retail social media marketing

September 28, 2020 By Madeline Goode 2 Comments

How to Scale Your Store using Social Media and Advertising

Growth: It’s what everyone is working towards. We want to see sales and revenue skyrocket! 📈But that kind of growth doesn’t happen in the blink of an eye. Like Crystal always says, the overnight success was 7 years in the making! You’ve got to build your business from the ground up, but with hard work, dedication, and will-power, you’ll be the next “overnight success” in no time. 😉

You might be wondering, “How? Where do I start?” The answer is to get in front of your customers and show up where they are. Where are they? SOCIAL MEDIA.

Your customers are on social media every single day. So BE THERE. Post a good mix of relevant content to Facebook and Instagram (or others like YouTube or Snapchat if it makes sense for your business), at least 4-5 times a week. Relevant content can include product and sale info, educational/”how to” content, FAQs, new product arrivals, humor, employees and customers, and more! Post content that will be of value to your customers and post consistently enough that you’re showing up and staying top of mind. 📱

***PRO TIP: If you really want to stay in front of your customers and at the top of their minds, post to your Facebook and Instagram Stories daily! Stories disappear after 24 hours, but they show up at the very top of the newsfeed when someone opens the FB or IG app, so it’s a great place for limited-time content and to ensure you’re showing up in front of your customers every single day! (Especially with the holidays coming up, hint hint!)

Once you’ve nailed a strong social media strategy, take the next step by advertising on social. Promote your FB and IG posts via the Most Recent Engagement campaign in Ads Manager to ensure your posts are pushing through the clutter. Then, you can create a Reach campaign to help increase in-store foot traffic, a Traffic campaign to drive people to your website, or a Page Likes campaign to increase your Facebook likes/social media following. The best part of all of this is that you don’t need a big-box budget to do these things. Posting to social media is free and you can advertise on social for as low as $1/day! 🤑

Start small and work your way up. Our clients see the most success when they commit to a solid social media strategy and back it up with advertising! Consistency and commitment are key. Commit and you’ll start to see more and more growth! And remember to be patient- the overnight successes are 7 years in the making!

Share in the comments which strategies have helped you grow your business!

January 21, 2019 By Crystal Leave a Comment

The Top Social Media Mistake Made by Retailers: The Modern Marketing Show, Episode 78

There are several mistakes I see retailers making all the time, but the top social media mistake made by retailers is not having a social media plan. Having a set social media plan can make all the difference in the world. It’s going to keep you and your team accountable and ensure it’s getting done. So, keep reading to find out two simple ways you can overcome the top social media mistake mistake in 2019.

Watch the full episode:

Option #1: Set 1-3 SMART goals and then reverse engineer those goals to come up with your social media strategy. Remember, SMART goals are ones that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely. Then put those strategies into action by adding them to your marketing calendar. When we write things down the more likely they are to get done, so this step is crucial!

Option #2: Go through the full Social to Sale training course. This training walks you through step by step on how to create a profitable social media strategy. It’s about 5 hours long, so it will require you to set time aside to complete it. The best part is that it’s a included when you become a CM Insider. Click here to learn more about becoming a member!

As a busy business owner, it’s easy to push things, like your social media, to the back burner when things get busy – I know we’ve all been there! But, when you don’t plan, you plan to fail, so let’s commit to getting your social media plan started and set up for success in 2019.

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.

June 25, 2018 By Crystal Leave a Comment

See What An Insider Did to Get 5x as Many Leads in One Day: The Modern Marketing Show, Episode 21

Here at Social Edge, we strive to help independent retailers see success through social media by implementing tried and true strategies. In this case study and success story sent in from a Social Edge Insider, Heather Waits, Owner of Bloomtastic Florist in Columbus, OH, you’ll learn how she used a Facebook Ad to reach one of her S.M.A.R.T business goals.

Watch the full episode:

Her Problem

Heather had a few dates available on the calendar for weddings her business needed to fill for the Fall wedding season.

Her Solution

Run a Post Engagement Ad on a $ 50-lifetime budget to a targeted audience of brides who got engaged in the past 12 months and located within 20 miles of her store. See the ad image and copy used below:

Her Results

The ad had been running for less than a week and had garnered 69 post engagements and Bloomtastic Florist received 5 leads in a single day (avg=1 lead a day). Her average cost for a wedding is $2,000, so with one wedding booked from a $50 ad, that’s a profit of $1,500 (and she booked 2 of those 5 brides!). See results below:

Running the right Facebook Ads can have a significant impact on your overall business. This is a great example of how targeting the right audience can get you in front of the right people which can lead to increased profit and help you meet your business goals, which ultimately helps keep your business operating at it’s highest potential.

The key takeaway is to make sure you’re setting S.M.A.R.T goals in order to reverse engineer your strategy to come up with the ideal plan to reach those goals.

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.

June 18, 2018 By Crystal Leave a Comment

3 Takeaways From Our First In-Person Workshop: The Modern Marketing Show, Episode 20

We recently held our very first in-person workshop at our Carlsbad, Ca HQ. We had a small group of retailers travel in from all over the country to participate with us. We want to share with you the three biggest takeaways that came out of the three-day workshop because we believe you can benefit from them as well.

Watch the full episode:

The 3 Takeaways:

Time blocking to pull together a plan for content and building – we did 6 months!
- Our retailers loved this exercise because it forced them to sit down and actually plan their content strategy. If you’re like most retailers you’re just posting on the fly without thinking about how your post can support your overall goals. Now, these retailers not only have their post ideas but also their building strategies mapped out so they can implement on their own or share with their Social Media Manager and staff.
Audiences and Ads Creation
1. This is a topic that we had tons of questions on because of how technical running Facebook Ads can be. But, we were able to walk them through setting up a Custom Audience, detail targeting and setting up an ad from start to finish, step-by-step which allowed them to see how simple and basic these things actually are.
Instagram Stories
- Much to our surprise, none of the retailers in this group had posted an Instagram Story before. We blocked some time to demonstrate how they work, and our retailers were able to see results almost instantly. One even came back the next day so ecstatic that almost 40 people had viewed her story and she only has a few hundred followers all together!

If you’re sitting there wishing you were at this event, you’re in luck! Join our workshop waitlist and be the first to receive information on any upcoming workshops.

May 21, 2018 By Crystal Leave a Comment

How to Boost Your Sales in June (September & December): The Modern Marketing Show, Episode 17

Do you have a lot of excess inventory that you need to get rid of? Are you close to reaching your sales goal for the month but need something to get more customers through the door? Well, I have just the thing you need to help drive traffic through your doors and to help meet your sales goals, it’s called the 5th Saturday Sale. As the name suggests, this promotion/event happens in months that have five Saturdays. Those months being June, September, and December for the rest of 2018.

Watch the full episode:

This is easily a favorite with our retailers because many have seen some major wins when hosting a 5th Saturday Sale. For example, one of our students had a line of 70 people waiting at their door BEFORE the event even started (keep reading to find out how they did this!). Then, this same retailer had a line of 200 people in line to checkout DURING that same event.

The most common type of 5th Saturday Sale Promotion that we see is to give shoppers a reusable bag and anything they can fit in the bag they can buy at a discount usually 20% off or higher. There is no right or wrong way to run this promotion, it’s completely customizable to whatever is going to work best for your type of business.

Here are some more promo ideas you can choose from:

Buy 4 items, get the 5th one for $1 or free
BOGO 50-70% off
Entire store 20-40% off

Once you get the event details down, the next thing you need to be doing is marketing and promoting the event on social! This should be down a couple weeks ahead of time, so you can get the word out to your audience.

We recommend setting up a Facebook Event Page to help promote the event. This should be where any updates and announcements are made. Someone who marked themselves as “Interested” in your event still gets these event updates posted to the event page, so it could help push people who are on the fence about attending into coming, driving more traffic through your doors too.

If you have an advertising budget, setting up an Event Ad in Ads Manager is another great way to build exposure for this 5th Saturday Sale. It doesn’t have to be a big budget either! One of our retailers had an ad spend of $24 for an event ad she ran and profits for the event were up 42%…can you imagine that?!

Lastly, you should also do a dedicated email send to your email list (if you have one) inviting them to your event and link it to the Facebook Event Page. That way you’re keeping your current customers in the loop even if they aren’t following you on social media.

Circle these dates on your calendar and challenge yourself to set up a 5th Saturday Sale in your store! Share with us your results and let us know how it went for your business in a comment below.

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.