Category: Strategy

Trying to figure out the world of Instagram advertising on your own can seem like an impossible task. With tons of Millennials and Gen Z users in addition to a variety of influencers with wide or niche audiences, Instagram offers many opportunities for brands to connect with their customers.

But how can you effectively reach these demographics if you don’t know what you’re doing? An Instagram ad agency can help you target the right people with the right content to grow your brand into the future.

Why Advertise on Instagram?

Instagram is a huge social media platform that’s only gaining popularity. According to Statista, this platform boasts more than 1 billion monthly users with more than 140 million users within the U.S. alone.

Connecting with younger demographics is one of the biggest advantages to advertising on Instagram. According to Act For Youth, 72% of people between the ages 13 and 17 use Instagram, while 67% of people between the ages 16 and 20 use the platform. These numbers drop significantly as age increases, with only 8% of people over 65 using the platform, compared to 46% on Facebook.

Since Facebook owns Instagram, the two platforms are connected for users and advertisers. A strong Instagram marketing agency will deploy the user data your brands collected on Facebook for more effective targeting on Instagram. They should also integrate your ad campaigns on both platforms and use the insights from both to tailor the strategies for each individual platform.

One of Instagram’s greatest advantages is that it’s cost-effective and accessible for smaller or newer brands who need to maximize their marketing budgets. Instagram allows you to set either a daily or lifetime budget for your campaign to ensure that you don’t overspend. You can pay as little as $0.20 per click for an advertisement. and about $6.70 for every 1,000 impressions, or CPM. According to WebFX, Instagram advertisements have clickthrough rates 2.5 times greater than on other social media networks, making your ad budget money well spent.

How to Effectively Advertise on Instagram?

Advertising on Instagram can be effective, but that’s not a given. What are some best practices to keep in mind? Here are a few:

• Consider which ad formats will serve you best and stick with them. Instagram offers several types of advertisements through multiple features, including photos, Stories, videos, Carousels, Explore, IGTV, and Instagram Shopping. Photo ads are the most common type on the platform, appearing on a user’s feed as they scroll through posts from their friends and who they follow.
• Story ads allow businesses to take advantage of the Instagram Stories feature. Your story ad will appear among these posts, allowing users to swipe up for more information about your product or offer. If you anticipate your target audience responding to interactive ads, using the Stories feature could be the way to go.
• While Instagram was initially a photo app, more and more Instagram users are interacting with videos. According to Sprout Social, videos have the third-highest engagement rate of all Instagram content behind photos and Carousel.  Video ads can appear in the same places as photo ads: in feeds, stories, and on Instagram TV.
• Carousel ads include multiple pictures within the same post to give the viewer more information about the product or offer. The viewer can scroll through three or four images to increase engagement time and the likelihood of a click-through. Carousel ads are even more flexible than straight video or photo posts because you can combine the two — a recent study found that Carousels combining video and photo content have the highest engagement rates per post of all post types, at 2.33%.
• The Explore tab on Instagram allows users to view posts from accounts they aren’t following. It’s populated with posts and accounts likely to appeal to the user based on their interests and the accounts they follow. According to Instagram, 83% of users discover new products or services through this tab, making it an outstanding ad format for finding new audiences looking to expand their horizons. Advertising through the Explore tab could be effective in introducing your brand to a new target audience or segmenting your existing audience.
• Instagram TV, or IGTV, was launched in 2018 as a space for users to post longer videos. Verified users can post IGTV videos up to an hour long, while regular users can post IGTV videos up to 10 minutes long. This is a great way for brands to expand their content on this single platform instead of switching to a more video-based platform like YouTube.
• There is now a separate “shopping” tab on Instagram for users looking to make a purchase. Shopping ads are ideal for reaching people actively browsing for the products you’re selling. In addition to the actual shopping tab, you can “tag” shoppable items in your ads that take people to its product page — making it easy for you to turn an ad viewer into a customer.
  

  Building Your Instagram Ads Strategy

  With a ton of options to choose from and even more budget strategies to use, how can you determine which advertising formats are best suited for your business? A smart Instagram advertising agency will help you choose the type of advertisement based on your overall campaign goals. They’ll also help you utilize and incorporate different kinds of Instagram advertisements for a comprehensive and cohesive strategy.

• Set up your Instagram Business profile so users can contact you directly. This also gives you access to “Insights,” where you can view detailed and valuable information about the impressions, engagement, and reach of all your posts. An experienced agency will parse this data for the signals most impactful to your bottom line and continuously improve your ad strategies with rampant creative testing.
• Make sure all your content includes a clear call to action, and the more personalized the better. Your agency will make sure your ads direct customers to purchase, download content, or sign up for alerts depending on your campaign’s objectives. According to Hubspot, ads with personalized calls to action perform 202% better than ads with basic calls to action.
• Promote previously successful organic posts as paid ads. The agency should go through your feed and pick the posts with high engagement — those with the most likes, comments, shares, saves, and views. If it’s already proven effective as a post, chances are it’ll make an effective ad (so long as your Instagram ad agency serves it to the right audience).
• Partner with influencers. These Instagram users have a platform with followers who trust them when it comes to product recommendations. They may have cultivated a specific niche following or have a large brand that reaches a broad audience. So how do you break in with influencers who likely have several companies vying for their partnership? How do you know which influencers you should even be trying to partner with in the first place?

An agency that has existing relationships with influencers makes a huge difference in getting your product out to the right audience. They’ll make sure your influencer partners align with your brand values and provide the right balance of influencers with a large following or with a more targeted audience. Instead of vetting each influencer yourself, leave it to your agency to find your best brand ambassadors.

Why Use an Agency to Advertise on Instagram?

A lot goes into effectively advertising on Instagram, and it’s difficult to manage on your own. Managing your Instagram campaigns can seem like a full-time job. Working with experts who know all the ins and outs of this platform can take some of the weight off your shoulders.

Partnering with an Instagram advertising agency can be the missing piece of a lagging marketing strategy. They’ll provide strategies and creative content you never even considered and tackle roadblocks before they occur.

An agency shouldn’t feel like an unnecessary added cost. They should be a valuable business partner to help you along your journey. When The Snow Agency helped Alpha Clothing Co. monetize its already loyal following on social media, we focused on doing just that. We identified potential customers already engaging with the brand to drive purchases and website visitors. The Snow Agency developed a customer profile and created engaging content that ultimately generated sales.

What to Look for in an Instagram Advertising Agency?

Not all Instagram advertising agencies are created equal. You should never feel like they’re doing the bare minimum and you’re handling the heavy lifting. The right agency will take everything off your plate and leave you with the peace of mind that they’ve handled everything.

So what does a complete and effective Instagram ad strategy that seamlessly incorporates every aspect of your brand’s Instagram advertising look like? Here’s what to expect when working with an Instagram ad agency:

• Campaign goals: There are several different objectives you may want to focus on, such as sales, brand recognition leads, conversions, website traffic, and engagement. Starting with a clear goal like one of these identifies the best key performance indicators (KPIs) for your campaigns.
• Audience targeting: Think about who you want to target with your content on Instagram and take advantage of their granular targeting mechanisms. Instagram offers tons of actionable information about your audience to your business, and your agency must leverage them to effectively connect with your target audience.
  A strong agency will have a nuanced understanding of how to deploy a variety of campaigns and targeting levers to place your brand’s ads and posts perfectly and not a waste of your ad spend. Our team has driven over $250m in revenue for our clients using Instagram and other platforms to find the users who convert into customers.
• Content creation: Once you have your target audience in mind and know how to reach them, your agency should produce engaging content that appeals to those specific audiences. You want your content to stand out on users’ feeds as they’re scrolling, whether it’s compelling, funny, or fascinating. Appealing colors, eye-catching graphics, and creative videos make a positive impression on your audience, leading to increased engagement and revenue growth,
• Monitor effectiveness: The work isn’t over now that your campaign is running. Your Instagram agency should monitor the campaign’s effectiveness by collecting and analyzing relevant data points so none of your ad spend is wasted.
  No campaign goes 100% perfectly, but a good agency will provide the reporting to identify new strategies, the agility to adapt and improve fast, and the transparency to show you exactly what to expect with these updated strategies.

The Wrap Up

Working with an agency to advertise on Instagram is key. The right partnership and investment can end up making you a lot of money in the long run by getting the right content to the right people. These tactics and strategies have made our clients over $250 million in revenue, and we’re happy to talk more about them when you contact us for your free consultation.

Sources: 

What you should know about marketing to millennials and Gen Z | Biz Journals

How to Create an Instagram Business Profile | business.com

How to Define Your Target Market | Inc.com

Instagram: distribution of global audiences 2021 | Statista

Youth Statistic: Internet and Social Media | Act For Youth

How Much Does It Cost To Advertise on Instagram | WebFX

ADS IN EXPLORE | Instagram

Instagram Carousels Are the Most Engaging Post Type | Search Engine Journal

22,360,021 Posts Show What Top-Performing Carousel Posts Look Like

Personalized Calls to Action Perform 202% Better Than Basic CTAs

SaaS is a difficult field to break into, but marketing your brand effectively is even harder. If you want to market your software to the right people in the right places with effective content, hire a SaaS marketing agency to help. But how do you go about this when so many marketing agencies claim to be the best? This guide will help you through this process so you end up with the perfect fit for your brand.

What Is SaaS Marketing All About?

SaaS marketing is different from marketing that sells a physical product. Figuring out how to do this can be difficult for beginners, especially when you’ve got so many other aspects of your business to worry about. Identifying the winning strategies for a brand quickly and reliably is how our founders, Dan and Jon Snow, grew and scaled several ecommerce brands to 8-figure exits. Your agency needs to provide guidance and care to make sure your startup grows profitably and sustainably.

Every company wants repeat business, but this is especially critical in SaaS. The best way to make money in this arena is to earn and keep business via subscriptions.

SaaS marketing also involves creating different “levels” of content to reach people of different backgrounds. You wouldn’t try to reach a seasoned pro with the same content you’d use to target a beginner. Understanding their diverse needs is vital to effectively show your different audiences that your software is the solution to their problem.

SaaS marketing is fiercely competitive as other brands in your niche try new, innovative brand strategies and marketing tactics. Your SaaS marketing agency has to set itself apart and provide people with incentives and value for using your product over the rest.

SaaS Marketing Tips and Tricks to Know

Agencies providing SaaS advertising on social channels like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google, and others must be experts in connecting your product’s solution to your audience’s problem. Here are some of the strategies we’ve seen be successful for SaaS startups.

• Tailor your information: The SaaS sphere is all about information — so focus on this aspect first. Consumers aren’t likely to impulse buy a SaaS platform; they’ll most likely research extensively and compare several products before purchasing. Give them all the information they need to make a decision about your product.
• Leverage promotional materials and giveaways: This might seem counterintuitive since you’re trying to make money, but giveaways are powerful tools to jumpstart SaaS marketing. The hardest part is getting people on board in the first place. Try offering a free trial of your product to incentivize a download. From there, it’s easy for customers to love your product and sign up for the full version or purchase a subscription.
• Create custom content: Help people learn more about your service through custom content. Focus on topics related to your product and the solutions they provide to cast a wide net through search engine optimization (SEO).
  Start this process by identifying the specific keywords you want to rank highly in (an effective marketing agency can identify which keywords will help you achieve your marketing goals). From there, use blogs, videos, expert guides, and live feeds that feature those keywords in different and creative ways. Your agency should be efficient and inventive when engaging and informing your audience about your fantastic service.
• Pay attention to SaaS review sites: A good review is worth its weight in gold, and this is especially true for SaaS. With so much competition out there, many potential customers turn to reviews when deciding which products to buy. As a result, many SaaS-specific review sites, like Trustpilot, Capterra, and GetApp, are valuable marketing tools.
  Check out any existing reviews on these sites to make sure they are positive. If you aren’t already listed, reach out to the site to get your brand on there. Once your company is listed, encourage customers to review your product. Do this by offering incentives like a free month or a bonus product to make reviewing worth their while.
• Incentivize referrals: Like reviews, actual word-of-mouth referrals drive lots of business to SaaS firms. In an ideal world, this would happen organically, but you can help move the process with incentives. You’d be surprised what people are willing to do for even a small incentive. It doesn’t even have to be cash — it can be anything from a free month’s subscription to bonus features or even special access to products.
• Engage with customers: It’s easy for SaaS companies to feel like they aren’t connected to their customers since they don’t have in-person interactions with users. But you can still have meaningful interactions with your customers; instead of promoting your products and calling it a day, try a more engaging approach. Go live on social media to do a demo or do a question and answer session. You’ll promote information about your product and set yourself apart from other SaaS competitors.
• Expand your reach through podcasts: You may think partnering with influencers isn’t SaaS-friendly, but podcasts are one avenue worth taking advantage of. A podcast feature can be a mutually beneficial relationship — you get exposure, and the podcast’s host gets an interesting guest.
  Podcasts are usually niche, so you need to find the ones talking about your product topics. From there, reach out to the hosts and pitch yourself as a guest. Most podcasts are pretty lean operations run by everyday people. Odds are a host will at least see or listen to your pitch — so make it count! Include what you like about their show, your relevant experience, and what topics you’d be an expert on.

How to Hire the Perfect SaaS Marketing Agency for Your Startup/Brand

A SaaS marketing agency can do the heavy lifting for you and let you focus on more important tasks like software development.

When deciding on what agency to use for your startup, focus on their customer service. Just like in SaaS, detail-oriented and reliable customer service makes a huge difference.

Look for a responsive, available marketing agency to be your partner instead of just seeing you as a source of income. The right marketing agency will be just as invested in and dedicated to your success as you are. Part of our process of getting to know our client’s business includes a detailed discussion so we can recommend the best services to help you achieve your goals. Whether that’s marketing, creative content production, or any of our services, we focus on the platforms and strategies best suited to your brand’s needs.

What Types of Ads Should I Use for My Brand?

Different types of ad services have a variety of strengths and weaknesses depending on your audience and what you’re looking for. These are a few of the marketing services we offer to startups and brands of all sizes:

• Facebook: Take advantage of the biggest social media website in the world with nearly 2.5 billion monthly active users and about 1.7 billion daily active users. When it comes to size, reach, and effectiveness, nothing beats Facebook. Get your content on this platform if it isn’t already!
• Instagram: According to Statista, Instagram boasts about one billion monthly active users. This platform is an especially effective marketing tool for reaching younger people like Generation Z. As of 2018, 72% of U.S. teens were regularly active on Instagram, compared to 51% who are active on Facebook.
  We have had great success on Instagram, as shown by our work with Perfect Sculpt. While they had a strong Instagram business profile with over 470k followers, they weren’t taking advantage of this resource. By tapping into Perfect Sculpt’s following, we created a viral marketing campaign with celebrities and influencers, and we eventually brought in 524,000 new followers and a total increase in revenue of 14,350%.
• Snapchat: You can’t talk about Millennials and Generation Z without also talking about Snapchat. Brands don’t usually consider this platform as it’s not part of “the big three” platforms most people typically consider for social media advertising. But it’s the place to be if you’re looking to reach younger demographics. According to Pew Research, 73% of 18-24-year-olds use Snapchat, and almost 50% of adults ages 25-30 also use the platform regularly. Instead of tackling this platform on your own, your agency should guide you to reach your target group with content that drives conversions.
• Google: Google reigns supreme when it comes to search engines, as it accounts for 90% of all searches worldwide and processes over 3.5 billion searches every day. The right agency will make sure your SaaS brand is connected to high-intent keywords and ranks highly on Google’s search engine results pages (or SERPs). That way, you’re reaching the people searching to address the problem your product solves.
  While there are ways to reach the top of Google’s search results organically, you can also pay for that top spot through “sponsored” advertisements. We’ve helped brands grow and scale profitably with the Google ad strategies we’ve developed for nearly a decade.
• YouTube: Video content is more popular than ever now thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  YouTube boasts 2 billion users every month — making it the second-largest social media platform only after Facebook. This platform is also quite popular with younger demographics who have grown up with social media. As of 2018, 82% of U.S. teens say they regularly use Youtube, according to Pew Research. A good agency will help you find and partner with influencers and YouTubers to reach your audience and drive conversions for your startup.
• Email: Email is still a vital service for reaching your audience and growing your brand. You can get a great return on your investment in this area as well.
  A sound email strategy drives more revenue than you’d expect. Based on a U.K. study in 2018, ROI for email is £42 for every pound spent, equating to around $55 per $1.30 spent. This number increased about $13 from the 2017 study. Whether it’s siloed or is a part of your omnichannel strategy, email can be a great way to connect with your users who are interested in your startup.
• SMS: This type of marketing has exploded in recent years as people use their phones more. While this marketing method can be effective, you need to do it right since it’s considered a more intimate and personal form of communication — you don’t want to overdo it and risk turning people off.
  Ensure your SaaS marketing agency handles the entire process for you, including copywriting, design, a live demo, calendar planning, sending the texts out, and reporting on the text campaign’s effectiveness.

Bottom Line

With the proper research and due diligence, it’s possible to hire the perfect SaaS marketing agency for your startup or brand. Just like your customers will scrutinize how effective your service can be for them, you should do the same with any marketing company you consider. Contact us today for a consultation to find out more about how we can help your software-as-a-service business meet its goals to grow and succeed.

Sources:

Four Ways To Help Your Business Stand Out From The Competition | Forbes

10 Reasons Why Good Customer Service Is Your Most Important Metric | Entrepreneur

What you should know about marketing to millennials and Gen Z | Biz Journal

Facebook: Daily Active Users Worldwide | Statista

Instagram Global Age Group | Statista

Social media usage in the US in 2019 | Pew Research

This Chart Reveals Google’s True Dominance Over the Web | Business Insider

YouTube Boasts 2 Billion Monthly Active Users, 250 Million Hours Watched on TV Screens Every Day | Digital Information World

Pew: Teens, Social Media & Technology 2018

Marketer email tracker 2019 | dma.org

Before you go out and hire the first Facebook marketing company you come across, do your due diligence. You’re not simply hiring a marketing company; you’re looking for someone to partner with your business and help you grow into the future.

Facebook Ads is a powerful tool; you just have to know how to use it. We’ve spent nearly a decade identifying the strategies to help ecommerce brands scale more effectively. Our founders, Dan and Jon, used Facebook advertising as an integral part of their strategy when building, scaling and exiting multiple 8-figure businesses like Simply Inked. Read on to learn everything you need to know about hiring a Facebook marketing company to find the right fit for your company.

Why Advertise on Facebook in the First Place?

A lot has changed this year, but Facebook advertising capabilities are still some of the best available to ecommerce businesses. These days, Facebook boasts nearly 2.5 billion monthly active users and about 1.7 billion daily active users — making it the largest social media platform in the world.

Facebook users don’t open the app, scroll for a minute, and then close it for the rest of the day. According to digitalmarketing.org, a typical user spends about one hour on the app every day — giving you plenty of ways to learn about your audience, what they find engaging, and how they see your product as the solution to their problem.

Many people assume they can’t afford to advertise on a platform as big as Facebook because it’s too expensive — not true! Advertising on Facebook can be cost-effective if you know what you’re doing. Facebook’s average cost-per-click, or CPC, is less than $1 a $0.97. Facebook’s average cost-per-thousand-impressions, or CPM, is $7.19. Facebook uses a bidding model for its ads, so the actual cost will depend on various factors.

Another reason to advertise on Facebook is the simplicity yet effectiveness of Facebook Ads Manager. This system allows you to set campaign budgets and timeframes so you don’t spend more than you want on a campaign. Just set your parameters and let it run. Once you’ve maximized your campaign budget, you won’t get any more placements or incur additional fees.

One of the biggest reasons to advertise on Facebook is its targeting capabilities. Facebook has incredible amounts of data on its users that you can use to target the people who want to see your content. We use signals like interests, income, education, marital status, and parental status in our approach to create audiences before grouping them by engagement level. This strategy reveals powerful insights that lead to more ecommerce conversions for our clients. Facebook also allows you to re-target users who engaged with your content or brand in the past so they’re more likely to make a purchase. Using this information, you can set specific parameters about the people you want to target with your content to get the best results possible.

What Should You Know About Advertising on Facebook?

Facebook marketing can be incredibly profitable once you know what you’re doing. Instead of starting ad campaigns at random only to end up wasting money, be strategic about your Facebook advertisements. Here are a few tips for successfully utilizing Facebook ads and maximizing your ROI:

• Write the content of the ad strategically. Whether you’re creating your ads or your Facebook ad agency is, paid content needs to show the problem your product addresses and the solution it provides. It should also include a strong call to action that makes it clear to the viewer what they need to do. Do you want them to buy a product? Subscribe to your emails? Download your program? Be clear about how it benefits them, why they need it, what makes your product different, and convey all of this information clearly and succinctly.
• Build up your Facebook business page: If you’re advertising on Facebook, you need a complete Facebook business page. When users see your advertisement, they can click through to your Facebook page in addition to the ad landing page. You want users to be as impressed by your page as they were by your ad.
  Choose your business category, set a vanity URL, and add relevant business details, including contact information, location, hours, website link, and more. That’s all in addition to the basic steps of creating your page and uploading a profile picture—the more information on your Facebook business page, the better.
• Plan your posts: This might seem tedious and unnecessary, but your Facebook marketing won’t be very successful without a clear posting strategy and schedule. Monolithic posting and random posting won’t have the desired effect. We recommend consistently posting a variety of content on your page to find the right balance. Keep an eye on the engagement (likes, comments, shares) for each post.
  Consider following the 70-20-10 rule: posting original content 70% of the time, relevant interest content 20% of the time, and self-promotional content 10% of the time. You can even schedule your content to be posted at specific times so you can set it and forget it. The right planning and consideration can make your Facebook marketing strategy more successful.
• Take advantage of the full range of Facebook: In addition to more well-known features like business pages and paid advertisements, take advantage of other features to contribute to your advertising strategy.
  With Facebook Live, live-stream and engage with followers in real-time. Plan an event with an interesting speaker or host a question and answer session about your new products. Other features to consider include stories, pinned posts, watch parties, and groups.
• Use eye-catching pictures, colors, and graphics. It’s easy to scroll through Facebook without a second thought. But what makes people stop scrolling to look at your ad? By using exciting visuals, your marketing company increases the likelihood of grabbing and holding the viewer’s attention long enough for them to process the ad’s content.
  One of our favorite examples is our work with Che Natural. Their product was amazing, but their marketing strategies weren’t having the desired effect. Through strategic content and image development, we targeted the ideal demographic to bring them the growth they were looking for.
• Test your content before launching. Rampant creative testing is a vital part of a good Facebook ad agency process, and your agency should never assume your campaign will be effective without testing it first. You don’t want to find out that something isn’t effective after you’ve spent money. Test beforehand to figure out any glitches or miscommunications.

Why Hire a Facebook Marketing Company?

Handling your Facebook advertising content can turn into a full-time job you likely don’t have time for. Partnering with a Facebook marketing company allows you to maximize your ad budget while focusing on the other aspects of your business.

Find a trusted partner who’s invested in helping you scale and grow. The right agency can turn your brand into a massive success. We’ve generated over $250 million in revenue for our clients to date and have spent over $75 million across Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms. It’s both our expertise in managing these platforms and our bespoke ad strategies that help our clients connect with their audience and enjoy a highly profitable return on ad spend (or ROAS).

What Should Your Facebook Marketing Company Be Doing for You?

Your Facebook marketing company should make your life easier by handling every step of the process from start to finish. They must be reliable when it comes to identifying your product’s highest-converting audiences, executing Facebook ad campaigns, and providing insightful reporting.

Here’s what our clients receive from us and what you should expect from your Facebook marketing company:

• Help you decide on your campaign goals to set the overall tone. Driving conversions and finding your most engaged audiences is vital. By setting the goal and tone from the start, you target the right people with the right content and a clear message.
• Identify the traits of your highest-converting audiences. Facebook’s ability to target specific people based on detailed information thanks to all the data it gathers about its users is extremely helpful. As we mentioned earlier, when you advertise on Facebook you are paying to utilize this information — so use it effectively.
• Set the proper targeting parameters to effectively engage your target audience. This ensures that your campaigns maximize Facebook’s ability to target people based on age, gender, location, education, and income. That’s what we did for Alpha Clothing Co. By analyzing their existing Facebook followers, we got a good idea of who their followers were, what they were interested in, and what they wanted to see in athleisure clothing. We developed a highly accurate ideal customer profile that got the company lots of exposure amongst fitness-minded individuals looking for high-quality clothing.
  The results speak for themselves. Alpha Clothing Co. boasted a return on advertising spend (ROAS) of 5.08 — meaning they got more than five times more money back in revenue than they invested in advertising.
• Create content tailored to your goals and your audience. Facebook users see tons of content daily, so make your ad stand out amongst all the noise. What makes your target customers stop scrolling and click on your content? Identifying this and editing an effective creative asset is easier said than done, which is why we have our own creative content studio to produce the video and images that resonate with our client’s various audiences.
• Monitor and tailor your campaigns for the best results. The campaign has launched, but there’s still work to do. Many people falsely assume advertising only requires work on the front-end. A successful campaign requires continuous work. Sometimes no matter how much testing you put into a campaign, it doesn’t hit the target. Instead of wasting money on an ineffective campaign, a strong Facebook marketing company will identify potential issues in the campaign and address them to improve campaign performance. There’s always room for improvement, and we are constantly looking for ways to improve and optimize your campaign to get you the best results possible.

The Biggest Difference An Agency Makes For You

Facebook advertising has incredible potential for ecommerce businesses, but the wrong agency will have you spending without getting much retu

rn on investment. Look for a Facebook marketing agency that takes the time to get to know you, your brand, and provides a customized Facebook ads strategy. It’s what we do with all our clients, and it’s what your business deserves.

We provide a free consultation to discuss your current Facebook ad approach, get to know your brand, and show you how Facebook advertising can transform your brand. Interested? Contact us to get your consultation.

Sources:

Secrets Of 7 Of The Most Effective Ad Campaigns | Forbes

How to A/B Test Ads | business.com

How to Define Your Target Market | Inc.com

How Much Time Does The Average Person Spend On Social Media? | Digital Marketing

How Much Does Facebook Advertising Cost? (Your 2021 Guide) | WebFX

Instagram for business is a crucial tool.

Well, depending on the demographics of your audience, of course. Everything you do with your marketing is dependent on the demographics of your audience. Write that down. Remember it.

But that IG swipe feature is a winner, winner, chicken dinner for your click and conversion game.

If you haven’t seen it or aren’t familiar with what it is, in a nutshell, it’s a clever little tool that allows you to link out from your Stories. 

A lack of proper and robust linking options on Instagram has notoriously been the bane of a marketer’s existence and made the phrase “link in bio” world-famous. Sure, you can use something like Linktree to add a ton of links but that’s not quite a solution. It’s tiresome to update and there’s not a lot of motivation to explore it. 

Benefits of Adding a Swipe up Link on Your Instagram Business Account

Click-Through-Ability

Enter the swipe up, a feature whose main and massive benefit is that it lets people – people being your customers – actually click through to your website, store, blog, landing page, etc. directly from the Story.

A story, by design, takes up our entire screen and makes the watcher a captive audience for those few seconds. No content above or below. Just your message. If you have your prospective customer’s attention and offer the ability to swipe up straight to where you want them to go…well, that’s big. 

Big Traffic Energy

The byproduct of being able to offer an easy way to get to your digital destination is that it can noticeably increase your traffic. Think about it, if you see a story that compels you to act but that action requires you to click their bio then click the link (and if it’s a Linktree type deal…add another click) and only then get to the destination, you just might pass, no? Or forget why you clicked in the first place!

Visibility 

500 million accounts use Stories every day and 4 million businesses use Stories ads every month. IG Stories is where your brand goes to be seen. 

Spontaneity Feels Real

It goes without saying that creating a post or running an ad in the feed is replanned. That goes for personal posts too, whereas Stories showcase the spontaneous. The real. The human moments. They’re fleeting and disappear after 24 hours. 

Given that, an ad in a Story can feel more authentic which can be another motivator for engagement in the form of a swipe. Here’s a fun fact to bolster that authenticity point, Stories shot on mobile did better than studio-created ads 63% of the time so you don’t have to be putting in time (or money) for Oscar-caliber ads.

Sounds pretty grand and you might be wondering how to add a swipe up link on your Instagram business account, no?

How to Add a Swipe up Link on an Instagram Business Account

Here’s where there’s a catch. Not everyone can add a swipe up link (kind of).

Your account must meet two criteria:

• It has to be an Instagram Business Profile 
• You have to have over 10,000 followers 

Or

• Your account needs to be verified

That’s what we meant by “kind of”, having a verified account, i.e., celebrities, brands, public figures, etc. means you don’t have to have those 10k followers. There’s also a way for you to use the feature without verification and the 10,000 but it’s somewhat of an involved process.

If you’ve met those conditions though, it’s smooth sailing and you’re on your way to swipe heaven (up…not right…this isn’t Tinder).

If you haven’t embraced the glory of the swipe up or need some help fine tuning your IG marketing, get in touch with us at The Snow Agency and we’ll help you sort it out.

Before getting into the nitty-gritty, more esoteric bits and bobs about, all those fun buzzwords and whatnot, ya gotta start somewhere. Where better to start than from the beginning?

Let’s take the 30,000-foot view because it’s honestly so easy to get lost in the details.

Digital marketing, what is it?

Look out the window of that plane at cruising altitude and what you’ll see is this definition; digital marketing is advertising that’s delivered via digital channels, electronic devices and the internet. That can be social media, apps, websites, emails, search engines, etc.

Whenever you access the internet, even if it’s for just a moment, the chance that you’re interacting with some type of marketing is damn near 100%.

Digital Marketing Simply Explained

Here’s the crucial thing about digital marketing basics for beginners, the whole thing is about meeting your audience – your customers, clients, fans, etc. – where they are. The only reason you advertise anywhere is that you want someone to see it and since the whole world has gone digital, those channels are where you’ll most likely be seen.

Which platform or method you land on is based largely on the demographics of whom you’re targeting AKA who’s buying what you’re selling. Other factors like your industry play into it as well.

That goes for traditional marketing too actually. The demographics dictate the channel.

Why?

Let’s take a quick example.

If your product is targeted to teenagers in urban areas, are you going to go heavy on billboard advertising in rural Mississippi? Probably not. You’d check the demographics and see where the most eyes are and you’d likely notice that Snapchat or TikTok are places to capture your audience’s attention.

So, identifying your target and creating customer personas with those demographics is the basis upon which you build your strategy.

And that strategy starts from the objective.

Are you trying to just get traffic to your website? Maybe search engine marketing is right for you. Are you looking to create leads or close sales? Perhaps an email funnel that takes a recipient on a “journey” can be the digital marketing method that works.

What Does Digital Marketing Encompass?

Smart Insights puts in a straightforward, easy to remember way. They call it the 5Ds of Digital:

• Digital Devices – The physical devices we use to connect to the net; phones, tablets, laptops, TVs, gaming systems, etc.
• Digital Platforms – Think Facebook, Google, Instagram, etc.
• Digital Media – Paid, owned and earned communications like ads, email, search engines, etc. 
• Digital Data – Info collected about your target audience
• Digital Technology – Tech created and used for marketing and experiences

Your website is digital marketing. The content you create or commission to be created in the form of a content marketing strategy is digital marketing. Affiliate marketing is digital marketing. Even AI with chatbots and analytics are digital marketing.

What Type of Digital Marketing Do I Need When Starting a Business?

The type of digital marketing you need when starting your business is the same kind you need when you reach your 10th anniversary: the kind that works.

It comes back to what was mentioned early, meeting your audience where they are. When you’re starting your business you likely won’t have the funds, marketing budget or even the people to run huge campaigns. And that’s fine. 

The truly amazing thing about digital marketing though is that it’s very much leveled the playing field for getting your message, your product, your service, etc. in front of a hungry audience. You can do so much more with so much less these days. You can reach people with target campaigns for pennies compared to traditional marketing.

If you’re struggling to hit your stride with digital marketing, hit us up at The Snow Agency. We’ve been at this for a minute or two and generated a couple of bucks of revenue ($250M+) for our clients and we’d love to bring you to that promised land too.

Don’t you just love acronyms? CTR, SEO, BRB, CTA, SPC, LOL, DLA, ROI, KPI, PPC…there’s a billion more and a couple of those weren’t even marketing related and hell some of them were just straight up made up. It’s hard to tell sometimes and you no doubt feel a twinge of pressure like you’re expected to remember them all and toss that jargon around.

We get it.

That said, all these shorthand acronyms (aside from the made up ones) mean something and can truly help your business’s bottom line. NBD.

To that end, let’s talk PPC. What is PPC advertising?

Pay-Per-Click Advertising.

PPC Advertising Explained

On the most straightforward of levels, pay-per-click advertising is quite literally exactly what it sounds like; it’s a model where you’re paying each time that someone clicks on one of your ads. If you’ve ever seen an ad online (if you haven’t, call us, because that is wild) you already have a basic understanding of PPC advertising. At least from the viewer’s side.

Seeing as how Google is the most popular and largest search engine on earth, Google Ads is the most widely used platform for PPC advertising. Whenever you do a Google search for any type of product or service, have noticed those ads come up on top of the organic search?

Those are paid search, pay-per-click ads put there by the company or their marketing agency. The same goes for Microsoft’s search engine Bing (yes, it still exists). As far as how they’re displayed, you have the aforementioned search ads, plus; shopping, video, display and Gmail ads, among others. A version of PPC even exists on social media, for example, but that’s for another day.

Before getting into how an ad gets placed, let’s establish why you would want to use PPC as a tool in the first place.

That reason…it drives traffic. When done correctly and executed according to a proper plan, the goal of pay-per-click advertising is to inspire action AKA a click and drive traffic to wherever you want to send it. Maybe it’s a landing page, a storefront, your website, whatever. The goal is to create a compelling ad that captures attention enough that someone would want to click through to see what’s on the other side. And, of course, on the other side of that click you need to have your ducks in a row too.

The last thing you want is to be paying for people to click through, actually earn the click, only to have them sent to a confusing site, lacking in direction and unclear as to what they should do next. That’s its own problem and part of the process of creating an effective PPC strategy is making sure that that’s part of the planning and execution.

Back to PPC ad placement though because while it may seem like magic, there is an actual procedure playing out behind the curtain.

Anyone interested in having an ad appear on a search engine results page (SERP) participates in an automated ad auction based on the keywords that they want to have trigger their ads. It’s best to get it straight from the horse’s mouth, Google describes their auction like this:

1. When someone searches, the Google Ads system finds all ads whose keywords match that search.
2. From those ads, the system ignores any that aren’t eligible, like ads that target a different country or are disapproved based on a policy violation.
3. Of the remaining ads, only those with a sufficiently high Ad Rank may show. Ad Rank is a combination of your bid, ad quality, the Ad Rank thresholds, the context of the person’s search, and the expected impact of extensions and other ad formats.

How The Snow Agency Can Help Your Business Today

Pay-per-click advertising can be a game-changer for your traffic and your profits when done right. At The Snow Agency, we’ve been in the PPC game for years now and can help you not only create the ads in terms of copy and design but also the strategy behind them and, crucially, what happens after the click. Reach out to us today to learn more.

Just because it’s the holidays, it doesn’t mean that work stops for everyone. Some industries even kick into overdrive during this time of year. Whether you’re busy now or not though is irrelevant to your holiday marketing efforts because that show must go on.

Staying connected with your audience is more always important and the holidays present a perfect opportunity to stay top of mind. Messages this time of year can help humanize your brand and cultivate a deeper connection with your customers so it’s key to not let this chance go to waste.

Understand Your Audience

As per the usual and the holy grail of any effective communication strategy is to deeply understand whom you’re talking to. In all likelihood, you’re already well versed in this and have your customer persona crystalized (and if you don’t, you need to reach out to us!) and the main hurdle to clear is delivering the right message.

Whether you’re selling products or promoting services, the vital thing is to recognize what it is that your customer wants at this time of year and craft the messaging and offer to hook them. Bear in mind though, you don’t need to be hard selling in every text, email or social media post. That said, you shouldn’t be selling in every communication.

If you know that what you offer isn’t going to have a lot of traction during the holidays with your audience, don’t feel pressured to offer a deal just because it’s what you’re “supposed” to do or because everyone’s doing it.  It’s not a requirement and there are compelling reasons not to make a holiday offer if it doesn’t make sense for your business.

In that case, a warm holiday greeting goes a long way and helps your brand stick in someone’s mind.

Don’t Discriminate 

We’re stating the obvious here but not everyone celebrates the same holiday!

A blanket “Happy Holidays” is inherently going to be read as more inclusive than specifically going with “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Kwanzaa”. Unless your company or product is specifically tied into a particular holiday, a broad approach in the greeting and verbiage is more accessible to a wider audience.

Is it a deal-breaker to just go with “Happy Hanukkah” as the basis of your holiday messaging? Not really but why do it when there are so many wonderful holidays and celebrations at this time of year to include?

It took us multiple sentences to include 3 major holidays in this section, for example.

This is an easy one but sometimes gets lost in the shuffle and becomes unnecessarily controversial.

Send Messages Out at The Right Time

Timing is everything in life and the same goes for your marketing communication.

Paying meticulous attention to the time and day of the week you send anything can be the difference between a great open or click-through rate and subpar performance. That, in turn, can make the difference between converting sales and missing them completely.

During the holiday’s the timing is even more important and you probably don’t want to be sending an email blast during Christmas eve dinner. Not a good look and most likely never going to be read either. If you want people to take action for Christmas or Thanksgiving or New Year’s, you need to be priming them before that. So they’re ready to act when that clinching message which seals the deal comes in at the end.

Reach Out to Us Today at the Snow Agency

Holiday marketing is clearly important but what makes it work is the strategy behind it which includes everything from the timing to the recipients and, most importantly, to the content itself. If you’ve struggled to nail your holiday marketing in the past, get in touch with us at The Snow Agency, this is sort of our thing, we’re called The Snow Agency after all, snow… winter… holidays… you get it.

Totally has nothing to do with our founder’s last name…

Ah SMS text marketing, the mysterious sorcery of marketing via short message service texts (fun fact for your next (virtual) pub trivia, that’s what SMS stands for). It’s a beauty of a tactic because of these few numbers.

96.

150.

96.

3.

Americans check their phones 96 times per day (with 66% checking them an eye-popping 160 times per day).

The average person unlocks their phone 150 times a day.

Another 96. This one corresponds to the percent of Americans who own a cellphone.

95% of texts are read within 3 minutes of being sent.

Whether you want to or not, you need to be part of that action.

SMS Text Marketing Explained

As mentioned at the top, text marketing is utilizing the tool that we’re all so addicted to for the purposes of marketing. There’s a fine balance between sending purposeful and timely messages that your audience and buyers will appreciate and the total abuse of the method by, oh I dunno, political campaigns.

If you’re looking for ways to not do SMS marketing, political campaigns are a great example of the pitfalls.

Benefits of Using SMS Text Marketing for Your Business

That said, there is tremendous upside to it when done right and with proper consideration.

It’s Immediate, Straight to the Point and Effective

Given the sheer number of people with cellphones and the number of times we all check our phones every day, whether they vibrate or not, it would be almost criminal to not take advantage. SMS marketing is perfectly suited to capitalize on those trends. Plus, by design, your messaging is required to be short and sweet.

Look no further than your own habits if you need convincing. If your phone vibrates or rings, what’s the likelihood you ignore it completely? At a minimum, you’re glancing at the preview/notification, no? And if that notification has some compelling offer like “50% OFF for the next hour” or something that grabs the attention, maybe you’re moved to act immediately.

People already read texts within 3 minutes of them being sent even without a compelling reason to.

That’s the power of SMS.

Bigtime Open Rates

That leads right into those open rates.

SMS marketing destroys the open rates of all its competing forms of messaging. We’re talking 98% open rates here. 98%!

Couple that with the aforementioned fact that those texts are read within mere moments of being sent and you have the building blocks for an extremely successful campaign on your hands.

Cheap, Cheap, Cheap

This type of marketing is extremely budget-friendly when compared to traditional forms of marketing like TV, magazines and even online ads. The only method that’s comparable in terms of price is email marketing but the returns with SMS are outsized even when put against that.

Easy to Track

Because it’s all digital it’s breathtakingly simple (sorry, a little dramatic with the language there maybe) to track the analytics. You can effortlessly see engagement, open and delivery rates and more in real-time. It makes learning about your customers easier and makes calculating that ROI a cinch.

Opt-in/Opt-out Ease

In many cases your audience will be opting in to receive your messaging by willingly giving you their number. These people are primed and wanting to get your communication. On the flipside and by law, SMS marketing requires an opt-out option which allows people a quick out if they’re not feeling your vibes anymore. It’s a win-win for you and the recipient in that sense.

Kickstart Your SMS Text Marketing With the Snow Agency 

SMS marketing can truly be a game-changer for your company, if it’s not something you’re currently doing or have had a subpar experience with it in the past, no problem. We get it. Give us a buzz at The Snow Agency and let us help you unlock the magic of SMS.

Are you doing email marketing?

If so, niiiiice.

If not, c’mon man!

You’re doing yourself a disservice, a massive one, if you haven’t got your business on the email train. 

Like, honestly, how many times a day do you check your email? Unless you’re some kind of highly disciplined Zen master, you probably check it more than you care to admit. Don’t pretend like you don’t either. The smart guys over at Harvard Business Review told us that professionals check their email fifteen (15!) times per day. Every 37 minutes.

People are peeking into that inbox constantly. Are you showing up there when they look? More importantly, are your email marketing subject lines convincing them to click?

What Is Email Marketing for A Business?

Email marketing should be a priority for your business and there are basically no exceptions for any industry. For starters, 90% of people 15 and older use email in the United States and the vast majority of them check it daily. Multiple times in fact as we mentioned before.

It’s also an absolute ROI monster. We’re talking about an expected return on investment of about $40 for every $1 you spend. It’s bonkers. Email marketing is by far one of the most effective options for maximizing ROI.

It may feel “old school” but at the end of the day, you don’t necessarily need all the fancy bells and whistles, the most cutting-edge tech or be on every social network to nail your marketing.

The only question is, how do you give your emails the best shot of actually getting opened? 

Effective Email Marketing Subject Lines

The best-laid plans don’t work so well if no one is opening the damn thing which is why effective email marketing subject lines are clutch. 

Here’s a crash course in getting it done and getting it done right:

Short and Sweet – Seriously, you don’t have much space and you don’t want your line cut off. Brevity is key and remember, 46% of people check email from their phone where the subject line gets even fewer characters before being cut off. Keep it less than 30 characters.

Peak Curiosity – Give them a reason to wonder. Have you considered making the subject line a question? Or a statement!

Humor – Funny is always good, if you can slide in a quick pun, do it.

Offers – Who doesn’t love a good offer, amiright? Make ‘em an offer they can’t refuse, capisce?

Highly Topical and Relevant – If you know your audience, speak directly to what’s relevant and in the moment for them.

Personalize – All reputable email campaign software allows you to personalize the subject line with the recipient’s name.

Make the Sender Name Recognizable – This will most likely be something related to your brand or company name, however, make it recognizable and easy to quickly grasp. If it’s a daily deal offer, for example, you can make the sender “XYZ Daily Deals” where “XYZ” is your brand. 

Action Words – Use verbiage that is active and urgent.

Don’t Forget About Preview Text! – This doesn’t relate to the subject necessarily but it’s something people will see before they open the email so we can address it here. Since the first bit of text shows up as a preview in the inbox you technically have a little more runway to work with to catch your recipient’s attention. So, make sure those first lines of your email are fuego.

The Snow Agency Are Masters at Email Marketing

Here’s the long and short of it, you can have pitch-perfect copy in the body, amazing insights or killer deals but if you don’t take the time to focus on the subject line, it’ll be straight to the trash with your email. It’s imperative you nail the subject line. If you’re having trouble getting that real estate right, reach out to us at The Snow Agency, we’re masters at the art of the subject line and we’re here to help.

Ah yes, the eternal question, which to choose between Google and social media advertising?

Ok, maybe it’s not exactly eternal but it is at least highly, highly relevant to the now.

The more refined phrasing for this would be search engine marketing (SEM) vs social media marketing and to be fair, they’re both great and incredibly useful. It’s not necessarily about one or the other all time and in fact, the real thing to figure out is which to use when.

What Is Google Business Advertising?

Before digging into Google business advertising let’s define search engine marketing in general. SEM is a strategy within digital marketing that’s used to increase your website’s visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs) through both paid and unpaid means.

Unpaid is your standard search engine optimization (SEO) practices that help you to organically rank better. Paid search, which is what we’re talking about here, is often referred to as pay per click (PPC) marketing and these ads can appear atop search results, on the side, Google Maps and more.

It’s quite literally when you pay each time your ad on Google is clicked. In other words, you’re essentially paying for visits to your site.

Google, being the largest search engine on the planet, is where that magic happens.

Why? Because Google holds nearly 87% of the market share of search, which means if people are searching for anything they’re extremely likely to be searching for it on Google. Hence advertising there makes a lot of sense.

50% of people that arrive on a retailer’s site from paid ads are more likely to buy than those who came from an organic link.

Moreover, as it compares to organic search, in a study from several years back, Google found that 89% of traffic generated by search ads was not replaced by organic clicks when the ads were paused.

What Are Social Media Advertisements? 

On the flip side, we have social media advertising. That’s your Facebook & Instagram ads, YouTube ads, Snapchat Ads and much, much more.

These are the ads you see in your feeds, during videos, etc.

The number of users on the most popular platforms is wild, taken in total we’re talking 3.81 billion active users in the world. And the numbers keep growing! Facebook alone has 2.7 billion users, YouTube has 2 billion and Instagram has over 1 billion users as well.

These are huge addressable markets for your brand and a place where you can directly connect with them in two-way communication. Consider that 83% of consumers that were surveyed say they use Facebook. If nearly everyone is using a platform, it stands to reason that your company should be advertising there.

The beauty of the social media platforms is that to a certain extent they self-segregate their age demographics so it makes your broad targeting easy to start from. If what you sell skews to the Gen Z set, Snapchat and TikTok are where you need to be more heavily than Facebook for example.

That type of targeting is part of the power of these platforms.

Which Is Better for What Type of Business?

Google is well suited for businesses with higher margins, local businesses in general, businesses with high customer lifetime value (i.e., doctors, universities, service providers).

Social media marketing is stellar for broadly raising brand awareness and is good for companies that rely on visuals more heavily, like eCommerce, travel, etc. Marketing on social platforms also works well for B2B companies. That said, basically all businesses can benefit from social media marketing and it’s generally more cost-effective than PPC.

Ultimately, they’re both good, that can’t be denied. Using Google ads and social media marketing strategically and often in tandem within a well-rounded digital marketing mix is going to yield the best results. Get in touch with us at The Snow Agency and let’s take a deeper look together and plan what would work best for your particular brand.