4 Marketing Strategies Proven to Deliver Business Results in 2020
- Advertising, Content
- 5 minute read
2020 is in full swing, platforms are evolving, and every business is thirsting for the newest and latest, effective tactics to implement. What is actually driving sales? How do you generate more leads? What’s the best way to capture more attention online? We’ve already talked about the importance of retargeting, diversifying across channels, leveraging influencer marketing, and creating consumer-centric content. So what’s working for 2020?
We know you’re dying to know. So, let’s dive in.
Campaign budget optimization
Okay, this sounds more complicated than it actually is. Campaign budget optimization (CBO) is basically a Facebook advertising strategy where you let Facebook choose how to spend your ad dollars. Typically, ad spend is budgeted at the ad set level. 1 ad set = 1 audience.
However, rather than controlling how much goes to each ad set, CBO sets your spending at the campaign level. So whether you have 6 audiences or 20 audiences in your segmentation, Facebook distributes your budget across all of your audiences for you, based on the demographics that are responding best.
What’s so revolutionary about this and why should you care? Well, if you’re testing a new product or service, this eliminates a lot of the guesswork when you’re refining your target market.
Several months ago, we wouldn’t have recommended this, but Facebook has made significant improvements with this feature in the last quarter. We’ve tested this ourselves and confirmed that it is a powerful functionality that every Facebook advertiser should consider.
Allowing the Facebook gods to determine how our ad dollars were spent improved our cost per result and click-through rate, compared to controlling the ad set budget ourselves. It’s true what they say—good things happen when we relinquish control to the higher powers that be.
Content marketing with more authentic videos
Video content is more popular than ever and it’s easy to see why. Videos engage viewers in a much more captivating way than still images, allowing you to bring your audience along your unique experience. People are tired of seeing the hyper-curated snapshots on Instagram because they portray a standard of perfection that is not only unrealistic, but unrelatable.
The platform has evolved beyond a portfolio showcasing the “best.” What we are seeing is that users are gravitating more toward videos that show raw, authentic emotion and real environments.
Instead of posturing an extravagant lifestyle or fake reality that 99% of people cannot relate to, create more content that showcases the sweat, grit, and daily tribulations of your everyday life. What does your workplace look like? What are 5 things you do each day that bring you joy? The message is simple: be authentically and unapologetically yourself. People resonate with what is real.
You may not think it’s interesting because it’s your life, but to someone else who has no clue how to edit a photo, you are providing enormous value in the form of education, humor, or inspiration.
Remember that everything is relative. Those details that you tend to overlook and might think are mundane are fascinating to others. Which brings us to the next point.
Quality content is king
Just a few months ago, we would have stopped at “content is king,” but that is just not true anymore. There is a plethora of content nowadays, and frankly, a lot of it is noise. Of course, “quality” is subjective—one person can look at a photo and think it’s absolutely amazing, praising it as the best thing since sliced bread; and someone else can look at the same photo and think it’s absolute trash.
So how do you evaluate the quality? Well, you can create 15-30 pieces of content, and analyze the engagement on your posts. The raw data will provide tremendous insights. How many people are sharing? Are people commenting? If you are evoking reactions from your content, that’s great news. The fact that someone goes out of her way to share or comment means a lot, believe me. That’s time out of their day. Pay attention.
We all know the internet is ruthless, so people will tell you whether your content is any good or not. You want to produce enough content to generate data so you can draw conclusions from it.
Quality is subjective. You can't get better if you don't create.
Create, evaluate, and respond to what the market is telling you. While content is the gateway for opportunities, it still has to be good.
Tracking pixels
Finally, let’s talk about tracking pixels. Tracking pixels are bits of code you place on your website that give you insight into your visitors’ browsing habits. Tracking pixels are like your little personal spies. Instead of doing the dirty work yourself, pixels stalk your customers for you.
You can see what pages people visit, the links or buttons they click on, and even how long they remain on a page. Fascinating stuff, huh? These data points alone are interesting in educating you about your customers likes and dislikes, but it becomes even more powerful when paired with retargeting (we talk about how our advertising generated 8X more sales when we deployed retargeting in this blog post).
The best marketers use the data gathered from pixels to gauge a customers buying intent within their funnel.
Let’s use a cosmetic spa as an example. If we see traffic on our pages for lip injections and our contact page, we will retarget those people who viewed both pages with advertisements offering a limited time discount for lip fillers if they mention a code from our ad. Without a tracking pixel on your website, you have no way of knowing who’s coming to your page, let alone retarget them.
Think of it this way: pixels basically allow you to “digitally stalk” your most valued customers and use that information to drive better results. Remember, the more you know about your customers, the more leverage you have because you can hit them with multiple angles.
Are you ready to scale your business and make 2020 your best year yet? Go ahead and contact us here.