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How to Choose the Right Advertising Channels

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

Here are some of the main digital advertising channels you can choose (not including all the platforms in each category):

Paid Search
Display
Video
Native
In-App Advertising
Apple Search Ads
Digital Out-Of-Home
Social
Shopping Ads
Audio
Metasearch Ads

Lotta options out there…So how do you go about choosing the best places to spend your ad dollars? Let’s break it down into the essentials you need to know when choosing a channel:

Determine Objectives: Review your brand’s advertising objectives then build a strategy accordingly. Many brands might choose a channel they think they need when their objectives might be better suited for others (not everyone needs to make TikTok ads).
Budget Beforehand: Set your budget then allocate your funds to different channels. When it comes to experimenting, expect your budget to have wiggle room.
Spread it Out: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket! Always think about where your target audience spends their time online and diversify your ad channels to reach them through multiple touchpoints.
Research!: Try and find as many industry benchmarks as you can per channel to predict the range of your Return On Ad Spend (ROAS).

The War Room gave a full, fat list of every ad type you can make on each one of those channels, so check out their full post when you’re choosing ad channels.

The DOs and DON’Ts of Writing Host-Read Ads

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

The trick to podcast ads is to make them sound like a natural extension of the show they are listening to. But how the heck do you do that? Host-read podcast ads are a great way to add that layer of endorsement from the host, but it has to sound authentic.

SXM Media (the owners of Pandora, Sirius XM, and Sticher) gave all the things when it comes to host-read podcast ads. Let’s break them down:

THE BASIC STRUCTURE:

Intro + Overview + Personal Experience + CTA

Intro: What is your product/service/brand? Any problems it solves?
Overview: Why should listeners care? If you didn’t cover what solutions it can be in your intro, now is the time.
Personal Experience: What did the hosts think about it? This is what makes a host-read ad so great!
Call-To-Action: Where can you direct listeners?

THE DOS:

DO give your hosts plenty of broad bullet points that hosts can use, but don’t get too bogged down with details. Keep it to the essentials only.

DO fit the show. If you’re advertising on a true-crime podcast…read the room on how they approach their content. If it’s light-hearted, your ad can be, too. If it’s serious, avoid anything leaning too far into comedy.

DO remember the POV. Your ad is coming from the host, not from your brand directly.

THE DON’TS:

DON’T try to control the host(s)! Help your ad stay genuine by providing copy points that give hosts the framework to speak naturally.

DON’T shy from announcer-read spots. Announcers are still essential to a podcast and listeners expect them to be ingrained in the show as well. You just may need to switch from a first-person perspective for the reading.

Check out SXM Media’s full post for real copy examples!

11 of the Best Link in Bio Tools

FEBRUARY 6, 2022

Link in my boo, Lincoln albino, linking my bio, LinkedIn bio. Link. In. My. Bio.

You only get one clickable link in your TikTok and Instagram bios. So that means making those links count! There are a lot of link-in-bio tools out there, and Influencer Marketing Hub wanted to share their top 11.

LinkFolio: Pros – Unlimited URLs and great Folio-lytics! Cons – not too much customization
Feedlink by Embed Social: Pros – Complete microsite that is great for shops. Cons – Their free plan has ads (but it’s free so that’s expected).
Linktree: Pros – Pretty affordable with free customization options. Cons – Social links are allowed for Linktree Pro only. Its page option has buttons only.
Shorby: Pros – Really customizable page and has retargeting options. Cons – Analytics can be limited.
Sked Link: Pros – They have ready-made themes. Has Facebook Pixel and GA integrations. Cons – A little on the pricey side.
Lnk.Bio: Pros – Really simple and great for music add-ons. Cons – Limited free plan (but hey, it’s free)
Link in Profile: Pros – A great visual landing page option. Cons – A little limited on custom branding.
Milkshake App: Pros – Makes for a beautiful, easy landing page. You can add custom “cards” as well. Cons – It only has a mobile app currently.
Campsite: Pros – You can pull in other blog links automatically. Cons – Can’t add videos (and not really geared for TikTok yet).
ContactInBio: Pros – A lot of options under their free plan, but paid plan has more app integrations. Cons – The editing and UI can be a little clunky.
Tap Bio: Pros – Several simple landing page options. Cons – Most of the “must-haves” for marketers are in their most premium plan.

Each tool has a LOTTA features that we couldn’t fit here, so check out the full post by Influencer Marketing Hub.

5 Critical Things to Do Before Creating Social Media Accounts

FEBRUARY 2, 2022

Woah, Nelly!

Most things having to do with marketing and content needs some good, long, though-out planning. Social media accounts are something you don’t want to jump right into.

So before you go making social media accounts under a hasty (or duplicate) handle, here are 5 things to do before creating brand accounts:

Nail down your goals: Inc. had this as step 4, but we think it’s #1. How do you make valuable content? You figure out the bigger picture. Are you looking for talent, business, followers, all of the above? Social media content should be catered to that goal.
Define your target audience: This is also one of the first steps because what’s the point of social media networks – networking with real people. Think about your brand’s audience and how that translates to a target social media audience.
Research your audience’s time spent: Once you figure out who, research their wheres and whens. That will determine where you’ll invest your energy. It might even reveal if you do or don’t need an account made.
Make sure your content is valuable: Sharing is caring, but you have to care about what you share. Before you launch an account, be ready with valuable content.
Establish metrics of success: How will you know if you’re succeeding or failing? Decide what numbers (followers, engagement, traffic, etc.) matter the most to your brand per each social media channel.

These types of steps can be taken with most marketing strategies, but check out the full Inc. article for all the details on steps towards your social media accounts.

How to Develop Brand Architecture

JANUARY 31, 2022

Brand architecture is your structure to your offerings and brand identity(ies). But not all foundations are the same. HubSpot has mapped out the different types and how to develop one of your own.

Types of Brand Architecture Models

Branded House: This combines several house brands under a single umbrella brand (think Virigin with Virgin Mobile, Virgin Galactic, etc.).
House of Brands: This architecture focuses on the sub-brands, allowing the parent brand to remain free of the same positioning as these often very different brands (think Unilever and their many brands).
Hybrid Brand: This model combines the house of brands and branded house models where the parent brand can be positioned with sub brands (Alphabet uses this model very clearly with Google products).
Endorsed Brand: This model has a master brand with sub-brands that rely on an association (usually product-based like Rice Krispies to Kellogg’s).

How to Develop Brand Architecture

Research – Sometimes you don’t choose a model, a model chooses you. Understand your own business very well through competitor and performance data to organize it in a way that makes sense for your customers and industry. This is a good time to review your company’s mission, vision, and values as well.
Strategy – Test out each architecture to see how your brand would work in each. For instance, not all brands can be grouped under the parent brand if customers won’t understand a connection. Outline the connections between the master brands, sub-brands, and products or services.
Application – When sharing it with your team and stakeholders, make sure to include a clear structure that highlights the relationships between the master brand, sub-brands, and offerings.
Look Ahead – As your company grows, your brand architecture must adapt appropriately. Review it when big changes happen!

Check out the full HubSpot post for real brand examples and details on each step towards your own brand architecture.

15 Examples of Brands with Great Local Marketing Campaigns

JANUARY 30, 2022

Local marketing is all about getting products or services in front of people in a specific area. Even the largest international brands don’t underestimate the power of local-level marketing. Do you need some inspiration on how to do it for your own business or client?

Marvia is a local marketing platform and they gave 15 examples of brands with killer local marketing. Here are our top 5.

No. 1 – Nike’s Londoner Campaign: The athletics brand typically leverages internationally recognized athletes. Instead, they used the entire city of London. Nike used characters of London’s city residents to promote their products. It has specific, local humor that can translate to other cities as well.

No. 2 – Tiger Beer’s District Party: Tiger Beer celebrated the neighborhoods of Singapore (their headquarter city) with custom bottles and local events. The brand also loves supporting local food venues in Singapore.

No. 3 – Royal Caribbean’s Mother’s Day Campaign: Royal Caribbean posted motherly advice for each country’s tourism attractions to localize and personalize the content. It was a clever tie-in to the holiday without leaning into the typical Mother’s Day gifts, while celebrating specific destinations.

No. 4 – PLUS Supermarket’s Monopoly Boards: PLUS Supermarket in the Netherlands had a local promotion where residents can save for a special Monopoly game of their village. It gained great engagement and encouraged suggestions from locals.

No. 5 – Morrisons’ Local Food Bank Donations: One of the best local marketing tactics is simply teaming up with local businesses and non-profits. Morrisons is a supermarket company with a bag-buying program that gives proceeds to a local food bank. Morrisons gains local favor, the local food bank gains donations, it’s a win-win!

Check out Marvia’s full post for all 15 examples of great local marketing campaigns.

How to Optimize Messages for Clicks in a Post-iOS 15 World

JANUARY 26, 2022

With updates like the iOS 15 release straying from tracking email opens, marketers have to shift gears. Focusing on how to improve your clicks and CTR is the best way you can keep your email campaigns successful. Omnisend put together some advice on their “Opens are Dead” blog series.

Here are 6 ways to improve CTR

Add interactive elements: Encourage recipients to actively engage with your email with something different. This works especially well if you give readers an incentive. Some email platforms offer scratch cards, reveals, or other games either within an email or through a landing page.
Ask questions: Most people can’t resist answering a question in quizzes or opinions. Make sure your questions are clear and you give them an effortless way to answer. Wanna build it into your email system? Scalemail Polls can help ya with that for more engagement with your emails.
Include recommendations: Product recommendations are great when they are highly relevant to a reader. The level of personalization in product recommendations is critical here.
Insert social proof: User-generated content is a powerful thing because it’s real people sharing your brand/product/service. Previewing social media UGC, product reviews, and testimonials with the option to see more of the pridtcs being reviewed encourages a click journey.
Ask for product reviews: Back to answering questions, people love to share opinions. Asking for a review in your emails can prompt your customer to click through and participate in sharing their thoughts.
Improve your design templates: Every now and again, you should be reviewing the visual journey your email design creates. Design elements should to draw recipients’ attention to specific CTAs.

Check out their full post for real email examples.

How To Audit Your Backlink Profile (Link Vetting)

JANUARY 25, 2022

Backlinks are great boosters for a site’s searchability and credibility. You can usually get them from syndicated content or reliable guest posting. But not all backlinks are created the same. So, how do you check the quality of one?

Daryl Rosser has a great YouTube channel for SEO education. He put together a 23-minute video on how to audit your backlink profile and screen potential links.

Here’s your helpful checklist to qualify the metrics and value of a link:

Basic link qualification – Daryl used Ahrefs to check out links on a snapshot level by seeing if the domain rating is over 30 and if it has strong traffic numbers.
Checking backlinks on backlinks – Not only do you want to see backlinks for your own site, you also want to do this for the sites you are acquiring links from. Usually, you can tell from a list of sites that are “spammy,” irrelevant, or legit just from their URL. If you are seeing huge jumps in backlinks, it’s time to investigate where they could be coming from (comment bots and spammy guest posts being the usual suspects).
Understanding traffic consistency – To get into the weeds of vetting a new link, you’ll need to see where its traffic is trending. If it’s down-trending, hold off on acquiring that link. If there are wild spikes, even up-trending ones, there might be something fishy going on.
General site must-haves – If you are looking to get syndicated content from a site, make sure they have a quality site that isn’t a private blog network site (PBN) or has been repurposed.

Check out Daryl’s full video for all the little link deets.

100 FREE Resources for Graphic Designers in 2022

JANUARY 24, 2022

Who doesn’t love a freebie?? It’s a natural law that free things make us happier and free food samples taste better. We don’t make these rules, we just follow them.

When you’re a designer, marketer, developer, anyone using software and technology for design, tools can be pricey. Luckily, you don’t have to break the bank if you need design templates on the fly, fresh stock photography, or some heavy-weight graphic design work.

Creative Boom has put together a list of 100 FREE design resources. We wanted to share our favorites from the list that we use as an agency:

Humaaans: For customizable illustrations of modern, blobby peeps (FREE with the option to donate).
The Noun Project: For a seemingly endless library of vector icons.
DaFont: For fonts. We’re big fans of their retro font collection.
Figma: For vector design. It’s our FAV for UX and graphic design, but it’s also amazing for online collaboration.
Unsplash: For free stock photography.
Nappy: For free stock photography with an emphasis on black and brown people.
Vecteezy: For doubling as a content resource with editable illustrations online.
Canva: For social media and then some. How could we not mention this essential favorite that keeps evolving with features?
Smartmockups: For ALL KINDS of mock-ups that you can also edit online.

Check out Creative Boom’s full list of resources to see what freebies can help out your design work!