for example, your product’s upcoming appearance on Good Morning America, or your exhibition booth at Expo West or ShiftCon. When your digital team is dialed in to these events, they can pre-promote them via social ads, Google extensions and other paid media to increase viewership or foot traffic and increase awareness for your product and brand. 

Plus, social media targeting is so creepy that we can even target people who are located in a certain mile radius. This means that we can reach people in the building where Expo West is taking place, during the event, with ads telling them to visit you at your booth. Imagine an attendee taking a lunch break, hopping on Facebook for a moment, and seeing an ad that reminds them to visit your booth that afternoon for a free sample...Mind. Blown. 

After your press event is finished, your digital team can also capture keyword searches that come through for “[your awesome product] Expo West / Good Morning America” and the like. It’s also a good opportunity to raise ad budgets to capture this extra branded traffic that’s coming through. If your digital team isn’t dialed into these PR events, you’ll miss the valuable opportunity to amplify their impact.

PR Provides Content for Digital

One of our core beliefs here at MAKA Digital is that putting out new and notable paid media content every 6 to 8 weeks is the best way to engage prospective customers. And a fantastic form of notable content is press mentions and awards given to your brand. When your PR team bakes these highlights into the strategic marketing calendar and keeps your digital team in the loop, it provides a steady stream of valuable content to leverage in social ads and other paid media. When these prospective customers see that your brand has won a NEXTY award, and later been featured in Well+Good, it increases the credibility of your brand and the likelihood that they’ll purchase.

So if that’s the case, what’s the best way to leverage PR content in digital advertising?

If your brand does receive a shoutout in a publication like Well+Good, certainly post about it on social media, but don’t put money behind that post if you’re including a link to visit the article. This sends viewers away to an external site where you can’t cookie or retarget them. Instead, write a blog post about the press mention. Add the unique selling proposition of your brand and a link to shop your products to the post, and then promote that via social media. The post will highlight the press mention while providing the perfect landing page to engage new viewers, and you’ll be sending this valuable traffic to your own site where you can capture and continue to engage them.

The bottom line is this—if you use PR and digital marketing to influence each other, you’ll increase the impact of your press events and position your brand as someone winning frequent awards and mentions from leaders in the industry. Both are excellent ways to impress prospective consumers. Without this connection, you miss noteworthy opportunities to leverage the great things your brand is doing. 

Want more help with how to leverage PR in your digital marketing efforts, or want to talk other digital marketing strategies? Schedule a complimentary, sales-pitch-free, 30-minute strategy session with us:

Proving the Value of Digital Marketing to Your CFO and Executive Board

If you’re managing digital marketing for a mission-driven brand, you’re responsible for proving the value of that marketing to your CFO and board. You may also be responsible for adding and cutting line items in your P&L, especially as it relates to your digital agencies.

When times get tough, these agencies are often the first to go, and digital marketing gets placed under more scrutiny than ever. The board is suddenly questioning why money is still going to social media and Google ads when it could be going into Amazon or retail sell-through, which both show more direct ROI.

Here’s the good news: digital marketing is more than just social media and Google ads. When done right, it’s the foundation of successful brand growth, both online and offline. So if you find yourself having to prove the value of your digital channels, here’s how to do it.

Take a Portfolio Approach to Measuring Your Marketing Performance:

You have “bottom-of-funnel” channels like email that convert highly interested prospects today.  And you have “top-of-funnel” channels like Facebook ads that find your next highly interested prospect to convert down the road. Both are critical to building a healthy D2C channel for a brand, even if it looks like those top-of-funnel channels aren’t pulling their weight. They’re behind the scenes working toward overall strong profitability, and the blend of all channels together is what drives a positive net profit.

So how do you prove that all channels are valuable? By taking the portfolio approach.  You’re going to have some losers, you’re going to have some winners, and overall, the result is a growing investment portfolio.

To put this into action, work with the finance team to determine the ROAS that is break-even.  Factor in all costs – COGS, overhead, marketing budget.  In our experience it’s usually, not always, around the 300% ROAS mark for brands selling direct to consumers.

• Optimize your bottom of funnel channels to get at least a ROAS double your break-even

• Optimize your middle of funnel channels to get around your break-even ROAS

• Allow your top of funnel channels to get between a 50-100% ROAS (or better)

• Adjust how much of your overall budget you invest in each area of the funnel so your overall ROAS comes in where you need it to, which usually depends on whether your brand is a start-up or well-established brand.

For more on the strategy behind the portfolio approach, check out our blog post on a healthy marketing mix.

Use It as a Tool to Reach New, Engaged Consumers:

If you’re like many of our partners, one of your 2020 strategic goals is to reach and convert new demographics such as a new type of consumer or a younger age group. And digital is the first place to reach them, especially if you’re going after the young crowd. We can’t say enough how fantastic Facebook and Instagram are for reaching those in the 18 – 34 demographic, especially when you’re highlighting your brand values and stories in your ads.

When measuring the success of your ads and proving the worth of this tactic to your team, we recommend focusing on the share metric. Having a viewer share the post on their timeline or with a specific friend is the virtual equivalent to a someone going shopping with that friend and saying, “Hey, let’s try out this brand, I’ve heard a lot of good things about it.” There’s also data in our ads analytics to suggest that a social share is strongly correlated to more meaningful action down the road such as website visits and purchases. As a marketer, what more could you ask for?

Prove that Digital Supports Offline Channels Too:

Speaking of shopping—digital marketing drives retail sell-through. If you’re launching new products in Target, or just want to drive more purchases of existing SKUs, you can create social media ads that target (no pun intended) the people who live nearby and are already interested in your brand or market to increase those folks’ foot traffic into the store.

You can also entice these viewers by offering a digital or printable coupon that they can use in-store, or by partnering with coupon apps like Ibotta that offer money back on specific purchases. This is also a great tactic to use to support a brand refresh that you’re rolling out across retail partners, and it will give you trackable purchases that you can then bring back and present to your team.

There’s even some awesome software that allows you to target people who are currently located in specific locations, such as—you got it—currently shopping at Target.

Unlock Bottom-Line Revenue:

If you haven’t already completed a full SEO audit and regular SEO maintenance for your site, now’s the time to do so. SEO is a major key to long-term profitability and needs to be prioritized as such. If you’re not dominating page 1 for your vertical and working to build your site’s authority, you’re missing free traffic from Google. And what CFO doesn’t love to hear the word ‘free’?

Use It To Stabilize Your Brand When Shopping Behavior Shifts:

If there’s anything that the last few weeks have taught us, it’s that consumer shopping behavior can shift in an instant. A successful brand knows not to place all their revenue eggs into the retail basket, because the nature of retail can change so quickly—consumers could switch to staying indoors, as we’ve seen with the coronavirus, or your partnerships with those retailers could change or even end. What is more stable is your own website that your brand owns, and the D2C channels you manage. The brands who maintain strong revenue growth are those who invest in their SEO, email growth and audiences, because it keeps their eCommerce stable during times of uncertainty and makes up for times that retail is not strong. Plus, you own those audiences—you don’t on Amazon.

To boil it all down, digital marketing is the foundation of a successful brand who wants to grow for the long-term. It’s how you’ll reach and convert new demographics, support your retail growth, increase your profitability for the long-term, and stabilize your brand during times of uncertainty. And to prove these values to your brand, you just need the right approach to your goals and your data.

Want us to do an audit of your digital marketing or dive further into any of these strategies?  Schedule a complimentary, sales-pitch-free, 30-minute strategy session with us:

Leveraging Customer Retention to Support Your Brand During Uncertain Times

To say things are uncertain right now would be an understatement. More than anything, we hope you, your loved ones and your communities are staying safe and healthy.

While we don’t have a magic crystal ball to show the future (we wish we did), we can predict that consumers, now more than ever, will be leaning into their favorite products and brands, especially those where they feel a sense of community. With this in mind, customer acquisition can’t be your brand’s only bread and butter—if you’re not putting time and effort into customer retention, you’re leaving revenue on the table. 

We’re guessing you may have some extra time on your hands, and now is the perfect opportunity to buckle down on your customer retention strategies. Here are some ideas to get your wheels turning on how you can lead your current customers to buy again (and again). 

Immediately after their first purchase: 

Once the customer’s first purchase has arrived at their doorstep, send them an email with tips on how to begin using the product, how to care for the product, or other applicable advice. Aim to provide value here rather than sell—you’ll focus more on that soon. 

Once a week or two has passed (or however long it takes to “break in” the product) follow up with another email that asks how they’re liking their purchase. Offer them a customer service contact should they have any questions, and prompt them to share a review or follow you on social media. Then highlight other products from your inventory that may pair well with the product they’ve purchased (i.e: “You’re loving our pumpkin pie candle? Create the perfect ambience by adding our gingerbread candles.”) It’s a win-win-win--you’ve gained a review, follow, cross-sell, or ideally a combination of all three. 

When they’re ready to restock: 

If your product is restockable (such as food, personal care items, etc.) follow up with the consumer when they’ve likely run out. Catch their attention with something like “Uh-oh—have you run out of [awesome product]? Looks like it’s time to restock…” Here’s another opportunity to up-sell them on other products too. “You loved our chocolate smoothie mix, now try out our strawberry flavor…”

Now’s also a great time to advertise an auto-delivery service if one exists for your site. 

Bonus: If you sell items that are frequently gifted, such as champagne or jewelry, follow up with purchasers on a one-year cadence to remind them to buy the same gift again or a complimentary gift. It’s a smart way to reactivate those who shop yearly for an anniversary, birthday, etc. 

Any time after their first purchase: 

Here’s your moment to leverage those awesome recipe or content videos you’ve created. Plug these into YouTube and Facebook ads and target past purchasers. Focus more on value than on selling here, and excite your audience into buying your product again so they can try out all these ideas you’ve given them. 

If you have purchasers who buy the same product or type of product frequently, surprise them with an email promo code offering them a discount or a BOGO deal for the next time they buy. This also works to re-engage someone who used to purchase with you but hasn’t in a while. 

If you know your customers’ birthdays, send them an exclusive offer or promo code during the week of their birthday. 

Keeping frequent customers loyal: 

Once you’ve activated your current customers to purchase again and become stronger loyalists to your brand, it’s time to show them how much you appreciate them. Besides sending them birthday offers and surprise email promos for the items they love, another unique and memorable way to inspire loyalty is to give them a surprise gift with their next order. If you’re selling art supplies and a customer consistently stocks up on watercolor paint sets, place a new brush set into their shipment with a note thanking them for being a part of your brand family. A bonus benefit of a tactic like this is that a pleased customer is likely to post about the experience on social media, which will inspire other folks in your customer roster to purchase more frequently in hopes that they’ll get a surprise gift, too. This works especially well if you have a strong community centered around your brand—think merchandise for a sports team or band. 

And there you have it—put these strategies into place and you’ll have a retention journey that provides value to your consumer, encourages them to shop with you again and ultimately turns them into brand loyalists. (Psst: now is also a great time to ask them for a video testimonial that you can use in your acquisition funnel!) 

Show that you care for your buyer and recognize their unique needs, and you’ll create a strong community—something that’s needed now more than ever. 

With folks around the world staying indoors and choosing online shopping over brick-and-mortars, now is the time to double down on your digital marketing strategies. We’re seeing paid media stay strong with our clients, and are happy to talk more strategies to support your brand during these uncertain times. Schedule a complimentary, sales-pitch-free, 30-minute strategy session with us:

Were you banking on Expo West 2020?

Were you banking on #Expowest to be a key launchpad for your brand’s retail channel? 

We understand how important this tradeshow might have been for you. Though we can’t replicate the success you would have had at #expowest2020, we’d like to offer you a complimentary consultation so we can share what our clients are doing to blow results out of the water as far as driving sell-through at national and regional retailers like Whole Foods, Sprouts, CVS, Natural Grocers, etc.   This is a way we can help make the best of a terrible situation, so no sales pitch, no obnoxious follow ups, no strings attached.

The Necessity of Showing & Not Telling — Using Your Brand Values to Hook New Customers

We all remember our high school English teachers pressuring us to “show, don’t tell” in our essays and stories. But beyond English class, what does this actually mean, and how do you apply it to your brand?

Showing and not telling, for our purposes here, means that you’re demonstrating the story behind your products and the people who have created that product, and how this translates into benefits for the consumer. Rather than simply stating, “This product will give you healthier skin,” or “This product will help you reduce stress,” you’re showing them how it will provide these benefits by capitalizing on the human element of the brand.

For example, one of our favorite partner brands creates superfood snacks out of a plant called moringa, which offers a high dose of plant-based protein, iron, and other nutrients. When marketing these products to vegetarians and other plant-based folks, they often highlight the founder’s own awesome story: before founding the company, she worked as a Peace Corp volunteer in a small village in Niger, where her rice-heavy vegetarian diet left her feeling weak. The women in the village introduced her to moringa, and after adding it to her diet, her energy returned. Upon realizing the power of moringa, she began helping them sell the leaves, and her company was born with the mission to introduce the nutrition of moringa to consumers around the world while supporting women farmers in West Africa. Now foodies of all kinds can use it for plant-based energy in their own daily routines while knowing that their purchase helps global farming communities.

Pretty cool, right? Telling this story resonates with consumers so much more than saying, “this product is healthy and gives you more energy.”

And here’s why that’s so important. Consumers connect with brands that demonstrate strong values. Everyone and their mother is obsessed with Patagonia, and that’s due in no small part to their focus on environmental stewardship and care for their employees. Buyers want to see your brand as something more than just a commodity. They want to feel good about themselves when they purchase from you. Demonstrating your values, humanizing your brand—showing, and not telling—forges that connection.

“Alright,” you say. “My brand has a cool backstory, and we have strong values. How do we go about sharing them?”

This showing and not telling can be integrated into every stage of the customer journey, from the packaging of your product, to your website, to the emails and social media posts you share. One of my favorite examples of this is Nuttzo, a line of nut-based products that was born from a mother’s efforts to find healthier foods for her nutrient-deficient adopted sons (talk about tugging at the heartstrings).

And of course, because we’re a digital marketing agency, we’re all about those social media ads. When you use these ads as a space to tell a story about your brand, you’ll stand out from other ads clogging the newsfeed. Start by fitting storytelling into your ad copy (yes, this ad copy can be very long if it needs to be—just use paragraph breaks to break it up!) and your videos.

Want some proof that this works? Here are the social reactions to an ad for a partner company that highlights the story of two young skateboarders using this brand’s bandages to protect their scrapes.

This is for an ad selling bandages. Mind. Blown.

You can also apply this longer-form storytelling copy to your organic social posts and your emails, and it feeds into the trend of influencer marketing, which works so well because it shows the real (well, Instagram-real) people using and benefitting from your products on a daily basis. Again, it’s all about showcasing the human element behind your brand.

So nail down your brand values, the story of your brand, and the real people working behind the scenes or using your product on a daily basis. What are the good things that your brand puts into the world, and how do consumers benefit from using your products? Plug these elements into every area of your consumer touchpoint, and you’ll lay the foundation for a powerful brand that turns people into not only buyers, but also advocates.

Want us to do an audit of your marketing content?  Schedule a complimentary, sales-pitch-free, 30-minute strategy session with us:

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Is Your Digital Marketing Mix Healthy? Prove It.

We love last click attribution.  There, we said it. 

Last click attribution is the digital analytics practice of giving 100% revenue attribution to the last channel (SEO, Email, Google Ads, etc) a customer clicked on before purchasing. As you can imagine, your lower funnel channels get a ton of revenue credit like email and brand PPC, and your upper funnel channels get very little revenue credit, like Facebook ads and a big chunk of SEO.

We love last click attribution because… well, we’re masochists, I guess you’d say. We love putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations and seeing what we’re made of.  And last click attribution does exactly that.  “Ooooo, those Facebook ads got a measly .2 return on ad spend… so you lost 80 cents for every dollar?  Tell us more!” As we enthusiastically rub our hands together like we’re opening a beautifully wrapped gift. The masochists in us immediately start analyzing traffic quality, the landing page performance, and the audience-message resonance to see what can be finely tuned to get it from a 20% return to a 50% or 100% or more. Those are all fantastic tactical decisions we can make off last click attribution.

Hold one sec, though: What every digital marketer and executive absolutely should NOT do, based on last click attribution?  Make strategic decisions about your marketing mix.  Decisions like cutting a channel from your marketing mix, decisions about doubling down on a channel that seems to be working great, and decisions about the overall marketing spend and where to place it. But we keepers of the marketing budget go ahead and do it, don’t we? We can count on one hand the number of marketing leaders we’ve worked with who aren’t making this same mistake.

The Mistake Last Click Has Us Making

You see, you have channels that do a fantastic job of converting highly interested prospects TODAY.  And you have some channels that do a fantastic job of finding your next new highly interested prospect that ultimately converts down the road.  The former we call “bottom of funnel” channels, and the latter we call “top of funnel” channels.  Both are critical to building a healthy D2C channel for a brand.

Buuuut, so many brands get stuck only investing bottom of funnel channels because on a last-click basis, that’s what appears to be making all the profits.  If you’re always pushing your digital team to spend more in brand PPC, retargeting ads, or to send more emails, you might be in this boat.

The reality, though, is that these channels dry up if you don’t constantly fuel them with potential new prospects using top of funnel channels.  But on a last click basis, these top of funnel channels look like they are racking up marketing spend with very few dollars.  Here’s an example from a weekly scorecard of a client of ours and their last-click performance on Facebook Ads, a top of funnel channel for them:

Aaack! We’re losing $2 for every order we get! Last click attribution would guide us toward turning this channel off…

If we were to make decisions based on this snapshot alone, we would turn this channel off in a heartbeat!  But at what cost?   A deeper look shows us it’s actually fueling the overall marketing funnel, and building the brand.  When we look at things holistically, it’s a different story:

Facebook ads are behind the scenes working toward overall strong revenue and profitability performance. The blend of all channels working together is getting us a net profit of $2 for every order.

How to Make Better Strategic Decisions About Your Marketing Mix

So how do you do better? There are some incredible, but very expensive, tools out there that will give you proper multi-touch attribution and a holistic view of how your channels are doing.  These are fantastic for eCommerce companies doing $10+ million in annual revenue.

But the simpler solution?

Two things:

1. Every platform has a tracking pixel you can put on your order confirmation page.  Place it, and that platform will tell you how many conversions it assisted in driving, without regard for any other channel’s role in the consumer’s path to purchase.  If it doesn’t track revenue alongside the number of conversions, just multiply your AOV x Conversions to get the estimated revenue that channel is contributing.  Greater than your ad spend?  Great!  It’s an important and viable channel to keep and optimize.

2. Our recommendation: Take a portfolio approach to measuring your marketing performance.

Portfolio Approach

Think of your marketing channels like an investment portfolio.  You’re going to have some losers, you’re going to have some winners, and overall, the result is a growing investment portfolio.  With your marketing channels, you’re going to have some that look like they don’t perform on last-click, you’re going to have some that really perform well on last-click and overall the entire marketing mix is a healthy, profitable mix that grows your brand consistently and steadily.

What’s happening behind the scenes is that the bottom of funnel channels are raking in such a high ROAS that it’s giving ground cover to the top of funnel channels so the brand can keep investing in building the brand.  This doesn’t happen by accident. 

Actionable Steps to Take:

1. Work with the finance team to determine the ROAS that is break-even.  Factor in all costs – COGS, overhead, marketing budget.  In our experience it’s usually, not always, around the 300% ROAS mark for brands selling direct to consumers.

2. Optimize your bottom of funnel channels to get at least a ROAS double your break-even

3. Optimize your middle of funnel channels to get around your break-even ROAS

4. Allow your top of funnel channels to get between a 50-100% ROAS (or better)

5. Adjust how much of your overall budget you invest in each area of the funnel so your overall ROAS comes in where you need it to, which usually depends on whether your brand is a start-up or well-established brand.

Want to have us do an audit of your marketing mix?  Schedule a complimentary, sales-pitch-free, 30-minute strategy session with us:

How Does Digital Marketing Fit Into My 2020 Goals?

It’s been a big year. 

We say that every year, but this year seemed to have an extra punch of trials and accomplishments.

At this point, binge-watching Netflix in bed is about all we have energy left to do… And yet, January’s already on the horizon, dangling new promises and to-do lists. 

And we can bet that your company already has big forecasts and goals for 2020.

So how can you get a headstart on planning for those goals and still have time to settle into that restorative binge-watching?

By looking to see how digital marketing—whether that means SEO, SEM, paid social or a layered strategy—can propel your business towards your strategic goals. Take a look at some common eCommerce goals below and our recommendations on how digital marketing can help your company reach each one. 

I Want to Increase My Website Traffic

When increasing traffic to your website, you want to play both the short game and the long game. In other words, you want to pull the levers that will increase traffic now, and the levers that will keep those traffic numbers rising six and twelve months down the line. 

SEM and paid social are typically the biggest players in the short game. Identifying 3-5 of your primary customer avatars, and then reaching these avatars through interest-based targeting on social and keyword-based targeting on SEM is a great way to bring quality visitors to your site. Just make sure to hook them with the unique selling propositions of your product. Using social proof such as customer reviews and press quotes doesn’t hurt either. 

SEO is often considered the long game. Running an SEO audit on your site can help you identify both technical issues and content/keyword issues that are keeping your site from ranking higher on Google. Monitoring the keywords for which your site ranks also can help you identify new content areas to apply to your site and blog—for example, if you begin to see a spike in vegan searches related to your product, maybe it’s time to add more vegan recipes to your blog.

I Want to Increase My Social Media Following and Engagement

Every company wants to keep up with their competitors and increase that all-important social proof. But Facebook and Instagram are continually changing their algorithms to drop your organic reach. So how do you keep up? By humanizing your brand—viewers don’t want to see you posting product images all day, everyday. Highlight the employees of your company, your company’s mission or origin story, the stories of your customers, and the ways that your product can solve a customer’s pain points. Less is more, in this case. It’s better to post high-quality content less often than throwing up a quick image everyday just because you’re doin’ it for the ‘gram. Stay on top of relevant trending topics and consider enlisting similar brands for giveaways that can boost all of your follower counts.  

Psst, you’re in luck—we also have another blog post on the topic of increasing your social media followers. 

I Want to Launch A New Product 

A great way to build hype prior to a new product launch is to create a dedicated site landing page that teases the new product. Share enough to intrigue the viewer, and then ask them to submit their email address to be the first to shop. Direct your teaser posts, emails, and ads to this page, and you’ll build a pool of subscribers that you can hook by offering a special advance opportunity to buy the product. Make sure to let them know that this opportunity is limited, ideally to 24 hours or so. If they view the product but don’t buy, you can retarget them during the official launch, or offer them coupons later on. 

Also be sure to cross-sell the product to customers who have bought similar or complementary products. 

I Want to Increase My Presence In Retail Stores

Maybe you’re launching in a new retailer, or maybe you want to increase sales from an existing retailer partnership. Either way, social media ads are a great way to increase in-store sell-through. If you’re launching in Target, for example, you can create social media ads that target (no pun intended) the people who live nearby and are already interested in your brand or market. 

You can also entice these viewers by offering a printable coupon that they can use in-store, or by partnering with coupon apps like Ibotta that offer money back on specific purchases. 

If you really want to come across as a stalker, there’s some awesome software that allows you to target people who are currently located in specific locations, such as—you got it—currently shopping at Target. 

I Want to Increase My Revenue

Ah, the big one, and the one that ties into all these other points. Once you’ve increased your site traffic and social media following, and leveraged your new products and retail partnerships, revenue should come as a result. If you don’t have the above factors at play—or you just want to jump your revenue more—then the two biggest areas on which to focus are conversion rates and average order value. 

There’s a myriad of things that can impact and increase your conversion rates. It’s more important than ever to optimize your website for mobile traffic (especially your checkout process) and we recommend this as a first step if it’s not already checked off your list. 

Offering trust symbols such as customer reviews, money-back guarantees and extra payment options such as PayPal or Amazon Pay can also give customers the confidence to proceed with their purchase.

In regards to AOV, an excellent strategy to take for the new year is to upsell, cross-sell and bundle your products. Let’s say you sell candles, for example—as someone is proceeding to checkout with a cinnamon-apple candle, create a pop-up that entices them to buy a pumpkin pie candle as well. Or, remind them of that three-pack of cinnamon-apple candles that will last so much longer than just the one. 

Also consider creating packs of candles for different gifting purposes—such as a Mother’s Day gift bundle or a housewarming gift bundle. All of these tactics will encourage consumers to purchase more and will bump up your AOV, thus getting you more of that bottom-line revenue. *happy dance*   

Phew, there’s a lot to consider here. If you want to reach more than one of these goals (and we’re guessing you do) then this all might feel overwhelming. Just take a deep breath and take it one step at a time, and if it still feels like too much to handle, it may be time to partner with an agency to help you implement these objectives. If you’re curious to know more, reach out for a free consultation on whether digital marketing can fit into your business. In the meantime, enter your info below to receive our guide of 17+ actionable promotions you can implement to increase your brand’s revenue and profit margins (no discounts needed!).

The Hidden Value of Prospecting Audiences: Why Cold Advertising Improves the ROI of Your Retargeting

As an eCommerce brand, your digital marketing tactics likely include targeting to both hot audiences (those who have engaged with your brand in ways that make them likely to purchase—typically referred to as retargeting) and cold audiences (those who have never heard of your brand before but fit your ideal customer persona). 

A hot audience has presumably visited your website, is familiar with your brand, and interested in your product (or may have purchased from you before). Because of this, they should generate a strong return on investment (ROI). 

A cold audience, on the other hand, has to be nurtured carefully before they reach this stage. Unless there’s an external factor that makes them convert quickly (think a Black Friday sale) they’ll typically show a low ROI until they’re familiar with your brand. 

When comparing the ROI of cold and hot audiences (or when facing a budget crunch) clients sometimes ask us if we can turn off the cold audiences and focus all of the marketing budget into the hot audience to increase revenue. In some cases—such as when a budget is very small—this can be done, but in most cases we advise against it. Here’s why turning off your cold audiences is a bad idea: 

Digital marketing audiences work in a funnel system. Cold audiences, who are gaining brand awareness, exist at the top of the funnel. Those who have interacted with your brand’s social platforms or website but are still in the “consideration” phase fall below that. Then comes those who are ready to make their first purchase. They’re followed by those who are repeat purchasers and brand advocates (ready to shout your brand’s name from the rooftops, or maybe just tweet about it). Here’s a basic example of this kind of marketing funnel. Don’t judge, I’m not the designer on the team. 

If any of these sections are not nurtured, it will narrow the number of people who fall into the section directly below. Because the cold section is the largest, turning off or restricting your marketing here will choke the rest of the funnel. Without cold audiences, your advertising is speaking only to those who are already familiar with your brand. In the long-term this can prevent your consumer base from expanding and ultimately stunt your eCommerce growth. 

Although you may not see immediate ROI from cold audiences, they’re feeding the ROI that you do see from hot audiences. Like chocolate and peanut butter, they exist together in harmony. Turn cold audiences off, and you’ll see the effect all the way down the funnel. 

Instead, treat your cold audiences like they’re your new best friend. Show them videos of your product, customer reviews, awards you’ve won, and press you’ve received. Tell them why they should take the time to visit your website, follow you on social or sign up for your email. These tactics will help them stick and travel all the way down the marketing funnel.

Have more questions? Wondering how to convert your cold audiences to hot, or what to do with consumers who have already purchased? Book a free consultation with us today at hello@makadigital.com, or enter your info below to receive our guide of 17+ actionable promotions you can implement to increase your brand’s revenue and profit margins (no discounts needed!).

Is It Valuable to Pay for Likes and Followers on Social Media?

It’s a debate that looms larger than putting pineapple on pizza (well, okay, not really): Should my business pay to gain new likes on Facebook? To answer this question, we dug into the associated benefits and pitfalls and our clients’ historical performance. The answer is not black and white, but there were some compelling arguments for both sides. Read on below.

Benefits to paying for page likes include:

• More page likes means more social proof. People are more likely to find credibility in and interact with a company’s social page if they see a large number of followers.

• Paying for likes helps a company keep pace with the follower counts of competitor brands, which again can be beneficial for social proof. 

• Audience growth provides a larger targetable audience for both organic and promoted posts, and, with the right marketing mix, you can often drive other meaningful engagement from this audience.

Challenges with paying for page likes include:

• Page-like campaigns are often considered artificial audience growth, as opposed to letting visitors come to a Facebook page and like it naturally due to a genuine interest in the brand.

• The price of a page like can be unpredictable. In 2019 we’ve seen costs decrease as Facebook pushes advertisers to prioritize traffic and conversion campaigns and competition for page likes decreases as a result. Depending on your industry and the size of your brand, though, you may still pay as much as $0.50 - $1.00 per page like. 

• This is a very “top of the marketing funnel” activity. Page likers can become converting customers, but are only likely to do so when shown repeated promotional material, meaning you’ll have to spend more advertising dollars to generate further engagement.

So, to pay for the like or not to pay? 

We think page-like campaigns can be worthwhile for brands who are trying to increase their social proof and keep pace with competitors, especially if your brand is new or small. However, this comes with caveats:

• Page-like campaigns should be kept small and rarely, if ever, prioritized over other traffic and conversion campaigns that drive more direct consumer actions

• Page-like campaigns shouldn’t be used as a stand-in for organic social growth that comes from consistently posting quality content

• Page-like campaigns should be carefully targeted so that likers are a good fit for the brand (and more likely to engage later)

• Page likers should be nurtured with further promoted posts and engagement campaigns to pull them down the funnel and generate more interest with your brand

So how do you nurture those who like your page? Our recommended next step is to promote (boost) posts to this audience, especially posts that highlight your brand’s unique selling points. Getting page-likers to engage with your page via post likes, comments, shares and clicks means they’re then warm enough to target with traffic campaigns to drive them to your website, and ultimately funnel them into retargeting (conversion) campaigns. Not all page-likers will harbor enough interest in your product to convert, of course, but this is the best way we’ve found to move their relationship with your brand beyond that of a simple page like.  

Have more questions about how to create an effective marketing funnel via social campaigns? Want to get more conversions from your ads? Book a free consultation with us today by emailing hello@makadigital.com.

Increasing Clicks and CTR on Banner Ads Using Trust Symbols in Your Ad Creative

If you’ve run prospecting banner ads on Google Display Network or a similar network, you know they sometimes can feel like a shot in the dark. They don’t have the ad copy and social proof that accompanies social ads, nor the user intent of a keyword search that triggers a paid search ad. Even if you’ve got the audience targeting down pat (we recommend testing custom intent audiences) it can be hard to know for sure if your messaging is resonating with your audiences. 

So, knowing that your prospecting audience has likely never heard of your brand before, how do you fit everything you want to say in a banner ad?

The best place to start is highlighting the unique selling proposition (USP) of your product. And one easy and visually appealing way to do that is by featuring trust symbols in your ad. 

A trust symbol is just what it sounds like—something that increases your brand’s credibility and user trust. Think of the Better Business Bureau seal on a website, the “As Seen on TV” stamp on that funny product you picked up at the drugstore, or the “Voted Best Restaurant” sign in your favorite downtown Thai place.  

The best trust symbol for your ads is something that’s recognizable and important to your consumer. For a lifestyle brand, that may be a Benefit Corporation, Fair Trade or Women-Owned certification, or something similar that will entice socially conscious consumers to click. 

If you’re part of a partnership such as 1% For The Planet, including this logo on your ads is also a fantastic way to increase user trust. Including a 1% logo on banner ads for one of our clients increased the campaign’s click-through rates to 1%+ as opposed to the 0.20% - 0.40% we’d typically been seeing. 

If you don’t have any trust symbols to feature (yet!), another great tactic is to feature awards received, press mention quotes or customer reviews as the ad copy in your banner ad, which will also increase trust by showing that your product has loyal fans and pleased critics. 

These tactics will all go a long way to brag about your brand in a way that encourages viewers to take that coveted next step—clicking through and visiting your website. 

(While you’re at it, it’s great to feature all of these trust symbols on your website as well!)

So, when in doubt with your banner ads, test the placement of a trust symbol, from a certification to a customer review. It’s the quickest way we’ve seen recently to increase the click-through rate generated from a prospecting audience. 

Wondering what other creative best practices to follow or audiences to target with your banner ads? Book a free consultation with us today by emailing hello@makadigital.com.

7 Long-Term Strategies to Grow Your Social Media Follower Count

It’s top-of-mind for every DTC brand—how do we grow our social media presence to outpace competitors while still giving viewers an authentic brand picture that inspires them to purchase? It’s a big question, and if you’re expecting your brand’s social media to work hard for you, then you need to work hard on your strategy. Here are 7 actionable, long-term strategies to grow your social media follower count while maintaining an authentic brand voice (no spammy, free followers included).

1. Post high-quality and valuable content. Goes without saying, but you won’t get very many followers if every Instagram picture is just your product or offer with an aggressive appeal to buy, buy, buy. Take the time to post content that’s valuable for your followers, whether that’s recipes, tips, customer profiles, etc. Stasher Bags (yes, we do in fact name-drop our clients) is one great example of this. 

2. Focus on a few platforms and slowly expand out. It’s easy to run yourself ragged by posting on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, etc. multiple times a day… Focus on two or so that are the best match for your brand and core consumer, and move out once you’ve gotten a solid fanbase and posting strategy for these.

3. Post during the days and times that your viewers are most active. This depends on the platform you’re using and the demographics of your core audience. We’ve found Thursdays and Fridays to work well for most of our own clients. This article from Hootsuite goes into more detail on the best times for different platforms, and your Facebook and Instagram Analytics should provide more detail on your own profile trends. On Instagram, for example, if your post gets a lot of engagement in the first few hours of being posted, Instagram will typically favor it and expand its reach.

4. Use relevant hashtags. This is also especially relevant for Instagram. Take the time to research popular hashtags in your niche and apply them to your posts. Don’t spam with a bazillion hashtags, though, and don’t use non-relevant hashtags just to try to gain traction. Additionally, it’s good practice to choose a personalized hashtag for your brand (just make sure it’s not already being used or doesn’t have any negative connotations) and apply it to your posts, and after a while of posting with this hashtag you’ll build up a library of content, which is worthwhile for branding.

5. Provide incentives for following. If your company exists as a brick-and-mortar (such as a clothing brand) you can offer an one-time discount or reward in exchange for a follow on your platform of choice. You can also offer customers rewards or recognition for tagging your brand in their posts.

6. Consider a partner giveaway. If you’re friends with related brands or services, see if they’d be willing to partner in a social media giveaway. Viewers can enter the giveaway by following all of the participating brands, or commenting/tagging friends, etc. Just be sure to clarify that Instagram/Facebook, etc. is not affiliated with the giveaway (more rules here) and know that there can sometimes be a follower drop-off of people who follow you just for the giveaway and then unfollow you.

7. Take advantage of trends. Maybe you’re an organic food brand who can make a post relating to that ubiquitous Instagram egg. Maybe you’re a clothing brand who can demonstrate how to create a Halloween costume of Eleven from Stranger Things. Take advantage of trending topics, especially those that are relevant to your core audience. 

These are the best strategies, in our opinion, to connect to your social media audience and grow your followers sustainably. In order to convert these followers to purchasers, a fast next step is paid social ads, which, when paired with a strong organic strategy, can take your brand’s social media to the next level. That’s where we come in. *Drops confetti* If you have more questions, book a free consultation with us at hello@makadigital.com. We’re happy to chat through questions big and small.  

*This blog post was originally posted on Quora by MAKA Digital team members.

Should My Business Be on Pinterest?

Here’s How Your Brand Can Use Pinterest for Business in 2019

Your brand is on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. Your social and creative teams are already run ragged trying to create quality content for these platforms, not to mention for your own website and retailers. Should you really commit to another social media platform? 

The answer to this question is almost certainly yes. To be sure, though, we have a question for you. Who’s your core demographic?

If you answered with millennials, then we can confirm that you should, absolutely, be posting on Pinterest, as it reaches 42 million millennials, not to mention 46 million women ages 25 to 54. “But wait!” you say. “What if my core demographic is men?” It’s still a good idea to post on Pinterest, given that there was a 50% increase in men on the platform in 2018, according to Pinterest itself.

So let’s assume that you’re reasonably convinced and ready to dive into this platform. Where do you start? 

If you haven’t already, make sure your profile is fleshed out with information about your store or brand. Then, create boards highlighting topics your core consumer is likely to be interested in, such as meal prepping or fall fashion. Fill these with both your own pins and other related pins, so that you’re providing value to your viewers. Most people come to Pinterest to get ideas or use it as a search engine, so keep that in mind when creating and gathering content.

If you’re wondering what your own pins should look like, some best creative practices include featuring a person using the product, helping viewers picture the product in their own lives (i.e. showing it in context), or aligning with specific events such as Halloween. It’s usually best to include your logo in the pin and the brand name in the first few words of the description. Pinterest has some great tutorial videos that go more into depth on this topic.

If you want a dose of creative inspiration, Pinterest has a great studio gallery of example pins.

Next, use hashtags in your pin descriptions to help people better find your pins—as with most instances of hashtags, though, less is more. Keep it to just a few.

Applying for rich pins is another step you can take to give your pin more real estate by attaching recipe or product details to your pin.

With quality content your audience should grow, and with this, constantly test your pins—colors, fonts, content type, etc—to see what drives the best engagement.

At this point, if you have a few dollars to put into Pinterest marketing, and you’ve learned what delivers the best results, it would be smart to begin promoting your Pins. Budgets on promoted pins are customizable, and will allow your pins to reach a higher volume of people in the places they’re most likely to click, such as within interest and keyword targeting that matches your niche.

Bonus: Do you advertise on Amazon or Google Ads? You can use keyword insights from both to influence the keywords you target with your promoted Pinterest pins.

In sum:

1. Provide value to your audience through relevant boards

2. Test, test, and again test your own pin content

3. If budget allows, promoted pins will increase audience reach

Hey, that’s a lot easier than you thought, isn’t it? *Sigh of relief*

If you still have questions, want to know more about promoting your pins, or are feeling overwhelmed by your entire paid social strategy,  book a free consultation with us at hello@makadigital.com. We’re happy to chat through questions big and small.  

*This blog post was originally posted on Quora by MAKA Digital team members.

Why Does Facebook Consider My Ad Political?

In the wake of user privacy concerns and the discovery of Russian-linked campaigns spreading misinformation, Facebook has been under pressure to tighten advertising capabilities and screen those who advertise. At first glance that sounds reasonable enough, right? Well… this is where it gets tricky. Facebook has taken a very, very broad view of what it deems political, creating an umbrella category for all “issues of national importance.” This can include things as vague as “education,” “health,” “environment,” and “values.” (We can’t make this stuff up. See more here.)

This directly affects many of our clients who are Benefit Corporations or in the sustainability space, and it may affect you too, if your ads ever include things like vitamins for kids, the plastic-free movement, or Earth Day. 

Once you’ve picked your jaw back up off the floor, you might be wondering, “What happens if Facebook deems one of my ads political?” 

Below we’ve laid out the steps you’ll need to take and factors to consider if Facebook flags your ads.

• To run political ads at least one member of your team needs to become “politically authorized”. With this process Facebook essentially wants to verify your identity, and will ask for your ID or social security number and home address to do so. (Way to fight privacy concerns by taking more of our data, Facebook). 

  • To become authorized, you’ll need to be a Page Admin and have two-factor verification set up on your account.

  • It’s also worth noting that unauthorized members of your team cannot build political ads or even make edits to them after they’ve been created. 

• Once you’ve become authorized, you’ll need to link that authorization to your ad account by going to Settings > Authorizations > Link Your Ad Accounts. 

  • More information on this entire process can be found here.

• Now you’re ready to run political ads. When you build a new campaign, you’ll see a new box at the ad level that asks you to check a box if you believe your ad is political. If you check this, a “Paid for by [your brand name]” tagline will appear at the bottom of your ad, even on placements like Instagram Stories. 

• You can either add this political disclaimer during the creation of the ad, or publish without and let Facebook make the determination in the review queue. If they do deem it political, the ad will be disapproved with a message saying, “We’ve determined that this ad needs your political disclaimer to run.” The disclaimer will need to be added and the ad run through review again.

• Political ads often take longer (occasionally as long as 48 hours) to go through Facebook’s review.

• A limitation to political ads is not being able to apply automated rules for bids, and not being able to run them in certain placements like Audience Network, Messenger, and WhatsApp. Otherwise, we haven’t seen any delivery changes with political ads.

So, now you’re prepped and ready to enter the world of Facebook political ads. Our last piece of advice is to do so with a glass (or three) of wine in hand. Oh, and spy on your competitors using this handy Political Ad Library, which catalogs all active (and some inactive) political ads.

Have more questions? Book a free consultation with us today & let’s strategize on how your brand can navigate the minefield that is Facebook and its ever-changing rules and algorithms.  hello@makadigital.com 

Redesigning or Moving Your Site? What to Know Now So You Don't Do Brand Damage

What does a redesign or replatform (i.e. moving your site from one web platform to another) have to do with damaging your brand? After all, brands undertake these sorts of things so they can grow their brands long-term, right? Yes! They are wonderful for your brand long-term. It’s a chance to refresh your brand image, take advantage of new functionality, enrich the user experience, be mobile-first, add tools to support store traffic for your retailers, and grow long-term revenue.

Except, these things also affect your brands’s organic search (SEO) rankings and if you’re not very careful and work SEO into your project roadmap, you can tank your rankings. And if you’re not on page 1, your competitors will be there scooping up all that market share till you pop back to your rightful place, dominating that search results page.

So, what do you need to know now in order to protect your market share?

Ideally, you’ve planned for the budget to bring on an SEO expert that navigates you and your development team through these choppy waters. But if you don’t have the budget or the project is already underway, begin now with this step by step process.

1. Review & Give Feedback Early. Before your team begins building or redesigning pages, they should create what’s called a wireframe. Wireframes are layouts of each of the key pages on your site - essentially the template that will then create your site. Review the wireframes for the homepage, your category page, your product page, and your content page. In these wireframes you want to ensure you have breadcrumb navigation, content blocks for well-SEO’d and keyword-text, slots for product reviews, a navigation structure that is text-based and hierarchical. Now is your best chance to work these key SEO elements into your updated site. Speak up and push hard at this stage.

2. Audit Your Content. Sit with your content teams and decide which content is making the cut to the new version of the site, and which you are ditching. Consult your analytics to ensure any content that drives SEO traffic (and of course revenue) does not get cut.

3. Redirect Users. Plan out your URL redirects. This item alone can tank your results. For any pages that aren’t making it to the new version of the site, you will need to 301 redirect those old URLs to the new next-most-relevant deep page on your site. This will also keep return visitors on your site that bookmarked old URLs, are coming from old email marketing campaigns, or are following links from blogs, press, affiliates, etc. Do not simply redirect all the old URLs to your homepage. If you do this, your deeper pages will lose Page Authority and will drop in the rankings. Take the time to map out your redirects carefully.

4. Test. Once your site is in a staging environment for you to begin playing with, make sure all the feedback from step 1 is incorporated into this version. You will also want to make sure all your well-SEO’d page titles, meta descriptions and on-page text made it over to the new version of your site. If they didn’t, get those in place now. Finally, test your robots.txt file and work with your developer to make sure what goes live is exactly what you want to go live. It’s rare, but on occasion I’ve seen sites push live a version of their robots.txt file that disallows the entire site, meaning you’re now telling Google to ignore your site. Your competitors will looooove that!

5. Go live. Once your updated site goes live, take a moment to celebrate! And then test, QA, watch the data, and plan to be submitting updates and fixes to your developers. Launch day, the day after, and the following 30 days are a key time to stay on top of your SEO rankings, triage and fix whatever issues cause rankings to drop, and make sure it’s converting all that great SEO traffic you should be getting.

There are so many nuances in these 5 steps. To help you navigate the waters, download our free Replatforming/Redesigning SEO Checklist.

Download the Checklist Now

SEO checklist form

Why Bid on Your Brand's Name with Paid Search Ads if You Rank Organically?

Maybe your brand has been testing paid search ads on Google for years, or maybe you’ve just started to dip your toes into this world. Either way, when bidding on keywords, companies often divide campaigns between branded and non-branded keywords. Any keyword that includes your brand’s name is considered branded, and anything that doesn’t is non-branded (think “Patagonia” vs. “women’s jackets.”)

When setting up brand campaigns, a common question we receive from our clients is, “Why do I need to bid on my own brand’s name if I already rank #1 for that keyword with my organic (free) Google listing?” 

Here are the reasons why paid search ads for your brand name are not a waste of money and can even pay off, big time. 

1. If your brand’s products are also sold via Amazon or any other big-name retailer/marketplace, and you don’t run brand ads, that retailer is likely to take that paid space (for your product) and show above your organic listing. So, running ads for your brand allows you to compete against these other retailers.

2. If you have any major competitors, it’s likely that they’ll bid on your brand terms, and show ads in that space (again, over your organic listing). That could reroute clicks from your website to theirs.

3. Similarly, if there’s any brands that have the same or a very similar brand name as yours, they may show paid ads for your name, or compete for that first organic listing.

4. Running brand ads allows you to capture any misspellings or variations of your brand name that happen. If you were running ads for Patagonia, for example, you could use brand ads to more easily capture “Patagon,” “Pategonya” (seems silly but search terms can get pretty wild), “Patagonia sale,” “Patagonia near me,” etc.

5. Brand ads typically have high return on investment, as cost-per-click here tends to be low, and the people who click are “warm” viewers already familiar with your brand and ready to buy. There’s a lot more purchase intent behind the search term “Patagonia women’s insulated black jacket” than there is behind “women’s jackets.”

6. With brand ads, you can tailor your text in a way you sometimes cannot with organic listings. For example, you can target customized ad copy to someone who searches “Patagonia sale” or “Patagonia woman’s coat.” There’s the ability to very closely match search terms with ad copy and increase the chance that someone will click.

7. Brand ads often take up more “real estate” on the Google page than organic ads. If you add sitelinks, price extensions, and all that Google has to offer, your ad can be quite big, again increasing the chance someone will click. But be careful—your ads may be opted into automated extensions, which allows Google to create dynamic extensions using text from your website, even if you haven’t vetted it. It’s usually better to turn off the automation and create them manually, and that’s what we’re here for. 

Want to learn more? Book a free consultation with us today at hello@makadigital.com, or enter your info below to receive our FREE guide of 17+ actionable promotions you can implement to increase your brand’s revenue and profit margins (no discounts needed!).

*This blog post was originally posted on Quora by MAKA Digital team members.

Do I Need to Do Digital Marketing If I Sell Primarily Through Retailers, Amazon and Marketplaces? (Part 3)

Part 3 - Activate Your Consumer

In part 1, we shared why a brand that sells primarily through retail, Amazon and/or marketplaces would want to do digital marketing.  And that reason is to own the customer relationship that will ultimately fuel future brand growth.

In part 2, we shared a key element of the digital marketing mix to build the base of those customers that will ultimately drive your future growth:  search marketing. By dominating the Google search page just as you would dominate the retail shelf space to win, you should aim to grow your web traffic so that as much as 50% is coming from search (both organic and paid search).

In this final part, we’re going to share with you how to actually build that customer relationship once your prospective consumer has found you through search, what to talk about when you have nothing to say, and creative ways to reach that customer where they are to activate them.

So you’re getting an influx of traffic from search and you’re happy with how you’re showing up for your prospective consumer.  Don’t stop there. Once that traffic lands on your site, the worst thing you can do is end the communication chain there and leave it to chance that they will come find you through your resellers.  The simplest way to ensure you stay in contact with consumers is to invite them to join your email list. It’s not enough to have a pop-up on your site with an opt-in box. Give customers something of extreme value for opting into your list. Some ideas:

• A manufacturer’s coupon to redeem in-store

• A free cookbook (as an ebook) if you’re a food brand

• Exclusive access to an event

• Early access to a limited edition product or sale event

• Free swag

• Entry into a giveaway package with like-minded brands you partner with

That’s great, but you may be asking yourself what communications do you send when you don’t have anything significant to say?  Some of our most successful clients augment their communications with customer testimonials, press mentions, creative ways to use their product, and of course product launches, store launches, and sales events.

The real value of your customer email list

Now that you have an audience base that you’ve converted into prospective consumers you can build a relationship with via email, the real magic begins.  The two hidden gems of having an email list:

1. Your sales team now has a secret weapon to talk about in pitch meetings with important retailers.  When they’re trying to get that sell-in, it’s powerful to be able to say, “we’ve got a database of 7,000 consumers that we own in this region we can announce our partnership to on launch day to help drive sell-through.”

2. That email list can be uploaded to Facebook and Google to intelligently find more consumers like those in your database.  Within a matter of minutes, you’ve now opened yourself up to a highly qualified audience of potential buyers. And as your email list continues to grow, the audience matching grows and becomes more intelligent, performing even better over time.  

We love number two because this isn’t a tactic many lifestyle or CPG brands are savvy to, meaning we can find very qualified customers for dirt cheap.  Want to talk? Book a free consultation with us today & let’s strategize on how your brand can be best positioned for stronger growth. hello@makadigital.com 

Do I Need to Do Digital Marketing If I Sell Primarily Through Retailers, Amazon and Marketplaces? (Part 2)

Part 2: Dominate the shelf space

Now in part 1 we talked about the reasons why it’s important to own a relationship with your end-consumer directly.  Quite simply, it fuels your future growth in a way you have direct control over. It doesn’t leave your future success to chance and it doesn’t put you at the mercy of your retailers, Amazon or marketplaces to do your brand justice.

In this second part, we’re going to share with you a key element of your marketing mix that will help you own those customer relationships more directly.

In an interview Nestle Waters’ CMO Antonio Sciuto did with Google, he said this about their digital marketing approach:

“We need to think about search with the same obsession that we think about our store shelving.  It’s exactly the same.”

Now I’m not sure about you, but I don’t think innovation when I think about Nestle Waters.  But here we are. This quote rings true more so now than it did in 2017.  Just as a brand wins at retail by dominating the store shelf space, brands need to win online by dominating the search results page - it’s exactly the same.

Now over our years of experience building lifestyle brands through digital, one thing has stayed true:  the sheer amount of traffic search marketing can drive cannot be ignored. Search drives, on average, 50% of a website’s traffic.

So in order to successfully own the relationship with your end-consumers directly, you need to make sure they can find you in the first place.  It’s not enough to rank #1 organically. It’s also not enough to hold the top spot in the ad space. Those are great starting points and if you’re not doing search as part of your mix currently, definitely start there. But don’t end there. Dominate that search page with your video content, your blog, your social properties, your influencers and affiliates, rich snippets, and answer box optimization.  You win, your retailers win, and your marketplaces win because you’ve pushed competitors to page 2… and nobody visits page 2.

Once you’ve acquired this traffic, you need to take it a step further to truly own the customer relationship.  In the last part of our 3-part series, we’ll discuss how to build the customer relationship, what to talk about when you don’t have anything to say, and how to reach consumers where they are.

Stay tuned for the epic conclusion, and in the meantime, enter your info below to receive our FREE guide of 17+ actionable promotions you can implement to increase your brand’s revenue and profit margins (no discounts needed!).

Do I Need to Do Digital Marketing If I Sell Primarily Through Retailers, Amazon and Marketplaces? (Part 1)

Yes.  Why?

1. You’re only going to grow going forward.  New products which means new product launches, new markets, new retailers.  You need to own a relationship with your end-customer directly so you’re not at the mercy of your resellers to do proper marketing for you.

2. Manage your reputation, push competitors down the search page, dominate the “shelf space”

3. Activate your consumer to take action.  And get the benefit of the hidden gems in owning customer relationships - and it’s very likely your competitor isn’t thinking of these.

Fueling Future Growth

You need to own some aspect of a customer relationship in order to fuel your future growth in today’s DTC landscape.  It’s more than fine to sell primarily through retailers, Amazon and marketplaces, but when you do so, you don’t own a relationship with your end-consumers directly.  They do. This means you don’t have a built-in audience with which you can launch future products, future product extensions, new regions and retailers, and new brands even, if those are in your future growth plans.

Do you want to be at the mercy of Amazon, retailers and marketplaces to do you justice with your next big launch?  We certainly don’t allow our clients to and you shouldn’t either.  

In part 2, we’ll discuss a key element of your digital marketing mix to help you build customer relationships you own directly. Stay tuned, and in the meantime, enter your info below to receive our FREE guide of 17+ actionable promotions you can implement to increase your brand’s revenue and profit margins (no discounts needed!).

What Should My eCommerce Conversion Rates Be?

If you’re a part of a DTC or lifestyle brand (or any business, for that matter!) you have a lot on your plate. You’re trying to outpace your competitors and grow brand awareness while ultimately bringing in more bottom-line revenue to please your CEO and executive board.

Let’s say your brand awareness is growing and you’re driving strong ROI. But all that said, what should your eCommerce conversion rates be? How do you measure whether that awareness and spend is paying off? 

The short answer is this: a strong eCommerce conversion rate (if you’re looking for purchases, not leads or sign-ups) is typically estimated to be about 1.5%, with mobile at 1% and desktop between 1.5% to 2%. This depends largely, though, on the price of your product, stage of brand growth, and quantity of online and offline retailers.

What about paid media conversion rates? We’ve laid out more info below on conversion rates for the two most common types of paid media—paid search and paid social.

Paid Search Conversion Rates

The conversion rate you’ll see for paid search also depends on different factors, like the niche and maturity of your brand and competition in the PPC ad space. For our eCommerce clients, we typically aim for different conversion rates depending on the type of PPC campaign.

“Branded” campaigns, or those focused on keywords that contain the brand name (ex: Patagonia women’s winter jacket), garner the highest conversion rate since these searchers are already familiar with the brand and ready to purchase. This is variable, but conversion rates around 3% - 5% are what we aim for here.

Campaigns that are focused on general or competitive terms (ex: women’s jackets) tend to have a much lower conversion rate, as searchers here are often just researching and not ready to make a purchase, or may ultimately purchase from a competitor. Conversion rates here often fall in the range of 0.5% to 1% for our clients.

Shopping ads also tend to be very competitive, and often include big players like Amazon and Target, and show a lower conversion rate similar to general keywords.

If your brand is influenced by seasonality (ex: you sell swimming suits), there also will be peaks and valleys in conversion rates depending on the season.

Paid Social Conversion Rates

Similar to paid search, we separate paid social (defined here as any ad or post with money behind it) into audiences who are familiar with the brand and those who are not: simply defined, retargeting and prospecting. 

Retargeting audiences, who have already engaged with your brand in some way, drive the highest conversion rates. Here we typically aim for a threshold of 2-4% (when based off those who have clicked an ad) though we’ve seen it jump to 20% or higher when advertising a promotion or offering a special incentive of some kind. 

Because prospecting audiences have never heard of your brand before, it’s difficult to convince them to convert with a social ad. For this reason we almost always use brand awareness or traffic objectives on our prospecting campaigns, but if we do have an activation event or a highly-qualified audience we’re pushing to purchase, we aim for a conversion rate in the 1% ballpark (and utilize different attribution models!). 

To beat a dead horse: these are the conversion rate trends we’ve seen during our 30+ years of combined experience, but averages will always differ depending on your product’s pricepoint, brand maturity, competition and more. Our best advice is to test, test, test, and you’ll begin to get a feel for your averages after a while of building data from your campaigns.

One last note here: if your overall conversion rates are continually less than 0.5% despite paid media efforts, and macro-level trends that affect your business are also on the decline, it may be a sign that you need to pause paid media and focus instead on conversion rate optimizations and search engine optimizations. Check out our blog post on deciding when to put a hold on paid media. 

Want us to do an audit of your marketing mix?  Schedule a complimentary, sales-pitch-free, 30-minute strategy session with us:

*This blog post was originally posted on Quora by MAKA Digital team members.

When to Put a Hold on Paid Media

Paid media – PPC, Paid Social and Display, specifically – is one of our core services.  Along with SEO, these channels are what we do day-in and day-out for the world’s best lifestyle brands.  It’s what we’ve done collectively for over 30+ years.  And through those years, we’ve rarely seen a time and a place where Paid Media doesn’t make sense in a media mix.  But once in awhile there is.  If any of the following are happening to your website, you may want to rethink Paid Media in your current mix:

• Your conversion rates are less than .5% and you can’t quickly prioritize Conversion Rate Optimization

• Designing custom landing pages for paid media traffic is quite expensive for you (expensive, not just inconvenient)

• The macro-level trends that affect your business are on the decline

In these cases, paid media dollars can be a lost cause.  The reason is either you can’t convert that traffic into customers to get an ROI or no reasonable level of paid media will reverse traffic declines at the macro level.  So, what do you do in these cases?

Search Engine Optimization

Use this time to double-down on SEO.  If macro level trends that affect your business are on the decline, now is the time to pivot with new content optimized for more viable keyword markets.  Create new content, optimize and amplify that content to help improve in rankings, and began to rebuild.  Now is also a great time to have a soup-to-nuts SEO audit done on your site to ensure no technical issues are impacting your traffic now or in the future.

And more SEO traffic means better bottom-line profitability that you can then use to reinvest back into your .com revenue with paid media.  It’s not that you’re giving up on paid media all together, it’s just a matter of prioritizing and resetting.

Conversion Rate Optimization

If conversion rates are your problem, do the housekeeping on your website to get customers from one step to the next all the way down the path to purchase.  Start with your homepage for the biggest impact – is your most important message above the fold?  Do you have clear and prominent calls to action?  Are your products showcased and put into context for visitors that don’t already know who you are?  Don’t stop there.  Evaluate your category pages, your product pages, your cart page and your checkout page.  We’re big fans of Hotjar to get some first-hand views into what areas of the site users are getting stuck on. 

And when the time is right, you fire that paid media back up and go after that much improved ROI.  Need help prioritizing your media mix?  We’re here for you:  hello@makadigital.com