Skip links

Performancing

Main navigation

Advertising

How to Combine Real-World and Social Media Marketing

by

Believe it or not, real-world, in-person marketing, which may include booths, physical advertising (as in signs or banners), or demonstrations make it easy to tie in social media marketing efforts. By making your social media presence known to potential customers at your in-person event, it is possible to get a more involved online community that will carry on past any marketing events a company may hold.

Giveaways and Perks

During South by Southwest Interactive 2012, American Express had a booth that gave perks to attendees who connected their Twitter account with their American Express account. Those who did received perks, such as statement credits or t-shirts. The booth was constantly full of people waiting for their perk. Other booths at the popular annual conference held in Austin, TX included tweeting about a company or mentioning their custom South by Southwest Interactive hashtag. Attendees has no problem tweeting to receive a free t-shirt or other types of perks.

Signing up for Updates

Promoting your digital newsletter by having a sign-up sheet at your promotional event is a surprising way to get more mailing list subscribers relatively easily. Explaining the benefits of getting on the mailing list, such as coupons, exclusive events, or news updates can provide customers an incentive to write down their contact information.

Put the Information Out There

Sometimes companies may be surprised as how many customers just like their company page or follow them on Twitter just because the information is given to them. Put social media profile URLs on all marketing materials and correspondence, including flyers, brochures, business cards, banners, and even packaging. If a customer genuinely likes a product and wants to learn more about them, they are more likely to connect with them via social media. It may seem too good to be true, but just putting it out there can make a company more successful with their online social media marketing.

Stay Creative

Instead of badgering customers to sign-up for a newsletter, follow a company on Twitter, and like their page on Facebook over and over, think of a way to make it more creative. Give users reasons WHY they should complete an action. Skype at South by Southwest Interactive had another good example of this. When attendees tweeted about the conference and mentioned Skype with a special hashtag, a “Town Crier”, dressed up in American Colonial garb of a traditional town crier, read the tweets out loud in a Colonial accent of an iPad covered up by a leather book cover. The town crier generated a crowd and was a great way to get attention online and in person.

 

Thinking outside the box with clever, seamless offline and online promotions, along with a great overall design, can help a business stay connected with current and potential customers, no matter the event or time of year.

Why You Should Use Performance Marketing

by

The Marketing Metrics Continuum provides a fra...

You’ve got a business, you want to increase your sales (duh!) and you want a larger Internet presence and market share. In the old days, you know, circa 1992, you could put an ad in the local paper, you could run an ad on television (1 minute  = $$$) or you could try radio (1 minute spot = $+ a half $). As for marketing, you could slap your logo on a hat, pen, refrigerator magnet, tote bag (think PBS’ annual telethon), and then go to conventions and trade shows to give them all away.

Several of these methods still work. Television works, but it’s even more expensive now than it was back then. Same with radio. You can advertise in the local paper, but in all likelihood, the only person who will see it is your grandmother, and unless she’s your target demographic, kiss your ROI goodbye. [Read more…] about Why You Should Use Performance Marketing

How to Promote Events via Facebook

by

Facebook event marketing balloons

Facebook can be a great place to promote upcoming events, whether they are sales, concerts, meetings, conferences, or other meetings. They can receive a lot of exposure quickly, especially because events are easy to share on users’ Facebook profiles, and they can also RSVP and invite their friends.

Beyond creating an event on a business or organization’s Facebook page, there are other elements where an event can be promoting thoroughly up to and throughout  the event.

Creating Events on a Facebook Page

This is the first step towards Facebook event promotion is to create the event. To create a new event, go to http://www.facebook.com/YOURPAGENAMEHERE?sk=events&create once you are logged in as an admin.

Make sure to fill out all the information, include a main photo, and invite guests. Currently, Facebook only allows users to invite their own friends, not the other users who have ‘liked’ a page. Add employees as admins and allow them to invite their contacts and friends to make the guest list grow.

Once the event is created, add a link to it on the page newsfeed and start promoting it.

Upload Photos and Videos

Leading up to the event, post photos, videos, and other applicable content about the event (such as newspaper or blog mentions). This can help continue to drive buzz about the event. For example, a recent concert in Kansas City had several headliners. In the weeks leading up to the event, they posted recent music videos by artists that were performing at the concert. This helped keep the event fresh in users’ minds, since the music videos were appearing in their newsfeeds, and it also helped create a level of constant engagement and conversation until the concert.

Likewise, event organizers could post photos and videos of past annual events, testimonials from event-goers, updated ticket information, and other media that will continue to keep users’ interests up about the event.

Advertisements

Make sure the event is promoted organically as much as possible, but events can also be promoted via Facebook ppc advertising as well. Using the PPC (pay-per-click) campaign, you will only pay when users actually click on an ad. Because Facebook can help your ad accrue impressions at a rapid pace (especially if you are in a large metropolitan area), it can be a good option for events happening soon.

No matter how your event is promoted via Facebook, be sure to have complete information and be available to answer questions and monitor content if needed.

Online Advertising Strategies To Get Out of PPC Limbo

by

PPC, short for pay-per-click is usually the go-to paid online advertising strategy for companies wishing to get a foothold on their online presence. However, depending on a business’ industry, PPC can get very competitive and extremely costly. Instead of relying on PPC, it may be worthwhile to try other innovative online advertising strategies that may help you continue to grow your online presence.

Affiliate Marketing

For online service providers that offer online services or products, an affiliate program may be a great way to get exposure and let others grow your business for you. Affiliate marketing is promising individuals a percentage of the total sales, or a set price, for every item sold through the marketer’s personalized link. A reference code or personalized link can ensure that a marketer would get the commission from the sale that they helped generate.

There are many online affiliate networks, like Chitika, that will help you get affiliate marketers for your product. Commission Junction, Linkshare, and ClickBank are also well-known affiliate advertising networks.

Another opportunity to grow traffic through affiliate marketing is running an affiliate marketing page on your business’ website. Assigning marketers a special coupon code buyers can input in the checkout process or using a plugin or service to generate personalized links are two options to run and manage an affiliate marketing program on your own website.

Blogger Outreach Programs

According to some, blogs are becoming the new newspaper, with some getting hundreds of thousands hits every day. Because of this, many bloggers have the power to expose your products to thousands of potential customers that may not know about it otherwise.

Companies can work with blogging outreach networks, such as CleverGirls, Influenster, and Fitfluential, or they can simply begin contacting blog owners directly through contact forms or their public email address. Offer to host a giveaway or send the blogger free products in exchange for an honest review. This can be a timely process, but forging a personal relationship with bloggers can help create an open flow of exposure for new products in the future.

Social Media Contests

Regularly offering contests and giveaways through social media can be a great way to help gain online exposure. Use a contest widget like Rafflecopter on a website, blog, or Facebook page to collect entries and require entrants to tweet about the giveaway or follow the company on Facebook and Twitter.

Do you have any other good online advertising strategies? If so, let us know in the comments.

 

The Benefits and Downfalls of Using Social Media Advertising

by

Social media advertising spotlight

Social media advertising can be a great way to reach customers in a medium where a large majority are very active; logging on almost every day (and some for multiple times per day). It allows businesses and organizations to reach customers in a way they might not be able to otherwise. For instance, a user may not find a company’s blog or website, but could have a higher chance of being exposed to the brand and its products on a social media site. While there are a great deal of benefits that may come from social media advertising, there are still a few downfalls, which can make this type of brand exposure not so desirable. The pros and cons and their respective importance will most likely differ between each company.

Determining the Benefits

One of the main benefits of social media advertising is obviously the possible exposure it has. The right social media campaign can reach thousands or even millions of social media users each day, either for a long period of time or just for a single day. To get the type of exposure needed, it’s important to highly target any social media campaigns. Facebook does a great job of allowing advertisers a variety of targeting options, such as age range, interests, gender, and even relationship status. Twitter is relatively new to the advertising field (compared to Facebook), so their targeting options aren’t as plentiful.

Another benefit of social media advertising is the immediate results it can provide. Because of the immediacy of social media, companies and organizations can experience a large swell of website visitors, new customers, or Facebook fans all within a single day, depending on the effectiveness of their ads. This type of viral activity can be great for events and product launches.

Evaluating the Costs

Obviously, the biggest downfall of social media advertising is the cost. For some targeted campaigns, competition can be very high, leading to high rates for clicks on social media ads or sponsored tweet impressions (views). For certain industries, the cost to run a viral campaign of this magnitude can be significant, up to thousands of dollars per day.

Because of this, social media advertising on a large scale may not be a viable option to small businesses. While locally-targeted campaigns on Facebook can usually be quite affordable, a small business is less likely to purchase a nationwide sponsored tweet than a major brand like Pepsi or Amazon.com.

How Can the 2012 Olympics Help Your Social Media Strategy?

by

2012 Summer OlympicsThe 2012 Summer Olympics is just around the corner, and there are several  different ways that company can embrace this popular worldwide event to tie it in with their current products or marketing campaigns. However, before starting an Olympics-type campaign, it is important to pay attention to copyright and trademark issues. For example, in most cases, the Olympics does not allow their logo (the six multi-colored rings) to be used on any content or media without their prior approval. Remember this when beginning any Olympics-related marketing or advertising.

Giveaways

Giveaways are an easy thing to incorporate into social media while tying in the Olympics. Because social media engagement and participation usually thrives on current events and happenings, holding Olympic-related giveaways can be a great way to make customers feel more connected to a company’s social media presence. This is because the company is involving itself into what customers currently care about, such as events like the Olympics. As mentioned previously, Rafflecopter is a great social media and blog giveaway tool. It makes automating giveaways extremely easy, and it is free to use.

Building Community

Besides giveaways, another way to drive engagement through social media by using the events in the 2012 Summer Olympics is to post conversation builders. This may include asking trivia questions about current Olympic events (e.g. “Who won the Gold medal last night in synchronized swimming?”) as well as posting photos from the events with proper copyright approval. Because many Olympic-watchers are getting into the events every evening, giving customers an outlet to discuss it via Facebook, Twitter chats, Google+ Hangouts, and more can help build a larger community on the company’s profiles.

Conversation builders can also be tied in with giveaways— prizes could be given for the first correct answer to a question or users can post photos from the Olympics to win trips, company products, or other items.

Sponsorship Opportunities

If a company is based in London or does a lot of business in the United Kingdom, then there may be several different sponsorship and advertising options available for reaching participants, fans, and the staff of the 2012 Summer Olympics.  Unfortunately, the deadline for advertising on the Olympics grounds has passed (it was March 31, 2012) but many London newspapers, stores, restaurants, and other establishments that will experience an increase in business may be looking for sponsorships, advertisers, or partnerships during the Olympics.

Giveaways, community building, and sponsorship opportunities are all great ways to tie in the 2012 Olympics with your company’s social media strategy, as with any other global or major event. The Olympics are a part of human history, which makes it a great opportunity to bring companies and individuals together in a positive way.

How To Leverage The Most Cost-Effective Blog Advertising Method: Blog Commenting

by

Blog commenting is one of the most effective methods of increasing your brand awareness, attracting visitors to your blog and learning from the best bloggers in the field; thus helping you to fully grasp what your niche wants and needs. Its a blogger’s special tool for launching an effective advertising campaign and the only thing that will be spent with this method is time.

It is a proven method that I see many bloggers use to make strong connections in the blogosphere and grow their online presence to respectable heights. So let’s talk about how blog commenting, the right way, can give you that nudge you’ve been waiting for. [Read more…] about How To Leverage The Most Cost-Effective Blog Advertising Method: Blog Commenting

The Most Important & Effective Strategy When Business Blogging

by

Incorporating a blog within any small to large Corporate Blogging
organization’s website can be one of the most important decisions that could be made. Blogs are extremely effective for driving sales, web traffic, building brand awareness and strengthening relationships with customers. However, corporate blogging can be somewhat different from a regular personal blog due to differences in goals and audience but at the same time there are techniques that are guaranteed to produce results whatever the goals may be.

Let’s discuss what readers of corporate blogs are looking for and what elements will keep them coming back for more and even make a purchase. [Read more…] about The Most Important & Effective Strategy When Business Blogging