The 7Ps of the Marketing Mix: Streamline your Marketing Strategy


There are many different aspects to getting your marketing strategy right. Unless you are a marketing pro, it can be challenging to know where to start. That’s why we created this blog post, which will introduce you to the 7Ps of the marketing mix.

The 7Ps marketing mix framework will help you understand the different marketing elements. You will also see how all the elements work together to create a successful marketing strategy.

We’ll also provide tips on how you can use each element for your own business. Let’s get started!


Key Takeaways

Key takeaways from the given text on the 7Ps of the Marketing Mix:

  • Importance of positioning: Understanding how to position your product or service in the market is crucial for attracting and retaining customers. By aligning your marketing mix elements with your target market’s needs and preferences, you can effectively position your offerings and increase the likelihood of success.
  • The 7Ps of the marketing mix: The 7Ps framework includes product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical environment. These elements collectively contribute to a comprehensive marketing strategy. Each P must be carefully considered and integrated to achieve marketing objectives and maximize business potential.
  • Pricing strategy: Price plays a significant role in generating revenue and can impact other marketing mix elements. Businesses need to consider factors such as costs, perceived value, and competitors’ pricing when determining the right pricing strategy. Getting the pricing strategy wrong can have negative consequences on the bottom line.
  • Importance of promotion and people: Promotion involves various communication channels to create awareness, inform customers, and drive sales. Choosing the right mix of promotional activities is essential for each product and market. Additionally, understanding the target consumers and their behaviors is crucial when designing marketing strategies. Market research and data analysis can provide valuable insights for effective targeting.

Overall, the 7Ps of the marketing mix provide a comprehensive framework for businesses to develop and execute successful marketing strategies. By considering all elements and their interplay, businesses can enhance their market positioning, attract customers, and achieve their business goals.


How can you ensure that your marketing mix is effective?

When it comes to marketing your business, it’s essential to understand how to position your market offering. This means understanding how to leverage your marketing mix to reach your target market.

If you don’t position your product well, you risk losing potential customers and sales. Take the time to understand your target market and what they are looking for.

Once you know this, you can position your product or service in a way that will appeal to them. There are seven parts of the marketing mix. Adjusting the parts of the product mix will position your product or service well. This is essential to reach your target market and achieve success.


the 7ps of the marketing mix
The 7Ps of the marketing mix.

What are the 7 Ps of the marketing mix?

Marketing is the process of getting your product or service in front of potential customers. To do this, you need to have a solid marketing strategy that considers all aspects of the business.

This is where the 7ps of the marketing mix come in. The 7ps are product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical environment.

You must remember to consider each one when putting together a marketing plan. Let’s learn more about each.


Price

Price is one of the seven elements of the marketing mix. Besides, it is an important factor to consider when formulating your marketing strategies.

Price is the most important because it determines how much revenue a business will generate. Moreover, price can impact all the other six elements. Businesses need to get it right. When setting prices, businesses must consider several factors. Factors can include costs, the perceived value of their products, and the prices charged by their competitors.

Getting the pricing strategy wrong can negatively affect a business’s bottom line.


Product

The second P in the marketing mix is product. It refers to the physical goods or services that a business offers to its customers.

It is important to carefully select the right mix of products to offer, as this can have a significant impact on sales and profitability. Businesses must also ensure that their products are of good quality. Remember, products must also have the appropriate price to compete effectively in the marketplace.

As a key element of the marketing mix, product must be carefully considered to ensure success.


Place

Place is the third element of the marketing mix. It refers to the purchasing location of the product or service. Place can have a significant impact on the overall success of a product or service. It is important for businesses to carefully consider their distribution strategy.

Place is also known as distribution. Distribution can involve everything from manufacturing and warehousing to transportation and delivery. An effective distribution strategy will ensure that products or services are available to customers when and where they need them.

Place is an important consideration in any marketing plan. Make sure you align it with the other elements of the marketing mix.


Promotion

The fourth “P” in the marketing mix is promotion. Promotion consists of all the various communication channels that a marketer can use to reach their target audiences. This can include advertising, digital marketing, public relations, direct marketing, and personal selling.

Promotion is important because it helps to create awareness of the product or service. You will inform customers about features and benefits, and persuade them to buy.


The right mix of promotional activities will vary from product to product and from market to market. As such, it’s important to consider all the options before devoting a significant part of the marketing budget to any one activity. But done well, promotion can be a powerful tool for driving sales and growing a business.


People

People are the fifth P of the marketing mix. Companies must consider their target consumers when designing and implementing marketing strategies.

It is not enough to create a product or service that meets the market’s needs. Businesses must also ensure that their target consumers will actually want to buy what they are offering. This requires a deep understanding of consumer behavior. Market research and data analysis can help you get this understanding.

Never ignore this element of the marketing mix to increase the chances of success of your marketing campaigns.


Process

Process is the next P of the marketing mix and is often overlooked, but it is very important. This process helps to ensure that all of the elements of the marketing mix are integrated and working together.

It also helps to coordinate timing and budget so that resources are used effectively and efficiently. The process of the marketing mix can be further divided into four distinct phases: planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. Each phase has its own objectives, activities, and deliverables.

By following the process steps, organizations can ensure that their marketing efforts are aligned with their business goals and that they make the most efficient use of their resources.


Physical environment

Physical environment is the last P of the 7Ps of the marketing mix. This includes facilities and services that customers can use to supplement their purchases.

Physical environment is important because it affects how customers perceive the product or service. Physical environment can also influence customer satisfaction and loyalty. For example, a company that provides a clean and well-lit store is more likely to create a positive impression than a company that does not.

Physical environment can also include elements such as music and smells, which can influence customers’ emotions and behavior. Therefore, companies should carefully consider the physical environment when developing their marketing mix.


Final thoughts on the 7Ps of marketing

Marketing is vital for any business that wants to be successful. The 7Ps framework can be used to ensure a best practice marketing mix. It includes product, price, placement, promotion, people, process, and physical environment.

Each of these elements needs to be given careful consideration for a business to achieve successful marketing. For example, if a business does not carefully consider its product offering, it will likely struggle to find customers willing to pay its price.

Similarly, if a business does not promote its products or services effectively, it is unlikely to generate enough interest from potential customers.

Ultimately, the 7Ps provide a framework for businesses to ensure they do everything possible to succeed in the marketplace.


Looking for Marketing Experts?

Contact First Page today to learn more about how we can help grow your business. Our team of digital marketing professionals is ready and waiting for you! We offer a full suite of services that will take any company to the next level, so don’t hesitate. Get in touch with us right away for an obligation-free meeting.


SEM campaign with first Page

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What other marketing tactics can you use to beat your competition?

Here are some useful blogs on marketing tactics that can help you break all your past sales records, and your competition in the process:

Are you a busy business owner? You may not have the time to run the marketing tactics you need to make money regularly. If this is the case, we encourage you to review some of our strategic marketing services to drive more sales:


Social media marketing and advertising: What it is and how to build your strategy!


Key Takeaways

  1. Leverage Social Media: Social media marketing and advertising can transform your business by enhancing connections, boosting interactions, and exploiting customer data. Harness these elements to elevate your brand.
  2. Know Your Audience: Enhance your social media impact by understanding your audience’s demographics and behaviors. Recognize that a large segment, particularly Gen Zs and millennials, use social media for product discovery.
  3. Address Advertising Challenges: Stand out in the digital crowd by creating targeted and engaging content. Realize that many users access multiple platforms and use ad-blockers, necessitating more precise and relevant content.
  4. Craft an Effective Strategy: Success in social media marketing hinges on knowing your target market, setting clear goals, creating engaging content, selecting the right platforms, analyzing competitors, engaging with followers, promoting employees as brand advocates, and continuously refining your strategy.
  5. Tailor Your Ads: Make your social media ads resonate with your audience by understanding and reflecting their preferences. Younger users often prefer entertaining and relevant brands, while older users value practical and authentic ones. Use these insights to shape your ads and enhance your brand’s appeal.

What is the power of social media marketing and advertising?

Imagine wielding a tool so powerful it revolutionizes your business’s approach to marketing. That’s precisely what social media marketing (SMM) and advertising offers. As an unstoppable force in the modern business world, it excels in crucial areas: creating connections, encouraging interaction, and effectively utilizing customer data.

Picture having a multitude of channels to engage with your customers. Social media provides this, revolutionizing how businesses interact with their audience. Platforms ranging from content-rich YouTube and social networking pioneer Facebook to quickfire microblogging via Twitter are all at your fingertips.

The dynamic and interactive aspect of social media marketing and advertising is a game-changer. It allows businesses to harness word-of-mouth recommendations, powerfully influencing consumer choices. These interactions provide measurable insights, such as “social equity”, a reflection of the return on investment (ROI) from your campaigns. Isn’t that what every business desires? To further enhance your social media marketing efforts, consider the option to hire virtual staff who specialize in creating and managing effective campaigns.

Now, think of a key that can unlock a wealth of customer data. An efficiently strategized social media marketing and advertising plan is that key. Fear not the 3Vs of big data – volume, variety, and velocity.

SMM tools are skillfully equipped to mine this data and transform it into actionable market analysis or even to crowdsource innovative strategies. The time to act is now! Embrace the power of social media marketing and advertising, and give your business the boost it deserves.

In this blog, we will help you understand and leveraging these aspects of social media marketing and advertising and how they can catapult your brand to new heights, keeping you a step ahead in the competitive business world.


Social media marketing is key in reaching your target audience.
Social media marketing and advertising can connect you with your target audience.

How can social media marketing and advertising elevate your brand?

The way consumers shop has undergone a seismic shift compared to just a few decades ago. No longer is the buying journey a straightforward path from ad exposure to checkout. Instead, potential customers embark on a complex journey that may include numerous Google searches, YouTube reviews, Instagram influencer testimonials, and personal recommendations from their network.

In this evolved marketplace, social media has emerged as a significant influencer in decision-making. Consequently, it’s crucial to optimize your social media pages, along with your blog and website, with timely, relevant, and high-quality content. This not only enriches your brand’s online presence but also enhances your ranking on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). As per a Google report, brands offering mobile-relevant answers and quantifying their impact are more likely to gain a competitive edge while catering to consumers’ needs.

For small businesses seeking to make an impact, social media channels offer a platform for building brand awareness. By sharing easy-to-create content such as infographics, short videos, ads, and links to in-depth, high-quality content that answers customer queries or addresses trending topics, you can capture and retain audience attention. Social media marketers often employ strategic use of hashtags to flag posts, ensuring they appear in common queries on social media, thereby boosting brand visibility.

In essence, social media marketing is not just about promoting your brand. It’s about leveraging the platforms to connect with your audience, answer their questions, and build a community around your brand. This is the power of social media marketing in brand elevation. It puts you right where your customers are, helping you engage with them in a way that builds trust and, ultimately, loyalty.


What is the transformative power of social media advertising?

Today’s advertising landscape is diverse, featuring an array of channels from traditional TV and print to digital platforms like podcasts, outdoor advertising, and of course, social media. As the advertising medium continues to fragment, data reveals a promising statistic for brands utilizing social media: 26% of social media users are inclined to purchase brands they see advertised.

While advertisements aren’t the sole means for consumers to discover brands, a strategic approach to social media advertising is paramount. A whopping 98% of global consumers report visiting a social network in the past month, and global social media ad spending is projected to grow 15% annually through to 2024. Amid the deluge of social media ads, the challenge is to stand out.


Are there challenges when navigating social media advertising?

However, the increasing digitization brought on by the pandemic has presented unique challenges for social media advertisers. A significant 4 in 10 social media users access 5 or more platforms monthly, intensifying the competition for attention. Furthermore, 38% of users employ ad-blockers, indicating a strong desire to shield their online experience from unwanted or irrelevant content.


Who engages with social media ads?

Globally, 16% of social media users have interacted with a promoted or sponsored post in the past month. While seemingly a small figure, this group presents a significant opportunity for brands seeking to attract high-value, long-term customers. A substantial 70% of social media ad clickers between the ages of 18-55, and they’re 13% more likely to belong to the high-income group. As consumers’ affluence increases, they’re more likely to follow brands on social media and engage with promoted content.


Personalize for best results with your social media strategy.
Even the time of day is crucial to effective personalization with social media marketing.

Why are relevance and personalization the key to effective ads?

Consumers won’t interact with just any ad; relevance and personalization are key. Younger consumers typically prefer brands that are entertaining, intelligent, and relevant to their identity. Older consumers, in contrast, favor practical, reliable, and authentic brands. These preferences should guide the types of ads brands run, depending on their target audience.

For example, brands seeking to appeal as smart and trendy to younger users might focus ads on how their products enhance customers’ lives and the world in general. Over a half of Gen Zs express a desire for brands that help society or are at least concerned with it.


How to build an effective social media marketing strategy!

Creating and maintaining a successful social media marketing strategy is an ongoing process. While the specifics may vary from one business to another, there are some universal steps that can guide your strategy formulation.


1. Understanding your target market.

The first step in constructing a social media marketing strategy involves clearly defining your ideal customer or buyer persona. This fictional representation of your perfect customer aids in aligning all subsequent strategy steps. 

Understanding the characteristics and preferences of your target audience is critical to your strategy’s success.

  • Tip: Be mindful that different goals might require different target personas. Your persona for generating sales will differ from the one used for employer branding. Thus, inter-departmental collaboration between sales, marketing, product, and HR is essential to gain insights on diverse target audiences.

2. Setting measurable goals and KPIs.

A crucial part of any successful marketing strategy is outlining clear, SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals. These objectives serve as guideposts, enabling marketers to track campaign success and justify investments.

  • Tip: Be specific with your KPIs. For example, aim to increase website traffic from social media by a certain percentage within a given time frame, or enhance social media engagement by a certain percentage within a year.

3. Curating engaging content.

Knowing your buyer personas and their preferred social media platforms simplifies content creation and curation. The content should be relevant, appealing, and engaging to your target audience.

  • Tip: Always assess your social media posts and campaigns’ performance to understand what resonates with your audience. A/B testing can be especially helpful in this regard.

4. Identifying the right social media channels.

The dynamic nature of social media trends necessitates continuous evaluation of the most profitable channels for your business. Different channels may serve different KPIs and target different personas within the same company.

Tip: If your organization uses social media for marketing and employer branding, consider creating separate profiles for each purpose.


5. Analyzing competitors often.

Investigating your competitors’ social media activities can provide invaluable insights. Tools are available to track competitors’ activities in real time, yielding insights into the types of posts and channels that yield the best results.

  • Tip: If a competitor is more active on one social media platform than others, consider this an opportunity to reach your audience in a less saturated space.

6. Engaging with your followers.

Engagement doesn’t stop at posting content; it’s vital to continuously monitor performance and interact with your followers.

  • Tip: Encouraging user-generated content can be a powerful tool for increasing engagement on your social media channels. Customers’ voices are often seen as more trustworthy than corporate messaging.

7. Turning employees into brand advocates.

Often overlooked, employees can be potent brand advocates. Content shared by employees tends to garner more engagement than content shared through official brand channels.

  • Tip: If you’re considering an employee advocacy program, opt for a modern, intuitive, mobile-first employee advocacy solution.

8. Consistent testing, measurement, and improvement.

Continuous assessment of your social media activities is crucial. Insights gleaned from these analyses can inform adjustments to your strategy, leading to improved, data-driven decisions.

  • Tip: In addition to tracking your own and competitors’ performance, deep hashtag analysis can help you discover industry-relevant conversations. If your employees participate in your advocacy programs, ensure you can measure the exact ROI of their engagement.

How to optimizing your social media advertising campaigns.

Social media advertising requires a different approach compared to pay-per-click (PPC) and search ads. Here are six strategic methods to enhance the performance of your social media ad campaigns, helping you generate more targeted leads and get the most out of your budget.


1. Establishing clear social media ad campaign objectives.

Knowing your goals is paramount. If you’re unsatisfied with the results of your ongoing campaigns, reflect on the initial objectives. Have they evolved? Have your business goals shifted? Perhaps your initial campaigns were designed for brand awareness, but now, with your brand more recognized, your objective may have shifted towards lead generation. Align your campaign goals with your current business objectives. If your focus is on driving leads, your campaigns should reflect that. Ensure that the metrics you’re tracking align with these new goals.


2. Reevaluating your target audiences.

Often, businesses set up target audiences and let campaigns run without revisiting them. However, for optimization, it’s important to periodically reassess your audiences. Examine your existing audience’s performance data. If your current audiences aren’t responding well, consider revising them. Use your buyer personas as a reference to help adjust your target audience’s demographics, interests, and social media habits.


3. Leveraging high-quality creative assets.

The creative content – including videos, images, and text – is the core of successful social media advertising. Strive to create ads that are visually appealing, well designed, and relevant to your audience. Use original, unique elements in your creative content, and consider incorporating videos to capture your audience’s attention. High-quality, non-stock photography can also significantly enhance your ads.


4. Revising your ad copy.

Optimizing your ad copy is a straightforward way to improve your social media ad campaigns. Review your copy for consistency in brand identity, clarity, relevance to your audience’s needs, and a call-to-action. Ensure that your ad copy is concise, attention-grabbing, and aligned with your campaign objectives.


5. Maximizing your ad campaign budgets.

Managing your budget effectively is key to optimizing your social media ad campaigns. Be ready to invest sufficiently, but spend smartly. Whether you opt for daily or lifetime ads, knowing where your budget is allocated is crucial. Use tools like daily spend limits or time-specific ad scheduling to manage your budget. A well-defined audience can also save money and improve campaign performance. Regularly review your analytics to understand how your budget is being utilized and to make necessary adjustments.


6. Monitoring analytics consistently.

The key to effective optimization is continuous improvement. As your campaigns run, they will generate data that can inform further optimization. Analyze your campaign performance regularly to understand which elements are working and which are not. When you understand why your ads are performing as they are, you can make informed adjustments to optimize your social media ad campaigns and achieve your desired results.


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How can merging paid and organic social media tactics help?

The crux of many integrated social media plans is leveraging organic strategies to engage existing clients and utilizing paid adverts to attract new prospects. Here we delve into how to effectively navigate this process.


1. Using selective paid promotions.

First and foremost, it’s essential to remember that not every promotional post needs to be monetized. Pay for ads only when they will aid in achieving your KPIs and overall business objectives. Sometimes, a well-crafted organic post that garners shares can be just as impactful. For instance, when launching a new product or announcing significant company news, an original, organic campaign can create a buzz. However, if your organic activities are not delivering the desired reach or impressions, it might be time to invest in paid ads.


2. Amplifing top organic content.

Your most popular posts aren’t just there to inflate your metrics. One of the simplest ways to venture into paid advertising is by identifying content that has resonated well with your audience and paying to expose it to a broader demographic. This tactic is considered entry-level as it’s low-risk; you don’t need to devise an ad or an entire ad campaign from scratch. For example, consider dedicating a small budget to your best weekly or monthly post based on your analytics report.


3. Refining posts through A/B testing.

Split testing is often overlooked but is crucial in the optimization of your posts. Before committing a large portion of your social media budget to an ad, test different versions of it on a smaller audience. Evaluate elements such as your call-to-action, copywriting, visuals, ad placement, format, and audience targeting. For organic posts, you can set up manual split tests and track results using UTM parameters in your links.


4. Advertising to those similar to your organic audience.

The more you’ve cultivated your social presence organically, the more data you’ll have about your ideal customer. Leverage this information when crafting your ads. Most social platforms offer the feature to create “lookalike audiences” based on your best customers’ demographics and behaviors, introducing your brand to people who haven’t encountered it yet.


5. Retarget ads to your organic audience.

Retargeting campaigns can be highly effective at a relatively low cost because they target individuals who are already familiar with your business. These may be people who’ve visited your profile or website organically or even left items in a shopping cart. The goal here is to remind them to return and complete their transaction with a well-placed ad.


6. Analyzing data and measuring outcomes.

Whether your campaign is organic or paid, it’s equally disheartening to see it fail. However, your social analytics tools can guide you in making necessary adjustments for better outcomes. By reviewing organic and paid content side by side, you can make quick, data-informed changes to live campaigns to optimize your budget.


7. Prioritize automation with routine tasks.

The integration of paid and organic social strategies invariably means more: more resources, more time, more expertise, more content, and more posting. Therefore, it’s vital to minimize routine tasks to concentrate on what truly matters. Automate as much of your daily workflow as you can, including scheduling organic posts in advance, streamlining approval and editing processes, and setting up custom triggers for boosted posts.

By integrating paid and organic social strategies, you can enhance relationships with existing customers and extend your reach to new ones.


Case Study: A Deep Dive into a Successful Social Media Marketing and Advertising Campaign

“Stranger Things” made significant waves in popular culture with its fourth season, emerging as the most viewed English-language series on Netflix. A plethora of brands seized the opportunity to integrate their products with the wildly popular ’80s-themed show. However, Domino’s pizza delivery brand stood out with its innovative collaboration with Netflix.



Domino’s and its agency, WorkInProgress, introduced a groundbreaking “mind-ordering” application in May. This app aimed to replicate the telekinetic abilities of Eleven, the show’s protagonist. By blending facial and eye-tracking technology, it allowed customers to order a pizza using only gestures.

“Linking together technologies that had never before been used in tandem was the most evident technical hurdle,” stated Kate Trumbull, Domino’s Senior Vice President of Brand and Product Innovation.

Conveying instructions, such as the requirement for a well-lit environment, presented another layer of complexity. This was skillfully integrated into the narrative. The campaign was further amplified with ads featuring “Stranger Things” cast members Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin, and the introduction of customized pizza boxes with QR codes that activated the unique experience.

“Implementing the entire campaign, which spanned more than a year, necessitated considerable time and attention. However, it also set a fresh standard for our approach to partnerships, highlighting the essential components for their success,” Trumbull added.

The campaign proved to be a success, accruing over 820 million media impressions. It performed exceptionally well among “Stranger Things” enthusiasts, according to a Kantar analysis.

Ned Brown, Chief Creative Officer of agency Bader Rutter, lauded the campaign, saying, “It’s the epitome of co-branding— harmonious and creative, culminating in something entirely unique.”


Final Thoughts

In this rapidly evolving digital era, it’s essential to stay ahead of the curve and employ innovative strategies to make your brand stand out. As we’ve highlighted above, creativity, personalization, and multi-platform integration are key to making a lasting impact on your audience.

At First Page Digital, we’re committed to helping you navigate this dynamic environment. Our team of dedicated experts is ready to assist you in creating a digital marketing strategy that resonates with your target audience and drives measurable results. We believe in crafting campaigns that reflect your brand’s unique voice and connect with your customers on a deeper level.

Don’t let your brand get lost in the digital shuffle. Harness the power of innovative, data-driven strategies to propel your business forward. Reach out to First Page Digital today, and let’s write your brand’s success story together. Your first page in digital marketing excellence starts with us.


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Frequently Asked Questions


Why is social media marketing important for my small business?

Social media marketing is paramount for any small business looking to stay ahead of the competition. It enables your brand to reach a broad target audience on platforms they use every day. With over half of the world’s population using social media, it’s a chance to connect with potential customers on a more personal level, increase brand awareness, and ultimately generate more revenue.

How can I identify the best social media platforms for my business?

Every business is unique, and so is the target audience. The best social media platforms for your business are those most frequented by your target market. It’s crucial to conduct market research to identify where your potential customers spend their time online. Most social media platforms offer valuable insights into user demographics, which can guide your decision.

What is social media advertising and how does it work?

Social media advertising refers to the process of creating and running ad campaigns on various social media platforms. It involves targeting specific audience segments with tailor-made ads designed to achieve specific business goals, such as increasing website traffic or lead generation. Social media advertising costs can vary based on factors like the platform chosen, the duration of the campaign, and the competitiveness of the chosen target audience.

How can I create an effective social media marketing strategy?

A successful social media marketing strategy starts with clear objectives, understanding your target audience, and determining the most effective social media platforms to reach them. Next, creating engaging content that resonates with your audience is crucial. Experiment with various ad types, like video ads or carousel ads featuring up to ten images, to see what works best. Lastly, continuously monitor and adjust your strategy based on performance metrics and social media trends.

What are some examples of effective social media ads?

Effective social media ads are those that resonate with the target audience and provoke action. Instagram ads, for example, often capitalize on visually appealing content, while LinkedIn ads might focus more on professional development opportunities. Twitter ads, on the other hand, are often short and witty. The key is understanding what appeals to your target market on each platform.

What is the difference between organic content and paid social advertising?

Organic content refers to posts you create and share on your social media channels without any ad spend. On the other hand, paid social advertising involves promoting your content with an ad campaign to reach a broader or more specific audience. Both are integral to a successful social media marketing strategy, and their use should depend on your business objectives.

How can I measure the success of my social media marketing and advertising efforts?

Success in social media marketing and advertising can be measured through various metrics such as engagement rate (likes, comments, shares), reach, website traffic generated, and conversions, among others. These performance indicators offer valuable insights into the effectiveness of your strategy and can guide necessary adjustments.

Can I run the same social media ad on multiple platforms?

While it’s technically possible to run the same ad on multiple platforms, it may not be the most effective approach. Different social media platforms cater to different user behaviors and preferences. It’s often best to tailor your ads to the nuances of each platform for the best results.

What is the cost of social media advertising?

Social media advertising costs can vary greatly depending on the platform, target audience, ad format, and duration of the campaign. It’s important to understand both your ad spend and potential return on investment when planning your social media advertising strategy.

Where can I learn more about social media marketing and advertising?

There are numerous online resources to learn more about social media marketing and advertising, including social media marketing courses, blogs, webinars, and eBooks, and just below too!


What other marketing tactics can you use to beat your competition?

Here are some useful marketing tactic blogs that can help you break all your past sales records, and your competition in the process:

Are you a busy business owner? You may not have the time to run the marketing tactics you need to make money regularly. If this is the case, we encourage you to review some of our strategic marketing services to drive more sales:


Christmas Marketing Tips: Get Ready for the Holidays!

The holidays are when businesses can shine and make the most of their digital marketing efforts. This is a time when people are looking for gift ideas, and they are also spending more money online than usual. If you want to take advantage of the holiday season, you must start preparing now! This blog post will discuss some Christmas marketing tips and ideas that will help your business succeed during the Christmas season. 

You and your customers will be able to have a super Merry Christmas!

Marketing tips for Christmas

Plan ahead for your “happy holidays” marketing activities

The holiday season is one of the most critical times for businesses. Having a solid digital Christmas marketing strategy can make all the difference in the success of your Christmas sales.

To start, what is essential is to have a clear understanding of your target audience and what they specifically want during the Holiday season. This can inform not just what products or services you offer but also your messaging and promotions.

Additionally, planning ahead is crucial to ensure the smooth execution of any marketing activities. This means finalizing design elements, setting up a schedule for social media posts and emails, and ensuring any technical aspects, such as a website update or online advertisement, are taken care of in advance.

By taking the time to plan ahead carefully, you’ll be able to fully capitalize on the holiday rush and secure yourself a Merry Christmas indeed.

Create a Strong Social Media Presence

Christmas is a time for sales, and what better way to boost your revenue than by utilizing social media? First, make sure your branding is consistent across all platforms.

This means using the same logo, tone of voice, and language. Next, create engaging content that showcases your products and offers deals or discounts specifically for your social media followers.

It’s also important to interact with your audience by responding to comments and messages and sharing user-generated content. And don’t forget to use hashtags – they can help increase your reach and engage potential customers who may not already be following you.

With a little bit of effort and strategy, you can build a strong social media presence for your Christmas sales. Remember to use hashtags like #christmassales #socialmediamarketing #branding as well.

Christmas marketing tips and drivng sales

Prepare Your Website for the Holiday Rush

The holiday season is a crucial time for businesses, and a well-designed website can make all the difference in driving sales.

As the first point of contact for many consumers, it’s important to optimize user experience (UX) and design (UI). Users will want their shopping season to be easy! Remember that for them, Christmas time is not meant to be stressful. Make your online store festive, easy to use, and ready for the Christmas shopping season.

Product pages should be clear and easy to navigate, with high-quality images and accessible information. Make sure you do some keyword research and use relevant phrases that will draw attention from your target audience.

Additional landing pages can also be created to promote holiday sales or specials. Holiday decoration can enhance the website’s visual appeal, but it’s important to ensure that it doesn’t detract from the user experience.

It’s also important to regularly monitor website performance during the busy holiday season, detecting and resolving any potential technical issues that may affect customers’ ability to make purchases. By taking these steps, businesses can ensure that their website is ready to drive Christmas shopping and meet consumer needs.

Send out Christmas-themed email blasts

Email marketing is a cost-effective and powerful tool for driving sales during the holiday season. By creating targeted campaigns, businesses can offer personalized deals and discounts to existing customers and attract new ones.

Offering loyalty programs or referral incentives can also increase repeat purchases and word-of-mouth advertising. During this time of year, it’s also important to keep up with industry trends and offer special promotions, such as Black Friday deals or holiday gift guides.

Most email marketing campaigns will need a landing page or two. Make sure your landing page conveys a “happy holidays” or festive feel. As a design tip for your landing page, you can include images of Santa Claus or add some Christmas decorations.

Email marketing allows businesses to stay in constant communication with their customers, ensuring that they don’t miss out on any sales opportunities during the bustling holiday season. Any Christmas marketing campaign that uses email can really help generate leads and improve online sales.

Get shopper happy with your Christmas marketing

Use Paid Advertising to Target Christmas Shoppers

As the holiday season approaches, businesses must ramp up their advertising strategy to attract those last-minute Christmas shoppers. Your online store can also use PPC to start your Christmas marketing campaign before the traditional Christmas period.

One simple and effective way to do this is through paid advertising. PPC, or pay-per-click, allows businesses to pay for their ads to be displayed in prominent places on search engines such as Google.

Facebook ads can also target specific demographics and interests, making them an invaluable tool for targeting potential customers during the busy holiday shopping rush.

Social media marketing can similarly target specific audiences, allowing businesses to promote products and offers directly to those most likely to purchase them. These social ads will appear on the social media feeds of your target customers.

Keyword research is also important for any ad copy you produce for your Christmas marketing campaign. The keywords you use in your ads will have a festive theme and also be relevant to your target audience.

Remember to start early with your ads. You will have the opportunity to market to other countries. If you are doing this, it would be great to remind customers to start shopping early! Maybe you can also offer incentives in your ads. Some incentives include giving a free shipping day, coupons, or gift certificates.

By utilizing paid advertising on search engines and social media platforms, businesses can attract holiday shoppers and boost sales this festive season.

Make sure your site or online store is mobile-friendly

As a business, it’s important to make sure your website is mobile-friendly during the busy holiday shopping season. When prospective customers visit your website on their mobile phones, they want a seamless user experience (UX) and user interface (UI).

If they encounter slow page loading times or difficulty navigating the site, they may give up and go to a competitor’s page. That’s why it’s crucial to optimize your mobile website for conversions by testing page loading times and making sure all information is easy to access and navigate.

In addition, helpful content such as Christmas gift guides or holiday sales can make mobile users more likely to make a purchase on the spot. Don’t let mobile shoppers slip through the cracks – make sure your website is mobile-friendly this holiday season.

Getting your site mobile-friendly for the Christmas season is crucial and one of the best ways to drive online sales.

Final thoughts

The holidays are a time of cheer and giving, but they can also be a time of stress for small business owners. Not to worry – we’re here to help!

In this blog post, we’ve outlined some digital marketing tips to boost your Christmas marketing campaign and boost online sales. Your business will be ready for the Christmas season. You will be able to get your marketing strategy ready and get fired up with that unique Christmas campaign!

Whether you’re looking to increase traffic to your website, generate leads or boost sales in your eCommerce store, we have you covered for the Christmas rush.

So what are you waiting for? Start planning your holiday marketing strategy today and maximize sales now for Christmas!

Learn more about how our team can help with your Christmas campaign by contacting us today.

Have a Merry Christmas!

5 Mind-Blowing SAAS Marketing Campaigns (+ Detailed Case Studies)

At the pandemic’s beginning, SAAS companies experienced a nearly unprecedented hot streak. Are you a SAAS company looking to improve your marketing strategy? In this article, we’ll cover the best SAAS marketing strategies for you to consider. These will help you increase your conversation rates, decrease your churn rates, and explode your recurring revenue.

SalesForce grew by 51%, Shopify grew by 225%, and the industry as a whole seemed to be completely unstoppable. 

But by the end of 2021, things started to cool down. SAAS companies saw a 46 percentage point drop in overall growth.

Nowadays, SAAS is far and away one of the best business models out there. However, the industry as a whole is still experiencing a post-pandemic market correction. The SAAS industry is becoming increasingly competitive and saturated. 

This means, now more than ever, your SAAS company needs to use your marketing budget wisely, and in a way that creates the best ROI. 

Let’s get started on the best SAAS marketing strategies for your SAAS business. You will be increasing your conversation rates, decreasing your churn rates, and exploding your recurring revenue in no time!

What’s the difference between SAAS marketing an regular marketing?

You might be wondering to yourself…

“Is there really any difference between SAAS marketing and marketing for any other company?”

And the answer is sort of ‘yes’… and also sort of ‘no’.

No matter what kind of company you run, or which niche you are in, marketing principles are tried and true. You need a solid brand, a well-oiled funnel, persuasive copy, and the ability to execute a campaign at scale. 

But having said that, SAAS companies do run by a different set of rules, and because of that, there are unique marketing strategies that can help optimize your growth. 

Let’s look at our 5 favorite SAAS marketing strategies. 

#1 – Measuring the right data

SAAS marketing strategies

This might seem like a strange place to start, but honestly, it’s the most crucial aspect. We guarantee that the large majority of your competitors are focusing on the wrong data.

Why is data so important?

Because recurring revenue is a game of its own, and because of this it needs to be tracked in its own unique ways. 

Once you know how to properly track your most important KPIs, you can then focus on optimizing every step of your funnel. This, in turn, lowers your customer acquisition costs. 

Here are the metrics that your competitors are probably tracking…

  • Traffic to website
  • Monthly revenue
  • Churn rate
  • Costs per click
  • Keyword rankings
  • Number of social media followers

While these metrics are important, they only show a small part of what’s really happening to your SAAS business. To get a true look under the hood of your engine, you need to also be following metrics such as…

  • Activation rate
  • MRR/ARR
  • Average revenue per account
  • LVT-to-CAC ratio
  • And more
Mad The Odd Couple GIF by CBS - Find & Share on GIPHY
Warning; Tracking the right data for your SAAS business may inspire irrational doses of confidence and excitement

Only when you look at the most granular (and important) metrics, will you be able to see the bigger picture of your SAAS business. Therefore, you can make data-driven decisions that improve your marketing funnel. 

The best way to do this is by working with an experienced CRM expert, preferably on a proven platform like Hubspot. 

Once the CRM expert fully configures your account, you can invest in growth in a way that is primed for optimization and sales. 

#2 – Content Marketing

social media visual platform youtube

If there is one thing that all SAAS companies seem to invest heavily in – it’s content marketing. 

And there’s good reasons why. SAAS companies that utilize content marketing report 30% higher growth rates while it costs them 62% less than traditional marketing. 

Content marketing doesn’t refer to the copy on your homepage or the landing pages that you may be A/B testing

Content marketing is the process of creating, and scaling, content that is aimed to educate prospects, nurture leads, and retain customers. 

This in turn creates awareness, trust, and eventually, sales and brand loyalty. 

Content marketing is a vast umbrella that refers to the publishing of many different types of content. This includes, but is not limited to…

  • Blog posts
  • FAQs
  • Webinars
  • Instagram photos
  • YouTube videos
  • Emails
  • Tik Tok videos
  • Tweets
  • And more

But to get the most out of your content marketing, you need to go in with a fine-tuned strategy.  This means doing the right research, setting concrete goals, analyzing the data, and iterating where necessary.

While the initial response for most SAAS companies is to invest in SEO, success can be found in other platforms.

For example, while Hubspot is renowned for their world-class SEO strategy, they also launched the Hubspot Marketing YouTube channel that has over 220K subscribers….

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… and generates over 380K views per month.

SAAS hubspot marketing strategy

Or how Elementor (SAAS website builder) has focused heavily on Instagram. 

SAAS with Elementor and using IG for marketing

On IG, Elementor posts helpful content for business owners – some of which has to do with building websites, but other more general tips as well.

Overall, by investing into content marketing you will be able to establish a solid brand identity, attract high-quality leads, and lower your churn rate very quickly.

#3 – SEO

SEO isn’t as easy as it used to be, but that’s because it arguably has the best ROI in all digital marketing. Simply put, it’s hard to beat organic traffic that comes to your website on autopilot. 

In fact, nowadays over 80% of consumers do an online search before they make a purchase. By investing in SEO, your SAAS company has the ability to get in front of the customer when it matters most.

But to do SEO right, you can’t just look at it as a way to generate immediate sales. Sure, you need to target transactional keywords that will generate revenue, but SEO is best tackled as an entire funnel in itself – where you target all customers in every part of your their buying journey.

Let’s take a look at Clickup – a project management SAAS company.

Google Analytics for improving your SAAS marketing

As you can see, Clickup has a DR of 84, has generated 3.1 million backlinks, and gets over 1.1 million organic visitors per month. It’s clear that Clickup has invested heavily into SEO over the years.

But what’s so interesting about Clickup is their dedication to creating a wide-range of content. They target transactional obvious keywords like ‘team management software’ and ‘project management template’.

Organic keywords to improve SAAS marketing strategy

But they also target top-of-the-funnel keywords like ‘team building activities’ and ‘calendar on Google doc’.

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These keywords result in traffic, and while the traffic probably doesn’t convert as highly as the more ‘transactional’ keywords, they still make searchers aware of their product, therefore bringing more qualified traffic down their funnel.

Also, Clickup has a cheeky SEO strategy where they target branded competitor keywords – often quite aggressively.

SEO strategy for SAAS marketing improvement

You can see in the screenshot above that they are targeting the ‘vs’ keyword in regards to their competitors. This means Clickup can influence people who are comparing two competitor products, like Asana, Monday, Evernote, Airtable, and more.

Clickup are masters of creating awareness through SEO, and because of the evergreen nature of SEO, the traffic will keep coming in on autopilot day after day. 

#4 – Email marketing

Email Marketing for SAAS companies

For SAAS companies, email marketing should be at the core of all your marketing strategies. 

This is because email marketing is the best way to directly engage your customers, and it can deliver a staggering ROI of $36 for every $1 spent.  

Email marketing helps you accomplish two things…

  1. It helps you convert leads who are already signed up to your email list
  2. It helps you nurture customers who have already converted

But while most SAAS companies have an email marketing strategy, few are taking full advantage of the power of email marketing tools.

For starters, to explode your conversation rate, you need to have an email onboarding sequence. The goal of this sequence is to educate leads about the benefits of your product, while gently pushing them to sign up. In general, this sequence should be 4-7 emails spread over the course of a few weeks.  

Work From Home Dog GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

The best way to optimize your sequence is by testing different variations. Simply create a hypothesis and run a test to see if your hypothesis is correct. Then, run A/B tests to see which copy, headlines, buttons, and images, help to deliver the best overall conversion rates. 

And for existing customers, your goal should be to create so much value for them that they could never dream of leaving your platform.

Be sure to share tips and tricks with them that not only help them get the most out of the software, but that also helps with other problems they are trying to overcome – both in their work and personal life.

Simply put, the more value you create in your email marketing – the more loyal your customers will be to your brand. 

#5 – Branding, messaging, and positioning

brand awareness and positioning is crucial for SAAS marketing

How much time is your SAAS company putting into branding?

How about its overall positioning? 

These are things that are often overlooked by SAAS companies as theytend to focus on acquisition, sales, and metric-driven growth. 

But given the competition in the field, focusing on branding and positioning can provide tremendous advantages.

The goal is to distinguish yourself from your competitors. This can be done by practical means (creating a special offer, or USP) or by emotional means (slogans, colors, animations, etc). 

Either way, the goal is to create more powerful connections with your customer base. 

Be sure that your USP is unique, well-crafted, and immediately identifiable. By doing this you will help further distinguish your brand from your competitors, and create a more unique value proposition for prospective leads. 

Another way to do this is by focusing on your positioning and pricing. 

Are you moving upmarket? Aka, have you implemented an ‘enterprise’ subscription option?

Are you moving downmarket? Aka, are you offering a ‘freemium’ option?

By putting your brand first, you’ll be able to distinguish yourself in the market, and by testing out different price points and subscription offerings, you’ll be able to cast a wider net and increase your monthly revenue. 

SAAS marketing strategies FAQs

What is SAAS content marketing?

SAAS content marketing is the process of strategizing, executing, and measuring a content marketing campaign for a SAAS business. Content marketing can help all kinds of businesses grow, but it’s considered especially important for SAAS companies to invest heavily into it so they can educate, and grow, their user base.

What are some SAAS marketing channels?

The three most common are probably content marketing, SEO, and email marketing. These create the trifecta of SAAS marketing, and should be at the top of any SAAS company’s priority list. From there, be sure to look into social media channels such as Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

What are the top SAAS marketing strategies?

Some of the top SAAS marketing strategies are very well known – such as content marketing, SEO, and email marketing. 

But one of the most effective (and misunderstood) SAAS marketing strategies is tracking, measuring, and analyzing your data correctly – preferably in a CRM like Hubspot. By doing this you will be able to grow your SAAS company smarter, and optimize every step of your funnel one part at a time.

Final thoughts on SAAS marketing

As SAAS has gotten more competitive, coming up with a SAAS marketing strategy is more important than ever. 

By investing in content marketing, SEO, email marketing, and your positioning, you’ll be able to generate new brand awareness, and grow faster than ever before.

If your SAAS business is looking to explode its growth by working with a proven SAAS agency, be sure to reach out to a First Page Digital Strategist today. The call is 100% free, and we’ll show you how we can help take your brand to the top of the SAAS world. 

Social Media Management: 9 Tools to Help You Get Organised


As a business owner, you know that social media is a powerful tool to reach new customers and grow your brand. But keeping up with all of your accounts can be daunting, especially if you’re not sure where to start. That’s why we’ve put together this list of nine social media management tools to help you get organized.

With these tools, you’ll be able to streamline your social media workflow and boost your online presence with your audience.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be so hard. Using additional resources such as social media scheduling tools or some other social media management free tools can save you a lot of time. You will have more time to create highly engaging social media posts.

It can also save you stress and money in the long run. If you’re looking to start using social media scheduling tools or even upgrade from your current one, we have some suggestions for you.


Key takeaways

  1. Efficiency through Scheduling: Social media management tools streamline content planning and publication across various platforms. By scheduling posts in advance, businesses can ensure consistency, freeing up time to focus on strategy and engagement.
  2. Insightful Analytics: These tools provide a wealth of data, revealing how audiences interact with content. By tracking key metrics like engagement rate, reach, and conversion rates, businesses can refine their strategies for improved results.
  3. Holistic Management: Centralizing social media activities in one place helps businesses maintain a cohesive brand voice and strategy across platforms. It also facilitates easier monitoring and responding to audience interactions.
  4. Integration and Collaboration: Many social media management tools integrate with other business software, enhancing workflow efficiency. Additionally, they support collaborative efforts, fostering streamlined communication and coordinated execution among teams.

So what are you waiting for? Start using these tools today and see the results for yourself!



What Social Media Management Software do we Recommend?


1. Buffer is great for your social media management, big and small


Buffer can help you manage multiple social media platforms at once

Buffer is a social media management tool that truly puts the power in your hands. With Buffer, you can schedule your social media posts on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, efficiently organizing your social media presence.

Not only that, but Buffer allows for personalization and customization, whether it’s through personal branding or managing multiple social profiles. And with their analytical tools, you can track the performance of your social media posts and continually improve on them.

What’s not to love about Buffer?

Its intuitive, accessible interface is another significant benefit. As well it has an easy-to-use image editor add-on, Pablo. For social media scheduling tools available right now, this is a winner.

It takes all the guesswork out of social media management and helps elevate your online presence. As a savvy social media user, I highly recommend checking out Buffer for yourself. Trust me – you won’t regret it.

Pricing: Unlimited day free trial (free plan) for 3 social media channels, other plans available


2. Airtable is one of the best collaborative social media management tools


Manage, create and share small databases through airtable

Airtable is one of the best free social media management tools out there. With its customizable, user-friendly platform, it’s simple to organize and collaborate on your social media posts for multiple platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

It also offers integration with other tools, such as Dropbox and Google Drive for easy access to assets like images and videos.

And let’s not forget about Airtable’s amazing automation capabilities – schedule social media posts in advance, automatically publish or repost social media posts from your RSS feed, and track social media analytics all in one place.

Airtable has been a game changer for social media managers. It makes managing multiple social platforms a breeze and allows you to focus on creating killer social media posts that drive engagement and grow your audience.

Trust me – once you start using Airtable for social media management, you’ll never go back. Thank me later. Thank you, Airtable!

Pricing: Unlimited day free trial (free plan) for any number social media channels, other plans available


3. Hootsuite is one of the all-time classic social media scheduling tools


Hootsuite is one of the most popular social media management tools.


Hootsuite is used by over 15 million people and by over 800 of the Fortune 1000 companies. We are sure this makes Hootsuite perhaps the most popular social media management tool.

For our social media management team, Hootsuite is their go-to platform for managing and scheduling all our client accounts.

The interface is user-friendly and features integrations with major social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

We can plan out a comprehensive social media strategy, schedule posts in advance, track analytics, and monitor conversations all in one place.

Hootsuite truly works to maximize efficiency and boost success for social media management. Plus, with its affordable pricing options, it’s a no-brainer choice for any social media marketer.

Like something out of a dream, Hootsuite has completely revolutionized the way I handle my social media accounts. Get on board now – you won’t regret it.

It’s an all-in-one platform that allows you to schedule social media posts, track your social ROI, and run social media ads.

It offers several flexible plans, starting from the one-user free plan to enterprise options.

If you are looking for a free social media management tool, be sure not to overlook this one.

Pricing: 30 day free trial (free plan), then minimum 49USD/month, other plans available


4. CoSchedule may be the best social media scheduling tool


Build your marketing strategy from CoSchedule

CoSchedule is a marketing calendar that helps almost 8,000 marketing teams stay organised in more than 100 countries around the world.

When it comes to social media management and scheduling, coschedule is one of the best tools out there.

Not only does it allow you to easily schedule posts for all of your accounts on all platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but it also provides valuable insights on post performance and has a user-friendly interface.

Users are able to build their entire marketing strategy from one master calendar. The tool also allows teams to collaborate and streamline their execution process from one place.

It even has features like drag-and-drop scheduled post rearrangement and team member assignment. Overall, coschedule can greatly improve your social media strategy and make managing multiple accounts a breeze.

Offering a drag-and-drop calendar, social media scheduling, and an analytics tool, it’s a fantastic choice for social media scheduling software for a small business.

Pricing: unlimited day free trial (free plan), then minimum 49USD/month, other plans available


5. Sendible is a great tool to get social media on point


Manage all your social media on Sendible

Sendible is an ideal option for those managing multiple clients across social media by harnessing the power of automation.

As a social media manager, it’s important to have the right tools to make managing multiple accounts as efficient and seamless as possible. That’s where Sendible comes in.

As one of the top social media management tools on the market, Sendible offers features like social media scheduling, content curation, analytics, collaboration capabilities, and much more.

Plus, with easy integration options for popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google My Business, you can streamline your social media efforts all in one place.

The software specializes in scheduling, monitoring, analytics, and audience engagement, as well as having CRM functionality.

A major benefit is that it streamlines your of social media posts across all channels into one place and allows you to respond to them at once.

In short, if you’re looking for a comprehensive social media management solution, Sendible is definitely worth checking out.

Pricing: 14 day free trial (free plan), then minimum 29USD/month, other plans available


6. Iconosquare is great for Instagram


Get insightful analytics from Iconosquare

Iconosquare is a great social media platform is you want to manage your Instagram account. 

Over 10,000 agencies and businesses currently use Iconosquare, reaping the benefits of their easy-to-understand yet advanced analytics to drive better business decision-making and growth.

You can also keep a close eye on competitors and how they’re performing through their own industry benchmarks. 

They do all this through an intuitive and well-designed platform that allows you to manage more than one Instagram account through a single Iconosquare license.

If you’re a business that has a variety of accounts, this is the choice for you. 

Pricing: 14 day free trial (free plan), then minimum 49USD/month, other plans available


7. Later a well designed social media management tool


Later is one of the best free forever social media management tools


Later, Like many of the other tools on this list, Later is, at its core,  a scheduling app. It allows you to plan ahead what posts and captions you’re going to make in an intuitive and well-designed platform. 

The defining feature of Later is the fact that it offers a completely free forever plan – not just a free trial.

This is a great platform for beginners to get the hang of social media organisation before, if needed, expanding to a paid social media management software.

If you upgrade, you’ll find a host of insights and useful features at your fingertips to help drive growth and sales – think of hashtag suggestions, suggested post times and much more. 

Pricing: unlimted day free trial (free plan, with limited functionality), then minimum 18USD/month, other plans available


8. Loomly includes a good community management tool

Get endless content inspiration from Loomly.

Loomly is another platform that allows you to schedule all your posts and manage your social media posts from one centralised location.

A well-designed platform means everything from crafting, previewing and scheduling posts can be done harmoniously.

Loomly has recently released its own community management system called Interactions that allows you to easily engage with your audience directly from Loomly itself – because we all know how important speaking to your audience is. 

Where Loomly truly excels is its capability to provide inspiration and post ideas based on trending topics, holidays and other special dates.

If you’re someone that struggles to come up with ideas for what to post, Loomly can be a lifesaver. 

Pricing: 15 day free trial (free plan, with limited functionality), then minimum 26USD/month, other plans available


9. Meet Edgar for those who like it simple


Take social media automation to the next level with MeetEdgar

MeetEdgar is one of the ultimate social media scheduling tools. It is a social media management tool and social media managers love it as makes life simple.

There isn’t an analytics section to give you that more data-driven approach. This is something many of the other management tools on this listicle provide.

One plus is that MeetEdgar takes automation to the next level. 

MeetEdgar can create the posts for you before scheduling and posting them for you. It will find quotable text from articles and blogs before providing you with several variations to choose from.

Do this along with a host of other features, such as A/B social messaging tests, an exclusive link shortener, and more. 

Pricing: limited free trial (free plan, with limited functionality), then minimum 299USD/year, other plans available


Final Thoughts for managing your social media…


If you’re looking for a way to take your social media accounts to the next level, using social media management tools (or scheduling tools) is a great option.

These tools can help you save time by allowing you to post updates on multiple channels simultaneously, as well as schedule posts ahead of time.

Each one has its own set of pros and cons, and the right one for you and your business is the one that suits your unique needs. Each allows you to have your social media posts in one place.

And if you’re feeling overwhelmed by all of the different options out there, don’t worry – we’ve got you covered.

In this article, we compare some of the most popular social media management and scheduling tools so that you can find the one that best suits your needs. So what are you waiting for?

Start exploring today and see how much easier (and more fun) social media marketing can be!

Any of these social media management tools can be instrumental in growing your business. If you want to manage your social media and be on top of your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter Linkedin social media content – then get one of these tools today.

We invite you to learn more about social media marketing or, if you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today. 

If you feel that managing your social media is taking too much time, then check out our social media management services. Our services are geared to help you focus on your business.



Frequently asked questions – Social media management tools

Can you explain the concept of Social Media Management and its advantages for a small enterprise?

Social media management is a comprehensive strategy involving the creation, organization, assessment, and active engagement with content disseminated on platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. This strategy can provide significant benefits to small businesses. A well-crafted social media management plan can extend your business reach, attract prospective clients, and strengthen relationships with existing ones, boosting your market standing. Moreover, it’s a budget-friendly method for showcasing your brand and offerings, gaining insights into your customer base, and maintaining a direct line of communication with them, all contributing to your business’s growth and expansion.

As an owner of a small business, is it necessary for me to invest in a Social Media Management tool?

Absolutely, and here’s the reason: While social media presents a powerful avenue to interact with your desired audience, it can often be time-intensive. A Social Media Management tool can optimize this process, liberating your time while guaranteeing a consistent online presence. These tools empower you to plan posts ahead of time, supervise your social feeds, promptly reply to comments and messages, and evaluate your post’s performance, thereby equipping you to make informed decisions and polish your social media approach.

Which Social Media Management tool should my small business adopt for maximum benefit?

The choice of the “right” tool will rely on your unique needs and objectives. Various tools offer diverse features; some focus on scheduling and automation, while others are more concentrated on analytics and user engagement. It’s crucial to define your goals before selecting a tool that complements them. For example, if you aim at gaining insights and refining strategy, a tool with robust analytics would be suitable. Conversely, if you manage several platforms, a tool offering excellent scheduling and multi-platform support could be advantageous.

What should be the ideal frequency of my content posting on social media?

The ideal posting frequency will depend on several factors, including the nature of your business, your target demographics, and the specific social media platforms you use. However, maintaining consistency is a common guiding principle. Posting regularly ensures that your brand stays visible and engaged with your audience. Nevertheless, the quality of content should always be the priority over quantity. It’s wiser to post less often while maintaining high-quality, pertinent content, than to inundate your audience with frequent but less significant posts.

How do I evaluate the effectiveness of my social media initiatives?

The majority of Social Media Management tools are equipped with integrated analytics features. These provide vital feedback about how your content is performing and the way your followers are engaging with it. It’s crucial to keep a close eye on key metrics such as the engagement rate (determined by likes, shares, comments), reach (how many individuals see your posts), the number of new followers, website visitations generated from social media, and conversion rates. These figures should match up with your overarching business goals, whether that’s boosting your brand’s visibility, creating leads, or increasing sales. Continuously monitoring these metrics over time can help you fine-tune your approach and deepen your rapport with your audience.


We just passed 10K followers on Linkedin. Here’s how we did it…

Do you want to know how to increase followers on LinkedIn? Well, let us tell you a story. Rewind to July 3rd, 2020…

It was hot out. Covid was in full swing. Tom Cruise turned 57 years old (don’t ask us why we know that).

But something else important happened that day…

We, as a company, decided to seriously improve our social media efforts.

Especially on Linkedin. 

Sure, up until that point, we had done OK with Linkedin – we published some decent content and saw some slow growth, but we knew we could do better. LinkedIn has 810 million members and we wanted to be relevant and known. I mean who doesn’t?

So we set to improve our Linkedin efforts across the board – this meant better content, greater engagement, and faster growth.  

Fast forward to June 2021, and we are now celebrating over 10K followers on the platform – 100% of which is organic (this means we didn’t use LinkedIn ads, although these are pretty awesome too).

how to get more followers on linkedin

So how to increase followers on Linkedin?

How did we clean up our act, improve our game, increase engagement by 142%, and grow 5,000+ followers in one year?

Here are our 5 takeaways…

Takeaway #1 – Can diversifying your content on LinkedIn help?

LinkedIn Growth and how to increase followers on linkedin

You see different types of content on Linkedin.

Behind-the-scenes photos showing off a company culture.

In-depth guides showing you how to improve your business skills. 

Memes about drinking too much coffee.

The list goes on.

And truth be told, all types of content can perform well on Linkedin.

So our recommendation?

Try it all. 

Over the past year our content strategy has been a mix of sniper-like-precision, as well as a heavy dose of throw-it-against-the-wall-to-see-what sticks. This gives us the ability to create highly-targeted marketing strategies, while also going completely off the cuff and experimenting with new types of content.

We’ve published behind-the-scenes photos…

First Page Office Activities on how to increase followers on linkedin

In-depth guides…

Boost followers on Facebook can also  help on how to increase followers on linkedin

And totally hilarious memes (OK, we think they are hilarious)

Use Slack is another way to solve how to increase followers on linkedin

By doing a bit of everything, you are ensuring that your Linkedin page is always publishing new, fresh content that interests different types of people. 

And the results might surprise you! Here are the 4 posts that we published that got the most impressions over the past 12 months.

Team Photos
First Page Team Growth
First Page Tech Team
Online LinkedIn Polling

As you can see, there’s a bit of variety – 1 behind the scenes, 1 poll, and 2 ‘new employee welcome’ posts.

Should you be having a hard time knowing what content you should publish, read our blog on how to easily create a social media strategy. This will guide you on the type of content you should produce and when you should publish it!

By mixing up the types of content that you publish, you’ll be able to identify which content generates the most impressions, shares, and overall engagement rates.

Speaking of engagement rates….

Takeaway #2 – Are carousels a BEAST for engagement on LinkedIn?

If you are looking to increase the engagement on your Linkedin, our #1 suggestion is to publish carousels.

Well, technically speaking, Linkedin doesn’t allow you to publish ‘carousels’. You can either publish multiple photos, that looks like a collage, like this…

Carrousel

Or you can upload a multi-page PDF (which looks strikingly similar to a carousel) that looks like this…

Blog share

No matter if you publish a PDF ‘carousel’ or a collage of images, they both create the same emotion within your followers – curiosity.

And curiosity = higher likelihood of engagement.

Notice how high the engagement numbers are for the two prior examples (49% and 32%). This is 10x’s the engagement that we get from posts with a single photo, and these high engagement rates have remained consistent throughout the past year.

In fact, by consistently publishing high-quality carousels, we were able to increase our engagement rate from 7% to 15% across the entire platform. This is especially encouraging since the average engagement rate for Linkedin business accounts are around 3%.

But! This isn’t an excuse. Don’t feel like you can just whip up a poorly made PDF ‘carousel’ and call it a day. Your followers know the difference between good and bad quality content – so your carousels better look stellar and bring immense value. If they don’t then you will see your engagement drop – and quickly.

That’s why all of our carousels are treated with a bit of extra love. In fact, many of our carousels took us over 2 hours to create!

But if you are looking to improve the engagement you have with your followers, the juice is worth the squeeze.

Squeezing Oranges Gif

Takeaway #3 – Do People love people on LinkedIn?

When we began on this journey, we noticed that when we published culture content, it performed very, very well.

And it makes sense. While Linkedin is technically a social media platform for business, at the end of the day, it’s still social media – people still are drawn to people.

That’s why posts like this get HUGE engagement (97%!)…

Photos of people's livelihoods

And posts like this don’t really move the needle as much…

eCommerce Blog

BUT!

We wouldn’t recommend posting a bunch of behind-the-scenes culture photos every day. Culture pictures are fun, and absolutely bring value to your business, but not always in a way that impacts your bottom line. Culture photos are great for building trust with your followers, and ESPECIALLY helpful when you are recruiting for new talent, but do remember that balance is still the name of the game.

That’s why we try and publish around 1 ‘culture’ post for every 2-3 ‘business’ posts.

Takeaway #4 – Does video underperform on LinkedIn?

In October of last year, we put more resources into video production, with the specific goal of having it perform well on Linkedin. This is one of the ways on how to get more followers on LinkedIn.

We put a TON of time into scripting, shooting, and editing a few original videos, and we also created a plan to uploaded the video feed from our podcast.

When we hit the publish button on the first video, we were so confident that the video would be a raging success, that we were nervous that our computers would explode from how fast the video went viral. ⚡️

Well, unfortunately, that never happened…

Videos

We published an entire series of videos like this based around the concept ‘1 Minute Digital Strategy’.

All of them had ‘meh’ engagement, ‘meh’ views, and ‘meh’, impressions.

We had the same problem when we edited, and uploaded video clips from our podcasts.

Blogs

Nothing specatcular.

To be very clear though – we aren’t saying DON’T do a video on Linkedin. Many content creators are killing it on Linkedin with video content. We are just saying that it just didn’t work very well for us, especially from an engagement perspective.

We do think that to really get traction for Linkedin video content, it requires a lot more time, effort, and long-term commitment.

But don’t worry about us, we’re totally OK that our videos didn’t go viral.

Crying Gif

Takeaway #5 – Should you oost consistently on LinkedIn?

We know, we know, this is the same generic advice you read on every listicle regarding how to grow your social media following. This is one of the secrets on how to increase more followers on LinkedIn.

Well, that’s because that advice is very, very true.

When it comes to organic content, more is certainly merrier.

In the last 365 days, we published 336 pieces of content on Linkedin. This high frequency of publishing enabled us to A/B test different types of content, which helped us identify what types of content performs best, which helped us greatly expedite our growth.

If you can, we recommend trying to publish content on Linkedin at least 3-4 times a week… 5-7 if you can swing it.

But again, remember to never push for quantity at the cost of quality. Linked users are sophisticated and savvy – boring, spammy, and low-quality content does not survive on this platform. If you have resources, you need to focus on quality AND quantity.

Final thoughts on to how to increase more followers on LinkedIn

Linkedin is an incredibly powerful platform and has helped us grow our brand awareness, identify hot leads, and close some pretty big sales. How to increase followers on Linkedin is not an easy formula to come up with. We believe though we have it.

So take your Linkedin growth seriously – invest the time into a content strategy that serves your business goals, and focus on executing that strategy consistently.

If you do, the results can be pretty damn stellar.

Also worth noting, if you’re struggling with other platforms like Facebook, maybe check out this epic blog on how to get more followers on Facebook.

Is there anything in this guide I missed? If so, let me know in the comments below, or feel free to reach out to us more directly using the big red ‘Get in touch’ button!

LinkedIn FAQs

Is LinkedIn beneficial for entrepreneurs?

By including powerful keywords, achievements, and professional successes, LinkedIn for entrepreneurs can assist in building a strong business profile. As a result, other businesses, potential partners, vendors, and clients in your niche will learn about you and your company.

Is LinkedIn free for entrepreneurs and businesses?

It costs nothing to have a corporate page on LinkedIn; anyone may have one.

With LinkedIn, what is LinkedIn Premium?

LinkedIn imposes a business use restriction that limits searches and profile views for free accounts to a modest number. Users of LinkedIn Premium receive limitless searches, additional filters, and excellent sales, hiring, and employment insights.

Exactly why do companies use LinkedIn?

By using LinkedIn for business, you may establish credibility, develop a valuable network, and obtain insider knowledge from recognized authorities in your field.

What else can you learn to make an impact online?

There are many digital marketing tactics can be used to boost your brand’s online profile.

If you are interested in knowing more, here are some useful blog articles that we recommend you read:

Perfect Your Email Marketing Strategy Now
What are the top PPC ideas you ought to know?
Social Media Strategies: Successful Ones You Can Learn From
Helpful Content Tips: Get Noticed Before the Competition
6 Easy Digital Marketing Hacks to Increase Your Leads

You probably are a busy business owner and don’t have the time you need to get the online impact by yourself.

If this is the case, we encourage you to review some of our strategic digital marketing services:

SEO for your business to drive qualified leads
Social media management for improved brand awareness
Linkbuilding to drive organic traffic to your website
Top converting landing pages to convert your leads
Email marketing campaigns to bring in referrals

Of course, more than anything, we would love to help you succeed online, get noticed, and build your business. If you have any questions, please contact one of our expert digital strategists. It is obligation free, and we would love to chat with you.

3 Reasons Why Now is the Time to Start Digital Marketing

If there is one global truth these days, it’s that everyone is ready for the COVID-19 pandemic to be over and for life to return to normal.

If there is another, it’s that COVID-19 cemented the fact that the internet is the most important tool available to humans.

Since it first went live in 1991, the internet has been the most dominant piece of technology at our disposal. Over the past 30 years, we’ve evolved from sending tiny bits of information through a connected cable, to downloading entire movies to a personal, pocket-sized computer in a matter of seconds. It’s even estimated that some 50% of the world’s population has regular access to the internet, and tech billionaires are working to provide access to the other 50% through glorified weather balloons!

Yet, despite all the advances in internet technology and the dramatic adoption of the internet as a global marketplace, some businesses are still reluctant to be a part of the digital age and have yet to fully invest in digital marketing.

You may be reading this and be thinking, “well, digital marketing doesn’t fit with my industry”, or, “my business is doing just fine without it.” 

Sorry to say, but here is another truth: the present and future of marketing and sales are digital. 

If you are still unconvinced that investing heavily in digital marketing is right for your business, here are three reasons why you should.

The COVID-19 Expressway

Covid-19

Many have called COVID-19 a Black Swan Event, a singular event that came as a surprise and made a significant impact on the world at large. In many ways, this is true. If there were people who predicted the pandemic and its potential impact, they were a silent micro-minority. Even now, over a year after the onset, we don’t fully understand the pandemic’s long-term effects.

But as digital marketers, we immediately identified one outcome as soon as the world went into lockdown, and that was the fast-tracking of the digital economy’s ascension to dominance. 

Much like what happened during the SARS outbreak in the early 2000s, when e-commerce giant Alibaba was born out of necessity, varying degrees of lockdown around the world during COVID-19 signalled that commerce, social interactions, and business was going digital. Marketers were quick to jump on the opportunity to grow their business by reallocating their budgets to focus on the digital sphere. 

The businesses that were successful during the pandemic already had a robust digital presence and were well-equipped to augment their strategies to take advantage of an influx of new business. Those that were unprepared faltered. 

There is no reason to believe that the world will go back to pre-pandemic commerce as we look forward. The digital economy was burgeoning and becoming dominant before the first wave of infections, and COVID-19 has only expedited the transition.

There is no turning back.

E-commerce is Dominating Asia

Rise of eCommerce

Around 2 billion people live in Southeast Asia and Greater China. With e-commerce logistics being what they are today, it’s never been easier to reach potential customers outside your country’s borders. Today, both Hong Kong and Mainland China have free trade agreements with ASEAN countries, making it cost-effective for brands to export their goods and sell overseas. 

E-commerce players like JD, Lazada, and Shopee have also made it simple to list your products online and sell them to customers around the region, even if you don’t have a proper distributor. But, as any good salesperson or marketer knows, listing products is just “step one” in the sales process.

To take advantage of the explosive growth of e-commerce, in part due to COVID-19, and to find success overseas, businesses need to invest in digital marketing in the countries where they wish to sell. A Hong Kong company with products available for sale in Thailand, for example, would be wise to partner with an online marketing company in Bangkok.

Working with a digital agency in a foreign market ensures that your brand and products will be marketed correctly to your target audience. Tailoring marketing content to a new audience in a new market is called “localisation” and is one of the most critical facets of international marketing. Despite geographic proximity, no two markets in the region have the same consumer and cultural behaviour, putting the onus on marketers to adapt.

While pursuing multinational expansion may seem daunting, it can be executed well if you choose the right business partners. The potential for growth is so great that your local and foreign competitors are likely already ahead of you. 

That said, an impactful digital marketing strategy can elevate your brand’s value and equity and help you gain market dominance.

Digital Natives are Driving the Bus

Digital Natives

Whether you are in the FMCG industry or focus on B2B sales, your main customers are likely digital natives. Digital natives are people who grew up in the internet age, with unlimited information at their fingertips. 

Digital natives use modern technology to solve their problems and are easily influenced by things they see online. The internet is their primary resource for everything. Considering that the percentage of adults who have grown up in the digital age is only increasing, it makes logical sense for brands to market to them on the platforms they use.

Today, most shoppers learn about new brands through digital marketing. They search generic keywords on Google and trust that the top-ranking website is the best. They see influencers on social media promote a product and assume that it must be good. They talk about things with their friends and start to see advertisements for related products across their social media channels. Your end-users or B2B buyers are young, have money, and trust that the internet shows them the best products available. But as marketers, we know that a brand’s internet presence is only as good as its digital marketing strategy. 

To conquer the growing digital native consumer segment, businesses need to make sure that all of their digital marketing bases are covered. 

From Google Ads and Search Engine Optimisation to catchy graphic design and engaging social media content, digital marketing has many different outputs. Having a strong digital presence is no longer a competitive advantage. Today, and moving forward, it is and will be the most essential aspect of a brand’s overall marketing strategy. 

So, what are you waiting for? Reach out to us today, and one of our specialists will be happy to get back in touch as soon as possible! First Page is the leading digital marketing agency in Asia, helping our clients exceed their expectations and grow their online presence.

Should You Invest in Facebook Ads or Google Ads?

Facebook Ads and Google Ads have rapidly become the two largest platforms for online advertising. Ideally, you’d want to run ads and take advantage of the unique features offered by both, but sometimes you have to choose between the two.

So which of these should you go for? Let’s look at a few things you should consider.

Campaign Goals

1. Campaign Goals

Determining your goal for the campaign is an essential part of deciding what platform would be best suited for you.

Google Ads, for example, is the best option for demand capture—that is, it will reach users who you know for sure are looking to make a purchase. If someone looks up the keyword “customisable phone covers,” chances are they’re trying to find one for themselves. Keeping that in mind, the ads shown on Google will align with this search intent and possibly result in sales.

On the other hand, Facebook Ads is ideal for reaching consumers who are at the top of the funnel, making it a better option if you’re not actively trying to make a sale yet, and are aiming for brand awareness.

You could use both platforms to reach consumers at different stages of the buying process, but if you know the goal of your campaign, you could narrow down your options and pick the platform that provides the greater benefit.

Campaign Goals

2. Budget

As with anything else, sometimes your budget can also make the choice for you. For any ad campaign, the main goal is to maximise the return on ad spend (ROAS), i.e. the profit you earn on every dollar you spend on ads.

For Google Ads, specific keywords have a higher cost-per-click than others, which means that if the keyword you’re targeting is expensive and you have a smaller budget, your ad campaign wouldn’t be bringing you much benefit.

On the other hand, within that same budget, you could reach a much wider audience on Facebook Ads, as well as take into account consumer behaviour and get a better idea of what kind of marketing strategy would work on your target audience.

Look at how far a single dollar can take you with respect to your goals, and make your choice.

Stages of the buyer journey

3. Stages of the Buyer Journey

Facebook and Google are two very different platforms, meant for different things. As such, users on each will also be in different stages of the buying journey, so you wouldn’t be able to find the same audience on both.

For example, Facebook is a social media platform, which is meant for interaction. Most people on Facebook are not looking to make a purchase, but they do explore their interests on the platform. This makes Facebook Ads a great way to target users who may not be aware of your brand or products, especially if your brand is somewhat niche and you think users wouldn’t be actively searching for it.

On the flip side, Google receives more than 5 billion searches every day, and these searches can fall on every stage of the buyer’s journey. However, the keywords within those searches let you know what stage they’re at. If someone searches “water bottle price,” the likelihood is that the user wants to buy a water bottle. In comparison, if a user searches for “water bottle design,” they might not necessarily be looking for a purchase.

The use of specific keywords indicates which users are most likely to make that purchase decision. That way, you can target users who you know for sure are at the bottom of the funnel.

So which is better

4. So which is better?

While it’s important to look at your goals and budget etc., when deciding which platform you want to go for, there is no doubt that each offers unique benefits.

For example, Facebook allows you to create a ‘lookalike audience’ for yourself and then targets people who are similar to this persona. With so much information about the audience’s interests and preferences available, this is easily done on Facebook. That means that Facebook Ads is much more detailed in targeting users when you make an advertisement on Facebook.

On the other hand, Google ads have the highest click-through rate compared to other platforms because Google prioritises relevance and shows users ads that are most relevant to them, given their search history.

Google also uses remarketing, where users are reconnected to brands that they have interacted with before. This makes it more likely that consumers will go through with their purchase instead of adding your product to their cart and closing the window.

Still, neither one is inherently better than the other, so once you’ve decided on your budget, your marketing objectives and your target audience. You’ll be able to make a better and more informed decision about which platform will be more beneficial to your brand.

Starting a digital marketing campaign can be a very daunting prospect for many businesses. Should you need any more convincing, perhaps read our blog about why now is the time to start digital marketing!

So, what are you waiting for? Reach out to us today, and one of our specialists will be happy to get back in touch as soon as possible! First Page is the leading digital marketing agency in Asia, helping our clients exceed their expectations and grow their online presence.

The Ultimate Guide to Instagram for Businesses: Part #1

What do the family-owned cafe around the corner from your home and a multinational fashion retailer have in common? They can both benefit hugely from taking their business to Instagram. Instagram for businesses can make a huge difference to the bottom line.

More and more people are using Instagram to connect with brands. The social network boasts over 800 million active monthly users and the highest interaction rate of any social media platform. In fact, 80% of users follow a business on Instagram while 200 million Instagrammers actively visit a business profile each day.

Instagram for businesses is an extremely powerful marketing tool. Brands and businesses can benefit by growing their reach, engagement, sales, leads, and brand loyalty. However, it helps to approach the platform with a bit of industry know-how to maximize your chances of success.

Here, we outline the most effective ways of driving growth to your brand via Instagram without forking out thousands of dollars on paid advertising. Whether you’re an Insta-rookie or a veteran of the ‘Gram, our ultimate guide will help you create a solid marketing strategy for your brand on the platform. Let’s get in on with this ultimate guide to Instagram for business!

Make an impression

1. Username

It takes less than 50 milliseconds to form a first impression, which is why it’s vital to catch your potential customers’ attention with an engaging Instagram profile. The first thing to consider is your username. It is just so crucial. If you already have other social media channels, ensure your Instagram username matches the one on your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and/or WeChat as well. This makes it easier for customers to remember your brand, allowing them to easily visit your profile across multiple platforms. When thinking about Instagram for businesses, getting the name right is key!

Stick to something simple. You only have 30 characters for your username, so it’s best to make it something memorable and snappy. Avoid long strings of numbers and excessive underscores. Not only do they look unprofessional, they also make typing your username more difficult for customers.

2. Instagram Name

Your Instagram name is visible when someone visits your profile directly or searches you in the search bar. It appears below your photo and statistics on your Instagram profile. Like your username, your name is limited to 30 characters but should be set out in grammatical sentence structure.

To optimize your appearance in search results, your name and username should be different. A good idea is to include a keyword relating to your business in your name so that users get an idea of what you do from the moment they find you.

gopro-search-example
How names and usernames are displayed in Instagram’s search.

3. Bio

Next up, it’s time to tackle your bio. At only 150 characters long, the Instagram bio may not seem like much, but in actual fact could be the difference between a visitor to your profile and a converting customer. A well-written bio should demonstrate your brand’s voice while appealing to your target market and explaining what exactly it is that you do. Yup, Instagram for businesses can do wonders to your brand awareness, but only if you have a good bio!

Furthermore, your bio is the only place on your profile that allows you to share a clickable link. It’s the perfect place to promote your brand — why not share your latest blog post, or a link to buy tickets to the event you’re putting on? To give yourself a chance to showcase your new material, update this link as often as once a week.

Use a tool like Google URL Shortener to generate a URL with fewer characters to make it look more user-friendly.

4. Photos

Like your username, you want your profile photo to be something that users will recognise as your brand. Ideally, this should be your logo, a photo or a graphic in your brand’s colours.
 
Using consistent imagery will help to solidify your brand in your customers’ minds, making it more likely that you’ll be who they think of when they need a service or product you offer over your competitors.
 
 
gopro instagram account

Plan it all out

  1. Set goals

Like any marketing strategy, having goals to work towards helps you structure your channel management and ensure you’re on track to hitting your targets. While it may not seem like it, it’s important to implement goals and a strategy for your Instagram account. Here are some common goals that can help you narrow down what you wish to achieve with your profile:

  • Showcase your service/product
  • Increase brand loyalty and awareness
  • Establish a strong community around your service/product
  • Advertise to potential customers
  • Increase post engagement
Goal-setting also allows you to shape your content strategy around what you want to achieve, rather than wildly scrabbling for things to share when you realise it’s been two days since you posted.
  1. Establish your look

Instagram is a visually driven platform, meaning that it’s vital to produce content that’s pleasing to the eye — it’s as simple as that! According to research, visual appeal matters in 93% of cases when people go to make a purchase. When thinking about Instagram for businesses, make sure you get your brand team on board with consistent visuals.

Maintaining a cohesive brand image is crucial to effective Instagram marketing. There’s a reason that 60% of the top brands on Instagram use the same filter for every post — it’s nice to view, makes customers look upon your brand favorably, and increases the chance of them taking action. As well as making your posts look well put together and consistent, the potential for engagement skyrockets when you have an established brand image.

Here are some great examples of thoughtful and beautiful Instagram feeds for you to draw inspiration from.

@vitruvi

vitruvi instagram

@privacypls

privacypls instagram

@elainery

elainery instagram

@artifactuprising

artifactuprising instagram

TIP: Some fantastic apps for planning, scheduling and tracking your Instagram posts include Later, PLANN and Planoly. You can preview what posts will look like in your feed so you can perfect your Instagram aesthetic before uploading.

  1. Post consistently

So, you’ve set up a powerful Instagram account, decided on your marketing targets and established a theme that will wow potential customers. The next step is to maintain consistency. Consistent posting keeps your brand at the forefront of your followers’ minds since they know to expect regular content from you on their feed. It also maximises engagement and assists with growth and brand awareness.

In your goal outline, include a target for how often you plan to post content to Instagram. This Union Metrics study found that the average brand typically posts 1.5 times a day, and went on to discover that there’s no correlation between increased post frequency and lower engagement. This means that brands who posted more than twice a day didn’t experience any negative effects on their follower counts or engagement level, so get posting!

  1. Measure

Just like any digital marketing strategy, maintaining an Instagram profile means digging deep into your analytics to track how your content is faring. Instagram’s native analytics tool is called Instagram Insights, and comes for free if you’re using an Instagram business profile. Insights allows you to track your profile’s impressions, reach, website clicks, profile views and followers, as well as allowing you to view post-specific actions such as likes, comments, saves, actions and discovery.

Keeping on top of your analytics is the best way of staying up to date with trends, understanding your audience and evaluating how your content is performing. Reviewing data is how you continue improving upon your Instagram strategy, driving growth, and creating the strongest digital marketing plan possible!

FAQs

What does an Instagram business account allow you to do?

You may access promoted posts and Instagram advertisements with an Instagram business profile, giving you the means to increase your audience and interaction. You can set up, execute, and track campaigns the same way you do with Facebook advertisements on Instagram since it uses the same robust advertising tools.

How many followers do you need for an Instagram business account?

An Instagram business profile may appear to be an elite club on the surface, but anybody can sign up.

Is Instagram good for small businesses?

Instagram is a potent (and reasonably priced) tool for small business growth. Instagram is the ideal tool for marketing your small business since it allows you to interact with potential consumers, keep in touch with current ones, and even conduct transactions directly from the app.

Final thoughts

Stay tuned for Part #2 next week, where we’ll cover tips on content production and ways to increase your engagement and follower count. In the meantime, check out our blog on The 3 Best Methods for Building A Powerful Content Marketing Strategy.

If you are a busy business owner or your marketing team is flat out to manage your social media, then check out our social media services. Alternatively, please get in touch for an obligation-free meeting.

The 7 Most Successful Social Media Platforms for Online Advertising

It’s not about spending more, it’s about spending smart. Before you plan your next social media marketing strategy, know exactly how to divide your capital.

With almost 3.2 billion social media users across the globe, just how effective is your brand reach?

Social media advertising, otherwise referred to as social media marketing, is especially powerful for businesses on a budget. This form of online marketing proves cost-effective, ongoing, easy to measure and of course, impressionable.

When executed correctly, you’re provided the potential to generate a continued ROI (Return on Investment). Promote your product or service, define who your business is, and boost your brand.

In our previous blog How to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Content Marketing Strategy, we reiterated the importance of knowing your audience. Here, we discussed behaviour flow, demographics and customer retention rates.

These are all factors also interdependent of your social media marketing strategy. And now that you’ve learned The 3 Best Methods for Building a Powerful Content Marketing Strategy, it’s time to take your social media marketing plan to the the next level.

Here, we outline the 6 most effective social media platforms and how your brand can benefit from each.

1. Facebook

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Over 50 million small businesses use Facebook to grow and connect with consumers. However, Forbes report that only 4 million of these businesses are successful. What sets these 4 million apart? They actually pay for social media advertising, whereby a staggering 68% use video content.

If you don’t know where to start when it comes to video content, these 5 Digital Video Trends Will Boost Your Brand’s Engagement. Integrate these powerful video trends as part of your social media advertising on Facebook, and you’re sure to see a remarkable ROI.

Due to Facebook’s new algorithms, organic reach has significantly declined. This means that in order to get noticed, businesses must increase their ad spend. Since Facebook is still the biggest social media network worldwide, it’s worth it!

Aside from using visual content to generate results, one of the most effective ways to convert Facebook users into customers is through direct ads. Present an ad, which directly links straight to a landing page and entice visitors with a special offer.

2. Pinterest

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It’s no secret that women hold a greater buying power than men – $20 trillion in fact. While Pinterest may seem like a less obvious choice, its power is undoubtedly immense; especially for businesses both online and offline.

With a major 82% of Pinterest users being female, it’s no surprise that a heavy 93% of active users (or ‘pinners’) will use Pinterest to plan their next purchase.

From having 80 million monthly active users in 2014 across the globe to acquiring 175 million in 2017, Pinterest is fast expanding. Promote your business, generate widespread sales leads and attain greater conversions as two thirds of all pins display a brand or product.

In keeping with this ‘Why Pinterest Matters to Marketing’ board, the best times to post are between either 2pm to 4pm or 8pm to 1am.

3. Instagram

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Instagram, the visually-driven platform taking the digital world by storm, exhibits remarkable potential for demographic targeting. Use high-quality images and videos to express your brand, gain a large following and promote your product or service.

This incredibly popular platform enables you to target users based on their interests, include a call-to-action and to group products within videos. Instagram is a phenomenal tool for e-commerce in particular, whereby businesses are equipped to deliver an enriched shopping experience.

Every month, more than 200 million people are using Instagram Stories. Instagram Stories have surpassed Snapchat, while Facebook have created their own version called ‘Facebook Stories‘.

Though Facebook owns Instagram, Instagram’s engagement rates are 58% higher. Top six hashtags? #love, #instagood, #me, #cute, #tbt and #photooftheday.

4. LinkedIn

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Since its powerful launch in 2002, LinkedIn remains a powerful social media marketing tool. As 44% of users make an annual income of $75,000, LinkedIn proves an exceptional platform for generating business leads.

Target demographics using filtered search results, increase your brand credibility amid this professional platform and expand your network. This colossal platform is also renowned for its B2B (business-to-business) marketing power, whereby the 94% of B2B sites that use LinkedIn, attribute 46% of their social media traffic to LinkedIn.

The three most effective ways in which LinkedIn ads can be used are through sponsored in-mail ads, text ads and sponsored content.

5. TikTok

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First released in September 2016, TikTok has become one of the most popular social media platforms in recent years. In just 4 years, the number of TikTok users has grown at an impressive rate as the app currently boasts 800 million active monthly users worldwide, leading Pinterest, Snapchat and other well-known social media.

With TikTok, users can record short videos and upload them to share with other users. But the astonishing fact is how much time users spend per day on the platform – a whopping average of 52 minutes per day. This means that using TikTok to advertise is a good choice as your adverts can be viewed by group of users that are obsessed with the app. 

Marketers can create TikTok pay-per-click (PPC) videos and banner advertising campaigns, and only when someone clicks on the ads need to pay, making it easy – and affordable – to reach potential customers.

6. Twitter

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You’ve learned highly effective ways to boost your brand using paid traffic, but how about organic traffic? This is where Twitter comes in.

While Twitter provides users with the option of paid ads, organic traffic proves the most effective source in creating greater brand awareness. With over 330 million Twitter users and over 35 offices across the globe, this platform is phenomenal for making an international mark.

Twitter is highly effective for e-commerce, brand promotion and running ad campaigns. Target users, share your brand values and get closer to your audience. Just as Twitter states, “78% of people who follow SMBs (small and medium-sized business) retweet content from that business”, while a huge 75% develop greater trust.

7. Snapchat

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On average, Snapchat generates more than 10 billion daily video views. Of all the platforms listed here, Snapchat is the newest. Launched in 2011 (just one year after Instagram was founded), Snapchat reveals the fast route to capturing a younger audience.

According to MobileMonkey, 69% of Snapchat users are aged between 18 to 24. Inject life into your brand and share some personality! Snapchat is a fun, tech-savvy way to connect with your audience.

Share your brand story using Snapchat Discover, attract potential customers nearby with sponsored local geofilters or maintain remarkable swipe-up rates with interactive snap ads.

Happy Advertising! To boost your brand using social media, learn from the best in our latest blog How Top Brands Create Effective Social Media Campaigns

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