Creating a Memorable Holiday Marketing Campaign
Are you ready to unwrap the secrets of creating a holiday marketing campaign that drives sales? As we embrace the holiday season, it’s not only the time for gift-giving but an opportunity for businesses to connect with their audience in a meaningful way. So, how can you craft a marketing campaign that resonates, spreads cheer, and sets your brand apart in the holiday shopping frenzy?
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore tips and strategies to make your business shine during this festive season. Get ready to create a holiday campaign that not only captures the spirit of the season but also achieves your marketing goals.
Understanding Your Audience
During the holiday season, understanding your audience is like knowing their deepest desires before they even make a list for Santa. To craft a memorable holiday marketing campaign, you need to read into the minds and hearts of your target demographics.
Here are some strategies to get you started:
- Customer Personas: Begin by creating or revisiting your customer personas. These detailed profiles of your ideal customers can guide your campaign’s messaging, design, and channel selection. Consider their demographics, psychographics, and buying behaviors. Are they parents searching for family-friendly deals or millennials looking for unique gift ideas? The more you understand them, the more precise your campaign will be.
- Analyze Past Data: Review data from previous holiday seasons. What were your most popular products or services? What promotions or strategies worked well, and which fell flat? Analyzing past data helps you identify trends and customer preferences, allowing you to tailor your campaign to what’s resonated with your audience in the past.
- Feedback and Surveys: Engage with your audience directly through surveys or feedback forms. Ask about their holiday shopping habits, what influences their purchasing decisions, and their preferred communication channels. Understanding their concerns can help you create campaigns that directly address their needs.
- Segmentation: Consider segmenting your audience based on their behavior. For example, you might have loyal customers who need exclusive incentives, last-minute shoppers who respond well to flash sales, or early birds who appreciate sneak peeks of upcoming promotions. Segmenting allows you to personalize your campaigns for maximum impact.
- Competitor Analysis: Don’t forget to peek over the fence at what your competitors are doing. Analyzing their holiday campaigns can provide insights into market trends and customer preferences. While you don’t want to copy them, you can identify gaps or areas where you can differentiate yourself.
The Power of Storytelling
The holiday season is a time of year filled with emotion, nostalgia, and cherished memories. To craft a memorable holiday marketing campaign, focus on the power of storytelling. Stories have the ability to connect with your audience on a personal level and this can include powerful emotions.
Here are some ways to create an engaging narrative:
- Relatable Narratives: Create narratives that your audience can relate to and think about the challenges, joys, and traditions that come with the holiday season. Write stories that align with these experiences, for example, tell a story about how your product or service made a customer’s holiday preparation easier or more joyful.
- Emotional Appeal: Stories that cause emotional reactions are more likely to be remembered. Whether it’s the heartwarming tale of a family reunion, the excitement of gift-giving, or the magic of winter, fill your campaign with emotions. This emotional appeal helps your brand resonate with your audience on a personal level.
- Consistent Brand Story: Ensure your holiday campaign story aligns with your overall brand narrative, your holiday story should be an extension of what your brand represents throughout the year. Consistency in storytelling helps reinforce your brand’s identity.
- User-Generated Content: Encourage your customers to share their holiday stories related to your brand. Whether it’s through social media posts, videos, or reviews, user-generated content adds authenticity to your campaign. Repost and share these stories to demonstrate real experiences with your brand.
- Visual Storytelling: Visual content is a powerful tool for storytelling. Consider using videos, graphics, and images that narrate a holiday-themed story. Show how your product or service fits into the holiday season and the lives of your customers.
- Content Series: Expand your storytelling across multiple touchpoints by creating a series of content pieces that build upon one another, gradually unfolding a holiday tale. This keeps your audience engaged and eager to see what comes next.
Create Captivating Visuals
The holidays are a time for vibrant colors, twinkling lights, and cozy imagery. Incorporate these elements into your marketing materials, including your website, social media, and email campaigns. Visuals have a profound impact, and when they align with the holiday theme, they can bring about a strong emotional response.
Here are five strategies for creating captivating visuals:
- Festive Branding: Temporarily update your brand’s color scheme to reflect holiday colors like red, green, and gold and add festive elements to your logo and website banners. These small changes show that your brand is in tune with the season.
- Engaging Social Media Content: Share visually appealing content on your social media platforms and post high-quality images of holiday-themed products, decorations, or behind-the-scenes glimpses of your team getting into the holiday spirit. Use these platforms to tell a visual story about your brand’s relationship with the season.
- Email Marketing: Design holiday-themed email templates that are mobile-responsive. Incorporate eye-catching graphics, gifs, or animations in your email campaigns and use a clear call to action that stands out among the festive visuals.
- Website Redesign: If possible, redesign your website’s homepage with a holiday theme. Create a welcoming, immersive experience with holiday-inspired imagery and ensure that the navigation remains intuitive to guide visitors effectively.
- User-Generated Content: Encourage your customers to share their holiday experiences with your products. Repost their images on your website and social media as it not only builds trust but also generates authentic, relatable content.
Leveraging Social Media
Social media is where many of your customers are spending their time during the holiday season, making it a prime platform to connect with your audience.
Here are five effective strategies for leveraging the power of social media for your holiday marketing campaign:
- Festive Hashtags: Create and use holiday-specific hashtags to increase the visibility of your content. These tags make it easier for users interested in holiday-related topics to discover your brand.
- Holiday-Themed Content: Craft engaging and shareable holiday-themed content. This could be in the form of blog posts, infographics, videos, or social media posts. Use storytelling techniques and visual elements to create content that resonates with your audience during the season.
- User-Generated Content: Encourage your followers to participate in your holiday campaign by running contests, challenges, or giveaways. Ask them to share their holiday moments with your products or services. By showcasing user-generated content, you not only boost brand engagement but also create a sense of community.
- Live Streaming: Consider using live streaming on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. Host live Q&A sessions, behind-the-scenes tours, or special holiday events. Live streaming provides an authentic and interactive way to engage with your audience.
- Paid Advertising: Allocate a budget for paid social media and Google advertising during the holiday season. Platforms like Facebook and Google Ads offer robust targeting options, ensuring that your content reaches the right audience. Use carousel ads, video ads, and other interactive formats to tell your holiday story.
Prioritizing Customer Experience
Outstanding customer service is a must during the holiday season. To ensure your customers have a seamless and enjoyable experience, here are five ways to prioritize customer satisfaction during the holidays:
- Customer Support Readiness: The holiday season often brings a surge in customer inquiries and requests. Ensure your customer support team is well-prepared to handle increased volumes. Consider extending support hours and responding promptly to customer messages.
- Efficient Shipping: Customers expect their holiday purchases to arrive on time. Partner with reliable shipping providers and clearly communicate shipping deadlines. Offer expedited shipping options for last-minute shoppers.
- Easy Returns and Exchanges: Simplify the returns and exchanges process. A hassle-free return policy gives customers confidence to make a purchase, knowing they can easily return or exchange items if needed.
- Personalized Recommendations: Leverage customer data to provide personalized product recommendations. Suggest complementary items, offer tailored promotions, and make your customers feel like you understand their needs.
- Post-Purchase Engagement: Don’t forget about your customers after the purchase. Send follow-up emails expressing gratitude and requesting feedback. These interactions can turn first-time buyers into loyal, repeat customers.
Our Holiday Campaign Conclusion
In the world of holiday marketing, crafting a memorable campaign involves understanding your audience, telling compelling stories, creating captivating visuals, leveraging social media, and prioritizing customer experience. By delivering a cohesive and engaging holiday marketing campaign, you can boost sales and create meaningful impressions that last well beyond the holidays, making the holiday season a joyous and memorable time for your customers and your brand. Wishing you a festive and prosperous holiday season!
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Chat GPT For Your Digital Marketing Strategy
Before exploring the advantages and challenges of employing Chat GPT in digital marketing, let’s grasp the basics of this technology.
Chat GPT, also known as Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, is an advanced chatbot system that utilizes deep neural networks to simulate human-like conversations. Based on OpenAI‘s GPT model and fine-tuned specifically for chat interactions, it enables businesses to engage with their customers in a more personalized and interactive manner.
How does Chat GPT work?
Chat GPT employs AI to analyze and comprehend customer queries, delivering accurate responses. It continuously learns and adapts to new data, improving its performance over time.
One key advantage is its ability to gauge customer sentiment, helping businesses assess their marketing effectiveness. This insight refines strategies for impactful campaigns.
Additionally, it can be trained on industry-specific data for tailored responses, enhancing customer experiences. It’s also highly scalable, handling multiple conversations concurrently, suitable for businesses of all sizes.
The Intersection of Chat GPT and Digital Marketing
Now that we have explored the foundation of Chat GPT, let’s delve into how it intersects with the world of digital marketing.
Chat GPT revolutionizes real-time customer engagement for digital marketers. Deploying powered chatbots enables businesses to instantly address customer queries, boosting satisfaction and loyalty.
Imagine a customer visiting an e-commerce site with questions about a product. Instead of waiting for human support, they interact with a chatbot, which swiftly understands their query and provides relevant information, ensuring a seamless experience.
Moreover, it facilitates scalable marketing personalization. By analyzing customer preferences and behaviors, it generates customized product recommendations and promotions, elevating conversion rates and loyalty.
For instance, a clothing retailer can use Chat GPT to suggest new arrivals or promotions based on a customer’s browsing history and previous purchases, enhancing their shopping experience and encouraging purchases.
The Impact of Chat GPT on Customer Engagement
Customer engagement is a vital aspect of successful digital marketing strategies. Chat GPT takes customer engagement to new heights by providing a conversational experience that feels personalized and human-like.
Imagine a customer reaching out to a business through a chatbot and receiving responses that are not only accurate but also empathetic and natural. Chat GPT can analyze the customer’s tone and sentiment to provide appropriate and empathetic responses, making the customer feel heard and understood.
Here are some of the Key Features of Chat GPT in Digital Marketing:
- Keyword Research: Generating relevant keywords for SEO and PPC campaigns.
- Ad Copywriting: Crafting compelling ad copy for Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and other PPC platforms.
- Social Media Management: Generating content ideas for social media. Writing captions and posts for different platforms.
- Email Marketing: Creating personalized email content for subscribers. Writing email subject lines to increase open rates.
- Market Research: Generating insights and reports from data analysis. Summarizing industry trends and news for content.
- Customer Support: Assisting with customer inquiries and providing helpful responses. Handling live chat on websites.
- A/B Testing: Generating variations for A/B testing in campaigns.
- Reporting and Analysis: Summarizing campaign performance data. Generating automated reports for stakeholders.
- Chatbots and Automation: Building chatbots for websites and social media. Automating responses to common customer queries.
- Lead Generation: Crafting lead magnets and opt-in forms for websites.
- Content Curation: Recommending relevant content for sharing on social media or email newsletters.
- Strategy Planning: Providing insights and ideas for digital marketing strategies.
- Market Segmentation: Segmenting customer data for personalized marketing campaigns.
- Social Media Advertising: Assisting in setting up and managing social media advertising campaigns.
- Competitive Analysis: Analyzing competitor strategies and suggesting improvements.
The Future of Chat GPT in Digital Marketing
As Chat GPT continues to evolve and improve, its impact on the digital marketing landscape is set to grow exponentially.
Experts predict that it will become more integrated into various digital marketing platforms and channels. This includes social media platforms, chat apps, and even voice assistants, enabling businesses to engage with customers across multiple touchpoints.
Its future also holds the promise of enhanced multilingual capabilities, allowing businesses to cater to diverse customer bases and expand their global reach.
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The Importance of Brand Voice
When it comes to distinguishing your brand, having an appealing visual identity and logo surely helps, but what also matters is your brand voice. In order to make your business stand out from the rest and connect with your target market, establishing a brand voice and using it consistently in your marketing strategy is vital.
There’s a reason why a hip brand catering to young adults might use “cool” slogans, or why luxury cars keep it sleek and professional. Your brand voice helps you to make your brand recognizable and reach the right audience.
Let’s talk about what brand voice is and why it’s a good idea to think it through for your brand. We’ll also cover how to create a unique brand voice that you’ll use throughout your communication channels.
What is Brand Voice?
Just like how a personality makes a person unique, a unique brand voice distinguishes a company from its competitors. Brand voice is defined as a personality that your brand consistently communicates. It reflects your brand’s values and serves as a guide on how and what you say when it comes to your marketing strategy. It also helps you connect to your audience and reach potential new customers.
You can think of your company’s brand voice almost as if it were a person. What personality does your brand voice have? What phrases does your brand use? Imagine that your brand is at a dinner party; how would it speak to the other guests?
Why is it important to establish a brand voice?
There is an overload of noise when it comes to advertising and other online content. Individuals and brands are constantly talking through social channels, so it’s important to stand out. Having nice photos, a unique logo and well-thought-out products are all great ways to strengthen your brand, but what you write needs equal care.
Having a consistent brand voice helps differentiate your company while switching up your voice in each post can quickly lead to an unfollow from your customers.
How can you create a unique brand voice?
1. Start with your brand values and mission statement.
Do you need help creating your brand voice? Look at your brand values to determine your voice and how you communicate with your target audience. Make sure that what you promote and say to your audience also reflects your values and mission statement.
Let’s say that your brand named “Green Sea Turtles” sells bright-colored sustainable cleaning products for Gen Z. You value eco-friendliness, have a modern approach and donate 5% of your yearly income to a charity that saves baby sea turtles.
How you communicate to your customers and in what style should also reflect your products. You probably won’t be speaking strictly professionally to your Gen Z customers and the advertising could be directed in a fun, light-hearted manner.
2. Identify your buyer persona to target the right audience.
Making a list of potential customers and writing down their personalities, habits and what they might be interested in is a great way to explore your brand voice.
Knowing that your Gen Z customer for the “Green Sea Turtles” brand is 19 years old, loves to dress in vintage 90s clothing and watches ASMR cleaning videos on TikTok can help you to create your brand voice. Making t-shirts with “God save the sea turtles” slogan and videos promoting your cleaning products showing a Gen Z cleaning her apartment can end with her saying, “Omg so clean, thanks Green Sea Turtles.”
Knowing your buyer persona can also help you to choose the tone of voice that you will use when communicating with your target audience. If you want more tips on how to reach Gen Z customers, read our blog article 5 Tips for Marketing to Gen Z.
3. Keep your brand voice consistent over all social channels.
This includes being consistent on all your social platforms, email communication and even packaging. Think of your brand like a bundle. It would be weird if you communicate your brand in a casual, fun manner and have extremely formal emails like you’re talking to a corporate audience.
One brand that is a great example of keeping its brand voice consistent is Apple. The brand often leaves the wording simple and to the point and adds an eye-catching image to highlight cutting-edge technology. Even their packaging is simple and enjoyable to open, just like how their products are enjoyable to use.
Apple’s advertisement above for the new “unsend” Imessage feature is almost like a short movie. At the end of a message that was unsent, Apple wrote, “Relax, it’s iPhone.”
How do you know your brand voice is working?
Remember, be yourself. One way you know your brand voice is working is if your customers feel as if your company is directly speaking to them, they feel connected to your brand and they feel like they’re part of the conversation.
You can also investigate how your customers are engaging with you online to see if your brand voice is working well. Make sure to read our How You Can Use Social Listening to Improve Your Business blog article to track what others are saying about your brand, and if your brand voice is structured correctly.
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GoViral Case Study: Timing PPC Campaigns for In-Person Events
A common question among marketers: how far in advance should I advertise an in-person event? When should I start using my PPC advertising budget? At GoViral we’re committed to learning from experience, so let’s take a look at the numbers from three recent events.
When Should I Start Advertising an In-Person Event?
Over the past few years we’ve helped one of our clients, a global leader in business and consumer electronics, advertise their presence at in-person industry events.
When our client attends these events, they want the best bang for their buck. Their end goal is leads. Getting face time with existing and potential customers is invaluable.
But even priceless marketing activities are limited by budget. Regardless of your budget’s size, you need to think carefully about how and when to spend it. So let’s take a look at lead time. How far in advance of an event do we see results for booking in-person meetings?
Our Results from Three Recent Events
For each of our three most recent events, we launched our PPC campaign at a different point in advance of the event date. One campaign started 17 weeks before, one 4 weeks, and one just 3 weeks before the start of the event.
Keeping in mind that we define a lead as someone who schedules a meeting with our client during the event, here are the results of total number of leads acquired by campaigns of varying lengths.
As you can see, we acquired more leads with a shorter timeline ahead of the event. In other words, more time did not translate to more leads.
Furthermore, the Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) decreased as the lead time decreased. How much did we spend to acquire each lead? Considerably more when we started earlier.
Takeaways for Advertising Events with a PPC Campaign
Our overall takeaway? Don’t assume advertising an in-person event earlier means your results will be better.
There are other factors besides the timeline to consider, of course. But one thing is clear from our results: most of our leads for in-person events were acquired in the three weeks immediately before the event.
Our experience has shown that PPC campaigns for in-person events can find success even when limited to the month leading up to the event, and in fact we have had most success acquiring leads during that time.
Further Considerations
As with all marketing advice, your mileage may vary. Consider your specific situation and make strategic decisions accordingly.
Maybe your event requires early registration, or maybe there’s a competing event in a different city on the same dates. In those cases, you might want to start earlier.
Remember that a marketing campaign requires careful planning, including consideration of the buyer’s journey and other factors specific to your business.
However, if you find yourself starting your advertising efforts just a few weeks before your event, don’t despair! There’s still time to get results.
Looking to advertise an in-person event? Let us help you! Tell us more about your project and request a proposal.
How You Can Use Social Listening to Improve Your Business
Building brand awareness and connecting to customers online requires a holistic approach. Practicing social listening is just as important as creating meaningful content. In this blog post, we will introduce you to this topic and give you some tips on how you can get started on improving your brand through social listening.
What is Social Listening?
According to HootSuite, “Social listening is the practice of monitoring social media channels for mentions of your brand, competitor brands, and related keywords.” You can track any mentions online about your brand or business, which can give you insights into how people are reacting. It can also help you to quickly identify a crisis and react accordingly.
Social listening can help you:
- Understand how your customers feel about your brand/business
- Figure out what you can improve if there are complaints or other negative comments
- Find out what competitors’ customers are talking about and discover trending topics
- Complete all of this in real-time, so you can act fast if needed
Is Social Listening the Same as Social Monitoring?
Social monitoring, or brand monitoring, is when you get notified when your brand or business is mentioned online. This is useful for responding quickly when needed, but it doesn’t give you a whole picture of your brand or the industry you’re focused on.
Social listening is more expansive in that it gives you mentions about not only your brand but also conversations about your competitors, the industry and similar products. This is a more complete picture instead of just snippets related to your brand or business.
Through social listening, you can make better decisions about how to structure your marketing or social media strategy, since you have a clearer picture of all that surrounds your business.
Why You Should Use Social Listening for Your Business
1. Know your audience
By listening to what is being said about your brand or business online, you can better understand what customers want and how you can improve your offering/services.
2. Respond to crisis
If something goes terribly wrong in relation to your brand, you want to find out right away and respond quickly.
3. Build customer relationships
Social media can be a great way to talk to current or potential customers, but your goal doesn’t always have to be about selling something. Build relationships and respond to customers instead of just offering a product or service every time. Share useful information that piques interest instead of strictly pushing what you have to offer.
4. Learn more about your competitors
Social listening can keep you in the loop about what your competitors are doing and give you updates about the latest trends in your industry. This can inspire you to create new products or services.
5. Improve your social media strategy
Listening to your customers, competitors and your industry as a whole can help you create tailored content. You’ll be able to learn more about what your customers want and what content seems to resonate with them. Need help creating meaningful content for your customers? Take a look at our Content Strategies for Different Stages of the Buyer Journey article.
Tips on How You Can Start Social Listening
1. Use the right social listening tools
Depending on what you want to track, make sure to use the right tools. There are various social listening apps that can help you monitor your social channels. Make sure to do your research to choose the right one for your needs.
Buffer, Hootsuite, Google Analytics, Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics are just a few that are worth looking into.
2. Create a Social Listening Strategy
You should structure your social listening and treat it as a project. Aside from monitoring tags or direct messages, monitor variations of your brand or business name, and the founder or other public figures associated with your brand.
3. Monitor your competitors
And not just the happy customers from your competitors, but keep an eye out for unhappy customers. What are they saying? How can you cater to them? You could find solutions to their problems.
We hope this introduction to social listening was helpful for you and that you can get started using these tips right away. There are so many opportunities to connect to your existing and potential customers by using social media and the various social listening tools available.
Want to connect with your audience, and get paid for it? Make sure to read more in our article Facebook & Instagram Subscriptions Feature: How to Make the Most of It.
5 Tips for Marketing to Gen Z
Gen Z is entering adulthood, and their buying power will soon become the largest of any generation. But Gen Z’s habits, and especially their relationship to technology, diverge widely from Millenials, Gen X, and Boomers. What do you need to know to market to this group successfully?
Generation Z was born in the late 1990s to the early 2010s (exact years vary depending on who you ask), and is rapidly coming of age. By 2023, Gen Z will number 74 million people in the United States alone.
Ready to learn how to market to Gen Z and convert them into customers?
Follow Fundamental Best Practices First
First things first, there’s no magic formula. Not all members of Gen Z think and act the same, and pretending they do won’t help much. With inbound marketing, there’s no substitute for defining buyer personas based on your business’s target market.
When strategizing about marketing to Gen Z, create at least one buyer persona in this age group. Remember, your Gen Z persona does not represent an entire generation. They represent the interests, problems, and desires of one type of person who could become your customer.
Also, always consider your perspective and goals as a business. If your product or service appeals primarily to retirees, for example, you may not need a Gen Z buyer persona. On the other hand, if your brand aims to solve problems for people entering adulthood, you may need several.
Now that you’ve considered buyer personas, let’s talk strategy. We know Gen Z is diverse and has varied interests, but what collectively sets them apart from previous generations? Our top 5 tips will help get you started.
1. Strive to Entertain
Members of Gen Z are the first “digital natives,” people born and raised with technology at their fingertips. In part because of this, they tend not to distinguish as much between different types of content. Consider that years ago, video advertising used to come only during scheduled commercial breaks. Gen Z’s reality is much different.
They have been bombarded with content their entire lives, with marketing messages taking many different forms. It’s necessary to stand out to get their attention. One surefire way to do this? Entertain them.
Content that grabs the viewer’s attention within the first few seconds is best. Consider video tutorials for social media, behind-the-scenes content giving an honest look into your brand, and helpful resources framed with a sense of humor.
2. Use Short-Form Video
Gen Z consumes more videos than their older counterparts, particularly short-form. Given their high usage rates of YouTube and TikTok, they often expect short videos with features such as music, visual effects, and text overlays.
Include video marketing in your strategy from the start, and keep your videos to 15 seconds or less for best results. Instagram Reels and TikTok work well for your polished videos, while Instagram stories can help create a more personal connection with your audience.
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3. Highlight Your Brand’s Values and Beliefs
On average Gen Z cares more than older generations about what businesses stand for, and how they contribute to the greater good. Before marketing to Gen Z, consider your brand’s values and vision, and think about how to communicate them to your audience.
If you haven’t already, make the mission of your business publicly available. Better yet, incorporate your beliefs into your content strategy so viewers start to associate your brand with those values.
As a side benefit, the more you care about the content you create, the more authentic it becomes. Gen Z views brands skeptically, looking for proof of their values in what they do, not only what they say. So stick to your mission and spread the word about how you’re trying to make positive change.
4. Create Community
Brands often fall into the trap of marketing on auto-pilot. But especially with social media marketing, don’t forget communication goes both ways. Gen Z expects to interact more than previous generations.
Consider interactive options such as polls, quizzes, and Q&A sessions. Solicit feedback and monitor comment sections for opportunities to start conversations.
Other ways to jumpstart community include influencer marketing, which can help your audience see themselves in your brand, and user-generated content, which gives your audience a stake and a feeling of belonging.
In the near future, Gen Z might help accelerate a more fundamental change in social media. Research shows they are more comfortable with community-based platforms such as Discord and Twitch over more traditional social media.
5. Consider TikTok
When it comes to which social media platforms to focus on, the old rules no longer apply. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can still give you results, but don’t stop there.
One of the top social networks for Gen Z? TikTok. Fully 60% of TikTok’s users are in Gen Z. Known for less formal and more spontaneous content, TikTok can help your business connect with customers on a human level.
Joining a new social platform can also help refresh your brand image. Given TikTok’s emphasis on short-form video and humorous content, it’s a great place to experiment with tips 1-4 on this list.
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How Not to Annoy Your Customers on the Buyer Journey
At GoViral our marketing work is built on a solid foundation: the buyer journey. Website tools like cookies, pop-ups and widgets can help you meet your buyers where they are, but too many websites today do too much.
Fortunately, there’s a way to stop annoying your customers. Keep the buyer journey front and center when planning your website strategy. This will help you meet your buyers where they are, rather than simply throwing everything and the kitchen sink at them when they walk through the door.
What Is the Buyer Journey?
Simply put, the Buyer Journey is a buyer’s path to purchase. Customers don’t just spontaneously appear. They move through a process of research and consideration before deciding to purchase.
There are five stages to a buyer journey. First comes Awareness that a problem exists. Second, Research to try to solve the problem. Third, Consideration of one or more options. Fourth, Purchase of a product or service that solves the problem. The final stage is Post-Purchase, when a buyer reflects on their purchase and has the potential to become a loyal customer.
To map out the most accurate buyer journey, you’ll need to identify your buyer personas. Head over to our Buyer Persona Guide to learn how. Creating buyer personas can be a helpful reminder that your potential customers are people, not numbers.
Now that we know how to start building our strategy, let’s take a look at the different types of pop-ups you might put on your website.
Make Cookie Notices Compliant and Unintrusive
Let’s talk cookies. Cookies are text files that collect information about website visitors, usually in an attempt to improve the user experience. Most websites that use cookies (hint: if you use Google Analytics, you use cookies) are required to notify visitors and explain how their information is used. In some areas, including Europe, website owners are required to get consent in order to use optional cookies (cookies not necessary for the functioning of your site).
When required, cookie notices must be displayed to every first-time visitor. This means you can’t segment your visitors based on where they are in the buyer journey. You might think first-time visitors are all in the Research phase, but some may have interacted with your brand through a different channel. Some even may have made a purchase already. Perhaps they purchased in person but never visited your website, or perhaps they cleared all the cookies in their browser and are starting from scratch.
The point is, the cookie notice is a pop-up that can’t be reliably mapped to the buyer journey. So instead, focus on 1) fulfilling regulatory requirements and 2) choosing a pop-up that covers as little of the page as possible. Consult your legal team to ensure you’re following regulations, and opt for a banner-style pop-up, preferably placed in the footer. A pop-up that covers your entire page obscures important information and is more likely to annoy your visitors.
Add Help Widgets Only Where Necessary
If you want to install a help widget on your website, consider which pages will attract visitors looking for help. Leave the widget off all other pages.
Of course, consider your brand. If the entire purpose of your website is to provide live help, and this is clear to visitors, you’re probably an exception to the rule.
Place your help widget at the bottom of the page. Visitors typically read a page top down and left to right. By placing the widget at the bottom, you give your audience a chance to find the information they need first. Only after scanning the page will they reach help, which they can bypass if they no longer need it.
As far as the look of your help widget, make sure it fits your branding without blending into the page. Use contrasting colors to make sure the widget stands out for those who need it, as well as for those who just need to find the close button.
Target Newsletter Pop-Ups to Visitors in the Later Stages of the Buyer Journey
Are you trying to get more subscribers to your newsletter or other regularly published content? Newsletter pop-ups rarely make sense on the homepage of your website.
Exceptions: maybe your website is a sub-site intended for loyal customers. Or maybe you’re able to display the pop-up only for visitors who have been to your site multiple times (or based on different parameters you set). Some Content Management Systems such as Hubspot allow you to target pop-ups in this way, which you should use to your advantage.
Many marketers value newsletter sign-ups highly because you are collecting email addresses of people interested in your brand. Considering email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to reach buyers, you should treat the people behind those emails as respected, valuable contacts. Make sure to include a clear Call to Action on your newsletter sign-up, and enough clarifying information that visitors understand what they’re signing up for.
CASE STUDY: PharmaLedger
In February 2021 our client PharmaLedger came to us with a request. A consortium exploring blockchain technology’s application to real-world health care challenges, they like many brands were struggling to gain subscribers to their monthly newsletter.
They didn’t want to annoy their visitors with an intrusive pop-up, but we came up with a solution: a pop-up from the footer that appears only when visitors leave the site.
The chart below shows total newsletter subscribers, with a sharp increase after we made the pop-up live in February 2021.
Use Video Auto-Plays Sparingly
Do you have embedded videos on your website? Unless the primary purpose of your page is to play video, you should probably opt-out of auto-play.
The key, once again, is to put yourself in the buyer’s shoes. Why are they visiting the page in question? If it’s a landing page only accessible from a link that makes it clear they’re clicking to watch a video, auto-play is a great option! If your page serves different functions for different visitors (like most pages), leave it to the visitor to decide whether to play the video.
Video auto-plays can doubly annoy visitors with images and sound, so tread lightly. Remember, your website may allow you to track click percentages or how many seconds a video is played. This information is impossible to gather if the video auto-plays.
Want expert guidance on leading your customers through the buyer journey? Contact us to request a proposal.
Introducing GoViral Blockchain
At GoViral Digital we’ve been dedicated to performance-based, brand love marketing for more than ten years. Now we’re excited to introduce a specialized team within our ranks focused on blockchain technology – GoViral Blockchain.
Our GoViral Blockchain team helps clients seeking to develop blockchain solutions and bring them to market. Blockchain, you say? GoViral is investing in cryptocurrency and NFTs?! Not quite. There’s more to blockchain technology than these narrow applications.
In the coming years blockchain will influence many more aspects of daily life, including how we pay for and conceptualize healthcare, vacation rentals, ride sharing, and more.
With our expertise in inbound marketing, content marketing, community management, performance marketing, and creating funnels for online sales, we know how to talk about blockchain in an impactful way. As always, our focus remains on connecting you to your customers.
Communicating the benefits and promise of blockchain technology presents particular challenges, and we’re already hard at work for our clients in this space. Our client PharmaLedger is dedicated to creating blockchain-enabled solutions for the healthcare ecosystem.
The healthcare and pharmaceutical industries are complex, with multiple stakeholders facing challenges such as lack of transparency, coordination, and trust.
Just to name a few challenges: patients might wonder where their medications come from and when they will arrive, how to find and sign up for clinical trials, and who really owns their healthcare data. Scientists and pharmaceutical companies struggle to meet regulatory and ethical guidelines, ensure patient safety, and keep costs affordable. Doctors often find themselves in the middle of a complex web, not sure how to ensure trust with patients and get them the care they need. Take a look at our PharmaLedger case study to learn more about our efforts.
Why is GoViral all in on blockchain? Here’s what our managing director, Belinda Filippelli, has to say:
“I am so excited for the future that blockchain will create. Decentralization of information and governing power, less costs and admin, eliminating intermediaries where the corruption and inefficiency lie. Becoming true owners of our own sovereign digital identity. Future generations will have a completely different understanding of basic things like how they bank, using smart contractors instead of lawyers or agents, tokenizing physical as well as digital assets to invest in, build and share, and understanding how their everyday goods are made and sourced.”
We are proud and excited to continue working with clients through GoViral Blockchain. Blockchain technology is still new and not widely understood, with so many different stakeholders who need different information. Our experience building buyer personas means we know how to talk to your customers and build community. We’ve earned millions of Euros for our clients, and we’re not stopping anytime soon.
Ultimately, the widespread adoption of blockchain technology requires a greater paradigm shift. More businesses and customers outside the finance and tech industries need to understand what’s at stake, and how blockchain can improve their lives. Our expertise contributes to this shift, and we’re looking forward to a bright future.
Are you working on a blockchain-related project? We want to hear about it! Share your ideas with us and we’ll be in touch.
Into the Metaverse: Understanding Facebook and Instagram in the Age of Meta
Social media is always evolving, and the arrival of Meta signals sweeping change and a fundamental restructuring for a very different future. As a digital marketer, what do you need to know?
What Is the Metaverse?
In October 2021 Mark Zuckerberg announced the consolidation of Facebook and related products—including Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp—into a new brand called Meta. The rebranding is a nod to the metaverse, which Zuckerberg sees as the successor to today’s mobile internet.
The metaverse doesn’t have a single definition, but we can think of it in general terms as the next evolution in our digital lives. Today’s mobile internet gives us access to social media, email, internet browsers, cameras and more—all in one device we carry around with us.
The metaverse will combine social media platforms, digital storefronts, gaming applications and more into a single digital experience: a more fully fledged digital world, perhaps accessed with Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) headsets.
What will this look like exactly? No one knows for sure. In short, the metaverse is not here yet, but many of its components are. It remains to be seen how everything will come together, and it won’t happen all at once.
What Has Already Changed on Facebook and Instagram?
First things first, Facebook and Instagram are so popular that the leaders of these companies have every incentive to keep the user experience consistent. Even the most loyal users will only put up with so much change. As such, the biggest changes so far have been in branding, not function.
One change you might have noticed is increased connectivity and interoperability of Meta’s platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. Regular updates to messaging tools such as Messenger and Instagram direct messaging have brought increased coordination, allowing marketers to more seamlessly manage direct messages across multiple platforms.
Another area for updates: ads management. The new Meta Advantage Suite will collect different automated ad products under one umbrella, allowing for increased efficiency in ad management.
Meta is also boosting their metaverse platform Horizon Worlds, a virtual reality video game focused on world-building for social interaction. A new fund for creators will further incentivize user-generated content on the platform.
Three Steps You Can Take Now to Prepare for More Changes
If you’re wondering what you need to do right now to prepare for the internet of the future, our first advice is don’t panic. These are long-term changes, some of them purely hypothetical, and even Meta sees the full introduction of the metaverse as more than ten years away.
However, there are steps you can take to improve your marketing efforts now and prepare for the future.
1. One of the goals of the metaverse is to build community. The hope is that a more fully realized digital world will encourage interaction among visitors that looks and feels more like “real life.” We recommend revisiting your buyer personas to make sure you understand what makes your potential customers tick, and keep refining your messaging to feel more natural and authentic.
2. Investigate ways to incentivize and promote user-generated content. The future of our digital lives will likely look more decentralized, with greater influence in the hands of individuals rather than platforms and other businesses.
3. As Meta continues to release updates and tweaks, take advantage of new features that make sense for your business. This could mean linking WhatsApp to your Facebook page to decrease your response time to direct messages, creating an account in Horizon Worlds just to explore, or experimenting with new enhanced product tagging on Instagram.
What Is Coming Next?
The long-term plans outlined by Meta are subject to change of course, and no one can predict exactly how the metaverse will unfold.
As we head into an uncertain future, remember that while it may not be your job to explain the technical details of the metaverse to anyone, it’s helpful to have a firm understanding of the ideas behind it. Of note: the majority of consumers, your potential customers, don’t have a strong understanding of what the metaverse is.
We’re all in this together, and regardless of what we call it, we use social media to connect with others and meet potential customers where they are on the buyer’s journey. The fundamentals have not changed.
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What You Need to Know to Personalize Your Marketing Content
Every time you use your mobile device, you swipe through countless paid ads and branded posts. Most of them you don’t even notice, but some ads stick with you. What’s their secret?
Often the secret lies in personalized marketing. These ads are not created specifically for you, but they seem personalized because they are created with people like you in mind.
What exactly is personalized marketing?
Simply put, personalized marketing means targeting your content to those who would find it most interesting, and crafting specific messages for individuals or groups of customers.
Personalized content is carefully tailored to meet your target audience’s interests, covering topics that interest them, speak to their passions and address their needs.
Content that speaks to you tends to stick with you as a consumer. And for brands, personalization can get you a much higher conversion rate, turning the whole interaction into a win-win situation.
Personalization as a Path to Brand Loyalty
These days, brands dream of building loyalty among their customers. Customer loyalty creates a sense of community, increases customer retention, turns repeat customers into brand ambassadors, and much more.
Personalization can unlock this loyalty.
Customizing your content gives your customer an experience relevant to their career, passions and challenges. The path to falling in love with a brand starts with feeling heard and understood.
6 Ways to Implement Personalization On Social Media
Social media platforms provide numerous options for targeting and customization. Anyone interested in sharing their brand with a public audience can take advantage of these features. You can target everything from age and gender to specific interests.
Apart from this, social media platforms already know a lot about what users like—from what products they are looking for at the moment to what topics they are most likely to engage with.
So the more you think about your consumers and put yourself in their shoes, the better your content becomes.
Does this sound like a lot of work? Never fear, you can start with a few easy steps that will immediately improve your interactions with consumers.
1. Start with a study of your target audience
Each action your customers take teaches you more and more about them. Get as much information as you can about those you are addressing.
Your main goal at this stage is to get an initial, overall idea of the customers you are targeting.
2. Segment your audience
Now look into all the data you have about your audience and spend time mapping your buyer’s journey if you haven’t already.
Combining your data and your mapped buyer’s journey, break down your overall target audience into smaller groups, accounting for behavioral, geographic and cultural factors. Once you have your audience segments, it will become more clear what you as a brand can say to each of these groups to engage them and demonstrate how your product can help them.
3. Practice social listening
You can never know too much about your audience and your market. Take time to scan social media and set up alerts for mentions of your brand or relevant topics.
Use any mentions of your brand or relevant topics as an opportunity to manage your reputation, communicate with your audience, tailor their experience and find user generated content. Take a look at some examples of user generated content on TikTok in our guide to using TikTok for your business.
While doing this you will get to know more about your consumers and find new leads, both of which you can use while targeting with personalized ads.
4. Use retargeting ads
This one is obvious, but still incredibly important. Create ads for various products that match the preferences of what customers previously purchased, and/or what content they engaged with while browsing the internet.
5. Personalize your support via social media
Having a distinctive, consistent voice always matters. But it matters even more when you are directly communicating with your customers. The more you know about them (within the bounds of decency), the better you help them, the friendlier you sound, and the more they will remember interacting with your brand.
6. Create personalized occasions for interactions
With each interaction you can learn more about your consumer, and there are ways to encourage the type of engagement you need to gain this knowledge. As ordinary as they sound, polls, surveys, and quizzes have long been an effective way to learn what makes your customers tick.
With clever usage of these tools you show your customers that you care about their opinion, you encourage them to interact with your brand, and at the same time, you learn more about their preferences.
Personalization Case Studies
1. Verve Health’s personalized chatbots
Verve Health Co. gives personalized workout advice based on user feedback. Interactions like this make consumers feel special and give them the information they seek as fast as possible.
2. AirBnB’s personalized quiz
Participants answer questions to find out what kind of traveler they are. When they’re finished, they get personalized travel recommendations based on their results, with the option to share them and/or book a stay with Airbnb.
3. SEMrush and retargeting ads
After you set up a free SEMrush account, you get retargeted with a Facebook ad offering you a toolkit on how to use the service to its fullest.
Personalization in a Nutshell
The importance of personalization grows with each day. Consumers expect it, brands strive for it and social media platforms give you every opportunity to deliver it.
If you put in the effort to personalize your communication, the results will not be long in coming.
Digital marketing never stops evolving, and the most successful marketers are always finding new ways to craft a positive customer experience. Sign up for our newsletter below to stay in the loop on current trends.