Your next hotel deal is here thanks to Facebook dynamic ads
Facebook dynamic ads help travel and hospitality brands get the word out about their destination and entice future guests with perks and experiences just a plane ride away. Facebook dynamic ads tailor content across devices and platforms to serve customers information about the locations, dates, flights, and destinations they have signaled to buy on Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network. Fairmont Hotels & Resorts participated in a case study for Facebook dynamic ads, boasting a 20% increase in revenue, a 34% decrease in cost per booking, a 55% increase in mobile revenue, and a 44% decrease in mobile cost per booking. In efforts to help more businesses achieve these results in partnership with us, we wanted to understand the four W’s that make this tool effective. We dug deeper into the what, why, when, and who to help you make an informed decision about whether Facebook dynamic ads are right for your business. What: So what makes Facebook dynamic ads so special At first glance, Facebook dynamic ads might simply seem like a retargeting campaign, but these ads pack a serious punch. These full-screen dazzlers are fully customizable. And if the lush, carousel photo option doesn’t catch your customers’ attention, strike-out pricing and promotion overlays, or real-time inventory updates certainly will. These ads are the closest thing a customer can get to actual search results without searching for themselves. Why: Knowing why your customers browse leads to sales Because Facebook uses hyper-specific user data to capture intent to browse or intent to purchase, advertisers can “set it and forget it” when using Facebook dynamic ads. The user funnel will adapt to fit the needs of the traveler based on new signals and the business based on live KPIs and inventory. By recognizing why a user is browsing, the ads can serve exactly what someone is looking for, or make related recommendations resulting in up- or cross-sales that would have never been possible otherwise. When: Travel is time-bound … and your ads should be too Have you ever seen a retargeted ad or special offer too late? Facebook dynamic ads automatically adjusts or turns off based on when users check-out date or flight times have passed. This tool keeps ads relevant, pleasing both the traveler who is seeing content personalized to their needs and the business that isn’t wasting money on travelers who already got back from their holiday. Who: Personalization is key Facebook dynamic ads can funnel clicks to a personalized landing page. In a sense, these ads become mini-travel agents that make the shopping process feel more curated or luxurious. Hotel brands can optimize based on location and price, recommend their sister properties if dates are sold out, or partner activities and attractions, giving the ads broader relevance to the consumer. Like all strong advertising tools, you need to have inspiring content to go with it. If your hospitality brand needs a lift, we can help you create the Facebook dynamic ads campaign that will get you there and the content that will make it all worthwhile. Click here to learn more about our creative content services and how they can transform this next wave of highly personalized customer outreach.
4 Secrets to a more sustainable user acquisition plan
No business can survive without one, key ingredient: customers. Bringing in new customers — formally known as “user acquisition” — should be one of your company’s most important (and lucrative) business goals. User acquisition is a blanket term used to describe interconnected activities, such as content creation, media buying, conversion funnel analysis, marketing automation, and SEO efforts. Whether your goal is more app users, site visitors, or sales, the user acquisition process is built upon the same, systematic process. At BIGEYE, we believe in educating our customers on how to take their user acquisition efforts as far as they can, on their own, before stepping in to take things to the next level. In that spirit, here are four tools our team recommends to help you create more sustainable pipelines that won’t take your team more than ten minutes to implement. You can also visit our services page to learn how we can partner together on your acquisition strategy. 1. Understand why your user acquisition cost is so important Before you do anything else, start by understanding your user acquisition cost (UAC). This figure represents the amount of money your company spends attracting new users. Your goal is to make that cost as low as humanly possible while still being effective. When measuring against the lifetime value of your customers (CLV), a good benchmark is 3:1 value to cost. Stay on target by designating a percentage of your current year’s CLV and only spend that amount. If you find yourself burning through your budget, it’s time to assess whether your user acquisition tactics are effective and seek out areas for optimization. 2. Give your content a facelift Blog posts naturally sink to the bottom of your website architecture as time passes, but that doesn’t make your content (or keywords inside) less valuable. Repurposing your best material gives you the opportunity to re-promote highly effective or potentially viral content via social media, generate new backlinks as your audience expands, and direct crawler attention to desired search terms. And no, this isn’t cheating. Consider HubSpot, which generates over 250 blog posts each month. They regularly refresh great content that is valuable to their target audience. And so should you. 3. Don’t let low hanging fruit get in the way of user acquisition All the work you put into leveraging content to bring in new users won’t matter if those users can’t find your site. Start with low hanging fruit. Look for crawler errors and 404 pages, check your site speed, and delete outdated content. Reference your target keywords against the metadata on your pages, then do a competitive analysis to make sure you have the budget and content to compete on them. While these activities may not seem directly linked to a strong user acquisition strategy, we’d argue that they are the foundation of effective SEO, customer discovery, and entry into your marketing funnel – making them critically important. Through this process, site tech debt will decrease and you can begin building more nuanced keywords and linking strategies, rather than focusing on clean up. This will help new customers easily find your site and navigate to the information they need, on the right platform, at the right time. 4. Boost your email user acquisition in one easy step Boost your leads by buying lists from complementary brands. A personalized welcome email creates early engagement with your brand, while relevant and consistent content makes your emails a delight rather than a delete. Even if your email open rate is strong, there’s still room to improve (unless you’re at 100%). Double your effectiveness by sending an email, then resending thatsame email – with a different subject – to only the individuals who didn’t open the first email. By changing the subject and resending the origianl email you can boost your email open rates by 20 – 30% with a simple click of a button. When you’re ready, we’ll be here waiting to kick things up a notch. Feel free to reach out to our team with success stories, questions or if the time has come to take your user acquisition to the next level.
New multi-channel video measurement will change media buying
The most successful brands, apps, and websites connect to their audience in ways that fit seamlessly into consumers lifestyles by bridging rich content — like multi-channel video and highly personalized posts — across platforms and devices. A sparkling example of multi-platform marketing comes from startup darling Rent the Runway (RTR), which lets users rent clothes for special occasions. The brand boasts an Apple App Store rating of 4.8, 6 million users, and over $100 million in revenue. To achieve these impressive stats, RTR creates unique content for each platform that lets users navigate their purchases, engage with the RTR community, and share special moments: a true lifestyle brand. Until this fall, marketers have had a difficult time quantifying how important multi-channel video content – like that featured on RTR – can be. But Nielsen just changed that by adding Facebook, Hulu, and YouTube video views to their standard media publishing metrics. Neilsen adds multi-channel video to their performance Nielsen Holdings is considered the gold-standard in performance management in the United States. Nielsen tracks what customers buy, where they buy it, what ads influenced their purchase, and how content impacts consumer experience. Specifically, Neilsen’s Watch let’s marketing agencies and media publishers like BIGEYE measure what and where video content is being consumed. Nielsen has revolutionized performance management with this change, and we are excited to tell you why your business will benefit. Finally! – Accuracy measuring multi-channel video Big and small brands look to agency partners to help them craft the perfect multi-channel marketing spend. The seeming witchcraft of choosing how much to invest in a video campaign, a PPC advertisement, and native search optimization is one part art and one part science that most companies simply don’t have the bandwidth for. Accurate measurement and channel ratings – delivered by performance management companies like Nielsen – help agencies make accurate decisions to optimize plan efficiency. Neilsen’s new digital content ratings are good for publishers and advertisers alike. It showcases how much streaming video content is consumed, informing agency publishers about how their audience is finding and responding to their content so they can improve their creative strategy and corresponding spend. It also supports a fairer marketing landscape. As Nielsen SVP of Product Leadership, Jessica Hogue explains in a corporate blog post, this new measurement provides “a more consistent and transparent view [that] ensures a level playing field with access to the same information across content creators, advertisers, and platforms.” A more holistic view of cross-channel marketing Hold on to your hats and advertisements – the hottest and most talked about multi-channel video trend of 2018 will surprise you. Nielsen’s new ratings also allow agencies to formulate a more complete picture of how cross-channel content works together. As an example, understanding the true count of a multi-channel video might allow a content-centric brand such as Buzzfeed to invest more deeply in content creation for one channel versus another, or focus their optimization efforts around a particularly valuable audience segment. In a related press release, Edwin Wong, VP of Research and Insights at BuzzFeed, agrees that “with this new tool at our disposal, we are able to have a clearer view of BuzzFeed’s true reach,” which broadens the traditionally narrow view of how content performs on a given channel. Anything that allows for more accurately tracked content across channels is a win for us. When backed by a name like Nielsen and their outstanding methodology, you really can’t go wrong. For more information on how your current cross-channel marketing mix is performing or what new insights you might be able to learn from Nielsen’s latest tricks of the trade, reach out to one of our strategy specialists for a free consultation.
How to Get a Five-Star App Rating and Five-Digit Downloads
1. Four Quarters vs. Ten Dime At BIGEYE, we would rather have four quarters than ten dimes. In other words, seek out quality app users — even if that means your adoption and download rate will be slower at first — because happy users leave positive reviews, share your content, and become unofficial brand ambassadors for your app. And the higher your app rating, the better your App Store ranking will be. Quality downloads, rather than quantity, are the fundamental building block of long-term app success. That means, if you’re tempted to purchase downloads on one of the many get-followers-fast websites or spam your entire email distribution list with app updates: stop right now and reread this paragraph. 2. Think Like Goldilocks To get your app in front of quality users, you need to focus your optimization efforts. The key is that your search terms can’t be too broad (or you risk competing with too many other apps), and they can’t be too narrow (or you risk putting yourself in such a small niche that no one will find you) … they need to be juuuust right. Like Goldilocks. Partner with an agency to build a solid keyword strategy, then tag and place your terms three to five times anywhere and everywhere that is appropriate. This is true for search engine optimization around your app, YouTube content showcasing your app, your App Store description, and submission details. The clearer you are on who your audience is and why they might search for and use your app, the more successful these efforts will be. 3. Start With a Whisper (Launch) If you have a new app, consider rolling out your platform with a whisper launch to quietly introduce curated users (think: family, friends, VIP customers, and select demographics) to your app to get early and actionable feedback, build ratings, and establish credibility before you start mass-promoting your app. If you go live with a big splash and immediately get a string of poor ratings and unhappy users, your app will be dead in the water before it has the chance to hit double digit downloads. By starting with a whisper launch, you can tweak bugs and unexpected behavior before it reaches the broader public. This can also serve as a unique way to engage desirable customer segments and make them feel special by giving them the opportunity to engage in an exclusive partnership with your brand and provide feedback before anyone else. 4. Fast Follow with a Bang Once you’re confident that your app is ready for mass distribution, consider a Cost Per Install (CPI) burst campaign to quickly drive traffic to your app. The sudden influx of installations will help boost your ranking in Google Play and the Apple App Store, which will create a self-renewing stream of new users. The average app user does not scroll beyond the first 10-20 app results, and almost no one scrolls beyond the first 50, so your goal should be to incrementally and continuously increase rank within your keyword category (which is why those keywords really are so important). You can supplement these efforts with retargeting ad campaigns that announce your app to existing customers to increase effectiveness and reach. 5. Say it With a Video Your customers don’t know what they don’t know. If you are launching a new app, the best way to encourage downloads and adoption is to make sure your customers understand what that app can do for them and why it’s valuable. Video is one of the easiest and most effective ways to do this. Create a YouTube video showcasing your app’s best features and functionality, then promote it across your website, social media channels, and via email. This is an inexpensive way to promote your app and can result in thousands of views and potential downloads if optimized and distributed appropriately. Leverage your agency partner to nail your video content and outreach strategy for maximum results. If you are about to launch a new app, click here to learn more about some of the techniques and campaigns that have been successful for our other clients, or contact us today for a free consultation on how you can increase your download and user rate quickly and effectively. We will work with your organization to understand your demographic and brand proposition to create a tailored roll-out and optimization plan that is both budget-friendly and highly effective.
Cross-Channel Attribution is One Trend You Can’t Afford to Miss
The celebrated Forrester Research institute unequivocally states that “traditional one-to-one, last-touch methods of allocating demand to marketing efforts are outdated and lead to a suboptimal marketing mix. Customer Intelligence (CI) professionals must adopt a cross-channel attribution model in order to optimize marketing budgets, accurately calculate customer value and acquisition costs, and develop a holistic view of the marketing ecosystem.” They aren’t mincing words there. But don’t worry. We feel your pain. We’ve heard all the objections before: cross-channel attribution is too complicated, there isn’t enough data across platforms, and it’s simply more work than it’s worth. … Which is why we’re here to debunk those myths and help you realize that cross-channel attribution is easier (and more valuable) than you ever imagined. If you read our blogs, you know we believe in cross channel-marketing, so it shouldn’t surprise you that we are a champion for cross-channel attribution. Customers expect a highly personalized marketing experience, and we can’t give that to them if we don’t understand how and why they invest time in certain platforms or content types. Your accounting department probably wouldn’t be too thrilled to find out you were using an inaccurate, outdated methodology to calculate your ROI and forecast your budget for next year either. Here are a few objections we often hear from our clients when faced with this reality … and how we have helped them overcome their challenges. Objection: “Last-touch attribution is good enough…” Last-touch attribution, or giving sales credit to the last platform a customer engaged with prior to purchase, may seem like the path of least resistance, but it simply isn’t accurate. For budding analytics teams, last-touch attribution is a quick way to start collecting directional data without needing too many tags or complicated methodology. Unfortunately, many touch points get excluded or underweighted because they don’t always represent the point of sale, even though they play a critical part of your customer journey. Last-touch is certainly better than nothing and will get your team started, but often misses the bigger picture (your email team will probably agree, since they are almost always a first or early customer touch point). We often tell clients who are just beginning their journey to a more accurate attribution model to start small. Let us help you roadmap your path to cross-channel attribution by setting milestones that will slowly and thoughtfully expand on your last-touch model. By adding one data point at a time, your team can fine-tune the accuracy and usefulness of each piece of new information before expanding your program. Objection: “Cross-channel attribution isn’t accurate because offline data doesn’t exist…” The notion that we can’t track or stitch together customer behavior both on- and offline may have once been true, but that’s no longer the case. Seasonality, competitor presence in market, event marketing, word of mouth, and hundreds of other offline variables are — yes — more difficult to track, but can be evaluated through the use of digital tools. For example, we recommend assigning a special hashtag, social media filter, or promotion to an in-store event or offline campaign to help you gauge the success of the many channels working together to make that experience a success. As offline data improves through the use of GPS signals, beacons, and AR breakthroughs, this pain point will continue to fade away. By ensuring your other channels are accurately tracking and that you are prepared to enhance offline data, you’ll be ahead of the curve and competition. Objection: “We already use programmatic advertising software and don’t need additional tracking…” Don’t mistake the ease and efficiency of programmatic bidding and ad placement with understanding which channels are pulling the most weight. PA software is a great tool that uses data from a variety of sources to optimize your ad placements and spend, but it doesn’t tell you enough about your overall channel performance to make informed decisions about the types of content or campaigns you want to beef up on — it simply makes the most of what you’ve got. Cross-channel attribution should affirm that your digital ads are doing their fair share of work, but will also reveal where guests aren’t spending time and provide insight into how you can improve your holistic strategy. Depending on how robust your data is, we often suggest businesses start with building a flawless analytics program and then adding programmatic advertising because good customer insights will elevate all your campaigns — even automated ones. Let us help you find a balance between your programs to maximize success. Objection: “It won’t really change how we go to market…” The more you know about your customers, the more you can anticipate their needs. Knowing that your most valuable customers often respond to email promotions, but purchase in-app; or that your Instagram account is driving people to your best YouTube tutorials; or that most people browse your content on their mobile devices, but purchase in store are all revealing and actionable pieces of information. And if you don’t use them…someone else will. Customer expectations are exponentially increasing, so understanding how, where, and when they like to shop allows you to create a flawless shopping and service experience that invites five-star reviews, referrals, repeat purchases, and deep satisfaction. We tell all our clients that you should never collect data if you don’t intend to use it. If the touch points you’re collecting don’t correlate to customer action, we recommend you reassess the data you’re collecting. If you aren’t sure what KPIs to use, or how to find actionable customer insights, we can help. Click here to explore how businesses like you have used this methodology and see how we can support your transition from outdated attribution models to high-performing, cross-channel tracking. And remember, you don’t need to take our word for it — Forrester agrees.
Google’s New Fact Checking Feature is Filtering the Internet
Would you be surprised to learn that approximately 23% of information and news on the internet is fake according to Pew Research Center. Maybe not, considering recent publicity about “fake news” during the 2016 presidential election. Facebook and Google received so much negative attention for perpetuating false stories about the candidates that they have begun taking measures to validate and regulate information circulating the internet. Today, both sources offer disclaimers about information or news that appears to be fictitious. Whether debunking the urban legend that solo-travelers often wake up in a bathtub full of ice with a missing kidney, or that Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump, the internet is cracking down on rumors. What is Google Fact Check?: Google’s new fact checking feature is the first search engine attempt to filter content on the internet. We want to use the word “filter” with caution because Google is not restricting information (which would be illegal). Instead, the search engine is prioritizing validated sources in their ranked search results and providing “fact snippets” when possible citing verified information as the first search result. The trick is that these results (and their effectiveness) depend largely on the search terms used when posing a query. For example, USA conducted a test assessing the myth that former President Barack Obama was not an American citizen. The results were a true SEO catch-22. When USA Today journalists searched for “Obama Kenyan citizen” the search engine yielded a validated Snopes.com dissent, with a Google-endorsed myth-buster as the first search result. However, when searching for “Obama birth certificate fake,” no Google fact snippet is available. In instances where Google has not yet validated a query, the highest-ranking SEO results appear … which happens to be a fake article supporting the birther movement. This is to say that Google’s fact checker is only as good as the SEO search terms and tagging in place today. If the search terms match a query that has been validated by Google, users will see where the question originated, where the answer has been validated by third parties, and whether it is true or false. Google isn’t fact-checking queries itself, simply leaning on third-party or non-partisan sources to highlight the best results. Unfortunately, it’s up to brands to fill in gaps where Google verification does not yet exist or where there is not a perfect search match. That’s where you come in. Why This Matters for Your Brand?: As Google’s fact checking capabilities expand, it will continue to rely on SEO to determine the best, most accurate, and most valid results, resources, and websites. Your brand needs to meet and exceed baseline search engine requirements to stay relevant and rank appropriately in this brave new world. While your products may not be taking a stand on political myths, the veracity and relevance of your content will play into the larger search ecosystem and how you stack up when people search for what the best brand in your industry is today. If it feels like the pressure is on to clean up your SEO strategy to ensure your site’s continued relevancy, you’re probably right. But don’t worry. Our team of search specialists can help audit your site to determine if the appropriate search terms are appearing in your content and at the right frequency. They can analyze whether your images and rich media content is tagged properly and linking to the best external resources. We can help build out a blog and supporting social media content to drive traffic and links toward your site. We’ve got your back. Take a look at our services page to understand the type of SEO options our team provides and how we can enhance your current ranking, while safeguarding your site for everything the future will bring. Simply contact us to set up a free consultation about your site’s search engine readiness.
The Road Less Traveled: Internet Radio Ads & Travel Marketing
When planning a digital marketing spend for any travel destination, the top opportunities that immediately come to mind are probably traditional web tools such as your website, click-based advertising, search engine marketing, email campaigns, and other traditional digital tools. What you might be missing, is the incredible promise of internet radio ads. Yes, we’re serious. Internet radio ads reach big audiences — and we mean BIG: According to eMarketer, over 50% of the population listens to internet radio. And unlike television, which demands its audience’s full attention, radio listeners can enjoy music for hours while doing other things, multi-tasking, and spending time with others. Forbes estimates that internet radio platforms such as Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, and Sirius XM have boosted the total possible listening hours worldwide to 59.5 billion per day. The best part? The estimated cap on all that listening time is $2.6 billion of revenue per day in 2017. That is a lot of untapped potential. Internet radio ads tend to be more difficult to skip or avoid than other forms of media advertising, such as commercials, because listeners are less inclined to flip between radio stations while cooking dinner or in the midst of a conversation. Instead, they’ll simply let the content stream until their music resumes, absorbing your advertisements along the way. Because internet radio is still a relatively new platform for advertising, there seems to be anecdotally less annoyance toward music ads than other forms of promotion because they are part of the normal listening experience and always have been. More importantly, internet radio ads have figured something out that commercial advertising has not: audiences don’t mind seemingly customized, native-style advertisements. Travel marketing primed for radio thanks to customized listening preferences: One of the reasons internet radio ads are still reasonably well received hinges on advertisers’ eagerness to align their ads to music channels and types of music that fit their natural customer personas. It’s no accident that you often hear ads for GoToMeeting virtual conferencing software on Sirius XM’s CNN channel. The same applies for travel marketing. Hotel brands often release playlists or music channels on internet radio platforms such as Spotify to deepen visitors’ brand loyalty. For example, The Standard, a luxury hotel brain with properties in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami, promotes a notoriously famous collection of playlists on Spotify that captures the sounds and experiences guests can expect at each location. No matter where you find yourself listening, one of the Standard’s playlists will instantly transport you back to their property … or make you want to book your next trip. Interestingly enough, Spotify cites audience location, social, and biometric data as a much better predictor of what someone will listen to than their past or self-proclaimed listening preferences. This same data is often used to tailor travel and tourism personas, making the combination of internet radio ads and international marketing a natural fit. Music is often one of the most personal expressions of who we are, so advertising your travel destination alongside artists, genres, or even music venues that fit your audience is a smart move. Why Persona Marketing Is the Key For Your Tourist Destination, explore our services and sign up for a free consultation about how internet ads can send people to your travel destination.
Stop Overlooking the Forgotten Generation X with Resort Ads
With so much emphasis on Generation Y’s blooming purchase power and the golden parachutes Baby Boomers are enjoying post-retirement, Generation X, otherwise known as the forgotten generation, is … well, being forgotten yet again. But this is a huge mistake if you are a traveler marketer. Generation X by the numbers: If getting people to your resort starts, at least in part, with the numbers game this should be enough to grab your attention. According to Shullman Research Center, there are 60 million Generation X-ers in the United States — or 25% of the adult population. It’s true, that the Baby Boomers and Millennials still represent a larger subset of the population, but no savvy decision maker would advocate ignoring 25% of your potential audience. Perhaps more appealing: members of Generation X have more ideal purchase demographics than other generations. A healthy swath of Generation X has a household income of more than $250,000 (36% to be exact), and the remaining 64% still boast higher average household incomes than the majority of retired Baby Boomers and up-and-coming millennials. While these statistics might not always hold true, now is the time to market your resort to Generation X. The majority of Generation X is likely to have a family, be established enough in their career to travel, with disposable income to burn. This is a recipe for success for resorts that can position themselves as a romantic getaway (sans children) or a family-friendly escape for the whole crew. Resort advertising potential for Generation X: So, how do you appeal to a generation primed for travel but often overlooked in the hype around other generations? The answer might shock you: get your website and online booking engine in gear. According to renowned MMGY travel agency partner program, 82% of Generation X books their travel online, with 71% of them conducting research via online travel agency programs to craft their perfect vacation. No generation is more primed for self-service travel booking than Generation X. Often self-identified as former latch-key children and hyper-independent consumers, they are reticent to trust mainstream media and untested hype about products or places. That means that your resort needs to have an authentic, credible website with up-to-date photos, testimonials, and clear information about your unique value proposition. You also won’t survive without peer reviews and a strong social presence to validate the claims your marketing team is making. Tips and tricks for appealing to Generation X: Sync your promotion schedule with standard school schedules to encourage family travel. Create a loyalty program that rewards past guests for referrals and their honest review of your destination. Focus on building tonality and credibility on your website: over promising and under delivering is the quickest way to lose this generation’s respect. Try direct mail. It might surprise you, but 5/7 direct mail recipients will look at a mail piece and seriously consider its content. Create a blog that highlights experiences, local flavors, and unique, one-of-a-kind opportunities at your resort. For more ideas about how to appeal to Generation X, contact us today. We specialize in multi-channel marketing that allows you to be where your target audience needs you to be. Together, we can build a content strategy and communication plan that helps you reach one of the most underrepresented generations in market today.
7 Ways to incorporate media buying into your business plan
One of the most common questions we get from small and medium-sized businesses is how to craft a media buying plan tailored to their services. There is an unnecessary air of mystery around the process that can make media buying feel inaccessible to the average business owner. We have an entire department dedicated to business services marketing that can either handle the process for you, or empower you to do it yourself. To get you started, here are 7 quick and easy ways to begin incorporating media buying into your existing business services marketing plan. 1.Who are your personas and target audience: Media buying for business services starts with knowing your audience and the personas most likely to need your services. Before you invest a single dollar in a media buying spend, get clear on who you are talking to and where they are listening. By knowing your audience, you can spend less money on your campaigns, but maximize their effectiveness because your placements will be answering questions and directly targeting the right people. 2. Focus on time- and location-based targeting: Once you know who your audience is, you need to understand how to reach them. This is especially true when marketing business services. Understand whether your customers are shopping during business hours for their own companies, or whether they are confusing research at home, after hours. If your ads aren’t reaching them at the right time, they are going to waste. Tailor your media spend around the times and geographic areas that are most likely to yield results. The more you know about your target audience, the more effective you can be. 3. Set clear, measurable primary goals: Realize what you are trying to accomplish. Are you looking for leads? Trials? Sales? Brand awareness? The list goes on. Understand how your media buying fits into the marketing mix and what you hope to accomplish. We believe that if you can’t measure it, you shouldn’t do it — and this is no exception. Establish clear, time-bound, and trackable performance indicators. We encourage all of our clients to set up omni-channel marketing strategies that work together seamlessly to accomplish different goals. If you’re unsure how to do this, our services might be for you. 4. Understand your unpaid marketing potential: It might sound counterintuitive, but a good media buying strategy starts with knowing what you don’t need. Evaluate how your natural search results are performing and how your unpaid media on blogs and social media is impacting your brand, then only use paid media to fill in necessary gaps. Your media buying spend should work smarter, not harder for your dollar, which is why tracking everything is so important. 5. Understand how media fits into your creative, branding and content strategies: Anything you choose to invest in media buying should complement and support your work across other channels. A true omni-channel marketing strategy acknowledges that the customer journey doesn’t happen in silos. Customers move across devices, between content types, and through the purchase cycle more seamlessly than ever, so each of your marketing efforts should mirror and support each other — and ideally drive customers to other platforms to complete their journey. 6. Know the lingo: Take time to debunk any jargon, lingo, and marketing-speak surrounding your media buy. Even if you use an agency to support your business services marketing plan, it pays to understand what they are talking about. Knowing the difference between CPC and CPI can mean the difference in being over or under budget depending on how much money you have to spend. Never be afraid to ask questions. As a multi-platform agency, we are here to support your business — and that means helping you understand your marketing needs. 7. Programmatic and automated media buying: Last, but certainly not least, we encourage you explore programmatic or automated media buying opportunities. These emerging tools adapt your media spend to real-time data about your clients, campaigns and performance so you are spending just the right amount — not a penny more, or less. Click here to learn more about how these programs can support a more seamless and cost-efficient media buying experience.
Cosmetic marketing gets a makeover thanks to influencer marketing
We don’t want to ruffle any feathers, but bloggers and influencers are slowly (or not so slowly depending on who you ask…) starting to replace print advertising and editorial content. We aren’t saying that beauty magazines have become obsolete, but platforms such as Pinterest and YouTube have made it faster and easier for the average beauty maven to find the latest tips and tricks to stay looking fresh. Why wait for the latest issue of Allure or Vogue when you can log online and find the exact products, tools, and tutorials you need? Influencer marketing makes for great partnerships: Budding cosmetic companies can benefit tremendously from tag teaming the beauty world on the stiletto heels of lifestyle and beauty bloggers and influencers, such as Emily Schuman of Cupcakes and Cashmere who boasts a cool 260,000 Instagram followers. According to Social Media Examiner, she joined forces with Birchbox to promote several of their spring boxes. Birchbox is a new, monthly subscription box that sends beauty and lifestyle products to curious shoppers … and with just five Instagram photos of their May box, Emily touched more than 550,000 consumers and generated over 18,000 likes. For a new business, that type of exposure can literally make or break your success and the cost may be as low as sending a few products to your influencer of choice and letting her do her thing. By establishing reoccurring partnerships with influencer marketing queens and kings, your brand has a steady stream of reliable exposure directly to your target audience for a fraction of the cost of paid advertising. BIGEYE can help you identify and reach out to the right influencers to ensure the partnership is a mutually beneficial success, but the good news is … your influencer will do most of the work. Product launches: If you don’t have the bandwidth to establish long lasting partnerships, or sending swag to bloggers on a regular basis doesn’t fit your budget, consider using influencer marketing to promote a product launch. By sending products to influencers just before the official release, you can generate buzz around your launch before the product even hits shelves. For example, luxury cosmetic brand Peter Thomas Roth sent advanced samples of their new Rose Stem Cell Bio-Repair Gel Mask to Arielle Charnas of Something Navy, who posted about the mask the day of launch. Within 24-hours, the post had sold 502 masks and $17,565 revenue according to the LA Times. As your brand prepares for launch, consider using influencer marketing to augment your other marketing initiatives and support a more successful splash within the market. Influencer marketing has taken on a life of its own, from “unboxing” videos from YouTube channel stars opening and showcasing new products to full-scale celebrity recommendations from the likes of today’s top stars. For traditional marketers, this new world can feel unfamiliar and difficult to navigate, but it’s just another day in the bloggersphere for digital natives. Millennials have grown up seeking information and product approval from their peers and role models on the internet and are primed to learn about your brand online. Click here to learn how BIGEYE can help your brand stay current with the most current trends in unpaid, digital marketing and how it can transform your marketing and publicity strategy into the hottest click trend to hit the market this year.
