BYK Digital Marketing

Author: Emma Turnbull

  • Digital Marketing Terminology: What it Means, and Why it Matters

    Digital Marketing Terminology: What it Means, and Why it Matters

    There’s a lot of jargon that gets thrown around when it comes to digital marketing.  For anyone who is not familiar with the field, it can sound like a whole lot of nonsense with all the abbreviations, acronyms, and specialized terminology.  We’re here today to provide a little bit of insight into some of this terminology and the importance it holds in the field. 

    1. CPM

    CPM stands for cost per impression.  It is a metric that can tell a marketer how effective their paid advertising is, and how much money they’re spending for each impression their ad makes.  This term is used for multiple mediums within marketing.  Most commonly, it is a measure associated with television and with targeted digital ads on social media.  In both cases, it is the amount of money spent on a campaign divided by the number of times it appeared on a screen.  This can help marketers determine whether their ad dollars are being used efficiently  

    2. Conversions

    This is one of the more widely used terms in digital marketing, and can be applicable in a variety of scenarios.  A conversion is what occurs when a customer completes a desired action for your business.  These actions can be something like completing a contact form, signing up for an email list, or making a purchase.  

    Conversions, and a conversion rate, are often measured for digital advertisements, when a marketing team wants to know how many people completed a given action after viewing their ad.  You can also measure conversions for your website as a whole:  out of the entire number of people who have visited your site, you can measure how many conversions there were (the number of people who made a sale, joined your email list, etc.).  

    3. Lift

    The term “lift” in digital marketing refers to a growth or increase in sales.  Specifically, it is the increase in sales (or other conversion metrics of interest) attributed to a certain ad or ad campaign.  Depending on the situation, lift can be written as a whole number, or as a percentage change. 

    It is almost impossible to determine lift without running a controlled experiment.  If you are able to invest in an experiment, you can then accurately determine the lift in conversions from a specific piece of advertising.  Knowing the lift from a campaign is valuable, because you can see what changes in your consumers’ behavior were directly caused by an action you took (an ad you ran).  

    4. CTR

    Another acronym that starts with C, but this one is completely different from CPM.  CTR stands for clickthrough rate.  Anytime you have a piece of marketing that includes a button or link to another site or page, the clickthrough rate can be a relevant metric.  For example, if you sent a marketing email to your subscriber list that showed photos of your offerings and included a button that said “Shop Online Now”, then your clickthrough rate would be the percentage of people who clicked on that button and visited your site.  

    This can be a great way to measure whether your digital marketing efforts are working, beyond knowing just how many people actually saw your campaign.  The clickthrough rate can let you know how many people were actually interested enough in your offerings to make the effort to explore them further. 

    5. Reach and impressions

    Finally, for almost any digital marketing effort you undertake, reach and/or impressions will be relevant and important for you to measure. The reach of an advertisement is the number of distinct people who have seen the ad.  Impressions are the total number of times an ad has been viewed.  Impressions will usually be higher than reach for all campaigns, because anytime the same person comes across the advertisement twice, that will count two times toward the number of impressions, but only once toward the reach.  

    Both of these metrics can be very useful to know for your campaigns, albeit in different ways.  If you are trying to reach a new audience and put your ad in front of as many people as possible, you will probably focus more on expanding the reach.  If you want your ad to bring about meaningful conversions, and do not need to be reaching an expansive, new audience, then impressions will likely be more relevant to your efforts.  We hope this quick rundown of some key digital marketing terms has provided you a bit of insight and understanding.  The next time you hear these acronyms or terms, you’ll be in the know! 

  • Using Facebook Tests to Improve Your Ads

    Using Facebook Tests to Improve Your Ads

    As a business, you probably spend a good deal of time working on your Facebook ads.  You brainstorm the creative, study your page posts to see what your audience is responding to, and analyze results to figure out what’s working and what you need to change.  However, you can take it a step further and really make sure you’re getting the most out of your ads with Facebook tests.  Facebook offers a few types of tests that can help you gather more data about your ads, and really perfect them, from the creative to the placement to the audience and more. 

    Types of Tests Available

    There are two main categories of tests available through Facebook Ads Manager: Randomized Control Trials (RCTs) and A/B Tests.   

    In an RCT, your audience is split into two groups: a control group and an experimental group.  You apply a treatment (ie. showing people your new Facebook ad) to the experimental group, but not to the control group (people in this group would not see the ad).  RCTs are experimental in nature, meaning that in these types of tests you will be able to determine a causal relationship between the variables you are testing.   With results from an RCT, not only can you say that two things are related (ie. that you saw an increase in sales after you ran a new Facebook ad), but you can say that the Facebook ad actually CAUSED the increase in sales.  

    A/B Tests are a great way to directly compare two different courses of action to see which one yields better results.  On Facebook, this often means comparing two different ads you are considering running to see which one performs better.  For A/B tests, your audience is again split in half, with one half seeing one ad, and the other half seeing the other.  After a set period of time, you can compare results from the two groups to determine which ad worked better for your business. 

    Benefits of These Tests

    Running tests on Facebook can help your business in a multitude of ways.  We’ll dive into some of the finer points distinguishing the types of tests from each other below.  However, across all of these tests, there are some shared benefits.  

    Running a test is a great opportunity to determine whether your marketing efforts are working, or which efforts specifically are having the biggest impact.  You can try out multiple strategies, or compare to previous strategies, without needing to commit the time and resources to multiple full-blown marketing campaigns.  Tests will help you determine what is and is not working for you in a shorter amount of time.  And while all tests do require an up-front investment of time, money, and resources, they are usually well worth it.  A well-designed test can give you results that ultimately help you make more efficient use of your budget and time in the long run.  

    By running these tests, you also have more control over certain variables than you would in a real-world situation.  This allows you to be more confident that whatever results you find are not influenced by outside factors, and are in fact attributable to your marketing efforts.  The more control you have in the situation, the more confidence you can have in the findings.  

    Differences Between Them

    Conducting any sort of test on Facebook can be extremely helpful, but there are important distinctions between them to note.  Different tests will apply better in different situations.  

    RCTs can help you answer questions like “Is my Facebook advertising working and driving sales?”, while A/B tests will help you address questions like “Which of my Facebook ads is performing better?”  So if you want to know whether your Facebook ads are contributing to your overall business goals, you would likely want to run an RCT.  If you wanted to compare your video ads to your static image ads and what kind of performance they each drove, you should go with an A/B test instead.  

    Additionally, RCTs involve a control group, so they can tell you causation. A/B tests do not, so while they can provide very helpful and meaningful results, they cannot determine causation, only that there is a correlation.  

    The tests can also require different budgets and lengths of time, depending what it is that you’re trying to determine.  It is important to research all your options extensively before committing your resources to one test or the other.  Whether it be the RCT or A/B variety, running a test on Facebook can be a very smart use of your marketing resources.  These tests can help show you your strengths and shortcomings, and determine a more efficient use of your marketing dollars going forward.  Before committing to any test or experiment, be sure your business questions align with the outputs you will get from the test.  With sufficient planning and a strong design, these tests can help make your Facebook ads stronger than ever! 

  • Top Notch Low-Cost Digital Marketing Tools

    Top Notch Low-Cost Digital Marketing Tools

    Digital marketing can eat up a lot of resources and a lot of time if you want to do it right.  However, it doesn’t always need to be that way.  From analytics to content creation to photo editing, here are some great free or low-cost tools to help your digital marketing efforts. 

    Creator Studio

    If you’re not using Facebook’s Creator Studio to schedule and post on Facebook and Instagram, what are you waiting for?  This tool is completely free with any Facebook business account, and will help simplify your life immensely.  Use it to draft posts, schedule photos and videos ahead of time, and review results from the posts you have published.  As of late 2020, you can even use Creator Studio to create a split test-run multiple versions of a video post to see which performs best before publishing the winner to your page. 

    Square

    From basic ecommerce to convenient POS systems to email marketing, accounts with Square offer a variety of resources to help businesses’ digital presence.  Their online ordering technology is easy to navigate and user-friendly, plus allows for the option to save your data for a quicker checkout process in the future.  Through Square, you can run your online ordering, gift card sales, and even a loyalty program all through the same platform.  You can make use of their payment processing systems for any on-the-go sales you might need to make, such as at an outdoor market, food truck, or festival.  We love making use of Square’s variety of offerings to serve our clients’ online sales needs. 

    MailChimp

    MailChimp should be one of your go-tos for email marketing.  It offers a great system for collecting contact information and categorizing your leads into relevant groups to target with email communication.  Send discount codes, exclusive offers, and business updates to the relevant audiences with ease.  MailChimp also offers templates and frameworks to help make the content creation side of email marketing easy as well.  

    Google Data Studio

    When you want to track how well your digital marketing efforts have been working, turn to Google Data Studio.  Data Studio can analyze your campaigns and create reports to help you see where you have been succeeding, and where you need to improve.  Data Studio can pull info from your social media channels, your website, and more to give you a well-rounded picture of how things are going for your brand digitally.  Having a better understanding of your strengths and weaknesses will only serve to improve your digital marketing efforts in the future.  

    Canva

    If your needs are not too complicated or advanced, Canva is a great resource for photo editing and marketing material creation.  You can create a free account, or sign up for a paid subscription for advanced capabilities.  This platform can be especially useful for beginners, or those without much experience in graphic design.  Canva offers pre-made templates for everything from flyers to cards to posters to social media posts.  These can be a great jumping-off point your brand can use to begin making custom marketing materials.  With the tools above, you can take your digital marketing to the next level, without raising expenses through the roof.  The tools above are all well worth the cost to help your business succeed. 

  • What is Geofencing?

    What is Geofencing?

    We talked a bit about location-based marketing on the blog a few weeks ago.  Today, we’re diving a little deeper into one specific form of location-based marketing, geofencing.  Read on for the scoop on all things geofencing, from what it even is, to how it compares to other forms of marketing and how your business can benefit from it. 

    What is Geofencing?

    Geofencing is the creation of a virtual “fence” around a real-world geographic area.  In marketing, this can be used to define an area in which you would like to reach people to advertise to them.  

    Using GPS, Wi-Fi, or cellular data on mobile devices, marketers can track the movement of people and target them once they have crossed the boundary to enter the defined area.  This targeting can take a variety of forms, from sending a text message to triggering a push notification to targeted advertising on social media. 

    The boundaries of a geofence can be as simple as a circular radius around a specified point, or can be a more customized shape and area.

    How does it differ from other forms of marketing?

    Multiple components set geofencing apart.  The precise targeting capabilities it offers are a step above those offered by more standard forms of marketing.  You can really hyper-target a specific demographic within a specific area with geofencing.  It also allows for a personalized customer experience. The majority of consumers prefer personalized ads, so this will help you resonate more with your audience.  Additionally, with geofencing, you can reach your audience in a number of ways, from text messages to in-app notifications.  Thus, it allows for flexibility in your campaigns.   

    What are the potential benefits for my business?

    With the precise targeting mentioned above, your company can save valuable ad spend.  You can be sure you are only paying for your advertisements to be seen by the exact audience you would like them to be seen by, and not waste money on far-reaching campaigns.  

    Once you have implemented geofencing, it will also give you access to data and insights you never could have collected otherwise.  These can help you further refine your marketing efforts and improve future campaigns.   

    Finally, you can use geofencing to target consumers who are located not only near you, but also near your competitors’ locations. You can use geofencing to send offers that encourage them to purchase from you instead.  In that way, you can steal sales from others in your industry, and gain a competitive advantage.

    How can I make use of Geofencing for my business?

    If you are interested in trying this out but are not sure where to start, we can help! Contact us now for a free consultation.  Learn how we can use geofencing and other location-based marketing techniques to drive sales for your business 

  • Benefits of Investing in SEO for Your Business

    Benefits of Investing in SEO for Your Business

    If you’re at all involved in marketing, or spend any amount of time online, you probably know a bit about SEO.  SEO helps you rank higher on search engines.  That in and of itself is a pretty big benefit, but how can that actually help your business? Here are just a few reasons SEO matters. 

    People don’t search beyond the first page

    When people utilize search engines, they don’t like to scroll through pages and pages of results to find what they’re looking for.  Most of the time, people do not click past the first page of results.  To be seen by the online audience, your company needs to be on the first page of results.  Even if there are major competitors in your field that you are unlikely to ever be able to eclipse for the top spots, there is so much value in at least being on that first page.  

    Brand awareness

    It makes sense that if your SEO game is strong, you’re ranking high on search engines, more people are clicking on your link and ending up on your website.  That’s a pretty obvious benefit of investing in SEO.  However, even if you’re not getting a ton of clicks, it is still adding value to your company to rank highly on search engines.  Just having your name appear in front of more people’s eyes near the top of search results helps build awareness for your brand.  Maybe there are viewers who are not interested in your offerings in the moment, but when they need your product or service down the line, they remember your brand name and seek you out.  Investing in SEO will almost certainly help build your brand, regardless of how many conversions it is bringing in for you. 

    Keep up with your competitors

    Your SEO prowess can set you apart, but a lack thereof can also hold you back.  You may think it is not worth investing, and prefer to devote your budget and resources elsewhere.  However, if your competitors are focused on boosting SEO and you are not, you will quickly fall behind, and rank far beneath your competition.  Not only will people be less likely to find your site then, but it will also cause you to lose authority and make people question your business.  If it is not coming up on par with the competition in search results, people may wonder why and assume there is something wrong. 

    Sales, sales, sales

    Finally, the ultimate goal of pretty much any form of marketing is of course sales!  Strong SEO can do all of the above: It can increase your brand awareness and prove to consumers that you are a strong competitor in your field.  More directly though, it can also increase sales for your business.  The more people who are seeing your site in searches, the more people will click, and the more people who will ultimately buy.  SEO helps sales in the short term, and also in the longer run.  If someone visits your site, you can then retarget advertisements to them on various platforms.  With effective ads, you can up your sales substantially, and many of those viewers will have originally been brought in thanks to your investment in SEO.  Thus, for a variety of reasons, it really is worthwhile for your business to invest in SEO.  You don’t want to have devoted time, resources, and money into a stellar website that nobody is going to see.  Increase website visits, brand awareness, and ultimately sales, all with SEO.  

  • Spring Your Marketing Forward for Spring

    Spring Your Marketing Forward for Spring

    Things are warming up and thawing out as we spring into spring.  Make sure your digital marketing efforts transition with the seasons with these tips to help you spring forward. 

    1. Brighten up your Color Scheme

    Spring is all about bright colors, fun pastels, blooming flowers, and all things vibrant! As we transition into this bright and colorful season, make sure your digital marketing campaigns reflect the new season.  Gradually transition into a lighter and brighter color scheme on your social media accounts.  Make sure your ads and other digital campaigns feature lots of happy colors.  Whether you’re taking all-new themed photos for spring, or just editing and tinting existing photos to brighten them up a bit, switch things up a bit to help your brand spring forward. 

    2. Leverage Spring Holidays

    Along with a changing color scheme, the spring season also brings with it a handful of holidays that your brand can take advantage of.  Important days like the first day of spring, Easter, and Mother’s Day are all opportunities for some creative marketing.  You can share themed posts, offer special discounts, or make it personal by talking about your brand’s connection to the day.  Whatever route you choose, these can all help boost your marketing efforts and switch up your posts from the norm. 

    3. Invest in New Digital Marketing Tools

    The seasons are changing and so is your brand.  Take this opportunity to invest in tools and technologies that will take your creative to the next level. If you’ve had your eye on a new editing software or video technology, spring is a great time to pull the trigger. Things are warming up and people are venturing out of their houses again.  Catch their eye with top-notch creative content to reel them in. 

    4. Optimize Your Marketing Budget

    In addition to new purchases, spring is a great time to optimize what you already have as well.  It can be easy for companies to get complacent and just stick with the status quo month to month when it comes to their marketing budget.  Instead of just doing more of the same, really take this time to analyze your results across all your digital marketing efforts.  Compare your investments to your outputs, and reallocate your funds to the areas that have been most successful.  This probably seems like common sense, but it can be all too easy for businesses to get busy and just keep investing in the same ways, instead of really taking the time to do what is best for their brand. 

    5. Spring Cleaning!

    Finally, we couldn’t get through a post about springing into spring without mentioning some spring cleaning!  You’re probably cleaning up your house, your yard, and your garage, so be sure to clean up your business too.  How many small, easy projects have you put off throughout the year, thinking you would get to it when you have time?  Now is that time.  Dedicate this season to basic maintenance that you’ve put off, small fixes and improvements you need to make, and quick projects that could all add up to make a huge difference to your brand.  If you have any old or outdated links on your website, remove those.  If you’ve been meaning to update the photos in your catalogue, get them updated.  If you need to rewrite some copy on your site to align with your growth and evolution as a company, get writing.  Even if you can just dedicate 20-30 minutes per day for a month, you’ll be shocked how quickly you can get things back in order and take care of so many projects that have been put off for too long.  Use the five ideas above to spring your brand forward in the coming months, and make the most of this transition to warmer seasons. 

  • Creative Ways to Make Your Facebook Ads Stand Out

    Creative Ways to Make Your Facebook Ads Stand Out

    Creating and running Facebook ads for your business can be relatively simple.  However, if you want your ads to stand out, Facebook offers a variety of tools and methods to create attention-grabbing advertisements.  Make use of all of these tools, and make the most of your content, with the tips below to step up your Facebook ads. 

    Turn Photos into Videos with Slideshow

    Video content tends to garner more views and hold people’s attention longer than still images.  But video content can also be quite a bit more costly and complicated to produce.  If you want to create video ads, but do not have enough high-quality video content, consider using the Slideshow format for your ads.  Slideshow rotates through up to 10 still images of your choosing in a cycling, slideshow format.  It has been shown to be the most effective way to capture and keep an audience’s attention using still images.  If you’re unable to get video content, or just want to show off your images in the most attention-grabbing way possible, give the Slideshow ad format a try.  

    Combine Multiple Types of Creative with Collections

    Another creative ad format to try beyond just photos or videos is Collections.  Collections allow businesses to employ multiple types of creative in the same ad.  This format is especially great if you are wanting to display a variety of your product offerings.  You will choose one primary photo or video to grab viewers’ attention, along with four smaller images to go along with it in a grid-like format.  Oftentimes, companies struggle with the transition from discovery to purchase for their customers.  Collections help bring all of those steps together into one format.  The audience can see the primary photo or video, become interested, and transition directly to shopping the selections underneath.  

    Check out this Collections ad we made for online golf retailer Pro Am Golf USA.  

    Facebook 

    Tell a Story With Your Copy

    In every Facebook ad format, there is at least one space to add original copy.  Use this opportunity to get creative, connect with your audience, and make your ad feel personal.  One great way to build a connection through your copy is to tell a story.  Talk about your origins, your mission statement, or another characteristic that makes your company unique and may be meaningful to your audience.  The visual creative components are likely what will grab your audience’s attention first, but your copy can really reel them in and make them feel a connection to your brand. 

    Design Videos the Way People Watch Them

    When you are creating videos for a Facebook ad, you want them to look cool, convey your message, and capture attention.  You may be tempted to repurpose videos you have used for other marketing purposes, such as television ads or pitch videos, to employ as Facebook ads.  However, you need to keep in mind the unique way that most viewers watch videos on Facebook.  The majority of people do not have their sound on, so you want to be sure your video makes sense even without the audio.  Most viewers are also watching on their mobile devices, so you will want creative that is optimized for mobile.  Your video ads should be designed specifically for Facebook, knowing the ways in which people tend to view them.

    Here’s a cool video ad we made for local deli Pickles Deli recently. 

    Facebook 

    Target the Right Audience with Facebook Pixel

    To make your ads stand out, you will want to focus a lot on the creative itself, as discussed above.  However, you can also help your ads succeed with effective and creative targeting.  Your ad spend dollars are valuable, as are the resources you probably spent to create your ad creative.  You do not want all of that to go to waste by showing your advertisements to an audience who is not interested.  

    There are many different ways to choose your ad audience, all of which can be quite effective.  One of the best tools offered by Facebook for this is the Facebook Pixel.  The Pixel is a bit of code you can install on your website to help track events, and better target a precise audience. By using the Pixel, you can reach audiences on Facebook who are directly linked to your website.  For instance, you could show your ad to a Custom Audience of people who have visited your website but not made a purchase, to encourage them to return and buy something.  You could also show your ad to a Lookalike Audience created from your past customers, so it will be shown to people who have not purchased from you yet, but share important characteristics with those who have.  By making use of Facebook’s tools to create unique ads and show them to the right audience, your Facebook ads will stand out from the rest, and help you bring in new sales. 

  • How Location-Based Marketing Can Help Your Business

    How Location-Based Marketing Can Help Your Business

    A major trend in digital marketing that we haven’t talked about much before is location-based marketing.  This type of marketing can help you target the right customers for your business more precisely, and save you from wasting valuable dollars on marketing to the wrong people.  Read on to learn more about location-based marketing, and contact us today to find out how we can help your business make use of these technologies to reach new audiences.  

    Location-Based Marketing, Defined

    Before we get into too many of the intricacies and details, we’ll start by laying out what location-based marketing actually is.  It is, essentially, what it sounds like.  It is a form of marketing that targets an audience based on their location.  Location is usually determined by GPS data from people’s mobile devices.  As a business, you can use these methods to target those who are currently in a given area, who reside in the area, or who have recently or previously been to the area.  

    It is not a new concept that a business might want to target consumers in a specific area, whether that be a state, city, neighborhood, or any other region.  Location-based marketing just provides more precise and advanced ways of reaching the specific audience a business would like to reach.  It can be much more accurate and effective than other methods of trying to reach people in a given area. 

    Businesses That Can Benefit From Location-Based Marketing

    There are a wide range of companies that could, and should, employ location-based marketing practices.  Pretty much any business that has a customer-facing brick and mortar location would be a prime candidate for this form of marketing.  From retail stores to restaurants to auto mechanics to hair salons and spas, location-based marketing provides great benefits for any business that wants people to physically come through its doors. If your business relies heavily on foot traffic, particularly unplanned or unscheduled visits, this is a great way to contact an audience who is near you and encourage them to come in.  Or, if you are a new business in the neighborhood, this can be a fantastic way to introduce yourself to the local audience and let them know you are here. 

    Using Location-Based Marketing

    Below are just a few of the ways location-based marketing can be used, and how each can be beneficial to your business.  This type of marketing offers much more refined ways to target customers based on location than general targeting through sites like Facebook or Google.  

    • Reach people currently in an area in real time 

    Location-based marketing can be one of the best ways to make a conversion now instead of later.  You can target people who are currently within a certain radius of your business to encourage them to pay you a visit.  For instance, a restaurant could employ these techniques in the late afternoon or early evening to convince hungry consumers nearby to come in for dinner.  

    • Reach people who are visiting your competitors 

    You can reach customers in very specific spots with location-based marketing.  Your target area can be as narrow as within the walls of your competitors’ locations, to very specifically reach people who might be interested in your business.  Furthermore, after targeting your audience, you can also track when they view your ad and if they then proceed to visit your business.  All of this serves to make location-based marketing valuable beyond the capabilities of other types of targeted marketing.  

    • Reach people who frequent/live in a certain area 

    Maybe you don’t just want people to come to your business right now, but you want to run a longer-term campaign to gain customers.  Use location-based marketing to market to all those who reside in or frequent the area in which you are located.  This is a great way to reach people who are often nearby, and get on their radar.  That way, the next time they need to buy a new car, pick up a last minute birthday gift, or grab a bite to eat, your business will be front of mind, and they will know you are nearby.

    • Reach an entire area regardless of demographics 

    Making use of location-based marketing to reach local consumers regardless of demographic factors can be beneficial in a variety of situations.  If you just recently opened your business, this would be a great way to let everyone in the neighborhood know that you have arrived, and tell them about what you offer.  Maybe you own an auto shop-everyone’s cars break down or have issues from time to time.  Or if you own a boutique that primarily sold women’s clothing before, but has recently expanded to men’s and children’s offerings as well, you would want to let people across genders and age ranges know. There is so much more to location-based marketing, and a nearly endless amount of ways it can be used to help your business.  The above are just a few of the benefits of using location-based marketing.  Learn more about some of the ways it can help you and your business on our website. 

  • Bringing Experiential Marketing Virtual

    Bringing Experiential Marketing Virtual

    Experiential marketing had been growing for years, and emerging as an important part of marketing strategy…and then 2020 happened.  Experiential marketing isn’t going away now, but it does definitely look different than anyone was expecting, with more of an emphasis on virtual experiences.  Read on to walk through what experiential marketing is, and how it can successfully be taken virtual. 

    What is experiential marketing?

    Experiential marketing, also known as engagement marketing, is a real-world experience or interaction between a brand and consumers.  It encourages participation and hands-on experiences that go far beyond the passive act of watching an advertisement.  

    An experiential marketing campaign can range from a pop-up event to a how-to class to an interactive display set up in a public place.  It can be any way a business encourages consumers to act and engage beyond traditional marketing methods. 

    How can the experience be taken virtual?

    At first, it’s not so easy to imagine this type of in-person, hands-on experience translating well to a virtual platform.  In some cases, that’s true. However, as we’ve seen over the past year, brands have found some very creative ways to connect with their fans online, and experiential marketing is no exception to that.  There are more virtual, at-home experiences available now than ever before. 

    To take your experiential marketing online, you really just need to focus on what the experience is you want your customers to have, and how you can do that without actually providing a tangible experience.  Is the purpose to allow people a chance to test out your products? To associate your brand with a certain campaign or characteristic? To just gain exposure for your brand in general? Use the goal you want to achieve to shape your virtual experience.  

    For instance, if you have a celebrity brand ambassador that represents your company well, you could sell tickets to a virtual Q-and-A with them.  Or if you are wanting people to actually have a hands-on experience with your products, consider selling tickets to a virtual event walking people through the product.   You could then send a trial-sized sample to everyone who bought a ticket, or design an online simulation so viewers can try out the product virtually. 

    What are the benefits of virtual experiential marketing?

    While virtual events may not be a perfect substitute for in-person ones, they do have some benefits of their own.  First off, virtual experiences are usually cheaper to execute.  They do not require a physical space or nearly as many supplies as a live event would.  You can also include a much larger pool of participants in online experiences, increasing your exposure and ideally, your pool of future customers.  There are also not the same geographic limitations on virtual events.  If your brand sells to customers outside the city you are located in, online experiences may actually align more with your marketing strategy.  Traveling to an event halfway across the world is prohibitively costly and timely for most people.  But virtually attending to an experience for a few hours is much more feasible.  Virtual experiential marketing can help you expand the size and breadth of your reach.  Although the growth of virtual experiences was brought on by unprecedented world circumstances, they offer benefits and opportunities beyond the pandemic.  There are many creative ways to take experiential marketing virtual, and just as many potential benefits for doing so. 

  • Always Be a Student of Your Industry

    Always Be a Student of Your Industry

    No matter your job, your industry, or your level in your company, you should never stop learning. There is always something new to learn that can help advance your career and improve your work.  Stay curious and keep advancing yourself and your knowledge with these tips. 

    Read industry-related books and articles in your free time

    You can take work home without really taking work home.  If you are genuinely interested in the industry you’re working in, find some relevant books from experts in your field and read them in your spare time.  Whether they are how-to books offering tips and tricks, or merely personal accounts of past experiences in your industry, reading topical books can help you grow your knowledge and understanding of the field you are in. 

    Follow industry journals and magazines to stay informed about latest trends

    Books can be a bit of a commitment, but journal and magazine articles aren’t.  If possible, subscribe to journals and magazines that focus on your field.  These are great sources to get a first look at emerging trends, and stay on top of developments in your industry.  Even spending just 5-10 minutes per day perusing articles can make you aware of changes and teach you something new and insightful. 

    Follow competitors to see what everyone else is doing

    You should also keep informed about what others in your industry are doing.  Follow your competitors on social media, network with your peers at events, and gather information about other companies in your industry in any way you can.  This will help you see what new things your competitors are trying, notice efforts that are and are not working well for them, and make sure your offerings are on par with others in your field. 

    Ask questions

    Do not be afraid to ask questions! The only way to grow your knowledge and fill in holes is to ask about areas you do not yet understand.  If there is any part of your job that you are executing but not fully understanding, make sure to dig deeper until you understand what you’re doing and why you are doing it.  Don’t worry about feeling like a nuisance: your co-workers and supervisors will likely appreciate that you are trying to grow and get better. 

    Shadow and learn from peers

    Asking questions doesn’t have to only apply to your own tasks.  If you’re seeing a peer work on a project that you don’t know about, ask if they have time to explain what they are doing to you, or if you can observe for a while to learn about what they are doing.  If you have friends or contacts who work in the same industry as you, talk to them and learn from things they are doing that you are not.  Even if this knowledge never ends up directly applying to your own tasks, it can help you develop a more well-rounded understanding of the industry as a whole.  Plus, you never know when you might need to shift gears down the line.   

    Take additional classes/trainings that are relevant to your field

    Finally, whenever it is possible, become a student of your industry in a more formal sense and take any relevant classes or training that are available to you.  If your field offers additional certifications that can help you in specific areas of your jobs, try to secure those as well.  There are plenty of ways to informally learn from those around you, but sometimes you cannot beat the structured knowledge you’ll gain from formal training.  Make sure to do your research beforehand and only devote time and resources to classes that will actually benefit you, but do not shy away from formal learning.  With the tools and techniques above, you can continue to advance your knowledge, no matter what your current position is.  You should never get complacent with where you are at within your industry; always be willing and ready to learn more, and seek out knowledge from a variety of sources.  Always be a student if you want to succeed. 

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