Facebook Advertising Tips for the ECommerce Entrepreneur

According to a study conducted by MarketingSherpa a couple of years back, the average gross margin for eCommerce stores was found to be somewhere between 30% and 40%.

Gross margin, by definition, is the difference between revenue and cost of goods sold. If you take into account the operating expenses, salaries, taxes and other expenses, the net margin for eCommerce stores can be quite minimal.

It does not actually make sense to advertise your eCommerce store in this scenario. Pay per click advertising has become quite expensive over the years. The conventional logic of identifying niche targeted keywords to advertise might not be profitable any more.

This is also the case with Facebook advertising. The average CPC can be around $ 0.35, and this number is likely to be much higher for newsfeed ads that are known to offer the highest conversion rate. In this article, we will take a look at a few tips that can help eCommerce advertisers sell their products on Facebook.

Use Retargeting Ads

Two million blog posts are written every single day. At the same time, the consumption of internet-based media content has dramatically risen. One study showed that the average user consumes nearly eight hours of media content each day.

And media consumption on the Internet itself has risen 105% between 2010 and 2015. This is a fantastic opportunity for eCommerce advertisers to make use of non-sales targeted content to draw in their niche audience and then retarget these readers with product ads.

Take the example of an eCommerce store selling spare auto parts. The store owner in this case could publish content that covers topics in which a car owner would be highly interested. Once the audience has been drawn in through organic means, these readers can then be retargeted with product ads on Facebook. The CPC in this case is likely to be way lower than that of regular Facebook ads.

Sponsored Message Ads

Facebook has recently been experimenting with ads delivered over Facebook Messenger. In essence, the user would receive from the sponsor a new message notification with which they might engage.

To eCommerce business owners, Facebook Messenger is a lucrative channel. The reason why is they can set up personalized conversations with each of their prospective buyers.

For best results though, you should let the user initiate the conversation with you. You can achieve this by using conventional advertising techniques and using the “Send Message” call to action.

Clicking this CTA will take users to the Messenger window where they can have a conversation about the product with the eCommerce store. You can check out this guide on Facebook advertising from Shopify for a more detailed tutorial.

Use Facebook Offers

The Facebook advertising platform has a number of elements that makes it attractive to eCommerce advertisers. One popular feature is “Offers,” which allows advertisers to promote an offer exclusively to Facebook users. An offer in this instance can be a discount of a certain dollar amount or percentage value. Offers can also be free giveaways or even BOGO (Buy One, Get One) deals.

Advertisers can choose to host the offer campaign within Facebook or redirect it to their own websites. They could also choose to restrict the campaign to their own Facebook groups or make it available to the larger audience across Facebook. The Facebook Offers feature works really well if you sell impulse goods that customers are ready to buy without any significant forethought.

Tie in Facebook Advertising with Other Marketing Channels

As an eCommerce business owner, you are likely to make use of a bunch of marketing channels. These might include advertising, email marketing, content marketing and even offline advertising.

Quite often, marketers make the mistake of assuming that these channels are independent of each other. Because of this misunderstanding, they carry out their campaigns in silos. But doing so is sub-optimal. It not only leads to an inefficient campaign but also could be expensive since you might be spending money acquiring the same customer twice over these different campaigns.

It is important to bring together these different channels in order to have a single view of your customers. You could do so by integrating your audience from your email marketing list with the one from your Facebook channel.

Or you could bring together your retargeting campaigns from both Facebook and Google. Streamlining your campaigns ensures continuity and also brings down the cost of acquiring one unique customer.

The post Facebook Advertising Tips for the ECommerce Entrepreneur appeared first on Growmap.

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Facebook Advertising Tips for the ECommerce Entrepreneur

Getting the Word Out: Three Alternatives to Traditional Advertising

The old model of digital advertising is broken—but that doesn’t mean marketing is entirely dead. Here are a few clever alternatives to old-school ads.

The writing has been on the wall for some time. The majority of users no longer trust display ads. People are increasingly ignoring online banner and video ads. And ad blockers have never been more popular.

Jeff Kunzler of Design is Law explains:

A large part of web ads are malicious, misogynist, full of malware/ransomware, and are a risk to your computer. Adblock rose to popularity due to people growing fed up with risking their computer being infected by malicious advertisements, and the Internet’s going to have to adapt.

That means that if you want to foster awareness of your brand, you need to adapt as well. Luckily, there are plenty of alternatives. Here are just a few.

Native Ads

Traditional ads are designed to stand out. They are clearly not part of any website on which they appear. And that’s exactly the problem with them. Either they interrupt the user’s browsing experience, or users overlook them entirely due to a phenomenon called banner blindness.

Native advertisements solve this problem by blending with the websites that host them. Some examples include advertorials, infographics, branded content, and sponsored content.

There are a few keys to doing native ads right:

• Serve them to the right audience.
• Tailor them to the site that is hosting them. 
• Do not promote your business directly.
• Choose the format that best fits your demographic.
• Make sure people can identify them as promoted content.

Influencer Marketing

The era of social media has given rise to a new class of individual: the influencer. Whether because of pre-existing celebrity status, skillful marketing, or a high level of knowledge, people look to these men and women as experts. When these influencers endorse a product or brand, others listen.

That said, there are a few things to keep in mind when seeking influencers:

• Choose influencers that match the “personality” of your brand. You generally would not seek out a hip-hop artist as an influencer if your customers are primarily high-level executives.
• Rather than looking at how large influencers’ social followings are, look at their audience engagement. Do the followers regularly share their influencer’s content, or are they mostly passive?
• Ideally, seek influencers that are already engaged with your brand. A well-known professional who follows you on Twitter would be a good example.
• Offer influencers something of value, and show respect when communicating with them. You should treat them as valued business partners rather than just another advertising stream.
• Look for influencers where your audience is. Fashion companies, for example, stick to Instagram.

Contests and Giveaways

Although they have been around for a long time, brand-sponsored competitions remain one of the most powerful marketing tools at your disposal. Not only do they inspire your audience to do your advertising for you but they also help you gather more data about your customers in the process. And if you manage to make your contest go viral, that success is infinitely more valuable than even the most expensive banner ad.

“Online contests are one of the easiest ways to find new customers and reconnect with the customers you already have,” writes social marketing expert Brent Purves. “They are quick to set up, affordable to run, and consistently see excellent ROI.”

As with the other entries on this list, there are a few keys to running an effective contest:

• Make sure the prize is something your audience will want.
• Set a clear time limit to create the illusion of scarcity.
• Target your contest at a specific audience to foster a sense of community in participants.  
• Get influencers involved in promoting your contest.
• Encourage participants to talk about your contest on social media, or share their contest entries.
• Most importantly, make your contest fun. Your contest should incorporate something you know your audience already enjoys doing. For example, it could involve taking the best picture at a festival, writing the best short story, or simply attending a concert or fundraiser.

Closing Thoughts

Digital advertising has evolved, but the fact that it has isn’t a bad thing. If you know what you’re doing, it’s easier than ever before to spread the word about your brand. When you abandon banner ads, you will find that the alternatives are far superior—and you might wonder how you ever went without them.

The post Getting the Word Out: Three Alternatives to Traditional Advertising appeared first on Growmap.

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Getting the Word Out: Three Alternatives to Traditional Advertising

Business Development is the Most Precarious Job in Advertising

 

The role of the agency new business executive is the riskiest position due a dramatic change in the way business is acquired and the skills rainmakers need to make it happen.

Business development has been dramatically altered. There are many people who have done this job in the past who do not know how to do it well now.

The average tenure of an agency business development director is now as low as two years. At large agencies it can be even less than a year.

According to the Agency-Marketer Business Report from RSW/US, only 26% of new business directors were viewed as successful.

New business is now much more difficult that ever. The Great Recession and the empowerment of prospects through social media moved the battle for new business primarily online. Instead of chasing new business, it is now more important to be found. Interruptive type tactics such as cold calls, email blasts and direct mail have become ineffective and inefficient.

Before hiring someone responsible for your agency’s new business efforts, in addition to understanding their traditional new business expertise, you should be explore what they really know about the following:

1. How to build an online community of prospects

The battle for new business has moved online. Community development is now an indispensable in marketing your agency.  Knowing how to build an online audience has become  an important skill-set for those charged with agency new business.

Agencies must understand there should be a significant shift in their thinking and embrace audience building as an important initiative. Audience development is now a function that should come before business development. 

Many agencies struggle with building an online community. A good number of agencies have the attitude that “if I build it, they will come” but that isn’t the case. To have success, it must be done the right way.

Here’s a crucial tip for building your online community of prospects:  Stop trying to sell your agency. It’s not about touting your credentials, capabilities and case studies. You will never build an online audience without providing value to your audience.

2. How to provide a direct connection to your agency’s brand leader

Provide a Direct Connection to Your Agency’s Brand Leader 

Your skills and experience in social media has become very important. Social media provides a much more efficient way of reaching prospects than the interruptive type tactics of the past.

Prospective clients expect to have direct connections to the agency’s brand leader as its spokesman and chief. For the small to midsize agency, the owner is critical to new business. The task of the person charged with new business should provide the strategies, tactics and tools to help the agency owner to become the face of the agency.

PEOPLE want to work with other PEOPLE that they know, trust and like. 

The mix of the owner’s personal brand with a prospective client community can be powerful. With it, you will help your agency acquire more new business.

3. How to create a niche for new business

Creating and maintaining agency new business is often harder than it should be because one key ingredient is often missing.  You must solve the problem of positioning. Positioning is the foundation for new business. Most agencies are fearful of it. It is the area that many agencies have not addressed because of either procrastination or more likely, their unwillingness to make the difficult business decisions.

Since 2007 I’ve prescribed creating a niche blog for agency new business and have helped create over 200 personal blogs for agency principals.

A personal blog can provide small to midsize agency owners with a perfect platform to create positioning of expertise and appeal to a very specific target audience. It’s like a fishing expedition. You fish for a specific fish with a particular bait, you fish away from the boat (the agency’s website) so you don’t scare off the fish.

Recently, a small agency won a significant national account through their niche blog, www.thestorestarters.com. Sheehy + Associates has been awarded the business of helping to launch 22 new stores for Burlington Coat Factory last year. This is what a niche blog can do for your agency.

Here are some additional examples:

• Sound Marketing: Helping Music Brands Be Heard
• Fire Support: Aerospace and Defense Marketing
• Marketing to Farmers
• Health Craze: Marketing Healthy Foods to Families
• Social Worth: How to Inspire Action for Social Profitability
• Pin Point for Health, Branding for the Greater Good

Email me if you would like a copy of my Seven Steps for Fueling New Business Through Social Media. It is an outline and guide for implementing an inbound marketing program for your agency.

photo credit: Diann Bayes Bandera Rodeo in Bandera, Texas via photopin (license)
Michael

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Business Development is the Most Precarious Job in Advertising