Emma Turnbull | BYK Digital Marketing

Increasing Email Open Rates

Email marketing is a very profitable aspect of marketing right now. When used correctly, it can be a great way to interact directly with a tailored list of customers who have an attachment to your brand. However, when misused, it can come off as spammy, people can see the emails as a nuisance, and the profitability can decline steeply.

There are many different aspects that come together to perfect an email marketing campaign, but the first step is always getting the recipients to simply open the email. Here are a few ways to increase open rates to help your email marketing campaigns thrive.

Optimize subject line content

Your subject line is the first way you can grab a reader’s attention and convince them your email is worth reading. Thus, optimizing the content of your subject line is essential. Try to be sure your subject line is informative about the information in your email without being boring. Pun and other witty word play are a great way to spice up a subject line.

Optimize subject line length

Your subject line needs to be informative, but you don’t want it to become a novel. Keep it short and snappy, just getting your main point across and leaving the details for the body of the email. The ideal length for a subject line is between 6 and 10 words. This will not only display nicely in your recipient’s inbox, but will also leave them curious to learn more about the topic your subject line teased.

Personalize subject lines

One more way to add extra impact to your subject line is by personalizing it. You can populate it with the first name associated with the email address you are sending to. Then, each recipient feels the email they are receiving is meant specifically for them, and is not just a generic mass email.

Optimize sent from name

No matter what system you are using to send your emails, you should be able to change the name the emails are sent from. As the sender, you will want your name to be familiar to your recipients. Don’t try to get too clever because you could end up confusing people.

Segment lists well

After crafting your email, there are still additional steps you can take to optimize your open rates. One way to do this is to make sure you are sending the email to the right people. Ideally, you do not just send every marketing email to every single email address you have ever gathered. Craft emails that cater specifically to different segments – certain demographics, repeat customers, shoppers who left items in their cart, etc. Ensure you are sending emails only to the most relevant populations to increase the open rates.

Send at the right time

Once your email is all ready to go, the final way you can increase open rates is by queuing up your email to send at the optimal time. Set your emails to send at the time of day and day of the week you expect the largest portion of your recipients to be online. If it gets buried underneath too many other emails by being sent at a non-peak time, your email is at higher risk of being deleted without even a second glance.

2020-07-17

Social Media Sites and Your Business

We are fully in the age of social media. It is almost impossible to have success as a brand today without having an online presence. It can be a challenge to craft this presence across the many different social media platforms that exist. Each platform has its own primary purpose, audience, and attributes that set it apart from the others. Below is a comprehensive guide to the different platforms, and how to get the most out of each for your brand.

Facebook

User Characteristics: Diversity of age

Facebook has the oldest audience of all the social media sites. There are still many young users, but the older generations dominate Facebook. Appeals to Gen X or Baby Boomers are best suited here.

Optimal Posting Frequency: 4+ times per week; Stories daily

Best types of content: Long videos, text posts

Facebook is the best place to share longer videos and text posts, because this is where the audience’s attention span is longest. People are not as focused only on the visuals, like they are on sites like Instagram. This is a great place to tell a story or educate your audience.

Instagram

User Characteristics: Young millennials, Brand-centric

Instagram has a relatively young audience, mostly millennials and younger. It is also the most brand-focused of the social media sites. The algorithm and updates like Instagram Shopping tend to be catered more toward business interests than personal accounts

Optimal Posting Frequency: Daily; Stories multiple times per day

Best types of content: Short videos or boomerangs, tagged photos

Instagram is all about the eye-catching, attention-grabbing visuals. Users tend to scroll quickly through, so you don’t have long to pique their interest. Additionally, tagging your offerings directly in your photos is a great way to convert sales from Instagram.

Twitter

User Characteristics: Millennial and Gen Z

Twitter also has a pretty wide user age range like Facebook, but tends to skew younger. There are also a lot of niches and subcommunities within Twitter that tend to be strong. You will want to establish yourself within any of these communities that are relevant to your brand.

Optimal Posting Frequency: Daily; Retweets multiple times per day

Best types of content: Quick informational updates, questions, polls

The tone on Twitter is more conversational than on other sites. This is a great place to engage and encourage interaction. Twitter is also a site that is checked frequently, so is a great place to post last-minute updates or changes to your offerings.

Snapchat

User Characteristics: Young, Trendy

Snapchat has the youngest audience of the social channels. Snapchat is used more to communicate between friends than it is to interact with brands, but branded content is recently becoming a larger part of the Snapchat experience.

Optimal Posting Frequency: Multiple times per day

Best types of content: Short videos, Tutorials

Users are looking for quick information or short, entertaining snippets. This is a great place to share a short product tutorial video or a fun listicle. Don’t take yourself too seriously on Snapchat. Here even more than on other sites, it is important to sound like your intended audience – use relevant lingo and stay up-to-date on trends.

Pinterest

User Characteristics: Mostly female

The defining characteristic of Pinterest’s users is that they are overwhelmingly female. They are also not necessarily as young as users of other social media sites. The audience is multi-generational.

Optimal Posting Frequency: 15+ pins per week

Best types of content: Direct links to purchase, Relevant articles

People are not on Pinterest just to look at the graphics you share – they tend to be looking for useful information. More than on any other social channel, people are willing to click links that redirect them away from the site. Make sure you are sharing content with links to your offerings and informative articles or pages people will want to explore.

2020-07-14

Tips and Tricks for Becoming a Successful Influencer: Part 2

A couple weeks ago, we shared part 1 of our Tips and Tricks for Influencers series, which focused on establishing your accounts to set yourself up for success. Today, we are back with part 2. Now that you’re all set up, you’re ready to work on growth. Just as the field of social media influencing is constantly growing and adapting, you will want to be continually evolving as well. There are some basic steps you can take to optimize your performance and keep your channels on track to continually grow.

1. Plan ahead

Content calendars should be your new best friend. A good rule of thumb is to plan your posts out at least 2 weeks ahead of time. Planning your content ahead allows you to see all your upcoming posts together to make sure you like the overall aesthetic. It also leaves you time to gather the content you need to shoot without scrambling to find something to post at the last minute.

2. Be consistent

Consistency is key! This cliche is true for a lot of things, and social media influencing is no exception. You want your posts to be consistent both in terms of timing and content. Choose a posting frequency and stick to it – most influencers post at least 3-4 times per week. You also want the content of your posts to be consistent. Stick to the niche you have chosen, and try to avoid sharing things that stray from this too often. The more consistently you stay on topic, the stronger your brand will be.

3. Build a community

Build personal connections with your followers, and encourage communication amongst them as well. Use comments, direct messages, and stories to talk directly to your followers and build relationships with them beyond just a double tap on your photos. Your followers are real people behind their keyboards, just as you are. These are people who likely have shared interests and similarities to you, people you might be friends with if you met them in real life. Find common ground with individuals and capitalize on it!

4. Keep it relatable

This is huge, especially for a new or relatively small influencer. Your page should not feel distant and unattainable. A keystone of the field of influencing is that people feel they can relate to influencers more than they can to famous actors and singers. Your growth will likely depend on people connecting with you, beyond merely admiring you. Don’t worry about being too perfect – the more real you are, the better.

5. Collaborate

Finally, one of the most challenging but most effective ways to grow your channels is to collaborate with larger, more established influencers. Collaborations are extremely common in influencing, and making connections with other influencers is just as important as making connections with your followers. Engage on other influencers’ pages often and work to establish relationships with them. Anytime someone will partner up with you to make content, especially if their channel is larger than yours, seize the opportunity. You will both benefit from exposure to each other’s audiences, and hopefully have some fun together in the process!

2020-07-10

Growth while Maintaining your Loyal Fan Base

As a business, you always want to be growing your audience and customer base. No matter who you are or how great your customers are, no brand has ever said “That’s enough, no need for any more fans please.”

However, once you do have a loyal customer base established, it can sometimes feel like a balancing act between appealing to them, and appealing to potential new customers. Particularly when it comes to social media and digital marketing, how can you ensure you are keeping your fans interested while simultaneously widening your net to reel in new customers as well?

Luckily, there are some methods you can use that appeal to both new and old customers. Here are some ways to make sure you are not alienating your fans while still working to bring in some new faces.

Be Relatable

Warning: This does NOT mean just strike up conversations with customers you recognize to catch up and relate to them. It means, keep your content relatable in general. Talk in the way your target demographic talks, ask topical questions that your target demographic cares about, and set a tone your target demographic can appreciate. By doing this, you can relate to both current and potential new customers by feeling like a familiar voice. Making yourself relatable builds bonds with both new and old.

Share Personal Stories

This might seem like the type of thing that would only speak directly to the people you are sharing about, but it can definitely hold a wider appeal as well. Sharing the success story of a loyal customer makes not only them feel good, but shows a larger audience that you care about your customers, you know your customers, and you value them. You can foster feelings of goodwill amongst your loyal fans (“I am so proud to support this brand” “I knew I was a fan for a reason – they really care!”) and pique the curiosity of others (“This seems like the kind of brand I’d like to check out”).

Exclusive discounts

No one dislikes a sale. Offering a discount exclusively to people who see an advertisement or social post serves two different purposes for current and potential customers, but works well for both. A discount is an effective way to get someone in the door for the first time. Anyone who had been on the fence about purchasing is likely to finally commit when offered a discount, because the risk is less if they end up disliking the offering. As for current customers, sales provide a renewed excitement, and entice people who were potentially going to wait on their next purchase to go ahead and buy now while there is a discount.

It is important to note that this is a method that should be used sparingly – too many steep discounts can cheapen the feel of your brand. Plus, by offering too frequent of discounts to customers who are loyal and would likely continue to make purchases anyways, you’re losing out on a large chunk of potential revenue. Rare, unexpected discount offers are exciting enough to keep people coming back for more!

Balance your content

There is a lot of overlap, but when it comes down to it, not every single post or advertisement will be able to appeal to both new and established audiences. It is perfectly fine to share content that is aimed at one group or the other from time to time. Just remember to maintain balance – do not lean too heavily one way or the other. Make sure you do not have multiple posts in a row that exclude or don’t make sense to people who have never patronized your business before. When crafting advertisements, have separate sets for those who have and have not visited your site or made a purchase, and utilize them discerningly. As long as you are mindful of your content and don’t concentrate solely on either growth or maintenance of your fan base, you will avoid alienating anyone and be successful!

2020-07-07

The Lowdown on Online Reviews

Online reviews can really make or break a company. More than ever, people are turning to other consumers for their information about brands and businesses. Reviews are quickly becoming as important as any form of paid advertising your brand does. Below are the top reasons online reviews are essential to your business, and how you can make them work for you.

1. Reviews Increase Your Google Ranking

Reviews are great for your visibility, especially on search engines. They factor heavily into SEO and can really help your rankings. Large numbers of online reviews will help potential customers find you more easily.

2. Reviews Open Conversations with Your Customers

Reviews are a great pipeline to interact directly with your customers. Not only do they give you a chance to hear first-hand what people think, but responding to online reviews offers a chance to let people know that you hear them and value their opinion. You can ask follow-up questions and really turn a review into a conversation.

3. People Make Decisions Based on Reviews

It is clear that people are not only seeing online reviews, but really paying attention to them. According to a study conducted by Podium, 93% of consumers say their purchasing decisions are impacted by online reviews.

4. Presence on Review Sites is Important

Sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor are extremely visible online and are used by millions to make purchasing decisions. You want your business to have a presence on as many reputable review sites as possible. This maximizes the channels through which potential customers can find you and learn about you.

5. Reviews Help Your Credibility

It is important to build trust for your brand. The more positive reviews your brand has, the more credibility it has. When potential customers hear good things from other customers, they tend to believe it. Social influence is a major factor in the way people make purchasing decisions, so you want people talking about your brand and how great it is online.

6. Reviews are Easy to Search Out and Find

People tend to want to read reviews, and they don’t have to dig too hard to find them. Reviews are usually quick and easy to find online, which makes them all the more important. Even people who aren’t searching hard are likely to come across reviews, so the more you have for your brand, the more exposure you have.

7. Even negative reviews can provide an opportunity

Sure, you definitely want 5 star reviews raving about your offerings. But even not-so-nice reviews can be turned into a positive. They give you an opportunity to hear the issues people are having with your products or services, and address them. You can let people know you hear their concerns and how you plan to improve going forward. This after-purchase customer service can show people how valuable they are to you, and if done correctly, really improve goodwill.

2020-07-02

Getting the Most out of Giveaways

Everywhere you look on the internet these days, there are giveaways galore! You can win anything from a flat-screen TV to a spa weekend to a pair of new shoes. As a consumer, the prospect of winning something free is appealing and exciting. But as a brand, giving your product or service away is not quite so appealing on the surface. Why, then, do so many brands seem to be taking part? Let’s dive into the world of branded giveaways and how they can help your company. What are the potential benefits of running a giveaway? And how can you set up your giveaway to ensure you reap these benefits?

Potential Benefit #1: Increase brand awareness

Giveaways are a great way to get your company in front of some new eyes. Someone who is curious about your brand but not yet completely sold is more likely to come to your site for the chance to win something free than they are to just browse.

Tip: Promote in New Avenues and Places

To ensure your giveaway is achieving the goal of bringing in new potential customers, you will want to be creative about the avenues you share it through. A giveaway can be a fun way to reward loyal customers, but you do not want all the entrants to just be people who are already fans. Try promoting through giveaway and couponing sites or through a partner or influencer’s social channels. These are all places people tend to look for giveaways so there should be a lot of interest, and you can feel confident you will reach a wider audience and bring in new customers.

Potential Benefit #2: Gather Consumer Information

Not only can giveaways increase exposure, but you can also take it a step further. Once you’ve grabbed the attention of some new potential customers, you can then also use a giveaway to learn about them. The entry form is a great opportunity to gather basic information and learn who is interested in your product or service.

Tip: Keep it Simple to Enter

As tempting as it can be to include a ton of questions on an entry form to gather as much information as possible, that will likely backfire. People tend to avoid long or complicated entry methods, so keep it short and simple. Decide on the 3-4 most important pieces of information for your brand to gather, and stick with those. Usually a name and some form of contact information, like an email address, is enough to be valuable to your business while still feeling simple and non-invasive for entrants.

Potential Benefit #3: Encourage Purchasing Behavior

This is really what everything in marketing boils down to, isn’t it? You want people to buy your product or service. Hosting a giveaway can help! You can increase purchases among both the winner and the other entrants by setting your giveaway up correctly.

Tip: Choose the Prize Carefully and Offer Discount Codes

The prize you choose to give away is crucial. It shouldn’t necessarily just be the most popular item or service in your arsenal. You want to select an item that has value on its own, to entice people to enter, but that would also encourage the winner to make additional purchases. A product or service that pairs well with another of your offerings, or that requires some type of refill or replacement to be regularly purchased for it, is usually a good selection. You also want to look beyond the winner and find ways to encourage the other entrants to make purchases as well. One way to do this is by offering a special, limited-time discount exclusively to those who entered your giveaway. Make it slightly higher than your normal sales or discounts without cutting into your margins too much.

By following and executing the 3 steps above, you can confidently run a giveaway that is sure to help your brand. Be wary of common pitfalls like marketing the giveaway only to your already loyal customers, or making the entry methods too complicated. Promote strategically, keep it simple and choose the right prize, and you will be on your way to giveaway success!

2020-06-30

Tips and Tricks for Becoming a Successful Influencer

Being an influencer sounds like a pretty sweet job. Who wouldn’t want to get paid just to post about their life on social media? I think many of us have been tempted at least once to give it a try for ourselves. It may look easy from the outside, but in reality there’s a little bit more to it than that. Influencing can definitely be fun, but it’s not always a walk in the park, and as the field grows, there are more and more things you need to know to have any chance of being successful.

If you are interested in becoming an influencer, below are some keys to success. These are the steps you need to take to start off on the right foot.

1. Choose a niche

The very first step to becoming an influencer is to choose the niche in which you want to establish yourself. What is it precisely that you want to post about, that you know a lot about, and enjoy talking about? Be as specific as possible while still choosing a topic that can appeal to a wide audience.

If you are really unsure or have many different interests you want to bring together, you can stay generic and label yourself a “lifestyle” influencer, but be wary: the wider you cast your net, the harder it will be to establish yourself.

2. Choose a name

Now that you know what you will be posting about, it’s time to choose a fitting name. You generally want to give your brand a title beyond just your own name. Make it snappy and quirky while still cluing followers in to what they’ll be seeing on your pages. You can definitely get creative, just don’t stray too far from your niche!

Here are a few stand-out examples: @champagneandchanel – Classy, fashion, lifestyle @chicmamachronicles – Fashion and motherhood @polkadotsandpleats – Fashion and style

3. Set up accounts

So you have a name and an idea what kind of content you want to post. Time to get your accounts all set up! You will need a clear profile picture and an engaging bio or About Me section. Your profile picture is the first visual anyone will see of your brand, so make sure it represents you well. Ensure your bio includes important information like your name, location, area of expertise, and email address. Beyond that, use your wit and creativity to grab people’s attention! Tell your story and give a sense of who you are in a short, engaging way.

You will also want to change your profile from a personal account to a business account on any platforms you can (Instagram and Facebook allow these kinds of changes).

4. Follow similar accounts

After getting set up, it’s time to start building your following. Until you are established and able to grow organically, the best way to gain followers is by following others. Follow influencers and brands in niches similar to the one you will be in. Not only will this give you some ideas about what to post, but will also get your name out there to garner familiarity. Other good accounts to follow: friends and family who are likely to follow back and influencers in fields different from yours but still complementary (ie. if you are a vegan recipe influencer, you may want to follow vegan and cruelty-free beauty influencers or wine influencers).

5. Engage, engage, engage

The final way to start your influencing career off right, even before posting ANYTHING, is by engaging with others on the social platforms you plan to post on! Comment on posts you relate to, express interest in brands you would like to work with in the future, and direct message more established influencers in your area to build a network. The more engaged you are at the start, the more eyes are likely to see your first few posts, even if your following is still small.

Following these 5 steps will put you in a position to confidently kick off your career as a potential social media influencer. Check back in a couple weeks for part 2 of our Tips and Tricks for Influencers series to learn how to grow your presence once you have established yourself.

2020-06-24

Author: Emma Turnbull