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How-To Create a Quarterly Marketing Plan for Your Store: The Modern Marketing Show, Episode 81

A few episodes ago I talked about how important a social media plan is to your social media success, but it’s more than just your social media plan. You need to be looking at all of your marketing and determine what campaigns and strategies you’re running each month. This then becomes your quarterly marketing plan.

Watch the full episode:

The reason why having a quarterly marketing plan is so important is because if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Creating a plan will save you time with marketing. It will help make sure you’re doing everything you need to do as well as give you time to execute it well. Plus, you’ll give you and your team clarity on where you’re going.

We suggest planning out your marketing every three months but depending on your business you might be able to do this every six months. Since technology changes so quickly, you don’t want to plan too far ahead.

Setting aside the time to create your quarterly marketing plan can seem daunting when you have so much going on. But trust us when we say it will make everything so much easier. You’ll have more fun marketing your events, your social content will have more meaning, and your team will be excited and want to contribute to your store’s success.

We’re going to be hosting our Q2 Marketing Planning Meeting on March 5th exclusively for our CM Insiders. If you’re not already an Insider, click here to join for only $97/month.

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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Spooktacular Content Ideas for October: The Modern Marketing Show, Episode 65

Content planning is tough, especially for a small business owner. You have a million other things happening on a daily basis, and with the holidays right around the corner, you need to find a way to balance it all. So we’re sharing examples of content ideas you can find inside our Retail Content Pack.

We didn’t record a video this week but you can view the post, here. 

Idea #1: Host a #TBT picture contest and ask your audience to share pictures of themselves in their favorite childhood Halloween costume. Give away a gift certificate to your store to a few lucky winners valid starting in November. This is a great way to get people in your doors during the busy holiday months.

Idea #2: Give a discount to anyone who shares a cheesy Halloween joke at checkout. Share the best ones on social media, and give the joke teller a shoutout.

Share your fun Halloween content ideas in the comments 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.

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4 Ways to Cash in on the Back to School Season: The Modern Marketing Show, Episode 58

It’s that time of year again, people are preparing to head Back to School and are ready to shop for the upcoming school year. In fact, it’s estimated that 2018 Back-to-School spending will reach $82.8 Billion.

How are you going to get in on the action as a local retailer?

Watch the full episode:

Back-to-School Promo Ideas for your business:

  • Double your teacher discount for a day/weekend/week.
  • Share a graphic with your local high school’s football schedule and talk about how excited you are for back to school and football season!
  • Go live and feature anything a student may need for the Homecoming dance. (Mints, flowers, shoes, etc.)
  • Share employees’ favorite teachers and their reasons why.

Check out the Retail Content Pack for more customizable Back-to-School content and graphics!

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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Social Edge Episode 24: 3 Common Mistakes Retailers Make Using Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads are one of the best (if not the BEST tool) retailers can use for their business. If you follow along with Social Edge, it’s not surprise we are always pushing our audience to use them. However hard we push, there are still so many retailers not taking full advantage of ads.

I understand going into Facebook Ads Manager for the first time can be extremely overwhelming. Ads are technical and take time to master which is where the drawback to using them lies. When you do become an ads pro, trust us when we say they can honestly change the way you do business. You’ll see increased foot traffic, higher event attendance, increased engagement and even more sales without a doubt.

Let’s take a look at the 3 most common mistakes (and my solutions) when it comes to running Facebook ads made by retailers, so you can avoid making them again or doing them in the future.

Mistake #1: Just Boosting

Many retailers will boost post here and there, but aren’t really sure what it’s doing. When you post without a strategy behind it, costs can add up over time. Also, the last thing you want is to feel frustrated when you can’t tell if what you’re doing is working or not.

Solution: Start using Ads Manager. This is going to be your new best friend when it comes to running ads. You’ll be able to build campaigns, set timelines, set a budget and track your results all in one place.

Mistake #2: Not Targeted Enough

When you try to reach everyone, you’re actually not reaching anyone. This idea goes back to targeting your perfect customer groups. When you target your PCG’s, you’re making sure your content is going to be seen by the people who actually have an interest in it.

Solution: Utilize detail targeting. This is built into the Ads manager platform at the Ad Set level when setting up a campaign. Play around with different demographics and interests.  This will give you an idea of who is going to get you the most reach and the lowest cost to advertise to.

Mistake #3: Creative isn’t creative enough

Plain, boring, or generic posts aren’t going to capture your audience’s attention. You want to make sure you’re drawing your audience in with unique posts that are as unique as you are. It’s all about creating high-quality, relevant content to help increase engagement across all your social platforms.

Solution: Spend some time each week creating your content, rather than rushing to post something just to get something out there. There are many easy-to-use tools and apps available to create fun, eye-catching content. Use more video! Video performs better across the board, and still allows for tons of free organic reach.

 

Watch the full episode below:

If you’re finding it hard to come up with creative content that’s going to get you through the holiday season? Are you dreading having to make time to plan your holiday marketing when you have a million other things to do? Well we can run your ads for you! Apply to become one of our Facebook Ads Management clients and take one more thing off your already full plate.

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 22: 5 Steps to Get Customers to Fall in Love With Your Business

Happy October! If you can believe it or not we’re just 7 weeks away from Thanksgiving and 12 weeks away from Christmas, and they’ll be here before we know it. What are you doing to let your customers know you’re there to meet their holiday shopping needs? One way is to remind your community about what makes you special. You’ll want to re-engage with past customers while also bringing in your current customer base and attracting your potential customers right before the holiday madness starts. Hosting an event like a “Fall in Love with Us (Again)” Open House is going to help keep you top of mind with people in your area and have them swooning for you. Store events are some of the best type of marketing and content you can get for your business.

Here are the 5 Steps you need to host a kick-ass open house event:

  • Step 1:Create a Facebook Event Page
    • Gives your customers a place to rsvp, a place to get event information, they can invite their friends, it’s also connected to your fb page so people will get a notification about it and it’ll show up on their newsfeed.
    • Your event will show up in the event page on facebook and people who are in the area can see your event page on the mobile app whether they follow you or not.
    • Free publicity and a place for people to share
  • Step 2:Announce event using Facebook and/or Instagram Live
    • Ideally you want t use both, can’t stream at the same time, but a way around that is having two cameras one for each to stream on both platforms. Live has heavier weight better chance of people seeing you, and it helps you build a relationship with your audience. You’ll also get more reach and the higher your reach the more people who are going to be able to see you.
  • Step 3: Promote event all over social media and email
    • Make sure to create graphics to post, do a slideshow of products you’re featuring it or that are on sale, do a countdown leading up to the event. Also, don’t forget about email, reccommend including a button in your email that links over to the facebook event page buttons increase email click through rates by 42%, so you want to make sure to include one.
  • Step 4: Make it Fun
    • Do giveaways/contests in store
    • Food/Drinks/Dessert always makes it a party
    • Have a photobooth/selfie station
      • Make sure you encourage people to share their photos and tag your business, this can help build more awareness for your store while people are at the event.
    • Invite a local artist/vendors
  •  Step 5: Run Ads
    • Sometimes you have to put a little money in to marketing your event to see some amazing results. This helps get your event in front of more people meaning more people that can potential walk into your store. People are out there so you have to go get them!

Watch the full episode below:

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.