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Tips to Draw in Last-Minute Holiday Shoppers: The Modern Marketing Show, Episode 76

Christmas Eve is next week, can you believe it? We’re in the homestretch of the 2018 holiday season. If your customers are anything like some of the Social Edge HQers, they’ve waiting until the last minute to get their holiday shopping done. So, we’re sharing some quick tips to help optimize your social content to draw in those last-minute shoppers. You want to do what you can to make sure their shopping experience with you is as easy as possible.

Watch the full episode:

Tip #1: To draw last-minute holiday shoppers, you want to make sure you post gift-guides or gift ideas for the people who are most important in our lives like spouses, parents, friends children, co-workers, host/hostess, etc. Share your top-selling items or most popular customer favorites. Also, if you’re running low on inventory share that information to create urgency. The best way to do this is in a live video.

Tip #2: Another way to draw in last-minute holiday shoppers is to include the price, your store info, sizes available, if they can put the item on hold, and any other important information on the post. Make it really easy for them to know what they’re getting and how to get it. You want to help ease the stress of last minute gift shopping.

Your life might be a little crazy right now, but the little bit of extra effort you put into optimizing your social media content this week can have a big return in your overall sales. You want people to love what they’re buying from you, and to be a returning customer in the future.

You can catch new episodes of The Modern Marketing Show every Monday at 10 a.m PST on our Facebook Page. Replays will be available on the blog each week.

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Create a Consistent Brand and Experience: The Modern Marketing Show, Episode 69

Branding isn’t just for big-box retailers. As a brick-and-mortar retailer, you should be working towards building your brand too. Below are the top three reasons why having a strong brand identity is important for your business.

Watch the full episode:

Reason #1: A strong brand improves recognition. Everything from your fonts, colors, and logos should work together to help people online know immediately what they’re seeing is coming from you.

Reason #2: A strong brand creates trust. In a recent study from Facebook, 87% of people said trust and security were the two main motivators for a local purchase. By nature, people are more likely to purchase from a business that they trust. A part of building that trust is by always providing a consistent customer experience. When we know what to expect when shopping at a business, we’re more likely to return again and again.

Reason #3: A strong brand can lead to new customers. When your current customer base is satisfied they’re more likely to refer friends, family, and even that stranger they met in line at the grocery store to your business.  Word of mouth marketing is powerful – think of happy customers as your own personal viral sales soldiers.

People shop from businesses they know, like and trust and branding is essential to making that possible. Now your challenge is to take a look at your business’s brand and ask yourself, “Is my brand consistent online and offline?” It’s time to start thinking about how you’re going to break through the holiday noise and get in front of customers, old and new, in November and December.

You can catch new episodes of The Modern Marketing Show every Monday at 10 a.m PST on our Facebook Page. Never want to miss an episode? Click here to join our list!

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Social Edge Live, Episode 32: Facebook Ads Made Easy Plus Tips For Success

It’s not a secret that Facebook Ads can be one of the best tools small businesses can use to grow their businesses online. When done the right way they can even increase sales and engagement online and offline. But they’re time-consuming, technical, and can we hard to learn/understand which is why Social Edge can help make running ads easy for you.

Watch the full episode below:

For those of you currently running Facebook ads here are some important factors/tips to remember:

  1. During the holiday’s Facebook Ad costs are higher and overall reach is down.
    • There’s an influx of people trying to advertise this time of year. More competition means more people bidding over limited advertising space make it harder to get in front of your audience.
  2. Use video to help reduce ad costs.
    • Video is here to stay. Clients we work with see some of the best results when they use videos in their ads. It allows for more free, organic reach and more engagement across your social media platforms.
  3. Create and promote online events, like 12 Days of Christmas campaign.
    • Online events and sales can be fun to run because they create buzz and something to talk about. You create a sense of urgency for people to take part so they don’t miss out on the latest deal.

Social Edge offers Facebook and Instagram Ads management for qualifying businesses – taking all the hard work that comes with running ads off your to-do list. Below you’ll find an overview of what this service offering entails and how we can help.

  1. You need to advertise, your customers are on Facebook – but you don’t have to be the one to do it. Your focus should be on the daily operations that come with running your business and focuses on helping your customers.
  2. We become an extension of your marketing team. Your Ad Account Manager will take a look at your social media and overall business goals in order to come up with a content and ads strategy that is catered to reaching those goals. They’ll provide you with post/event ideas, tips, and inspiration in order to help jumpstart your efforts, save you time, and have it be strategic.
  3. Allows for some accountability to post on social media consistently. We provide you with the ideas, but it’s your responsibility to implement and execute them.
  4. Bringing in QUALITY LEADS versus sales. While we can’t guarantee sales, our ad clients have had record-breaking sales days within days or a few weeks of working with us. Ads help get people through your doors and then it’s your job to sell them while they’re in your store.
  5. One client said, “I really feel safe knowing you are always looking out for me.” This is true because we’re in your account daily making sure make sure everything is running smoothly, checking ad costs to make sure they’re where they should be, as well as making adjustments to your ads when needed to make sure they’re fulling optimized and performing well. It’s all about having peace of mind in knowing you’re being looked after. 
  6. Our ads management service works if you work it – you need to participate, but the results will be worth it. It’s all about teamwork because we can only do our job if you’re implementing our strategy. Your account manager will check in with you to see how everything’s going and to see how sales are. You can provide them feedback and adjustment will be made accordingly.

If you’re interested in having us run your Facebook and Instagram ads for you in 2018? You must go through our application process to be considered. Click here to learn more.

You can catch new episodes every Monday at 10 a.m PST on our Facebook Page. Replays will be available on the blog each week.

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Social Edge Live, Episode 31: Holiday Gift Guides for Everyone in Your Life

The countdown to Christmas is on and it’ll be here before you know it. The hustle and bustle of malls and shopping centers is a common sight to see this time of year. People are out looking for the perfect gift for those important people in their life – which can be completely overwhelming! Most people turn to online channels and social media for ideas and inspiration, so why not capitalize on it? Consumers often look to you as the credible source, for gift inspiration, so tell them what to buy for who and why with holiday gift guides.

Watch the full episode below:

Holiday gift guides make for great content across your social media platforms. They provide a solution to a time-consuming, daunting, and often stressful task. You’ll be able to provide unique ideas that can steer away from the same old, same old. Let your creativity shine when creating these holiday gift guides. Remeber: the best way to get the most engagement across your social media is to go live or use video. But, we understand that can be challenging for most. Which is why we wanted to share some ideas you use can use outside of going live.

Slideshows

Slideshows are great because they add movement, but don’t require the time or energy that comes with being on camera. The moving images can help keep your customers looking at and engaged with your content longer than they might have otherwise.

When creating a slideshow you’ll want to upload anywhere from 3 to 10 images. You’ll then want to set a timer for how long each image is displayed – we recommend 2 seconds in between before showing the next image. You can also add music to your slideshow from the approved choices available of Facebook.

Albums

Albums are a great way to keep everything in one place. You can always create multiple albums, each with their own theme, to make it an easy viewing experience for your audience. Title your album clearly to help send your customer to the right place, i.e. “Gifts for Her” or “Gifts for Mom” make it clear about types of items are inside.

Once the album is made it’s always important to include the product name, price, and store contact information on every image. This makes it easy for your customers to find the item in-store or to get in touch with you if needed. If you have an online shop you can also include the direct product link so people can purchase online.

We recommend creating an album with a minimum of 5 images. When viewed from a mobile device or computer people will only see thumbnails of the first few images, so you’ll want to catch peoples attention early and get them to click over to view what else is inside. Again, it’s about increasing the time people spend with your content and engage with it.

Carousels 

Are a collection of up to 10 images that can link to a specific place online. These are great for e-commerce businesses or if you sell online because you’ll be able to link directly to the product page. You can use carousels on both Facebook and Instagram, but they vary slightly in how you set them up.

Flat-lays

Flat-lays are a great way to share content and can be very visually appealing. You’ll lay your products down against a clean, simple background or you can just use your floor. Then you’ll take the picture from up above over the items to showcase all the items in the image. You can get super creative with flat-lays. These are great if you want to share outfit ideas, themed item, or even items of a single color. You can share these across all platforms like Facebook and Instagram, but especially on Pinterest.

Tip: For more flat-lay inspiration each #flatlay on Instagram.

Stories

Stories work for holiday gift guides because they allow for quick snapshots or videos of your products. If you’re doing special sale or want to let people know you’re almost out of an item, this can help create urgency to get people through your doors.

Remember, these ideas can be used for more than just holiday gift ideas. You can also create guides for “Holiday Party Decor” or “Christmas Party Outfit Ideas” or even “Office Christmas Party Favors”…honestly the possibilities are endless.

You can catch new episodes every Monday at 10 a.m PST on our Facebook Page. Replays will be available on the blog each week.