Category: Digital Targeting Services

The holiday season is a make or break time for many businesses. Last year, overall spending during the months of November and December was roughly 10-percent higher than the rest of the year. If your business doesn’t flourish during these high spending months, it faces a significant competitive disadvantage during the rest of the year. All of which makes being prepared with creative marketing strategies that much more important for your brand.
The best digital marketers understand that it takes months of work to fully prepare for the holiday season. By taking a “Christmas is July” approach, you can help ensure that no opportunity goes unexplored during the hectic holiday months.

With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at some creative marketing strategies you can begin implementing now to help prepare for the important months ahead.

Digital marketing

In digital marketing — as in just about everything else — preparation is closely tied to performance. So, what are some of the things marketers can start doing now to get ready for the critical holiday months? Consider the following:

• Keyword and ideation preparation. It’s never too soon to start generating compelling Christmas content ideas. It’s not unusual to see a lot of derivative, shallow, or evergreen seasonal content published during this period, as agencies and businesses are often shorthanded or dealing with other pressing concerns. This presents marketers with an excellent opportunity to stand out from the fray by offering truly compelling holiday marketing that breaks the usual mold.
• Select target and landing pages. You might be able to save time by replicating last year’s pages, assuming there isn’t too much difference in terms of keywords and other variables. Add fresh holiday content to your pages.
• Refine your mobile strategy. Now is the time to figure out which messages or ideas resonate the most. Sharpen your focus by employing data analysis to learn what your customers are searching for.
• Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.
• As July rolls into August, begin the process of creating new content for the holiday season. Define and optimize high-value holiday target pages.
• Finally, begin social media marketing and outreach campaigns.

The importance of partnering with the right agency

Creative resort advertising strategies play a critical role in holiday season business success. The best digital marketing agencies understand this, and prepare accordingly by taking a “Christmas in July” approach.

BIGEYE is a top Florida resort advertising agency with years of experience delivering the kind of creative marketing strategies that win the holiday season. If you’re seeking to invigorate your seasonal marketing efforts, we encourage you to contact us today.

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.

We have what we like to call a good news/bad news situation on our hands. If you’ve been holding out against Snapchat as a last bastion against gratuitous selfie-taking and over sharing, you might need to give up on the game. The good news is that it’s for a really good reason. Earlier this spring, Snapchat began introducing customized geofilters that allow individual users and business accounts to create photo overlays for their location, store, or event. Starting at just $5 per filter, excited Snapchatters can promote everything from their wedding or a girls’ getaway, to product launches and charity events. Several months after launch, business marketers are starting to see the value.
Naturally, Snapchat has not missed the opportunity to monetize your monetization efforts. The price of each filter is set on a sliding scale based on the filter’s exposure size (which must fall between 20,000 square feet and 5-million square feet) and length of time the filter runs (the shortest amount of time a filter may run is one hour). When we initially learned about Snapchat geofilters, we were reticent to jump on the trend because we weren’t sure what a business would do with them. Now that we’ve brainstormed a few awesome ideas (if we do say so ourselves), we have officially joined the bandwagon.

Geofilters let you engage with your target audience while they are already consuming content, which increases your chances of catching – and keeping – their attention. Here are our top three ways to get started.

Start with a product launch:

Dip your toe into the geofilter pool with a location-based promotion. This is a fantastic vehicle to promote a product launch. Most obviously, it presents an opportunity increase foot traffic to a brick and mortar store as customers pose with your new product or entice nearby Snapchatters to stop by (you might consider offering a 5% or 10% discount to new customers if they Snap your product on site). You shouldn’t feel restricted to solely promote your physical location, however. Michael Kors introduced their new summer line of sunglasses in key target markets (such as Miami and Los Angeles) with a filter that allowed users to pose with a digitized overlay of these sunglasses on their face. Even if those Snappers weren’t purchasing the sunglasses, it raised awareness about the product and generated buzz for other would-be customers. They key is ensuring the filter geography is set to locations where potential customers routinely congregate. And because geofilters can span a 5-million square foot radius, that shouldn’t be too difficult. Seriously, does organic marketing get any better than this?

Graduate to an event filter:

The novelty of purchasing a Snapchat filter for a personal event is fairly obvious. For businesses, it’s a little more nuanced. First, consider your options. An event filter may be valuable before an event to promote ticket sales or fundraising efforts. It may be useful during an event if you are unveiling a product, special edition item, or unique feature. Similarly, it can help generate buzz during a reoccurring event such as a conference or festival. It may even be useful after an event ends if attendees are taking ideas and products home with them (how cool would it be if there was a customized geofilter after the Apple product release conference for those lucky few who get to beta test new products?). Geofilters promoting an event are one part marketing gold and one part public relations magic, so timing is everything to ensure you get a positive return on investment.

Or go for an anytime, lifestyle filter:

If you happen to have a business that represents a lifestyle brand, you’re in luck because geofilters are a great idea anytime. Brands that let customers signal they are a certain type of person think: community establishments such Starbucks or a local coffee shop, bars, or restaurants, membership-based clubs and organizations, car dealerships, tourist hot spots, and resorts. Brands, such as Pacific Sunware, that have a certain type of customer (in this case, surfers and beach lovers) can also benefit from a custom filter to help increase brand awareness between other likeminded customers.

Despite ourselves, we love the idea of Snapchat geofilters because it turns your customers and fans into brand ambassadors and marketers. In other words, you just increased your marketing team by … oh … 10,000.

Generally speaking, car dealerships are not known for embracing emerging marketing trends such as the digital wave. Not because they don’t want to; but because they don’t always need to. Many local dealers enjoy great success with traditional, direct-marketing tactics and regional outreach via print and broadcast media. However, as national and international automotive sales manufacturers have begun experimenting with digital marketing tactics, car dealers now have a new wave of tools to remain competitive in a hyper-saturated market.

Digital marketing brings brand awareness across tiers:

Studies suggest that at least 40% of all digital spends correlated to car sales will target brand awareness rather than direct offers. At the manufacturing level, we see this from major retailers such as Mercedes-Benz. During the past to years, the brand has used robust social media and event campaigns to generate buzz about the introduction of their new C300 model with great success. Once customers know about the brand or car model, they will move down the next marketing tier to discover a local dealer who has aligned to these trends. Although it may feel redundant for dealers to promote brand material rather than specific sales offers, it is important for customers to easily find a local presence that mirrors what they are seeing nationally. Investing in digital branding allows your dealership to rise to meet your customers needs as the move downstream toward a certain product or brand. In this way, you and your customers will meet in the middle. This tactic allows you to lead with value rather than discounts as you attract customers who are actively seeking a certain product or brand.

Search marketing keeps your brand top of mind:

Okay, now your customers have found you. They are excited about the latest model of their dream car and are weighing their options. Big purchases, such as cars, often have a longer sales cycle than traditional retail products, so keeping your dealership at the top of mind is of critical importance. Paid, retargeted, and organic search campaigns give you the opportunity to gently nudge your customer toward the point of sale without bombarding them before they are ready to complete a sale. As customers are looking for information, your website should be optimized to pop up before your competition so your dealership is a place to find answers, not just buy cars. This keeps customers coming back to your site again and again as they move toward a sale. Search optimization is your first line of defense against competition and easier to implement than you may think. Our team of experts at your Orlando marketing agency can determine the best terms to target, what words will make you stand out against your competition, and how to prioritize your search initiatives.

The surprising importance of being mobile-friendly:

In that vein, your site needs to be mobile ready. We know that customers don’t buy cars on their phones. But they do search for prices, search for the closest dealer to their home or office, and search for promotions that are running when they are ready to buy. According to cars.com, 43% of shoppers start their search on their mobile phones or tablets. We recommend investing in a responsive website design for best results or, at the very least, carefully considering how your website looks and functions on a smaller device. Mobile marketing is one of the first places car dealers try to cut costs, but it may be one of the worst places to make the cut. Click here to learn about some of the amazing mobile strategies our agency has used for business owners just like you.

Digital marketing augments accessibility:

In many ways, car purchases are a sale of opportunity. If one dealer doesn’t answer the phone, the customer will call the next closest vendor. If a purchaser can’t find the information they need online, they’ll find it somewhere else. Being accessible and responsive is key to success when you are competing against other equally qualified dealers in your area. Digital marketing allows you to be more responsive than the competition. Consider investing in chat, email services, and social media monitoring that allow your dealership to get to opportunities before someone else does. We realize this is yet another channel to manage when you already have phone calls and the floor to look after, but the modern customer expects businesses to be “on” 24-7, available, and ready for business when they are. Love it or hate it, the customer expectation wins.

Battle dealer stereotypes with digital customer service:

It’s no secret that car dealerships sometimes have a reputation for being deceitful or opportunistic. Using digital marketing to combat these stereotypes gives you the opportunity to showcase your business values. Address issues right away on social media. Encourage customers to review your dealership on Yelp. And don’t ignore your site’s comment section and inbox. Digital marketing enables you to use less resources to tackle service issues head on, which, in turn, builds goodwill and trust between your customers and prospective clients. You can directly handle negative feedback and foster relationships with those who have positive sentiments to share. Trust us, a little goes a long way.

Show some post-sale love:

Digital marketing also gives dealers the opportunity to foster post-sale relationships with their customers. This can generate referrals, repeat sales, and brand advocacy. You might consider featuring a “customer of the day” on your website or social channels, emailing clients with service reminders or seasonal greetings, and using digital marketing to schedule periodic outreach completely unrelated to sales. Nurturing your customers relationships at every stage of the customer journey reinforces all the work you did throughout the sales process and will help create happier, more valuable customers over their lifecycle.

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg! Digital marketing has completely transformed almost every industry – including yours. Click here to contact us about how you can begin the digital revolution at your dealership. We’ll work with you to tailor a custom strategy that uses the technology you already have in place to build stronger customer relationships than ever before.

This time last year, Google Play introduced its first paid search model for app developers. The search giant understands how people use apps as part of their day-to-day media usage pattern to accomplish tasks while barely thinking about it, which is why app discovery is such an integral part of their business strategy. Need an app to workout in your hotel while traveling? Check. Need an app to discover new recipes for a housewarming party? Check. Need an app to find the lowest travel fare? Check. We could go on, but suffice it to say: there’s always an app for that.
This month, we were excited – but not surprised – to hear that Apple has taken a page out of Google’s playbook. This fall, Apple will be rolling out a full-scale paid search model in their App Store. Combining paid search with app discovery reduces friction in customers’ media usage pattern lifecycle by making it easier and safer for them to find reputable apps that meet their needs when they want them. In other words? This is beneficial for the end user (because they can find what they want more seamlessly); beneficial for app-based businesses (who want to encourage app adoption and discovery); and potentially very lucrative for Apple (hello, ad sales). Apple’s App Store is Google Play’s biggest rival and the only game in town for apps developed for iOS devices. In 2015, Apple earned $20 billion in revenue from the App Store and other services (think: Apple Care, etc.). Although Apple executives tend to keep the granular details of the company’s financials tight to their chests, rumors suggest close to two-thirds of app downloads come from search hits in the App Store. If this is true, paid search in this space could drive a substantial amount of exposure to emerging apps and significantly improve the customer discovery experience.

APP SEARCH FOR ADVERTISERS TO FIT CUSTOMERS’ MEDIA USAGE PATTERN:

The best part about Apple’s new paid search model is that it fits seamlessly into the App Store experience people already expect during their typical media usage pattern. Only one featured app will appear at the top of customers’ search results in the App Store, and the only distinguishing difference between a paid app and a non-paid app will be a blue ring around the app badge indicating these results were sponsored. Unlike paid search engine ads that sometimes feel jarring or separated from organic search results, Apple’s new model makes it easier for advertisers to promote their apps without disrupting the customer experience.

Naturally, this prime real estate will be a pay to play opportunity for search marketers. Advertisers will participate in a bid auction to secure top keyword terms correlated to their app based on a pay-per-click pricing model (there will be no pay-per-impression option at this time). In tandem, Apple will also offer demographic and audience targeting to keep advertising costs reasonable while ensuring app discovery is as close to a perfect match as possible for the customer. It goes without saying that businesses can use this inconspicuous search experience to support their paid SEO and AdWords campaigns and close the loop between website engagement and mobile app discovery. This is especially important as customers’ media usage patterns almost always include multiple devices across their smartphones, tablets, and computers. No matter where your customers are surfing, your paid search strategy can support their habits and needs.

THE WINNING PAID SEARCH MODEL FOR APP-BASED BUSINESSES:

Although Apple’s new paid search program is currently in beta testing, the full program will be released this fall. And we couldn’t be more excited. That’s our way of saying there’s no time to waste if your business has (or is developing) an app. Our team of Orlando marketing experts can help you balance your current paid spend to include app advertising while guiding you through this new experience from audience selection, to keyword term bidding, and everything in between to create a seamless end-to-end app experience that supports your customers’ media usage pattern.

The paid app program presents a unique opportunity for businesses to reenergize sluggish app usage and encourage adoption if your website and social channels haven’t been as successful as you’d like them to be in reaching this goal. Even if all your channels are performing well, paid app advertising supports an increasing trend of customers searching for apps or related tasks directly in the App Store as part of their media usage pattern. We predict this will be an integral part of the paid marketing mix by the end of the year and one your business should not miss.

Click here for current case studies that showcase how our team has helped support app discovery in the digital age. By this fall, your business could be taking part in one of the most important new search trends of the year, so don’t wait to give us a call.

Choosing your media mix is one of the most important decisions you’ll make as a digital marketer, so there’s always a little extra pressure to balance your spend. Between ad campaigns, social platforms, and community marketing, your options are nearly endless. Make your media mix work for you, instead of becoming a slave to your budget, by testing into the mix that works for your customers and continuously iterating toward improvement. Trust us, optimizing your media isn’t as difficult as it seems.

1. Prioritize your media mix:

The first thing is to realize (and accept) that your team can’t do everything at once. And that’s okay. Even the biggest companies can’t cover every channel and every demographic perfectly. If they could, there would never be any competition. What you can do is flawlessly prioritize your media. If you already have data around how your social platforms and channels are performing, choose your top one or two platforms and invest there. If you are just beginning to optimize your mix, see where your competition has a strong presence and begin exploring there. As your return on investment and company grows, you can expand and test into more channels. Also recognize that it isn’t just about prioritizing where you post. Make sure you prioritize your time as well: spend 50% of your time creating content and contributing in your communities, spend 30% of time engaging with your various channels, and 20% of your time finding content and scheduling shared posts. 

2. Use your media mix to set and measure goals:

Improve your media mix by using it to set and measure goals, and then by refining your spend and media presence accordingly. Always include a call to action (CTA) in your posts and digital advertisements. Ideally, you should choose a different CTA for each channel or ensure you have clear tracking tools in place so you can determine which mix performs best. Tracking the performance of your mix helps you forecast goals for the upcoming quarter and year, lets you test different engagement methods to discover what your audience needs, and helps you refine your creative approach. In this way, your media mix becomes a vehicle to generate business and to align your team around common goals and business needs.

3. Diversify your media mix:

Once your media mix is performing solidly, it’s time to begin diversifying. Use old content that you previously ran as a print ad or repurpose social media content for a digital ad. You might even consider exposing other peoples’ content as long as it does not pose any competitive risk and you have their permission. Swap content across channels and track which types of content perform best in each. A great piece of content or creative campaign may perform tremendously on a landing page with a paid spend, but it may struggle as a social ad. Most times, discovering what will work best, and where, starts with a hunch. Test into these ideas in small percentages so you never risk your core business, but never be afraid to try new things.

4. Don’t forget to listen:

Last, but never least, don’t forget to listen. Social listening is an important part of how to determine your strategy. Invest in listening tools, partner with your local Orlando digital marketing agency, or scour your media channels for customer feedback or key data points. Remember, your media mix is first and foremost for your customers, so letting them guide you is the most important key to balancing your media mix like a pro.

Give us a call today for an assessment of your current media mix and how you can begin optimizing your time and money based on your business needs.