Make sure digital is in your holiday marketing plan

Newsletter

November 9, 2016

We’re barely recovering from the Halloween chocolate hangover and we haven’t even carved the Thanksgiving turkey, but if you’re a small business owner or marketer you’ve already started thinking about holiday shopping.

For years Black Friday has been the most well known shopping day of the year, but with the ever increasing popularity of mobile shopping we now also have Cyber Monday, the biggest online shopping day of the year.

Data collected from Signal.com, holiday retail sales on smartphones jumped 96% in 2015, and are forecast to grow 50% in 2016. Here are some additional statistics generated by signal.com:

• 43% of people say that digital ads on a website or mobile app influence their holiday gift buying.
• 47% of consumers started thinking about gift ideas before November.
• One-third of consumers say ads help them get discounts or deals.
• 52% of holiday shoppers are likely to take advantage of tailored product recommendations received through email, and 42% through a mobile ad.

Not surprisingly Amazon.com is king when it comes to online shopping and buying. No small business is going to compete with them, however, you can take notes on and implement some of the things people love about Amazon into your own marketing.

Why do people love Amazon? Consumers report that ease of use, product reviews and easy returns as some perks.

Site retargeting is another thing in which Amazon excels. When a consumer views a product on Amazon.com and then leaves the site to continue surfing the Internet, an ad for that product shows up on the sites the consumer is currently viewing. It seems like magic, or maybe legalized stalking, but either way you look at it this tactic has been proven to increase conversions.

But more people shopping online does not necessarily equate to more purchases online. Most online shoppers are looking for deals and doing product research before they go to the physical brick and mortar store to make the purchase. Added conveniences such as buy online and pick up in store increases a consumer’s likelihood to buy. Stores are crowded, being able to order online, go in, pick up the goods and get out is a huge selling-point.

Some takeaways from this research:

• Start planning for the holiday shopping now if you have not already.
• Consider adding digital into your marketing strategy. You can bet your competitors are, don’t miss out!
• Make sure now more than ever that your website is easy to navigate and is mobile optimized.
• Your physical business location is just as important as it’s ever been. People will most likely come to your store to make the purchase, but first they have to have a good reason for picking you over competition. Special deals advertised online will bring them in.

Do you want to implement some of these tools but you aren’t sure where to start?  Call or email us here at ISJ Media and we can help put together a customized digital marketing plan based on your business needs and goals.

At ISJ Media we offer:

Site retargeting

Contextual retargeting

Audience retargeting

Hyperlocal targeting

Mobile and app advertising

Website advertising

Web design

Email marketing

Text marketing

And much more . . . .

Brand admiration and how you can achieve it — FREE download

Marketing is not just about planning, creativity, good communication skills and organization — it’s also psychology. Think about the best experiences you’ve had with brands — quick responses to your questions, courtesy, professional, fun and interesting and makes a person feel good about his or herself. Brand admiration is building a brand that customers love and respect.

Brand admiration is important for several reasons. First, customers will want to remain loyal to your brand. They’ll tell their friends and family about the great experience they had with you, and they’ll tend to be more forgiving if you make a mistake. Having great brand admiration increases employee morale, increases profits, reduces competition and provides opportunity for brand extensions.

Sounds great, right? But how do you get there?

Let’s take a look at one of the world’s most beloved brands — Nike. Nike’s television ads are inspiring and relatable. Nike ads have depicted a young child practicing a sport, being encouraged by mom and then growing up to be an Olympian. Or someone deciding to start running every morning because they want to change his or her life and get healthier. Who could not be inspired by those things? And the mom encouraging the child to keep trying really tugs at the heart strings. It’s comforting, it connects on an emotional and personal level, and they really do make you feel like anyone and everyone is an athlete. Their slogan “Just Do It” is short and simple, catchy and embodies the brand.

What is retargeting?

One of the most common terms heard in digital marketing is "retargeting." But what is it? To put it simply, it's a powerful tool that allows advertisers to keep their brand or service in the minds of potential customers after they've expressed interest.

There are several types of retargeting, but for now I am going to talk about site retargeting. Let's say you run a shoe store and you have a website that allows people to purchase online. With retargeting, a code, called a pixel is placed on the back end of your site. When a potential customer visits your web site this code adds what's called a cookie, a small information file, onto his or her browser. So now the browser, be it Google Chrome, Firefox etc. "knows" that the user was on your site.

When the user leaves your site the pixel "fires," triggering your ads to appear on the next web site(s) he or she visits.

So what about the other advertisers who are also retargeting? Don't their ads compete for space? Say your potential customer visits another shoe store website that is also set up for retargeting in addition to yours before leaving for another site. Which ad will appear? That's done with a process called bidding. When the user goes to another page, retargeting bids the available ad spaces out. This is called Real Time Bidding or RTB. The ad that has the highest bid wins the space.

The bid provided depends on how much the advertiser is spending on the retargeting campaign. The higher the budget, the higher the bids.

This happens in nanoseconds and only saves the visit, NOT sensitive information about the user.

Did you ever wonder how the ads on the websites you've visited seem to know what you're interested in or the sites you've recently visited? It's not coincidence, it's retargeting.

It sounds complicated, but ISJ Media makes it simple. Just tell us what you want to spend, what ads you'd like your users to see and what website you'd like to target, we'll take it from there and provide your monthly reports on impressions (the number of times your ads were viewed) and clicks.

This graphic from retargeter.com shows how it works: