Category: Strategy

eCommerce is one of those things that’s in constant flux. That’s just the nature of commerce in general and the “e” part just acts as a multiplier. With tech advancing at a lightning pace it can be tough to keep up with what’s on trend now let alone having the time to research what’s coming down the pipeline.

Luckily, you’ve got some friends in the right places because we’re gonna clue you in on a few of those future thangs.

New Trends to Look Out for in 2021

The thing about trends, particularly in marketing for eComm, is that while there are some outright new ones, many are an evolution of something you either are already doing or have some touchpoint. The point being, jumping on board with them doesn’t require massive restructuring. 

So, without further ado:

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI spending by retailers is predicted to hit $12 billion by 2023. From smart checkout to chatbots on your eCommerce site, machine learning is all the rage because it presents massive opportunities to aggregate data that in turn makes your customer’s experience more personalized. Things like utilizing past shopping history to make individualized recommendations. A more personalized and bespoke experience can lead you straight to higher sales.

Augmented Reality (AR)

AR is another one that’s breaking through, with compound annual growth expected to be 77% through 2023.

We’re not talking just the domain of Snapchat filters here (although hit us up about that, we know a thing or two…or ten about Snap), AR is very useful for eCommerce beyond the social media stuff. Think about the idea of being able to show your customer how a product would look in their home before they even purchase it.

Sounds like a pretty powerful tool for marketing, no?

TikTok

Alright so this one is probably familiar but it absolutely exploded in popularity in 2020 which means 2021 is the time to get in on the eComm fun. The table has already been set for a good time as TikTok just recently partnered with Shopify for commerce.

Nice.

Very nice.

Micro Influencers

We’re not gonna lie, influencers are our bread and butter, we’ve been making this work for companies since before the word “influencer” had any social capital.

That said, you might be wondering why we’d include it in trends for next year. Fair enough, it’s a good question.

Well, the game has changed, or more accurately, it has expanded.

Micro Influencers offer a lot and have been under the radar for a while now. For starters, there are the obvious cost savings working with someone with a smaller audience and a refined niche, so far so normal. What puts it over the top though is the significantly better engagement rates.

Trust + higher engagement = wins

Flexible Pay and Payment Options

In addition to your product or service, customers want convenience. Period.

Payment is a place you can be shooting yourself in the foot and not even realize it. It’s exceedingly possible that a potential buyer could get all the way to the cart and simply close the browser if their preferred payment method isn’t there.

Make sure you’re offering the ability to use digital wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, etc. in addition to the standard credit and debit card. Also, be on the lookout for crypto potentially coming in (likely not a 2021 thing).

New eComm Markets

Last but not least, new markets!

The global middle class will add more than 1 billion people by the end of this year with more than 85% coming from Asia Pacific. Huge addressable markets are all of a sudden coming online and are ripe for the picking in terms of new customers and sales.

Hit up The Snow Agency for Help with eCommerce

There’s plenty more to get ready for in 2021, if you need help sorting through the noise and locking into the trends that will click for you, reach out to us at The Snow Agency and let’s talk.

Email is alive!

You’ve no doubt heard the chorus of people shouting from the rooftops, “email marketing is dead!”. First of all, that’s a weird thing to shout from a rooftop, like get it together psycho, and secondly, it’s just so far from the truth.

Why Email Marketing Is Important

Email marketing is clutch and if it’s not a tasty piece of your marketing pie, you need to change your recipe. Why?

For starters, everyone and their grandmother use email. Sometimes we use that phrase as an exaggeration but in this case, it’s literal because you know your grandma is out there hitting you up with weird nonsensical chain emails. We digress, the point is 92% of adults use email and 99% check their email every day.

Every.

Day.

How are you not salivating at those numbers?

Not enough for you though? Hear this:

Email is 40x better (40 times!) at customer acquisition than social media. Pick your jaw up off the floor, there’s more.

Email marketing can generate $38 for every $1 spent. That’s a 3,800% return on investment. Like c’mon.

Lastly, there are 3.9 billion email users around the world, more than any social network!

How does it work though, why is it so effective?

A few key reasons make all the difference. Importantly, people are opting in to receive your emails, in other words, they’re asking to hear from you. They already know they have at least some real interest in what you’re offering. From there, it’s just nailing the offer.

Email gives you the ability to create highly segmented lists and target your messaging precisely to your customer’s wants. Additionally, segmenting allows you to move people along your sales funnel at a different pace. Some groups might take less interaction before they’re willing to buy while others need to be finessed. Email’s got you.

That may seem complicated to do but in reality, all we’re talking about is a few clicks to set parameters. Email marketing is child’s play compared to the complexities that go into print, tv or other forms of digital marketing. What do you need for email? Buyer personas and a copywriter…and ya know, a computer with an internet connection.

Oh, and speaking of complexities, complexities usually don’t come cheap. Email marketing being a simpler affair all around means it’s a wildly affordable option.

Lastly, and this is sort of the icing on the cake, the cherry on top so to speak, it’s dang easy to track your results. How many opened? How many click throughs? Did sales go up? A/B test until the answer to all those, but particularly that last one, makes you happy.

The Best Email Marketing Platforms Your Business Can Use

So, now that you’re well and truly on board the email marketing train (hopefully), it’s time to decide which platform you should go with.

HubSpot – Great end to end solution and an all-around one-stop-shop

Constant Contact – Excellent for small businesses

Mailchimp – Terrific option for small business and agencies with a stellar freemium option

MailerLite – Nice and easy to use

SendinBlue – Another good all arounder with built-in CRM

Campaign Monitor – Solid functionality and a nice choice for small businesses

ActiveCampaign – More skewed to the CRM side of things, it’s a contender to look at

The Snow Agency Are Email Experts

These are just a handful of the many, many options out there available for email marketing. Clearly, this is a pretty quick summary but if your interest is piqued, which it should be, reach out to us at The Snow Agency and tell us what you’re trying to accomplish. Once we have some specifics, we can get you going on the email platform that works best for your business.

If you’re pressed for time and don’t want to read the next 600 words, here’s the rapid response: yes.

For those of you sticking around for the main event, and some real info, let’s proceed.

Instagram is one of the most popular social networks and platforms in the world. 6^th most popular, as of recently, to be exact with over a billion users. Pretty gnarly.

While the largest user base by far, in terms of age demographics, is 18 to 34, IG does have buy-in across the spectrum.

Instagram Explained

In a nutshell, Instagram is an app for sharing photos and videos with the followers you have. If you haven’t heard by now, it’s free for both individual users and businesses.

Beyond the basics of posting photos and videos, users can hit their network with both Stories (similar to Snapchat) and Reels (similar to TikTok) as well.

All in all, IG is a very visual platform.

How Using Instagram Benefits Your Business

Now that we’ve gotten the basics out of the way, let’s get to the meat and potatoes (plant-based meat if that’s your thing, we don’t want anyone to miss out): how to use Instagram for business.

But first…

Big Stats Energy

• 200 million+ users visit at least 1 business profile daily
• 90% of accounts follow at least 1 business
• 1/3^rd of the most viewed stories are from businesses
• There are 25 million business profiles(!)
• 83% of IG users discover new products or services on the platform

Those numbers alone should convince you to not just dip your toes in the IG business waters but to go scuba diving in them and plumb the depths for success.

Aside from those lofty numbers though, how can using the platform really benefit your business?

Access to Customers

Alright, so this is kind of related to the numbers, but the sheer amount of users means you’re opening the door to your customer base. If your company is targeting the 34 and below age group, this is where you’ll find them online.

Brand Recognition

With access comes recognition. There are few better ways to establish your brand and create a following for it than via IG. The visibility you get from IG isn’t necessarily equal to what you put it in. How? Well, consider influencers. If you have the budget for it, partnering with influencers can have an outsized influence (no pun intended) on your following. You can leverage their audience to grow yours. Pretty sweet.

Engagement and Relatability

In the process of building brand recognition and equity, naturally you’ll be engaging with your audience. Social networks are two-way streets for communication after all. That engagement serves to humanize your brand and make you more relatable. Not just a monolithic business.

Sales

Finally, we get to the important stuff. You thought we’d make a list of benefits and not include lining your pockets a little? C’mon now. The whole point of investing in any piece of your marketing mix is that you need to have some type of return. Using Instagram for your business can lead directly to sales.

You can run compelling ads with actionable copy. If/when your business gets above 10,000 followers (or if you have a verified account) you have access to the coveted swipe up feature in Stories that allows you to link out to your store or whatever else you want. It’s a big deal, trust us.

The Snow Agency Is Here to Help You!

Using Instagram for business has tremendous upside. Whether it’s solely to drive sales or gain new customers, to drive engagement with your company or create some vital brand recognition, it should be part of your marketing strategy.

If you’re floundering in the social media ocean without direction, give us a holler at The Snow Agency and we’ll help you get things working for you.

First of all, social media is important to commerce. Period. If you’re in business, basically any business, you should be leveraging the vast benefits and opportunities that social media offer. But why are these platforms particularly useful for eCommerce?

Try these stats on for size:

78% of people said the posts by companies they follow on social media impact their purchases.

74% of consumers rely on social networks to help them with their purchasing decisions.

74% said they would encourage friends to try new products because of social media.

Is your mind blown?

It should be because social media is a beast. An absolute juggernaut. Using it effectively can be a literal game changer for your eCommerce business.

Beyond those lofty numbers though, what’s the story? Why is it so necessary to be in this game?

Why Social Media Is Important in eCommerce

We’ve said it before, and we’ll keep saying it, your audience and target demographics are invariably on social.

Sure, if you’re selling to older folks, maybe those numbers are a bit lower (but even nearly half of those 65+ are on Facebook, so there’s really no excuse). If you’re targeting younger consumers, the numbers increase seemingly exponentially as you get down to Gen Z.

Talking to your buyers and meeting them where they are is sort of a no-brainer. It’s most convenient for them and it’s extremely cost-effective for you. Kind of a textbook win-win.

What else though?

Customer Service

For better or worse, we’ve all grown accustomed to the instant gratification era we’re living in. Even if we don’t personally love, a lot of your customers have come to expect it. Social media is a tool that can deliver that in spades. You can not only solve problems in real-time but when other followers see that you’re responding and fixing things quickly, it can shift their perception and perspective on you positively.

A few years back it was estimated that by 2020, 90% of businesses would be using social for customer service. Add to that the coronavirus pushing even more people and business functions into the digital space and you get a sense that 90% is a low estimate.

Two-Way Communication and Brand Image

Customer service works so well on social platforms because it’s two-way communication. There is real engagement that happens between you and your audience/customers. You go from a static, monolithic company to something that feels alive.

As you put out more content, being careful not to be purely selling (only 20% of your post should be overt sales and self-serving, provide value with the rest), you start to hone and shape your brand image.

Understanding Your Customers

The more you can engage with your customers on a personal level, the better you truly understand what they need and want. What could be better research from the perspective of eCommerce than going directly to the source to get intel?

Promos

Given all the above, when the time is right and you’ve developed campaigns/goals, you can use social for sales, discounts and deals for your eComm store. This not only keeps people engaged but is a great way to create further loyalty.

Ads

Last but not least, advertising on social media is almost a requirement these days. It takes a deft touch and a deep knowledge of your target market but social media ad campaigns for eCommerce, when executed and created correctly, can be incredibly effective.

Get Help With the Snow Agency

If you know you need to be using social to up your eComm game but aren’t sure where to start, get in touch with us at The Snow Agency and we can help you get the ball rolling. We are a full service digital marketing agency who helps brands grow and become their absolute best.

Marketers are spending big on social media. With worldwide revenue over $90 billion, that’s undeniable. Facebook is obviously a must, that’s basically everyone’s baseline in their social media ad spend. It’s no longer a case of are you advertising on FB though, it’s more like “Facebook and where?”.

That becomes the crucial question to answer for every business.

The networks are all unique with different demographics and ways in which they operate and engage their users but if your company is geared towards Gen Z and/or Millennials and you’re not on Snapchat…that’s likely a problem. Snap is where the youngins are.

What Is Snapchat?

Snapchat aka Snap is all about the ephemeralness. It’s fleeting in nature and started that trend of messages self-deleting/expiring within 24 hours. It was essentially Instagram Stories before there was an Instagram Stories. It has since morphed to include a lot more features that are typical of other platforms, like Discovery, which is more or less a news feed, and dove much deeper into the world of augmented reality (AR). They even came out with some hardware in the form of glasses: Snapchat Spectacles.

So, for all intents and purposes, Snapchat is that new new. Well, kind of. It’s been around for a bit now and is probably getting old enough (and by that we mean large enough) to sit at the adult’s table with Facebook, Twitter, IG and YouTube. Given the roughly 210 million daily active users, it will certainly become increasingly more relevant to a well-rounded social media campaign.

But these days it’s still sitting at a lowly .8% of ad spend. That presents a big opportunity to tap into an audience that isn’t getting overwhelmed by ads like they are on all the other platforms. It’s an open secret that only about 28% of US marketers were tapping into in 2018.

Snap is also making advertising more and more appealing as they grow, not just from the size of the audience but with the tools themselves.

Why Should I Advertise on Snapchat?

We’d be remiss to not say it again, if you’re targeting the young guns, the Gen Zers and Millennials of the world, you need to consider getting into the mix on Snap. Young adults between 18 and 24 make up 78% of the active users and since the autumn of 2016 when it overtook the other platforms, Snapchat has remained the most popular social network for teens in the United States. Even increasing that margin over the years.

As they’ve grown and matured, Snap has started developing its own content to hook users with more value, and you know what? It’s working with their slate of shows featuring big names like Will Smith garnering 10’s of millions of views. They’re diving deeper into the strategy with partnerships with major networks like ESPN and NBCUniversal.

Dedicated viewership makes for a big appeal to advertisers, especially when you consider they rolled out a new premium ad option called “First Commercial”. It’s exactly what it sounds like. But better. It allows marketers and brands to buy the first commercial on a show. That means everyone will see it, all viewers of that show for 24 hours. And the best part? It’s unskippable.

Pretty damn premium.

Advertise on Snapchat With the Snow Agency

Snapchat is working hard to cover all bases and budgets. Clearly, the ads require a big spend as they’ll be seen by millions of people, but Snap understands that’s not in the wheelhouse of all companies. With robust targeting tools and compelling AR tech to toy with the standard advertising and access to a still largely untapped younger audience is well worth the investment. Get in touch with us at The Snow Agency and we’ll help you get a better grip on what the platform can do for you.

What are the chances that any of the following are true?

• You were on Facebook before you started reading this blog.
• You’ll go to Facebook after reading this blog since we mentioned it.
• You have Facebook open in a tab right now or it’s on the home screen of your phone for easy access.

Pretty good chance one of those is accurate?

Facebook is the world’s most popular social media app and it’s an advertising powerhouse. If any of the above were true for you, and if not for you then certainly you can think of 2, 3 or 500 people it would be on point for, then you already intuitively understand the importance of Facebook paid advertising.

Being on the platform means being exposed to ads, it’s that simple, so if your company isn’t using paid ads, you’re missing a big opportunity.

How big?

Big big.

Facebook has over 2.6 billion monthly active users and 1.62 billion daily users.

Your target audience is there and with organic reach not being nearly what it used to be; paid Facebook advertisements need to become your best friend. And fast. The Snow Agency can definitely help you out with this!

Facebook Paid Advertising Explained

A lot of folks claim to have the market cornered on the “secret” of Facebook paid advertising success. That they’ve uncovered some hidden truth that unlocks vast riches. We think the basis of a great campaign is truly, really, deeply understanding who your audience is, creating ads that speak to them & connect with them and, most importantly, nailing the targeting. The downfall of any advertising is missing the mark with your aiming your communication.

That said, that’s not what this little explainer is about, this is all about the 30,000-foot view of paid advertising on Facebook.

On a basic level, it’s just paying to place a promotion in front of your selected target audience on Facebook. Pretty simple and not very overwhelming when you consider it in those terms.

Once you’ve locked in your audience, you need to consider the objectives of your ad campaign, it sales, leads, email addresses, etc? That informs how you design and write the ad.

Creating the copy and getting the images or video correct is a huge part of the equation and we can go on and on about what goes into that. The psychology at play and what not but the takeaway is that your content and call to action matter in Facebook advertising. May be stating the obvious but it needs to be said.

How Paid Advertising Will Benefit Your Business 

Paid advertising will benefit you because of the simple fact that organic reach has been in precipitous decline over the years and there’s absolutely no indication that it’s coming back to its previous levels. Put another way, if you’re not paying, you’re not reaching as wide of an audience as you’d like or need. Right or wrong, fortunately or unfortunately, that’s just the way it is on Facebook now.

The benefits are beyond just reach though. Paid ads on Facebook are actually pretty easy to set up, highly customizable and can generate results very quickly. Paid advertising means you’re selecting and targeting the exact audience you want to see your offer and Facebook offers some very refined tools to get that just right.

Additionally, there’s the conversion rate, across all industries the conversion rate for Facebook ads is 9.21%. Pretty significant number indeed.

Contact Us Today at the Snow Agency

If paid advertising isn’t something you’ve dove into because of the fear of getting it wrong and possibly wasting money, it’s understandable. It can seem like a lot when getting started and that can lead to a bit of analysis paralysis. Don’t let that affect your business though, give us a call at The Snow Agency and we’ll hold your hand, guiding you through the paid advertising process. You certainly won’t regret it. 

Whether you like it or not, every brand is constantly on the mission of increasing their brand awareness, it’s just one of the many costs of doing business. Luckily, money aside, this can be one of the more fun things you can get involved with, in contrast to all the behind the scenes work you do. It’s certainly one of the most visible aspects of your company.

The eternal question is always, how do you get more well-known and recognized? Additionally, how can you make sure it’s organic and feels authentic.

Enter influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing is kind of all the rage nowadays. Brands big and small look to collaborate with experts, celebrities and noisemakers in their niche to lend an air of authenticity to and legitimacy to their marketing. Something that feels a little less corporatized, so to speak, and therefore a little easier to trust.

What Exactly Is an Influencer?

An influencer is someone with the power to persuade and impact an audience and the rise of influencers has coincided with the rise of social media itself. That’s not to say they didn’t exist before, influencers have sort of always been around, back in the day it would’ve been word of mouth from a reputable and trusted source. Now the messaging gets amplified.

It’s big business too with brands looking to spend up to $15 billion (with a “b”) on influencer marketing by 2022.

And the moniker “influencer” isn’t just reserved for the Kardashians of the world anymore, whereas before it was thought that a massive audience is all that mattered, we’ve been seeing the growth and emergence of micro-influencers as a real force. In fact, those with 10,000 followers or less have higher engagement rates and are markedly more affordable to work with than the big dawgs/dawgettes with millions of followers.

There is also a wealth of options in between for all niches and within all industries. From celebrities to athletes to thought leaders and content creators, there’s someone for every brand, it’s just a matter of doing the research.

Why Influencer Marketing Strategies Are Important for Your Business

Simple: it’s effective.

Moving on.

Just kidding, we’ll tell you a few of the reasons why it’s important to incorporate influencer marketing into your overall marketing strategy. A few 

Targeting

This is were doing your research and due diligence comes into play, collaborating with the right influencer is so incredibly important. You want to make sure your target and their audience overlap as much as possible otherwise you’re not going to get the impact and ROI you were hoping for.

More importantly, influencers have already done this research to find their audience so those exploratory conversations with them go a long way in initially feeling out the fit.

Content

These folks are heavy content creators, that’s their business after all. That opens up a world of new content for you and your brand that they’re creating. The key is to let them continue to be themselves and keep creating the content they know their audience loves and engages with.

That’s the only way it works because people can smell inauthenticity from a mile away.

Trust

That all leads to increased trust.

You trust the influencer you partner with to create content for an audience that trusts them and therefore rubs off on you. Your brand awareness increases, sales and conversions increase and so does your credibility.

How to Create an Influencer Strategy

There are a lot more great reasons for your company to dive into influencer marketing and at The Snow Agency we’ve been in the game since before “influencer” was even a term. Creating an effective influencer strategy isn’t done overnight. Our strategy is a robust, data-driven which boils down to 4 key steps:

1. Analyze.
2. Strategize.
3. Find the influencer and platform.
4. Optimize.

It looks easy but the backend of each step is where the magic happens. Get in touch with us and we’d be happy to walk you through it in more detail and get you in the game.

The art of communication, some say it’s been lost with all of this tech relegating our face to face conversations into the dustbin of history. Even the ways in which you used to nurture leads like direct mail, phone calls and even email are losing their effectiveness.

All is lost!

What if that’s not the whole story though?

The old way is just that; the old way.

Communication, marketing communication specifically, has always ebbed and flowed with the times. From radio supposedly killing newspapers to tv killing radio and the internet killing them all, how we communicate and generate/nurture leads for business has always strived to leverage the tech of the day.

A shift in perspective and The Snow Agency is all that’s needed to see the power of SMS text campaigns in your marketing toolbox and, most notably, it dramatically shifts the landscape of how you nurture leads.

What Is SMS Text Marketing?

Let’s start from square one. SMS means Short Message Service and it’s the basic form of texting we all started out using back in the day when T9 predictive texting was all we had. The dark days before full keyboards were available, kids these days will never understand…

Anyways, SMS text marketing aka text message marketing is simply sending marketing communication via text. Like your email campaigns, text marketing is also permission-based which means people need to opt-in to hearing from you, a huge advantage over other types of marketing already.

Having been equipped with a little background on what it is, here are some stats to consider:

• 5 billion people send and receive SMS texts (about 65% of the world).
• 75% of consumers want to receive texts with special offers.
• Americans check their phones 96 times per day.
• 83% of millennials open SMS messages within 90 seconds of receiving them.
• 90% of sent text messages are read.
• Text messages have a 209% higher response rate than phone, email or Facebook.

Is your mind sufficiently blown?

Texting messaging might get overlooked for marketing avenues with more name cache and flash these days. You’ll be tempted to plow your marketing budget into ads on Facebook, Instagram, Google, etc. and that’s not wrong for sure but diversifying your ad spend and putting some into extremely high engagement vehicles like text marketing can reap big rewards.

If you haven’t put much thought into leveraging SMS, particularly for nurturing leads, you’re truly missing out on an incredibly effective method.

How to Use Text Marketing Services

Now that you’re squarely in the category of convinced, how exactly do you use text marketing services to follow your leads?

Well, as you’ve likely noticed, lead nurturing with things like email has become somewhat less effective, the open rates starting to dip and wane. Therefore, finding new ways to expand how you touch base with your prospective clients and customers becomes all the more important.

The beauty of employing an SMS strategy is that it plays to what people want.

People check their phones 90 times a day, a remarkable stat in its own right, and what that shows is that it’s quick. People don’t spend 5 minutes on their phones when they check them (5 minutes x 90 would be 7.5 hours), so people value immediacy and brevity. 2 things that texting offers in spades because they go out instantly and the character limit for a single SMS message is 160 characters. Less than a Tweet.

That encourages simplicity, another thing people crave now more than ever.

Just like your email and social media campaigns, you can segment and personalize your text marketing as well to keep it human.

Most importantly, using multi-channel campaigns help drive up your response rate by 37%.

Get Savvy With The Snow Agency

All in all, SMS text marketing is as close to a must as you can get these days, the art of communication isn’t lost at all, it’s just shifted to new means.

If you’re wondering how to implement text marketing to nurture your leads, get in touch with us today. At The Snow Agency, we’ve been texting since those T9 days, we get it.