The Power of Early Adoption

In the past, joining a new social media platform early on presented an opportunity to get ahead of the competition. Early adopters could swiftly become influential figures in their fields, amassing a substantial following. Just look at the success of TikTok influencers as proof.

Threads operates differently from other platforms. It is linked to Instagram, meaning you can only create a Threads account if you have an Instagram account. This association ensures that Threads can tap into Instagram’s vast user base, which already exceeds 2.5 billion. On its first day, Threads attracted 30 million sign-ups.

Also read: Maximizing Your Ad Efforts on Instagram: The 6 Key Factors for Success

The Challenge of Standing Out

Amidst a content base that can grow by tens of millions in a day, standing out on Threads is a significant challenge. Outpacing prominent Instagram accounts like Mr Beast or Wendy’s to secure a spot in the top 10 is highly unlikely. Threads’ rapid growth suggests that being an early adopter does not guarantee success, especially with its close ties to an existing mega-database like Instagram.

The Audience on Threads

The current active audience on Threads primarily comprises individuals seeking fame rather than engaging with brands. This poses a challenge for businesses aiming to place their content in front of an audience with a genuine intent to purchase. The attention-seeking wannabe-influencers may overshadow your message, prioritizing “viewsss” over meaningful interaction.

Opportunities for Businesses: Despite the challenges, there is a potential opportunity on Threads. If you can tap into their desire for attention and assist them in achieving it, you may find success on the platform.

The Power of Commentary

When it comes to text-based social media platforms like Threads and Twitter, commentary takes precedence over content. If your content strategy revolves around sharing valuable opinions, you are likely to find an audience on Threads. Passive users on these platforms seek information, conversation starters, and participation in discussions (threads) about topics of interest.

Consider the opportunities and challenges outlined here before deciding whether to join Threads for your business. It’s important to understand the platform’s unique dynamics and adapt your strategies accordingly.

If you do decide to join Threads, why not follow us on @mediaholic_marketing?

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Hashtags are a powerful tool in social media marketing. They allow users to easily discover and engage with content that is relevant to their interests. By using hashtags based on the days of the week, you can tap into popular themes and topics that are relevant to your audience. Doing this, you can create content that is both engaging and shareable.

Also Read: Facebook Pages: The first Steps

Here are some of the most popular hashtags based on the days of the week, along with content ideas that can help you leverage these hashtags for your social media marketing campaigns:

1. #MotivationMonday – Share inspiring quotes or stories that will help your followers start their week on a positive note. You can also share motivational images, videos, or infographics that provide practical tips or advice on achieving personal or professional goals.
2. #TransformationTuesday – Share before-and-after photos or success stories that showcase the transformational power of your products or services. You can also use this hashtag to highlight your own personal or professional transformations, and inspire your followers to do the same.
3. #WisdomWednesday – Share interesting facts or insights that relate to your industry or niche. You can also share articles or blog posts that provide thought-provoking perspectives or opinions on current events or trends.
4. #ThrowbackThursday – Share nostalgic photos or memories that will resonate with your followers. You can also use this hashtag to showcase the history or evolution of your brand or industry, and highlight the progress or achievements that have been made over time.
5. #FridayFeeling – Share fun or lighthearted content that will help your followers unwind and prepare for the weekend. You can also use this hashtag to promote special offers or promotions that are exclusive to your social media followers.
6. #SaturdayStyle – Share fashion or beauty tips that are relevant to your audience. You can also use this hashtag to showcase your own personal style or fashion sense, and encourage your followers to do the same.
7. #SundayFunday – Share fun or adventurous activities that your followers can enjoy on their day off. You can also use this hashtag to promote local events or attractions that are relevant to your audience.

By leveraging these popular hashtags based on the days of the week, you can create content that is both timely and relevant, and engage with your audience in a meaningful way. So, the next time you’re struggling to come up with content ideas for your social media marketing campaigns, consider using these hashtags as a starting point, and see how they can help you connect with your audience and grow your business.

The post Daily Hashtags for Social Media Success appeared first on mediaholic marketing.

Objective

Before you run any ad (or business venture) you need to define the objective. Ask yourself, “what action do I want my customer to take?” You can choose between the following;

Also Read: 5 Things You Need for an eCommerce Website

Targeting

One of the most important things to consider when running an ad on Instagram is your target audience. The platform offers a variety of targeting options, including location, demographics, interests, and behaviors. It’s essential to select the right target audience to ensure that your ad is seen by people who are more likely to be interested in your product or service. Make sure to take the time to research and understand your target audience before setting up your ad.

Ad format

Instagram offers several ad formats, including photo, video, carousel, and stories. Each format has its own strengths and weaknesses, and it’s important to choose the right format for your ad based on your objectives. For example, video ads tend to have a higher engagement rate compared to photo ads, but they also require more time and resources to create. Make sure to choose the ad format that best suits your goals and budget.

Creative

The creative aspect of your ad is crucial in determining its success. Your ad should be visually appealing, easy to understand, and align with your brand’s overall look and feel. Make sure to include a clear call to action and a compelling message that motivates users to take action. Also, consider the aspect ratio, resolution, and image size of your ad to ensure that it looks great on different devices and screen sizes.

Timing

Timing is key when it comes to running an ad on Instagram. Make sure to choose the right period to run your ad based on your target audience’s behavior. You don’t want to run your ad too late for the customer to take action, or too early when they will lose impulse. You won’t need to specify time of day as the algorithm will work out when is best to serve the ad to your audience. You might need to consider a schedule if your objective is to get messages.

Budget

The budget you set for your ad will determine how many people see your ad, how many times it’s shown, and for how long. Make sure to set a realistic budget for your ad based on your objectives and budget. Consider the cost per click, cost per impression, and cost per action when determining your budget. Also, monitor your ad’s performance regularly to see if you need to adjust your budget to achieve your desired results.

In conclusion, running an ad on Instagram can be a great way to reach a large, engaged audience. However, it’s essential to pay attention to the right things to ensure that your ad is seen by the right people, at the right time, and with the right message. Make sure to target your audience effectively, choose the right ad format, create visually appealing and compelling creative, consider timing, and set a realistic budget. By following these guidelines, you’ll be on your way to running successful ads on Instagram.

If you would like to have someone else run the ad for you, click here to see what we can offer.

The post Maximizing Your Ad Efforts on Instagram: The 6 Key Factors for Success appeared first on mediaholic marketing.

It may seem silly; after all, isn’t all growth good?

Not necessarily.

You can have a strategy that costs more money than it brings in. You need to know if your marketing spend is bringing a return on the investment otherwise it’s wasting money.

A great example of this is an abandoned cart email on an e-commerce store. These will likely increase the conversion rate by an extra 2-5%.

However, if your site traffic and Add-to-cart ratio is low, at what point do you determine if it is worth spending on a system like this or not?

Let’s look at an example.

Your site gets 3000 visitors a month and converts 1% with an average basket spend of R350
This means that your sales will be R10,500 per month. (3000 x 1% x 350)

A good email automation system like mailchimp can cost around R200 upwards, depending on your audience size. If you increase your sales by 10% your conversion rate becomes 1.1% for a sales figure of R11,550.

That is a net return of around 550% on the spend. Sounds pretty good.

But what if there is a way you could take that same money and instead of increasing sales by R1,050, we increase it by R3,500?

As we are today, a click on Facebook to your site can be as low as 20c per click. For R200 you could realistically target 1,000 more visitors to your site. If you close 1% of those at your average basket spend that amounts to an extra R3,500 in your bank. That’s a return of over 1700%, triple that of the email reminder.

You should always look at how you can get the greatest return for your marketing spend. This concept is called ‘opportunity cost.’ It focuses on maximising return by seeing where best you could spend your money.

Find that avenue and focus on it until you reach the crest of that wave. Then ride the wave and find the next avenue for improvement.

The e-commerce formula for success is simple;

Site visitors x conversion rate x average basket spend = sales

If you can increase all of them, you get exponential growth.

Prioritising site visits allows you a greater opportunity to test how to improve conversion and basket size. Often conversion rate and basket size can be improved for free by testing variations on your copy, product photos and

Get your bottom line and cash flow working. Then try the fancy stuff.

The post Stop chasing small growth when you need big growth appeared first on mediaholic marketing.

The Definition of Quality is “a distinctive attribute of something, or the standard measured against something of a similar kind.” Quality needs to be defined by the end use, as what one customer perceives as quality may differ from another. It is important to identify the quality attributes that your customers consider when buying your product or service.

All in the Q

Many years ago, I was being educated on quality, and how it doesn’t always mean “the best.” We were looking at engine oils and compared a monograde oil to a synthetic multi-grade oil.

By comparison, the synthetic oil had for more attributes that beat the monograde oil. It could handle a wider range of temperatures, could be in the engine longer and lubricated the engine better. However, when compared in a particular application, an old VW Beetle, the monograde oil had one attribute that the synthetic oil did not have which made it better.

See an old Beetle engine did not use a modern oil filter. It required any contaminants to fall to the bottom of the engine where it was strained out. The synthetic oil was designed to hold contaminants until it was pumped through a separate filter. If we used synthetic oil in a beetle, we would destroy the engine. (There are many other pros and cons but for the purposes of this I’m going to leave it there)

This shows us that quality needs to be defined by the end use. You wouldn’t use monograde oil in a modern BMW either.

Knowing this, it is important for you to define what your customers consider to be quality attributes when buying your product or service.

Give P’s a chance

The 4 P’s of marketing, Product, Price, Place, and Promotion, along with the additional 3 for services, People, Processes, and Physical Evidence, should be considered when defining the quality attributes that meet customer expectations.

Start by making a list of what attributes in each P, your customer will think meets their quality expectations. Something like this;

• Product: Cup of coffee
  • Hot
  • Strong
  • With milk
  • No sugar
• Price: R35
• Place: In a local mall, near the entrance
• Promotion: Loyalty rewards, special occasions, attractive colours on cup
• People: Friendly staff, well trained barista
• Processes: Easy to order and pay
• Physical Evidence: A tasty cup of coffee

Quality is not just about price; it is also about the entire customer experience, including the staff and physical environment. Customers perceive a cup of coffee as poor quality when it is presented in a horrible cup, even if it is great coffee and is more expensive. Conversely, they perceive an average cup of coffee at an average price served by above-average staff as higher quality.

Also read: Who are you REALLY Competing against?

The Why

Repeat business is cheaper to obtain than new business, and meeting customer quality expectations can lead to repeat business, positive referrals, recommendations, and reviews. Positive reviews can create a positive buzz in the area for your business, leading to more customers.

To unpack WHY this works, we can look at how people make purchasing decisions.

1. Recognise the need
2. Search for information to solve the need
3. Evaluate the information
4. Make the purchase
5. Post purchase evaluation

Their experience in the post purchase evaluation will become the information used to evaluate a repeat buy. It can also become the information given to potential new customers in the form of referrals, recommendations, and reviews.

In summary, it is important to ensure that your marketing strategy includes meeting the quality expectations of your customers. By doing so, not only can you retain existing customers but also attract new ones through positive referrals and recommendations.

Here’s a quick story;

I was in a new coffee shop talking to the owner. She said she was running ads and getting no visible result. (There are many reasons why but that’s not important for this story) The shop was quiet, and she told me that lunch was her worst time of the day.

She had considered dropping her prices so low that she would not have been making much profit. This is never good because without profit, you may as well close up shop.

A week later I went to visit at lunchtime and the shop was full. Someone made a favourable review on a local Facebook group, and people responded. Because the experience was so good, more people commented about theirs and it created a positive buzz in the area for her.

Most people reading this will be professionals at their field, but not marketing. If you do anything to grow your business, make sure your marketing strategy includes meeting the quality expectations of your customers.

They will come back and are likely to bring a friend too…

The post Quality: The best marketing strategy ever appeared first on mediaholic marketing.

The goal of all marketing activities should be sales. Selling your product or service is the only way to get an in-flow of cash. The goal of your digital marketing road map should always be the sale. Sales can be done in your store or on your website. Ultimately the goal is not just to have the customer visiting you, but to have the customer handing over money in exchange for a product or service.

Digital marketing can be broken down into the following categories;

Website

You should always treat your website the same way you would treat a physical store. It is not a “set-and-forget” business tool and needs consistent attention to get it working for you.

3rd Party Advertising

There are a host of sites that can help you drive traffic to your website, leads to your inbox or direct sales. These are mostly classifieds or listings sites and,
depending on your product or service, information can be fed between your CRM system and the site.

Search Marketing

When a person is looking to solve a problem, they can turn to a search engine like Google or Bing. These search engines will have categorised your website, read all your keywords and determined if your site is relevant to answer the question being asked.

Social Media

Social media has become an entertainment format; much like TV, radio and print. Social media gives you a great opportunity to communicate why people need your service or product. It is also a great channel to educate customers on topics that may interest them which will cause them to want or need your product or service.

Display Ads

Display advertising is very much like traditional print advertising. These are adverts that sit alongside content with people are consuming like news article, blogs or learning information

Video Ads

Using videos for marketing has been around for a long time. Ads which interrupt content, much like it was done on TV, are still present on platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Vimeo.

Email

Email marketing is a great way to keep your customer updated on what is happening in your business. One of the greatest benefits of email marketing is that it drives action. If your CRM system can help you understand what a client wants, then you can tailor the email message to suit their interest.

SMS

SMS boasts an open rate of 99%. It is a quick way to reach your customer where they are with a short marketing message.

Ultimately you will need to make use of multiple marketing channels to get the most out of your marketing effort. At first, you don’t need to get all of them working, but as you grow it is important to diversify your marketing plan.

Click here to download the Digital Marketing Roadmap and learn more about how the different channels fit into the consumer decision making cycle.

The post How Digital Marketing Fits Together appeared first on mediaholic marketing.

Sadly, it is much more than this. Yes, you have direct competitors but it’s the unseen competition that can hurt you the most.

Alternatives and Substitutes

A car is a simple product that we could all take advantage of. Companies like Volkswagen can compete directly with Toyota in the market. They also both compete with alternatives, such as public transport, and substitutes such as motorcycles or bicycles.

In a famous marketing story, it was suggested after 1938 that General Motors was planning to buy and remove public transport systems in order to gain a monopoly. Ethical marketing practices suggest that it is better to make your product or service more attractive than the competition than to ruin it entirely, but that is a whole different discussion.

What this means is that we can’t just focus our efforts on beating our like-for-like competition. As explained in the Digital Marketing Roadmap, consumers evaluate alternatives every time they buy anything.

So how do we go about marketing to beat direct competitors as well as Substitutes and Alternatives?

Differentiate the Benefits

It would be quite easy to say that owning your own car is better than public transport simply because you own the car. But what does that mean for the consumer?

Marketing the features of your products only tells the consumer WHAT your product is, but not WHY it matters to them. Consider these examples;

Your customers might not know how to make the link between the feature and the benefit, so you need to help them.

Differentiation is a great tool for negating your competitors marketing. For instance, a bus company can advertise that they are always on time. To combat this, a car manufacturer could advertise that you don’t need to adhere to someone else’s schedule.

An interesting example is digital marketing. In a sense, mediaholic competes directly with Facebook themselves.

Facebook will tell you its easy and cheap to advertise on their platform. What they don’t say is that it takes trial and error plus a good amount of time working on their different options.

What is our differentiation then?

Yes, advertising on Facebook is cheap and easy if you have experience. We can help you get results quickly without the headache of having to learn a whole new system. What you’re buying is not just advertising, it’s time and experience.

If you want to discuss your competition and differentiation, reach out and have a free consult with us. We’re happy to help point you in the right direction.

The post Who are you REALLY Competing Against? appeared first on mediaholic marketing.

This is the breakdown I always give them. It is a good starting point for anyone who wants to sell their products online.

Shipping

Shipping is a great opportunity to win favour with an online shopper. High shipping costs could cause a customer to quickly abandon the cart.

Large online retailers like Amazon have standardised packaging prices and options to make the administration of despatching the order easier. It is worth finding a good courier and packaging suppliers so that you can have a minimum size box, along with cost, for shipping to your market areas.

You can then set a volume quantity to your products so you know when the order will outgrow your minimum size box to increase the shipping charge.

Free shipping, even if built into the cost of the product, is a great cherry on top for the customer as well. A free shipping threshold (e.g. Free shipping for orders over R1,000) can be a good incentive for customers to purchase one more item to obtain free shipping.

Remember, you don’t have to ship everywhere and can limit your deliveries to certain regions. A customer outside this region will be told “We do not ship to that area” and can look elsewhere.

Product categories

Any retail environment, including an eCommerce website, needs to make it easy for the customer to find what they want. Think about how you would categorise your product. The added benefit to something being digital is that you can add multiple categories or tags to the product.

This means that someone could be looking for t-shirts and find a black t-shirt. Or they could be searching for black clothing and find the same black t-shirt. Give people multiple ways to find the product that they want.

Also read: Do you really need a website?

Pictures

Great pictures will sell the product within seconds. Consider how you would take your main product photograph, and what other pictures will give more information to the customer.

Try using a uniformly taken main image as this makes your shop page look neater. Think about the size of the photo and what the background will be. You might also consider product videos as well.

Analytics Measurement

Data is an amazing resource to have. Knowing how long people spend on your eCommerce Website, whether they leave the site at a certain place or how many times an item is added to or removed from the cart can help you tweak your website to get more sales.

It can also give you insight into which of your marketing channels is more profitable. Having this initiated early on in your store’s life, will give you great data to make decisions on later.

2^nd Prize conversion

What happens if they don’t buy? Will you lose them forever? Perhaps try and convince the visitor to sign up for a newsletter or to get special offers. A chatbot can also entice visitors to ask questions in case they are confused.

Google analytics and cookies can allow you to remarket to the visitor at a later stage. Although, they will need to accept cookies on your site in order for this to happen.

You can have the flashiest ads and branding, but without the basics above, you might find it difficult to make progress.

The post 5 Things You Need for an eCommerce Website appeared first on mediaholic marketing.

Facebook wants you to post content, and then boost your organic reach with paid promotion. This is their monetisation strategy. We touched on the decline in organic reach in another post and have since discovered a strategy that does wonders for the organic reach on Facebook. In fact, this strategy gets the same, if not better, reach numbers than a boosted Facebook post. But does it turn into a valuable interaction or a sale?

That is what we need to find out.

Here is a case study based on a similar post, for the same business page within a week of each post.

The Test page on Facebook

mediaholic has set up an e-commerce marketplace for small businesses that can’t afford their own website and marketing efforts for it. Power Deals is like an eBay for small business in South Africa. The Power Deals project also presents us with an opportunity to share the entire marketing journey with you, from case studies on social media advertising, to how to maximise profit from an e-commerce store and dropshipping. We will use a focus marketing strategy for Power Deals, looking only at advertising on Facebook. You can visit the Facebook page here.

The Paid Post

The paid post, was a series of automated product ads on Facebook. We left it up to Facebook to select which products to use in the ads and in what order.

The ad performed like this after 4 days;

I wasn’t expecting any sales since this was the first weekend that the store was up. We need to build a lot more trust before people are willing to part with their hard earned cash. I also don’t believe that the products listed on the site were unique enough, desirable enough, or cheap enough to entice an impulse buy.

The Organic Post

The organic post was quite different. It consisted of a single, banner-style image and I tagged some of the products in the post.

At this stage, the page only had 26 followers. Even if we got 100% reach, we needed more. There is a simple method for this;

1. Create the post on the page
2. Interact as yourself (This doesn’t work as well if you do the next step as the page)
3. Share the post to as many groups as you can.

Of course, you need to have joined these groups as an individual beforehand. Bear in mind, some Facebook groups don’t allow advertising, obviously, this won’t work there. Be warned though, Facebook intends to monetise group reach meaning this free method might go away at some point. For now, you can see the results after 2 days

Also Read: Content Ideas for any Business

So what is the benefit?

Both posts yielded no sales. This could be viewed as a waste. However, both posts added growth to the number of page likes, and both posts sent visitors to the website.

Visitors to the website are a win. Not only do we have Google Analytics installed, but the Facebook Pixel as well. This means for future ads, we can run remarketing campaigns on Facebook. (That will make for an interesting case study)

We have learned that we can get nearly the same reach on an organic post, as we did for a paid post, and get the same amount of sales. Armed with this knowledge, we can adjust our campaigns and content accordingly. Before we touch on the next steps, lets take a look at how each post affected the website traffic.

Ok. That is a lot to digest. Both posts have pros and cons, and the low numbers don’t give us much of a sample size to make any concrete deductions but it is encouraging that we are now driving traffic to the website. This is a step closer to finding a winner in the paid vs organic on Facebook.

Also Read: Facebook pages: The First Steps

The Way Forward

Based on this, we are going to proceed with more organic posts, shared to as many groups as possible, to get as many eyes on the brand and products as we can. Visibility equals credibility. I will experiment with a shock-and-awe style paid product ad where we choose which products are displayed deliberately to get attention.

The goals for the next few weeks will be;

1. Get as high a reach as possible
2. Drive traffic to the website
3. Measure, measure, and measure again

Using our tried and tested strategies we will grow the brand audience and customer base. If you want to follow along with the progress please consider signing up for our newsletter or follow us on Facebook or LinkedIn. We will touch more on paid vs organic reach on Facebook; as well as other strategies to get exposure, sales, and more sales.

The post Paid vs Organic Reach on Facebook. Which is better? appeared first on mediaholic marketing.

Before you jump up and write off your website for marketing, lets quickly look at 3 things a website should for your business.

1. It should be a Virtual office/store/staff to answer questions about you
2. It should be a shopfront / till point to make money
3. It should reach out to find more customers using the content you add

That sounds like something every business SHOULD want, but it’s not in everyone’s reality to achieve. If you are one of the following types of business, you could get away without a website;

Small – home services

Let’s be honest, who views the website of a local plumber or electrician before calling them?

I thought so. Have a Google business listing so you can at least turn up in searches, and maybe a Facebook page for people to recommend you.

Local restaurants or bakeries (superettes included)

The biggest selling point for food is high-quality photographs. It’s not like you need to educate people on why they NEED your product. An Instagram account and Facebook would do wonders here. Lots of pics of enticing yumminess and details on specials or events will do well. Also, a google business listing for sure.

Also Read: Content ideas for any business

Local personalities or performers

In the “old” days (ie the early 2000s) the internet was a quirky place. The website for the Smashing pumpkins had amazing effects that would follow the mouse wherever you moved. Other than that there was no reason to be on it.

You can literally contain all your information on YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook. Even Twitter if that’s where your audience is. There is very little need to set up a whole website for yourself.

The exception here is if you are blogging, although you might find other publications to regularly publish your work and earn some bucks from it. They’ll probably even create a page on their site to showcase you and your work.

If you only serve your local community.

You don’t need an app to sell Magwenya at the taxi rank. You could be an estate agent, a mechanic, a convenience store, or even a car dealer. If you only serve a small market, a website might be overkill for your needs.

There are plenty of 3^rd party sites to advertise on that could generate more business with less effort than a website would. Keeping up a website could prove to be a marketing burden that just gets in your way.

In these cases you’re better off putting your marketing budget into channels that have more impact on your bottom line, as opposed to trying to impress people with a website that nobody looks at.

Having a website means you need to maintain it AND spend on advertising to get traffic to the website. If your website is not part of the sales cycle, that is a waste of money.

If you want to learn some unique social media strategies that can help you grow, with or without a website, give us a follow on Facebook, LinkedIn, or subscribe to our newsletter.

You can read about our social media services here.

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