On November 6th was an excellent conference at the Danville Village Theatre about Social Media Marketing. The conference was held by two lovely women who work for the leading company in e-mail marketing, Constant Contact. Karen Rice and Kristen Curtis knew what they were talking about and were able to answer every question as non-technically and accurate as possible without confusing those who weren’t quite as knowledgeable. I must confess I went thinking it was purely marketing as I could use some work in how people think and the best way to market to those who don’t need your product yet or haven’t heard of your product. Although my knowledge of social media marketing is quite plentiful, as I hope it should, since I’ve helped many clients increase their social media audience, I still pulled away with some great information.

Facebook Campaigns

Through Constant Contact as well as other providers you may setup a Facebook offer Page that requires any visitor to give your Facebook Page a like in order to receive the content you are giving away. This works best if the content is free because a like is also free.

Shop Local

Throughout your holiday campaigns it’s always best to include some sort of portion of text or an image that lets everyone know you support shopping local and hope your potential customer will support it as well. They might have forgotten, a little reminder never hurt, and it might get them into your store instead of a big chain.

Set Priorities

You need to set solid priorities when setting up your campaign. Make sure you know your goal, then you can create your offer but make sure to be timely with it. You want to give your audience enough time to go out and purchase what you are selling without having to do it last moment. Throughout the year a certain way you campaigned your social media activity or your newsletters might have worked but through the holiday season you might want to step up your game a tad, try increasing your activity by 25%, 50%, or even 100% to make sure to reach your audience with all the holiday specials you might have.

Know Your Marketing

Where print marketing like 6 sheet advertising might have been focused primarily on obtaining new customers the new age digital marketing is less about obtaining new customers and more about retaining current customers. Make sure they know they are appreciated. Send your current customers newsletters & coupons rather then focusing this effort on customers that might not even need your product. You want to drive your product and motivate those who have already bought your product to come again or refer friends through social media.

Know Your Audience

Many people don’t put enough time into polling their current customers, or potential customers. Rather then telling people what you think they need, listen to people about what they really need and serve them. Whether you use polling face-to-face, through newsletters, Facebook, or a poll on your website that evidence will help you provide your customers with what they really need. Experiment with social media posts. The best possible time to post anything on Facebook, Twitter, etc. is the time when your customers are logged onto those platforms and actively reading. Posting during the work hours might not be the best time because your customers are also working. Play around, see which time gets the most activity whether that be early in the morning before anyone has left for work or later in the afternoon when everyone is getting off work.

Conclusion

All in all actively engaging your customers and reviewing the results will put you well ahead of your competition. This holiday season is a great time to start experimenting in order to get ready for the new year. You can follow Kristen (@kristencurtiss) or Karen (@karenrice2) on Twitter to learn more about social media marketing.