5 effective online marketing tactics for social entrepreneurs and startups
To promote the sites, companies and projects try different techniques and techniques. The result can be achieved by an infinite marketing optimization, sure (crowdsourcing platform to help start-ups in the field of branding by experts in this field).
High employee consistency
As a co-founder of a startup in a highly competitive field, I quickly realized that we had to try new promotion techniques. After numerous trial and error, we found some really effective tactics. Although our startup did not survive, his lessons became invaluable to me. Here are some of the techniques that have proven most effective in our project.
But first, the most important point. For marketing success, a high level of consistency between the marketing, development, and technical teams is critical. Technicians must understand marketing and marketers in technology. In the modern world, technology plays a significant role in marketing optimization. Therefore, it is important for all departments of your team to be aware of a common cause and common perspectives.
1. Customize the site for different users
People come to your site as a result of various campaigns and through various marketing channels. Depending on where and by which campaign visitors came, they differ in “expectations” and “sales steps.” In other words, users are at different stages of getting to know the product, and they have different expectations from what they want to see on the site.
For example, they come to you “on coupons.” For such an audience, in most cases, discounts and products on stocks are interesting. And those who come from Facebook want to learn something new, interesting and inspiring. Only after you “carry them” do they move on to prices and other practical information. Many marketers spend a lot of effort into optimizing a landing page. Their goal is to make it consistent with the campaign that “brought” customers.
After the start page, it would not hurt to take up the rest. Even subtle (small, barely perceptible) changes in the content of the entire site increase conversion by 20% or more. These changes are made in order to “tailor” the site to the needs and interests of the currently prevailing category of visitors.
Examples of such changes:
- Automatically changing the algorithm for sorting products by pages depending on the campaigns for which customers come. If the campaign is “tailored” for coupons and discounts – displaying products with maximum discounts on the first pages;
- quick updating of banners on the home page. In the case of the same “discount” campaign – automatically show and update the banner “Discounts” (“Sale”) as the main banner;
- automatic “implementation” of dynamic (changing) content throughout the site depending on the visitor. For example, show sections “in trend” and “lookbook” to those who came after campaigns about the latest in the fashion industry.
You do not need to invest in super-sophisticated personalization technologies in order to improve the “dynamic” capabilities of the site. We used the Google Tag Manager to “identify the customer” and download content tailored to it. Here are a few steps to implement the idea of “dynamic content” with Google Tag Manager.
- Contact 4–5 people representing your “target buyers”.
- Target each campaign to one of these specific people. If you use UTM tracking in your marketing campaigns, you can add an “extra variable” to your URL. The goal is to provide the user with more relevant content. UTM tags are parameters (variables) that contain additional data. They are added to the landing page URL and allow you to transfer additional information about traffic characteristics to web analytics systems. When using UTM tags, you can track and analyze most traffic sources, but many advertisers either do not know about their existence or use them incorrectly.
- Then, in Google Tag Manager, you can specify settings that dynamically update predefined “content zones” on the site, based on the user.
- You can use JavaScript in the rules of Google Tag Manager to automatically set different sorting orders for your offers (depending on the user).
- You can track the increase in conversion resulting from the use of “dynamic content” in Google Analytics.
Think of your site from the point of view of a competent seller. Such a seller understands the context of buyers and speaks a language that resonates with most of them. You can gather a lot of information about site visitors using the targeting criteria. Use this information and personalize the content of your site and its landing page in order to better control the visitor’s “movements” on the page.
2. The campaign should be as detailed as possible.
Many sites conduct “integral” (not divided by areas) campaigns aimed at people of different ages and interests. That is, everyone has the same information. I suggest acting differently. If you run a campaign on Facebook, create a detailed division of your ad sets (sets of advertising) into groups and areas.
This way you can easily identify well-performing segments that produce the best results. For example, my current startup is targeting entrepreneurs “in the early stages of business,” who may need help with branding. In this case, a detailed sorting of advertising content into groups will help you understand which of them works best.
Of course, this method can lead to additional costs. But in the long run, they are more than justified. You will get the opportunity to find the “pearls” among your entire advertising arsenal as early as possible and not spend money on segments that do not bring a return on investment.
When you optimize “ad sets”, change no more than one indicator at a time and measure the results. For example, do not change the content of the ads, the targeting criteria, and the number of costs for attracting a click. Otherwise, you will not know what exactly led to the growth or fall of the campaign results. Keep a journal of changes so that they can be tracked.
When you document all changes within 30–45 days, you begin to see interesting trends. For example, an advertisement with a time limit for an offer (“Only 5 hours left!”) Shows better clickability than without specific dates (“The sale will end soon!”).
3. Reasonably segment your “redirected” audience
Reconfiguration is a great strategy to turn recent visitors into customers. Additional segmentation will allow you to move even further in this direction.
First, you need to exclude all those who “jumped” from the site, only by going to the main page. This usually means that they are not interested in our services. I noticed a significant increase in ROI (return on investment, in this case – in advertising), excluding those who left the site immediately or after spending less than 60 seconds on it.
Then deal with customers who “jumped” from the last steps when making a purchase. They just need a little help. With those who “jumped” from earlier stages, you need to be more convincing. Segment the types of ads or activities depending on the stage at which the client left the site. Invest more in promotion among the readiest to buy. That is, among those who went astray in the final stages of the order.
Do not forget about time segmentation. Usually, the return from those who recently visited the site is greater than from those who were on it a week or a month ago. When forming the division “by time” do not forget to exclude the earlier “category”. For example, those on the 24-hour list should be excluded from the “three-day list”. Thus, these two audiences will not “overlap”, and they will not receive the same offers. You can set exclusion rules in Google AdWords using Custom Combination lists.
- Another important point. Set a limit on the number and frequency of ads so as not to annoy people. If you show ads too often, the result will be the opposite. I recommend no more than 5 impressions per day, and you can determine your optimal frequency yourself experimentally.
4. Determine LTV during optimization campaign
LTV (Lifetime Value, or lifetime customer value) is the total profit of the company received from one client for the entire time of cooperation with him.
For example, your site sells products of different price categories. And you see that products with a discount or products at the lowest price give the highest level of conversion. When you see a conversion, you can decide what to invest in exactly the campaigns that bring the best conversion. But this is not always the right decision. If the campaign is focused on discounters, how much money will they ultimately bring you?
Analyze your campaigns in terms of overall profitability and profitability. It is quite possible that the most successful campaigns are those that gave less conversion, but they “sold” more expensive products. Another indicator of the success of the campaign is the arrival of buyers with high potential for re-purchase.
Your ultimate goal is the overall profitability of the project. Therefore, marketing expenses should be based not only and not so much on conversion. The main criterion is the overall financial performance, including the “lifetime value” of clients received as a result of campaigns. When monitoring campaign performance, use indicators such as profitability and LTV.
5. Use automation
On platforms like AdWords, there are many automation elements. They will help you optimize the process on an ongoing basis. Do not misunderstand me! I do not propose putting the whole process “on autopilot” and I do not say that automation will do everything for you. But there are several basic levers that can be set in automatic mode, saving yourself time.
Here are some examples of process automation with AdWords.
Automatic increase in allocated funds if the keyword shows good financial results. For example, your goal is for customers to cost you no more than $ 25. In this case, the goal should be to increase the number of “presentations” of advertising (the number of contacts of advertising with the audience) for keywords that bring conversion in the range you specify.
Automatic reduction of allocated funds if the keyword does not show the expected financial results. But before you lower it, you need to wait sometime to get the full picture. For example, your goal is for customers to cost you no more than $ 30. You can set the setting at which advertising costs will be reduced, collecting a lot of clicks, but at the same time bringing customers $ 40 and more.
Also Read: How Digital Marketing Changes Small Businesses
Marketing optimization is an ongoing process that has no end. Our tactics worked well in our case, but may not work in yours. The key to success is ongoing experimentation and testing.
