Here at Thrive, we recently added a new member to the team and we want you all to meet him! Dan Mattina is our newest member to the support team. With mad design skills and a speedy response to customer concerns - Dan is the man for all your support questions.
There are plenty of assumptions that people and marketers alike have made about Facebook when it comes to connecting with customers. Some of these assumptions could be hurting a brand's marketing effort on social media. Facebook and Twitter are now places where customers gather to obtain information, vent about their concerns or problems with a brand, converse with friends and acquitances, and the list goes on. These platforms are of enormous opportunity to marketers. A constant, running forum of information that brands can use to better their products, company and employees. If you have any of the following assumptions about marketing on Facebook, or are skeptical on how well Facebook can really help your brand - we are here to help you take a different line of thinking and better your brand communication with customers.
Here is a quick post about keyword searches and how beneficial they will be for your website. Keyword searches allow easier access to your site by prospective members.
Facebook is known to be a "daily addiction" - where people check up on news, their favorite brands, check in with friends & family etc. It is hard to tell when people will come back to check on their favorite brand pages.
Are you wondering what promotion your YMCA is going to be for the New Year?
How are you going to market it? Where are you going to spend your budget?
Taking your membership campaign can have a low cost and be effect for gaining new members.
Consider this. Most of your prospect’s eyes are online and inside of social media. As a marketers we need to follow our prospects eyes and get savvy online inside of social media. The average internet user spends 2-3 hours of time online and 75 minutes of that time is using Facebook and Twitter. That is only on average, so the time spent on social media could be much greater. So it’s time to transition some of your traditional marketing dollars into social media.
Compare the cost of using your budget on digital media versus traditional - the trade off will amaze you. Keeping a simple spreadsheet to measure member lead acquisition is important. You will need to track the total amount of visitors, total amount of lead forms completed, the total cost of the Facebook ads. Divide the total cost by the total leads and you will have your cost per lead. This number should be less using social media than traditional media and get better over time as you polish your efforts.
Here is a short list of the tasks you need to execute to launch a simple online membership campaign:
1. Change your Facebook cover images to match your campaign.
2. Update your website front page and have corner call outs.
3. Launch Facebook ads: you will spend anywhere from $.80 to $2.00 based on cost per click to target a specific demographic.
4. Change "About" info on Facebook page
5. Create tab app for promotion to link to promotion page - include auto play video (less than 30 seconds)
6. Create Facebook badge that is shareable for people who have participated
7. Create a referral page, allowing current and new members to share the information
Overall transforming a small portion of your marketing budget to social media is very important to recruiting new members to your organization. Be sure to take the time to create your campaign and match every aspect to the needs of your viewers and followers. You wil increase your traffic online and awareness.
Today we have a guest blogger, Derek Singleton from Software Advice, providing some tips on How To Improve Your Retargeting Campaign:
In an effort to become more mobile friendly, Thrive is making all sites responsive. What does a responsive site mean? You have one site that is compatible with all devices such as iPhones, tablets, laptops and Android phones.
NO...not right now. Apps are expensive. On average, apps typically cost around $10,000 plus the manpower time to enter data. This means that apps are on the upside of $10,000 - so far. The costs are only beginning to build up.
Not to mention apps have more than one point of entry. One entry for visitors to see and another to enter all the data and information. Having a responsive site is more beneficial than an app because all the information can be entered at one place, requires less manpower time and can be created when the website is created.
The marketing process to promote the app would also push your cost higher. Marketing is a lengthy process and can cost close to $10,000 for digital and traditional media. If you do the math, it comes out to about $40 a user. Why pay that much money when you can get a responsive site for much less?
Apps are a tricky breed. To have an app in the Apple Store, it needs to approved which can tack on some time to production. You cannot use the same app for the iPhone as you would for an Android phone. They have different formats, therefore an app needs to be created for both platforms.
For small marketing budgeted YMCAs, an app would eat up a huge chunk of the budget. Consider making your website responsive to avoid all the extra costs of creating an app and promoting to your members. You will have less to worry about and more happy members who can easily access your site.
Pull up Lake County YMCA on your laptop, then your tablet and finally your phone. Notice how compatible the site is to each device you use? You are still able to easily find each piece of information you may be looking for on a site.
To learn more about ySite options, visit Thrive ySite
Our in house social media gal, Emily Rippe, is assisting with my blog post today and together, we have come up with some tips on how to be "Social Media Ready" for 2013. When I asked Emily what she felt were the best tips to give brands on social media going into 2013, this is what she said, "You're not the only brand on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram anymore (nor were you ever). The rise of brands on social networking sites is more than ever before, and an important thought to have in the back of your mind for 2013 is how to distinguish your business from all the others. Maybe you've been doing this all along, but it's time to step up your game."
We have a guest blogger today - our Social Media gal: Emily Rippe
I recently had the pleasure of managing a Facebook ad campaign for a local YMCA and 12 of its branches. The campaign was inspired by a national YMCA call out and Youtube video, which features really cute children begging their parents to "BACK AWAY FROM THE SOFA" and join the Y. But there was a sense of urgency to do this--not just because the kids were so gosh darn adorable--but the sooner you joined, the better your joiner fee price would be (i.e. you are going to save money by acting fast).
Thrive worked on a full-blown online marketing strategy based off this Sooner You Join, Better The Price concept during the month of October. On the first day, the joiner fee would be $1! On the second day, $2, third day, $3 and so on until October 31st. We used Facebook ads with A/B testing to maximize the amount of forms being filled out online.
Three different groups were targeted. A general campaign strived to reach individuals and families who are not currently Y members or affiliated with any YMCA Facebook pages. The second batch of ads sought to reach YMCA members who could refer-a-friend, family member or neighbor. And a third set targeted young moms.
Since the campaign ran for an entire month, I had to keep a close eye on how each type of ad was performing. Lucky for me (and social media gurus like myself), Facebook shows general statistics including social reach, campaign reach, clicks and the amount spent each day on any particular ad. I could tell when an ad was performing and when it could be doing better.
Throughout the month, we switched out the ads a handful of times. First, we went with what the customer requested. About a week and a half in, we switched out the ads images and switched up the wording. A week later, we put more money into the ads that were making an impression.
Without giving away the tricks of the trade, I am going to discuss what I came away with from the entire process. I soon realized that keeping it simple is always the best policy. Incorporating language that Facebook users will understand is vital. Even if your offer is somewhat complicated, it's okay to use words that clearly communicate your idea and what you're offering. You can always have the fine print listed on a landing page. I also discovered that if you already have a strong branding image, like a recognizable and respected logo, there's no need to switch it up and change to something less known. And finally, the more general a message is, the more appeal it's going to have on the Facebook crowd.
Facebook ads are crucial for any mid to large sized campaign a business or agency is pursuing. There are only so many people one can reach with already existing fans. With the introduction of Facebook ads for the October Offer, we were able to help our client gain more than 100 new sales leads, increase their Facebook traffic and grow all of their pages.