1. Establish Your Company Values 

What kind of travel experience do want your company to represent? Are you exotic and adventurous or quiet and comfortable? Does any of your products or services benefit the environment and/or include fair-trade practices? Identify what your company stands for and work with a designer or marketing agency that has designers to include visual elements and persuasive body copy that accurately portray and represent what your company stands for. 

2. Identify Your Audience’s Interest

Find out what interests your target market. Is there anything specific that a lot of people in your target demographic talk about? Ask: who, what, where, when, how, and at what time? You can gather this information through user persona profiles, social media, and competitor research. Think about how you can create content from it. Examples include a FAQ section on your website, host live Q & As on social media, a how-to video, or surveys through email marketing. Once you have built an audience continue to build off that information with Google Analytics with your Website, Google Ads, Social Ads, and interactions from other digital marketing avenues. You can use data to help inform future projects. 

3. Choose Formats Popular with Your Target Market 

Short-form video is popular with young gen z and millennials, but not every piece of content must be in this format to get views. Look at different content styles on the social media platforms you are on. For example, on Instagram carousels often get high engagement rates. Your business could create a “what to bring to ______” post. Then include branded items and include “anything we missed?” statement at the end to encourage interaction. May sure to switch post types a few times a week so existing followers don’t get bored. 

4. Create Immersive Content 

With new technologies you can create or integrate exciting digital experiences on your website and social media accounts. VR, augmented reality, and Google Maps are a few ways to this. Since you are in the travel industry, this is a great way to create sneak peeks of tours, trips, or products in use. You want to entice the client to stay and interact with what your company has to offer. If create a positive and exciting experience online, they are more likely to trust and choose you over a generic company. 

5. Create a Unique Style

With competitive research you may be tempted to recreate popular layouts and slap your logo on it. At best you could lose potential clients due to brand confusion, at worst, you are accused of plagiarism and get into legal trouble. Make sure you are adding and changing up photos, videos, motion graphics, and body copy tone of voice to create something that is identifiable uniquely to your company. Not only will you stand out from the crowd, but you will create trust with your audience.  

Need help creating effective branded content? Call 248.528.3600

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1. Keep a Consistent Post Schedule 

Viewers like to hang around a certain platform at a certain time. Ideally it would be great to post the exact moment your audience in on the Instagram app. Research the most likely times your target audience is on the platform. These are more likely to be ranges, rather than exact times. Publish posts 2-3 times daily based on those time ranges. For example, you are a selling backpack for students at the age of 10-12. You target audience is their parent. Good times to post would be 10 am – 12 pm for stay-at-home parents and 5 pm – 7 pm for parents off work. Post somewhere during these two post ranges to capture the attention of these potential customers. You can either use automatic posting software or you can hire a digital marketing agency to help keep up with schedules if you are struggling to post consistently. 

2. Create a Variety of Graphicly Appealing Posts 

Images, carousals, and short-form videos are all different types of post you can create for Instagram to keep your feed interesting. Create posts that entertain, educate, motivates, and sells your product or service. Make sure the design of your post follows these design principles:

• Contrast 
• Balance 
• Emphasis 
• Proportion 
• Hierarchy 
• Repetition 
• Rhythm 
• Pattern 
• Space 
• Movement 
• Variety & Unity 

Canva is a great resource for templated designs but beware by using templates you risk not standing out from competitors. You may need professional designers from a digital marketing agency or a social media marketing agency to help create uniquely branded content. 

3. Foster a Community-Based Relationship

To build a community around your business you need to be tagging influencers or complementary business, commenting on other Instagram accounts, replying to your followers, keeping track of your analytics, and incorporating the correct hashtags in your posts. This means setting aside time for research on various Instagram feeds for what are the most popular hashtags, post types with the most engagement, and more. If you are an entrepreneur or a small business, you may be able to set a side 1 full day dedicated to this. However, if you are a growing company or a large enterprise you need a full team managing your social media accounts. You can either build an internal team or look for a digital marketing agency that offers social media management services. 

Need help managing you Instagram account? Call 248.528.3600

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1. Use referral emails

2. Highlight good reviews 

3. Allow customers to send a text message inquiry

4. Have multiple ways to contact you (chat bots, website, phone number, & social media) 

5. Run a paid search ad or Google Ad

6. Update Google My Business Profile 

7.  Attend a tradeshow or local fair

8. Sponsor a team, organization, or charity 

9. Run a new paid social campaign 

10. Build an email list through company blog, newsletter, & coupon codes

11. Use QR codes on business cards & social posts 

12. Refer customers to complementary businesses 

13. Join a networking group

14. Participate in local community events & gatherings

Start a user-researched web project today? Call 248.528.3600

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1. Create a New Year post for social media 

2. Launch a new product or service 

3. Use Google Ads to help with specific marketing goals

4. Update your branding & website

5. Sponsor a charity event 

6. Offer a New Year’s sales discount 

7. Promote referral programs

8. Create a gift guide based on new year’s resolutions

9. Participate in festivals & events

10. Create a snappy email marketing campaign 

11. Launch a giveaway

12. Share popular purchases from the previous year

13. Host a New Year Event 

14. Highlight loyal customers 

15. Run a contest 

16. Share company New Year’s resolutions 

17. Blend digital marketing with traditional marketing campaigns 

18. Partner with complementary businesses

Need help create New Year content? Call 248.528.3600 

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1. Use PR to Facilitate Content Promotions

Reach out to relevant journalists, editors, influencers, bloggers, or other media outlets with your content. Your content should be data-focused, but emotional enough to connect with the average consumer. This should lead to more sharing among social media, increased media coverage, and a wider audience that may include merging complementary industries. A study by ON-Broadcast, a broadcast specialist agency, showed that many journalists admit to finding stories on social networks or other media outlets. This means that reporters could possibly pick up your story when you distribute your content across different channels. Consider looking out for guest posting opportunities on reputable websites. Having regular articles and press mentions will amplify your reach in the long term.

2. Use PR to Build Relationships with Influencers

PR is more than just sending a single inquiry email and hoping to get more eyes on your content pieces. It is about building and nurturing mutually beneficial relationships. The better your PR, the easiest it gets to attract new partners, which is a valuable asset when using influencer marketing. An influencer has the trust of their audience and to keep that trust, they try to work with companies that are reputable. Create an influencer strategy built on honest reviews of your product or service. Make sure your content is clear and easy to understand. If the influencer created the content, check that their work doesn’t have any misleading information. After that, enjoy a steady stream of media coverage, co-branded content, social media mentions, and product or service reviews. 

3. Use PR to Help You Become an Industry Authority 

Public relations help you increase authority through speaking engagements, interviews, media coverage, or social media presence. Keep an eye out for local tradeshows, community events, or schools hosting a career day. Allow your employees to build personal brands and share industry insights or news under the company name. Also allow individuals within your company to become thought leaders by publishing insightful content pieces, such as industry reports or expert commentaries. This not only will build the creditability of your company but will show your employees that they are valuable members of the team. Potential clients will feel more at easy if they see real people interacting with the company. 

4. Use PR to Improve Your Online Visibility 

Proactive PR and reactive PR are two ways to approach improving your online presence. Proactive PR involves sharing content with the public in the forms of research and press releases being published on high-ranking high authority websites. Press releases are usually distributed by PR specialists or via newswire services, but you can easily send them out yourself with dedicated PR tools or with the help of a digital marketing agency with SEO services. The goal is to create buzz around your brand and become “findable”. You want journalists and potential customers look for information through Google Search and have you pop up in an ad, snippet, or the first or second page of Google’s results page. 

Pair proactive PR with reactive PR which involves responding to journalists’ needs. There are all sorts of new platforms from local to international online magazines or news companies. Once you find a suitable outlet to share your content, make sure to answer fast and personalize your pitch, depending on the media outlet and its requirements. This PR tactic helps to build quality backlinks and drive traffic to your business’s website.

5. Use PR to Leverage New Communication Channels

Create an online newsroom or company blog is an important communication channel for PR specialists and content marketers. You can use it for publishing press releases, in-house announcements, messages from the founders, or other newsworthy stories your company may have. Unlike traditional media coverage, this is where brands control their own story entirely and decide what to make public. Having an online newsroom or creating a company blog via WordPress will add a sense of legitimacy to your website. It will also make it easier to nurture media relationships and help you manage your online reputation on your own. This shared desire for PR and content marketing is an excellent way to manage and improve your brand’s online reputation. A better reputation equals a higher chance a potential client will pick your business over another’s. 

Need help incorporating PR into your content strategy? Call 248.528.3600.

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1. Your Profile is Private and Not a Business Account

The default Instagram account is a personal account, but with a personal account there is far less people able to see your products and services. If your account is private no one other than people who follow you are seeing your posts. Most people think there is nothing to see, or it is a spam account when a business account is private. Avoid creating distrust by going into your privacy settings and turning off “private account”. Then go to the account settings and the option to switch to business account should appear. Select a category that best describes your business then fill out your business info. Now you have tools and insights that help you analyze your posts, IGTV, Instagram Stories, Reels, Videos, and Carousals.  

2. Monotonous and Repetitive Content 

Only posting the same type of content is boring. It also causes you to lose user retention and loose client interest in your brand. You want a healthy mix of photos, videos, stories, and carousals on a variety of topics related to your industry. Here are a few types of posts you can fill your account with to keep it looking interesting:

• How-to-use video
• Client testimonial
• Event post
• Benefit of your product/service post
• New product/service post
• Industry tips carousal 

3. Lack of Post Regularity  

Ideally it would be great to post daily, but this can lead to burnout. Not posting consistently leads to decrease visibility and a decrease in lead generation. Have a post schedule. You want to post on days and times your audience is most active. For example, you are selling backpacks to teens. The estimated best time to post would be between 11am-1pm and 3pm -4pm when they are lunch and after school are when they are most likely to have their full attention on the platform. If you are struggling to create post designs and post it on pre-scheduled time, you may consider hiring a digital marketing firm that provides social media marketing services, even if it is just 1 post a month to lighten the load. 

4. You Avoid Collaboration      

Some businesses avoid collaboration because they think it takes away attention from people solely focusing on them, but they are wrong. Instagram influencer marketing leads to expanding your audience and lead generation, thus increasing your sales. Businesses also make the mistake that influencers are just high-end celebrities. Small town Instagram influencers are just as affective, if not more due to their ability to keep a close relationship with their audience. Some examples on type of small-town influencers are:

• A local teacher
• Small mom-and-pop shops
• Food trucks 
• A local state official 
• A travel blogger
• Hair/Makeup artist 
• Entrepreneurs 
• Podcasters 

5. Skipping Calls-to-Action and Using the Wrong Hashtags 

If you want users to buy now, then include “buy now” in the graphic or text. If you want them to call include your phone #. It is not enough to have pretty images. You must tell your audience on how to reach your business. Most Instagram users are scanning images, so you want to make your call-to-action stands out, especially if other companies are selling something similar. Also include the correct hashtags. Do keyword research and think about what your audience would search for to find a product or service like yours.  

We can help improve your business’s Instagram account. Call 248.528.3600.

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Post and Advertise on Social Media 

Create a feed that is festive and fun. If you sell products supply gift guides. If you are a service-based company create a joyous atmosphere around your services. Contests and give aways are popular during the season because people are hoping to get a least one free gift for someone this year. Make sure the contest or give away is fun and rememberable that way the client will be encouraged to purchase something from your brand in the future. Take group photos of your company being charitable and giving back to your local community. 

Organize or Attend a Value-Added Sales Event 

Invite groups of people to your store for an exclusive sales event or attend a festival where there is a high influx of people holiday shopping. Both ways let you meet new customers and local business owners you may partner up with in the future. These person-to-person meetings allow you to create a positive experience for customers that they will remember off the holiday season, thus building brand loyalty and trust. 

Decorate Your Website 

Whether you are strictly a small online shop or a small local brick-and-mortar shop, it is fun to decorate your website. Having a holiday vide will get people in the mood and brighten their day. Add a Santa hat to your logo or any other item associated with holidays celebrated at this time. Add falling snow to your website or create a fun cursor to grab visitors’ attention. These will increase retention rates and increasing the likelihood of visitor purchasing an item. 

 Celebrate Small Business Saturday

Across your social media use #smallbusinesssaturday to promote your business. Many towns have various promotions such as special events, advertising gimmicks, and public relations initiatives to take advantage of. While this year it was on November 26^th, some locations celebrate this year-round. Use Saturday during holidays to promote your most popular sales item and be on the lookout for holiday specials you can offer based on your local Saturday activities. Don’t forget to update your Google Business profile with holiday hours and events. 

It is not too late to start holiday marketing. Call 248.528.3600.

The post Ways Small Business Can Leverage Holiday Marketing  appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

1. Post a customer review

2. Live Q &A with prepared questions

3. Live event or party your business hosts or is attending 

4. Share good news from different local businesses 

5. Share a post from a local charity or non-profit looking for help

6. Answer questions or comments from potential or existing customers

7. Host a customer meet-and-greet and post highlights

8. Post “Did you Know?” or a historical anniversary relevant to your market or community

9. Post seasonal picture of your business 

10. Post customer stories (with consent)

11. Post about a business challenge you overcame 

12. When a local school team or organization is having success, post about their success

13. Turn FAQ into an advice post

14.  Post good news for the business or industry 

15. Celebrate a new hire

Need more help with social media marketing? Call 248.528.3600.

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1. Ask what your target audience is doing around the holidays

According to data.ai, studies show mobile app usage and mobile shopping go up in November and December. Consumers are also looking for deals for gifts and holiday supplies. Create mobile-friendly web and ad content that helps your target audience find what they are looking for. Special discounts are often offered to help draw in consumers that need to spend for a lot of people in their lives. Check and secure your supply and delivery chain. Consumers are usually stressed and are looking for items that arrive quickly. Include call-to-actions that encourage urgency, especially if you are limited in supply or time. 

2. Adjust your normal social media content calendar 

Make sure you increase the frequency of your posts leading up to the holiday. Try to avoid posting the day before or the day of. People are usually finish shopping the week of and last-minute shoppers usually grab whatever closest. Remember that not all social media posts have to be direct sales. Some quick ideas are: 

• How to use video
• Customer testimonials
• Suggested gift post 
• Showcase bestsellers
• Live video asking what audiences are doing for the holidays 

3.  Keep in mind your employees’ time off

Whether you are open the day of the holiday or closed, employees are going to take time off on or around the time of the holiday to relax and be with their friends and/or family. Keep this in mind when you are creating your ads. You want to have enough breathing room for consumers to see and buy and for employees to register the purchase and do their jobs. Make your content in advance, especially if it evolves employee interaction. You want to be courteous of employee’s time because they are the one keeping your products or services moving. If possible, include ai or a social media manager that had access to software that automatically posts in advance. 

4. Keep in mind of other winter holidays besides the major ones

This is especially important is you are an international business. If you’re not selling something that is directly tied to major holiday or there is intersection of holidays that your target audience may celebrate, create content acknowledging different holidays. For example, you can create content based on Hanukkah or Kwanzaa in addition to Christmas. It can be blog post or a social media post. If there are too many holidays during the winter month and you are having trouble incorporating them in an authentic way, then just stick to “happy holidays” posts, blog articles and ads. 

5. Include sales-enablement collateral into your holiday content

This is important for b2b buyers. Web landing pages, case studies, client testimonials, and other sales aids content are still needed during the holidays. One would argue even more so due to other business’ fiscal year ending. Other businesses are deciding what to do with end of the year budgets and upcoming ones. Gather whatever content you can that make your business look like they have a smooth and positive experience. Exchange internal and team holiday news. LinkedIn is a great platform to highlight these items.

Need help preparing a marketing plan for the holidays? Call 248.528.3600.

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Brand Awareness Objectives

Facebook will show your ad to the largest possible number of users who are most likely to be interested in the ad content. You will want to keep on the post impression data. Facebook’s Ads Manager will display “estimated ad recall lift” data. This is an estimated figure of the number of users who would most probably recall your ad 2 days after seeing it. This ad campaign objective category is primarily used by larger brands who invest in social media with bigger budgets and who also can measure these results with a brand-lift study. 

Conversion Objectives 

Catalog Sales, Conversions, and Store Traffic full under conversion objectives. They have the goal of encouraging users who are interested in your brand to buy your products or use your services. These objectives are optimized for high-intent actions, like purchase. Conversion objectives tend to be a bit more costly regarding impressions and link clicks than other ad types. However, in some cases, the cost per conversion may end up being lower in the long haul when you use these objective types strategically. Your ads will be shown to potential clients who are already primed to buy from you. This objective requires your business page to have the following: 

·       Facebook pixel

·       Conversions API

·       Domain verification

·       Events Manager event configuration

Catalog Sales Objectives

These types of objectives are used mostly by ecommerce businesses. The Catalog Sales objective enables you to create a catalog on Facebook and showcase the products to those most likely to buy your products. These ads are also called dynamic product ads. They show a variety of products to target audiences in the ads. They also retarget people with specific products based on their activity on your website. For example, when your client is looking at a pair of shoes on your website and even added it to your cart but forgot to check out. After that, they probably see the ad with that exact pair or shoes. The goal is to get them to return and ultimately complete the purchase. 

Store Traffic Objectives

If you are a brick-and-mortar store or own several and you are looking for ways to increase your foot or in-store traffic, using the Store Traffic objective can help you achieve your goals. You will need to add your store locations to the platform and their working hours. After that, Facebook ‘s algorithm will start showing ads to the closest location to your users based on a particular radius. You can set it up for your ad to do this automatically or manually. This is a great way to boost local SEO with search engines like Google. 

Traffic Objectives

If your primary objective is to drive more people to your website, then the Traffic campaign objective is the best. This type of ad optimizes for landing page views, and link clicks. Facebook shows your ads to users who are in the target audience you choose and are most likely interact with links. When your select the Landing Page Views option, the platform will show the ad to those who will click and wait for the website to load to view it (make sure your load speed is fast!). To set up the Traffic objective, select the destination URL at the ad level, and target your business’s website. Users will be able to become more familiar with your brand, blog, products, services, and more. This ad helps build brand loyalty as well, which is important for returning customers. 

Video Views Objectives

With video becoming increasingly popular, with this as Facebook will optimize ads to show videos to people who are most likely to watch them. Increasing video views is a great way to build awareness and trust with new audiences. Video campaigns are also great to establish retargeting audiences based on how long they were watching the videos. This will help take them closer to a sales conversion. Your video needs to be engaging. The goal is to capture the audience’s attention and deliver value within the first few seconds. Also, adding captions for the audience is better for accessibility which many platforms and search engine are making a priority. 

Messages Objectives

Start conversations with people via Instagram Direct or Messenger. As with other objectives already mentioned above, Facebook will prioritize those users who are most likely to interact with a given brand via messages. This can be a great way to boost overall engagement with a target audience. However, business owners will probably need a social media manager to monitor the pages’ inboxes and respond to the messages as soon as possible. Users want fast responses, and these criteria must be met if they are to continue spend their money with your business. This may mean you have to hire some internally or a digital marketing firm that offers social media marketing. Businesses should also give their potential customers a clear reason to make contact. Unfortunately, these ad types are associated with spam, so making sure that they know that after they click the ad, it will open either the Messenger app or Instagram Direct only, or your business’s website or app. 

Engagement Objectives

The goal is to boost engagement. This campaign will target those users who are most likely to engage with the ads, and there are a few engagement types to choose from before launching a campaign:

Page Likes: Will generate more likes on a Facebook page. Will be shown to those who are the most likely to click the “Like” button on a page.

Post Engagement: Includes commenting, sharing, reacting, and video views to clicks. Helps with building “social proof” on ads and posts and gives more credibility to a brand online. However, the ad needs to encourage engagement from users. There must be a reason to interact. The post must be engaging by default. If that’s not happening, chances are, people won’t really engage with it. Include a call-to-action embedded in the ad to drive interaction. 

Event Responses: Get more responses to events. The only problem is that this is a rather low-intent action, meaning that the 150 people who clicked “going,” won’t necessarily mean that they will show up at the event. When ticket sales are the main concern, it might be better to use the Conversions objective and drive traffic to the landing page where they can buy tickets. Use this more as a “would potential clients be interested in this type of event?” ad rather than a direct sales ad. 

App Installs Objectives

If your business has an app and you want people to download it, the App Installs campaign is the way to go. The ads will be shown to people with the likelihood of clicking on “download,” taking them directly to the designated app store to get it. You will need to register your app with the social platform beforehand and implement SDK, allowing them to track the app event data from the Ads Manager panel. To simplify the entire campaign process, the automated app ads feature can be used, and it will create an ad for you target audience to use for you. 

Lead Generation Objectives

This objective allows for the addition of different contact forms to an ad with customization of the questions if additional information is needed from prospects. When potential clients click on a lead generation ad, the user will be asked to provide information, like email address, name, etc. To make their lives easier, the users can simply add the necessary data from Facebook itself. When they submit the questionnaire, brands can collect the gathered data from the page or get it sent to the CRM automatically via different pieces of software, like Facebook partner integration. Make sure your questions are ethical and that you read up on privacy laws in you state or country. 

Create an effective Facebook ad with us. Call 248.528.3600

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