Monthly Archives: April 2024

Selling online – it’s the whole point! 

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If you aim to make money by online marketing – some would say that’s the whole reason for digital marketing – how can you increase your conversion rates among your audience? 

Up to now, most of the articles on Content Savants have addressed tactics to increasing followers and better engaging with audiences.  Once you have built a following and are now regularly engaging with your prospective customers, it is time to take a closer look at methods to increasing online conversion rates. 

Increase Conversion

Increasing conversion involves optimizing various aspects of your website and marketing strategies to encourage more visitors to take the desired action – signing up for a newsletter, buying your product or service, or joining your community – all of these demand a response from your audience.  The most basic way to attract your audience to your offer is to… 

  • Optimize Your Website Design and User Experience – As always, we like to begin with the basics.  Is your website is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and mobile-responsive?  A user-friendly interface can improve the overall shopping experience and encourage conversions.  Nonetheless, the greatest website in the world will do nothing unless there is a…
  • Clear Call-to-Action (CTA) – Beyond the mere basics of a good user experience (and it is amazing how many, even name-brand websites, totally fail at this basic step), let your call to action be easily understood.  At the start of the journey, set aside fancy wordings and attempted mind tricks.  If you build up the value of your offer well enough, you don’t need to be clever about it.  Are you giving your audience a fair deal or not?  Use prominent and compelling CTAs that guide visitors toward the desired action.  To be sure, the language you use is important to get right.  Use action-oriented language like “Buy Now,” “Add to Cart,” or “Get Started.”  These are quite straightforward and basic, and for a more sophisticated audience, subtlety would be appreciated, but no need to forego clarity for subtlety.  With all humility and reverence, kindly ask them to pay.  To further help them in the decisioning process, be sure to present…
  • High-Quality Product Images and Descriptions – Provide clear, high-resolution images of your products from various angles.  Generally, more pictures and graphics has two effects:  1) it gives your audience greater comfort and assurance of what they are going to get.  One picture is not enough to generate a lasting mental image.  Photos, videos, verbal descriptions… all of these play a crucial role in making your audience comfortable with a purchase.  2) while your readers are clicking through the photos and descriptions, they are convincing themselves that they want it.  The more engagement you give them in revealing your offer, the longer they have to talk themselves into a purchase.  The only way to benefit by not providing a broad range of descriptive content is if you have something to hide.  Show your prospective customers that you are not the phony website that is trying to sell them something worthless.  Show them how much value you have to offer, and give them the information they need to make themselves feel comfortable with it.  Therefore, you may…
  • Showcase Customer Reviews and Testimonials – Display genuine customer reviews and testimonials to build trust and credibility.  This is where active and genuine interaction with your audience is especially helpful.  If you can elicit their positive feedback through thoughtful communication, their response will come across with greater sincerity than any crafted advertisement could ever achieve.  For further encouragement of interest in your offer, you can…
  • Offer Limited-Time Promotions – Create a sense of urgency by offering time-limited promotions or discounts.  Scarcity can motivate visitors to take action quickly.  As always, don’t overdo it.  The world as a whole is becoming more skeptical, and for good reason.  Smart customers will see past it, but if you have something in limited supply or for a truly limited time, let it be known.  Promotion is one thing, but customers can be easily distracted, so it is best to…
  • Simplify the Checkout Process – Most of the check-out process will follow according to your payment service, but avoid offering too many options or adding on further clicks to the purchase.  Every additional click risks losing the customers time and interest.  Streamline the checkout process to minimize steps and make it as simple as possible. Allow guest checkout and offer at least three payment options.  Simplifying the process is essential, but closing a deal will require that your audience has confidence in your claims and your delivery of the expected quality.  You can enhance your customer’s confidence when you…
  • Send Trust Signals – Display trust badges, SSL certificates, and secure payment icons to reassure visitors about the safety of their personal and payment information.  Usually customers will not notice these individually (there are so many of them out there, who can keep track?), but having them there is at least a display of confidence.  One of the most effective ways you can engender trust is to…
  • Be Transparent About Shipping and Return Information – Use every opportunity you can to generate goodwill with your customers and portray your business as upright and honest.  Transparency of information, particularly around costs, is key to building trust.  Clearly communicate shipping costs, delivery times, and return policies. Transparency builds confidence in the buying process and creates a positive brand identity in the mind of your customers.  Nonetheless, as you identify some customers who back out of the purchasing process, you can…
  • Use Retargeting and Remarketing – Your buying process should have as few steps as possible, however some customers will back out along the way.  Capture this data to enable retargeting ads to reach visitors who have shown interest but didn’t complete the purchase.  Remind them of the product and encourage them to return.  Use split testing on your marketing to identify if there are problematic themes or otherwise messages that may be more effective to customers who are on the edge of their decisions.  This step is the beginning of analysis where you begin to categorize your audience and increase the sophistication of your marketing efforts, and is the basis for you to…
  • Segment Your Audience – Segment your audience based on their behavior and preferences. This allows you to tailor your marketing messages and offers to specific customer segments.  Segmentation is a topic in itself, and is the focus of entire volumes of marketing research, theories and ivory tower debate.  Set the deep thinking aside for a moment, and think about a few categories of customers that would be interested in your promotion.  How old are they?  What is their net worth?  Are they male or female (or otherwise)?  Here’s where you can take the progressive and idealistic notions of humans being the same, and delve into what makes us all unique, and how does that uniqueness affect our motivations to buy, and how can that uniqueness be leveraged to increase your sales?  You can effectively use segmentation to…
  • Personalize Your Recommendations – With some customer data in hand, you can use this understanding of your customer characteristics to provide personalized product recommendations based on a visitor’s browsing and purchase history.  What are they more likely to be interested in, based on their past behavior?  Finding the bullseye will take extensive study of data and numerous iterations, combined with a little wisdom from experience.  You can further hone your understanding of customer preferences and how to personalize your recommendations by directly engaging with your audience, where you…
  • Provide Live Chat Support – Offer real-time customer support through live chat. This can help address any last-minute concerns and provide assistance during the decision-making process.  Use this interactive process to understand what may be objections from your customers.  Can you shape your messaging around answering potential objections before they arise?  This knowledge will be key to developing an effective…
  • Email Marketing Campaign – A well-crafted email marketing strategy will further nurture leads, provide valuable information to your customers about your products and services, and guide potential customers back to your website.

Increasing online conversions is an ongoing process that requires constant monitoring and optimization. Regularly analyze your website analytics to identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement, and adapt your strategies accordingly. 

Finding Facebook Followers

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Increasing the number of followers on Facebook requires a combination of strategies that focus on engaging your target audience, providing valuable content, and promoting your page effectively.

How to build up your following on Facebook

Here are some effective steps to help you grow your Facebook followers:

Optimize Your Page – Start with the basics.  Did you complete all the necessary information in your Facebook page’s “About” section?  Consider this a free outline.  Use a clear profile picture and cover photo that represent your brand or message, and the image you want to convey.  Try to avoid leaving the same image year after year. 

Create High-Quality Content – Find a balance between creating good content and delaying the creation of any content.  In other words, don’t let perfection be the enemy of action.  The key here is to start out making your content accdording to the 3 C’s:  Clean, Clear and Concise.  Long verbose paragraphs about “considering this” or “remember to do that” tend to work well for clickbait articles, but do not sit well with readers who are genuinely trying to learn something about your topic.  Are you posting for clicks (there is nothing wrong with that), or are you posting to build a community? 

A well-written article – without mistakes or grammatical errors – is already “high quality”.  Over time you can further enhance the quality of your work by ensuring that there is a storyline in your prose and by improving your skills as a writer, or videographer, or graphics artist, depending on your platform of choice.  The most important step, however, is to take one.

Having said that, “remember that” sharing valuable, engaging, and relevant content that resonates with your target audience will be key to better engagement.  “Consider” inclusion of informative posts, entertaining videos, inspiring stories, and eye-catching visuals.

Post Consistently – This point cannot be emphasized enough, and beyond quality and depth of content, is the most important factor in gaining the attention of search engines and platform algorithms, which are ultimately the key to ensuring that that your content is made visible in the vast universe of the internet.  Maintain a regular posting schedule to keep your audience engaged and attract new followers. Consistency shows that your page is active, and that you regularly provide your audience with real value over time.  Your audience is always paying – hopefully they will pay you with money, but they always pay you with their time.  The better the content, the more you will earn.

Know Your Audience – Understand your target audience’s preferences, interests, and pain points. Tailor your content to address their needs and preferences.  Think in terms of solving problems.  Are you posting an article for the sake of clicks?  Is that the only problem you are trying to solve?  Think again.  What does your audience need?  What problem are you solving for them? 

Utilize Different Content Formats – With the basics of a consistent theme in place, venture beyond the standard format to experiment.  With the same “high quality” (3 C’s) approach, include images, videos, infographics, polls, live streams, and side stories. Diverse content keeps your audience engaged and interested.

Engage with Your Audience – Viewer comments are gold.  They indicate an advanced reaction, beyond the usual likes and emojis.  If someone takes the effort to write something, it means you have captured their attention.  Reward that attention by regularly responding to comments on your posts and engage in conversations.  When followers feel heard and valued, they are more likely to stay engaged and recommend your page to others.

Host Contests and Giveaways – Organize fun and creative contests or giveaways that require users to engage with your page. This can help increase visibility and attract new followers.  Keep it simple and informal.  Formal contests have rules and regulations attached to them.  False promises will give you many headaches in the future.  Future articles on this site will address giveaways and provide some guidelines.  The key to success is to engage your audience in a fun way, and if you are going to give something away for free, ensure the rules are clear and that there is only one winner. 

Promote User-Generated Content (UGC) – Encourage your existing followers to create content related to your brand and to tag your page.  Reposting UGC not only shows appreciation but also exposes your page to the creators’ followers.

Collaborate with Influencers – Partner with influencers or individuals in your industry who have a strong following.  While influencer endorsement can be expensive, it can also bring a significant boost to attention and notoriety. 

Run Facebook Ads – Invest in Facebook ads to target specific demographics that align with your target audience. Use engaging ad creatives and compelling copy to encourage users to follow your page.

Cross-Promote on Other Platforms – Promote your Facebook page on your other social media platforms, website, email signature, and any other communication channels you use.

Use Facebook Insights – Monitor Facebook Insights to understand which posts perform well and gain insights into your audience’s behavior. Adjust your content strategy based on these insights.

Join Relevant Groups – Participate in relevant Facebook groups to establish yourself as an authority and share valuable insights.  Postings to these forums can have an amazing impact on the number of followers and growth in connections because you are addressing an already-captive audience.  Follow the group’s rules and avoid spamming, because these will never engender respect.  Genuinely add value, and the payment (in their time and money) will follow. 

Share Behind-the-Scenes Content – Offer glimpses of your company culture, team members, and behind-the-scenes processes. This personal touch can humanize your brand and connect with your audience.

Promote Exclusive Offers – Offer exclusive discounts, promotions, or content to your Facebook followers. This incentive can encourage people to follow your page to access these benefits.

Keep doing these on a regular basis, and over time, your skill and efficiency will improve.  Growing your Facebook followers takes time, patience, and consistent effort. Focus on building genuine relationships with your audience, delivering value, and maintaining an engaging online presence. As you build trust and a strong community, your follower count is likely to increase naturally.

Extending reach and impressions in a social media campaign

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Extending your reach to maximize your audience is probably the most important focus area for your development as a social media promoter.  Pursuing a wider audience is the foundation of what it means to be an online marketer, and with a wider audience exposure, more people will see your brand, your engagement metrics will show results over time, and you will be able to sell your products and services to a larger and more diverse audience.

Core Strategies

This article addresses core strategies for extending your reach and how they can impact your online presence, including bringing growth to your customer base.  A larger reach means more potential customers, and draws new customers to your universe.  With a wider reach, you are more likely to see an increase in engagement metrics such as likes, comments, shares, and clicks. More people interacting with your content can lead to a more vibrant and active online community, thereby increasing your brand awareness among a larger audience.

The underlying and undeniable truth to all of this is, having a large audience also gives you greater credibility.  A brand that reaches a substantial number of people gives a sense of confidence among potential customers, and come across as authoritative. When others see that your content is being widely shared and engaged with, they’re more likely to view your brand as trustworthy and reputable.  At the same time, you also increase your chances of experiencing the ever-elusive viral post.  While a posting that goes viral is generally not something to plan for, for it to be in the frame of possibility, it helps to know your audience, have a strong message that hits a chord, and to have a large audience to begin with.  A viral posting for a small-time blogger is just another article for someone with a large and well-cultivated audience.

To achieve a successful extended reach in your social media promotional campaign, it’s important to develop engaging and shareable content, utilize appropriate hashtags and keywords, collaborate with influencers, run targeted advertisements, and actively engage with your audience across various platforms. Keep in mind that while extending your reach is important, maintaining the quality and authenticity of your content should always be a priority.

Action Items

With that as the basis, there are a few key actions items that must be on your activity list on a regular basis to achieve audience and engagement growth over time.

  • Use Relevant Hashtags – Research your market and commonly used hashtags.  This step could be rated as the easiest step with the largest benefit for the amount of time it takes to simply add some hashtags.  There will be other articles in the future on the effective use of hashtags.  Get the basics done first, by incorporating popular and relevant hashtags in your posts.  The benefit of this simple step is that hashtags will increase the discoverability of your content by making it visible to users who have similar and relevant interests. 
  • Collaborate with Influencers – As the next step in your development, and with a growing base of followers which would make you attractive to another early-stage social media promoter, find someone with a similar area of interest – not necessarily the same, but ideally someone whose products/services/blogging topics complement and are tangentially relevant to yours.  Partner with influencers in your industry who have a substantial following, and keep getting the word out about your online presence. 
  • Post Consistently – Maintaining a consistent posting schedule is absolutely critical, as a major metric of nearly all online algorithms is the frequency of posting, as an indicator of the quality and reliability of you and your organization as a source of good content.  Regular posts keep your audience engaged and increase the likelihood of your content being seen by a larger number of users.
  • Optimize Content for Each Platform – Customize your content for each social media platform. Tailor the format, visuals, and messaging to suit the preferences of the specific platform’s users.
  • Use Eye-Catching Visuals – Visual content tends to attract more attention. Use high-quality images, videos, and graphics to make your posts stand out in users’ feeds.
  • Leverage User-Generated Content (UGC) – Encourage your followers to create and share content related to your brand. Reposting UGC not only showcases user loyalty but also extends your content’s reach to the creator’s followers.
  • Engage with Your Audience – Respond to comments, messages, and mentions promptly. Engaging with your audience encourages more interactions and can lead to higher visibility through shares and word-of-mouth.
  • Run Paid Social Media Ads – Invest in paid advertising to reach a broader audience. Social media platforms offer targeting options to ensure your content reaches users who match your target demographics.
  • Host Contests and Giveaways – Organize contests or giveaways that require participants to engage with your content (like, share, comment). This not only boosts engagement but also exposes your campaign to new audiences as participants share with their followers.
  • Share Timely and Trending Content – Stay updated with current events, trends, and holidays. Creating content that’s relevant to trending topics can help your posts gain traction and visibility.  Craft content that is informative, entertaining, or emotional enough for users to want to share it with their networks.
  • Leverage Stories and Live Streaming – Stories and live streaming are temporary yet engaging formats. They can draw attention to your campaign by showing up prominently at the top of users’ feeds.
  • Cross-Promote on Multiple Platforms – Share your campaign content across multiple social media platforms. Tailor the content for each platform to suit its unique features.
  • Network and Engage with Peers – Engage with other brands, individuals, and organizations in your industry. Like and follow their posts, and make yourself part of that community, as a means of generating curiosity among other readers about your community. 
  • Monitor Analytics and Adjust – Regularly review your analytics to identify which types of content and strategies are driving the most reach and impressions.

Improving reach and impressions takes time and consistent effort, and without time and effort put into continuously refining your messaging, then you risk repeating the same mistakes time and again. 

Jot down a list of bullet points for each of the strategies described above, what you intend to do, and specifically, how this strategy applies to your promotional efforts.  While the volume of tasks would feel overwhelming at the start, picking them away one tick-box at a time will yield positive results over time.  The other good impact is that before long, these activities will become second-nature.  It will be a part of your basic skill set as a digital marketer. 

Skills Development

With the basic skill set in place, you will be able to create more sophisticated strategies to support higher-value outcomes.  As your reach grows, along with the number of potential leads and customers increases, you will also be able to manage your campaign to more effectively increase conversion rates.  Having more data on successful messaging enables you to expand the diversity of your audience, and hone messaging to attract more nuanced segments.  This level of detail and complexity will be a key factor in building a competitive advantage against others who, up to now, have more experience than you have. 

Extending your reach can give you an edge over competitors who might not be as proactive in engaging with a larger audience.  Ultimately, a consistent cadence in reaching your audience will build recognition, which will improve your branding, and ultimately customer loyalty and their online advocacy will grow.  When you reach this point, you now have an audience of followers who effectively engage in your marketing efforts on your behalf, and you don’t have to pay them anything to do that!

For now, start with the basics, and keep doing that consistently over time. 

Tracking Engagement – More than just likes!

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How well is your audience interacting with your content?  The answer to this question will separate the novice social media promoters with the pros.  The good news is, it doesn’t take 10,000 hours to become a pro in tracking your engagement.  Use social media engagement metrics to enable a deeper understanding of what motivates your audience, and to determine how well your campaign is resonating with high-value readers and listeners. 

Because there are so many engagement metrics to track, chances are that if you are a beginner to social media, with enough practice you will begin to see yourself as a winner in at least one of these metrics.  With one win at a time, especially in the early days, you can find further motivation to keep tracking and keep improving your scores over time. 

Here are some common engagement metrics with a description as to how you can benefit from them. 

Likes

  • The most basic of all, and the higher number the better
  • What They Indicate: Likes and reactions (such as “love,” “wow,” “sad,” etc.) indicates a positive (or negative) reaction.  More complex or sophisticated applications enable the audience to choose more than just a like, but also emojis for “love,” “wow,” and “sad” among others.  It is the easiest and most rudimentary way a viewer can react, so not having any “likes” is like putting your audience to sleep. 
  • What to Learn: Content with many likes and reactions lets you know which types of content get the most attention, and with that, you have a basis for replication of future content generation. 

Comments

  • A deeper form of engagement, where the audience is so strongly interested in your posting that they set themselves apart (to show that you have their attention?) by creating new original content in response to your new original content.
  • What They Indicate: Comments show that your posting sparked interest.  Even if you get trolls, you can have the satisfaction that someone bothered to post some nonsense, because they thought their own version of bad taste would be seen by others. 
  • What to Learn: Read the comments and comment back – that is the most effective way to show users that you care about them and want to learn from them.  With a deeper understanding of their sentiments made available through comments and feedback, you can use that to generate more meaningful content in the future, and in doing so, begin the virtuous cycle of interest among your readers, reflected by the interest you have shown them. 

Shares and Retweets

  • Shares and retweets are likes and comments, but turned up a notch.  Shares can amplify your reach and introduce your platform to new potential followers.
  • What They Indicate: More than just a comment, a share indicates that your audience is identifying themselves with you.  A share of a posting means you have become and identity-maker.  This step is a giant leap towards a full-on branding strategy.
  • What to Learn: As always, count the shares to see which comments resonate most you’re your audience.  Go a step further and analyze what type of messaging, visuals, or information prompted users to share.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

  • CTR measures the percentage of people who clicked on a link in your post.  Are you getting any genuine action from your audience?  What percentage of your audience is entering your universe?  
  • What It Indicates: CTR shows the effectiveness of your call-to-action.
  • What to Learn: A high CTR indicates that your content was compelling enough to drive traffic. Analyze the content and its placement to understand what encouraged users to click through. As with any indicator of success, adjust your content strategy based on these findings.

Engagement Rate

  • Engagement rate is a combination of likes, comments, shares, and clicks relative to your total number of followers.
  • What It Indicates: While it is one thing to have likes, if you are reaching the next level in your engagement effectiveness, you will come to learn that certain customers (or readers, or viewers) will be engaging with you more than once and in multiple ways.  This is your bullseye target audience.  All the lessons you aim to learn from simple metrics such as clicks and likes are now compounded in complexity and, along with that, potential benefits to your future promotional designs. 
  • What to Learn: Similar to the other metrics, you can compare the engagement rates of different posts to identify which types of content perform better. Beyond that, you can begin to piece together certain character traits of your audience.  “People who wrote these types of comments also had a higher CTR, therefore that is the kind of person I’m trying to appeal to.”  Write your own version of that sentence, but with specifics to show for it. 

Mentions and Tags

  • Being mentioned or tagged by users means they’re actively involving your brand in their conversations or content.
  • What They Indicate: This metric tracking indicates an advanced level of identity on the part of your audience, and may indicate that your audience as a whole is growing more sophisticated.  Your reach is now extending beyond simple impressions or single individuals, you are being remembered in other peoples’ conversations. 
  • What to Learn: Monitor mentions to identify opportunities for engagement. Respond to mentions promptly, whether they’re positive or negative, as de facto feedback on your brand, your product, your service and your message.  Target new groups that were not previously on your radar.  Learn from the type of people who mention your brand, and look out for potential surprises – audience types which resonate with your messaging, but you didn’t expect.  What is making them interested?  Acknowledging and engaging with user-generated content can build and foster a greater sense of community around your brand.

Follower Growth Rate

  • Follower growth rate measures how quickly your follower count is increasing.
  • What It Indicates:  a metric for more well-developed and mature campaigns, it is another dimension of likes (which could gradually increase over time) and the audience’s enthusiasm over your content (how many likes in a short period of time). 
  • What to Learn: If your campaign coincides with a significant increase in followers, analyze the content you posted during that period. Determine if there’s a correlation between the campaign content and the growth in followers, and if your determination is that there is a positive relationship, then push that theme like crazy.  At some point, you may experience the thrill of a single posting that, at least in a small way, has gone viral.  You may not be able to replicate this phenomenon on a weekly basis (but you can try), nonetheless, learn what you can and try to identify the ideas you conveyed which so well resonated with your audience. 

Time of Engagement

  • Analyze when your posts receive the most engagement by studying time-of-day and day-of-week patterns.
  • What It Indicates:  This is a tactic for the pros, but essential when your promotional efforts are building a large following.  At this stage in the game, you will be trying to improve your skills not by factors of 5 or 10, but by 10% or 20%.  When you have a large audience, a mere few percentage points can make a significant difference in the volume of revenue (and profit) that you take in from a single post. 
  • What to Learn: Let every word be leveraged to is max!  Optimize your posting schedule and tailor your content to be available when your audience is most open to your messaging.

By closely monitoring and analyzing these engagement metrics, you can gain valuable insights into what content resonates with your audience, which strategies are effective, and how to improve your future social media campaigns. Adjust your approach based on what you learn to continually refine and optimize your social media marketing efforts.