Solomozone

The Every Day Digital

Recent Posts

  • 5 Ways For Increasing Engagement With Seasonal Campaigns

    screen-shot-2016-09-26-at-12-57-29-pm
    Brick-or-Treat Party nights at LegoLand California and Florida are packed with more fun with Live Shows, Costume Contests, Character Meet and Greets and Live Band. With party nights designed to pack in the spooktacular fun for the weekend nights throughout the month of October, LegoLand  has extended park open hours. Among other attractions of the park the Halloween promotion features, Ghost Cruise, The BooGrass Band.  M&Ms earlier announced the launch of Booterskotch flavor. Other brands have  launched seasonal favorites such as Oreo Pumpkin Spice Sandwich cookies and Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, making the brand messaging more resonant.

    Research has proven that engaged Twitter users for Seasonal campaigns bring about 6.4X sales lift. Promoting your brand’s message with a seasonal context and increasing the engagement with Fans and Audiences requires a focused social media and content marketing strategy.

    Five Way Brands Can increase Engagement With Seasonal Promotions
    Long-form Posts

    One of the best ways to give information about your offers and promotions is a Branded post hosted on your site, optimized with Keywords. In the post for Lego Land, The site lists the main attractions for the party night along with visuals that are illustrative. With featured posts and visuals, Lego Land posts work to engage the audience with their favorite Halloween themed events, along with Event Guide and Questions. As the brand posts go a long way in engaging users, publisher and other trusted site’s posts build on the theme for seasonal campaigns.

    screen-shot-2016-09-26-at-1-25-36-pm

    Promoted Posts

    Promoting your event on Facebook with promoted posts can help you target the audience based on Demographics, interests as well as custom audiences targeting users who have earlier visited your site for events.

    Targeting, Placement of Ads and Objectives are key in building on your Facebook ad efficiency, with nearly 70 percent of reach on Facebook now being paid for advertising. On an average 25 percent of the posts seen by a Facebook user are Pages post, of which nearly 10 percent are promoted. To get your posts featured in the Users News Feed Use Interests  to get the best response for theme based posts.

    Search Optimization

    Optimize your site content and featured offers with text that contains keywords, users are most likely searching for. In addition to hosted content that is searchable, Reviews, ratings and guest posts that are featured in search results can build trust for your brand and make your events as well as Halloween themed promotions look credible.

    screen-shot-2016-09-26-at-1-38-12-pm

    Promoted Tweets, Lead Generation Cards and Twitter Carousels

    Much like the promoted posts, promoted Tweets and Twitter Carousels can help you reach target audiences based on promoted trends, or other targeting capabilities such as age, income, education or even the mobile carrier. For further engagement think about Lead Generation card on Twitter. When you add this capability to your Twitter campaign post, your fans can click a link that brings up a form already populated with their Twitter data: name, email address, and Twitter handle. Engaged Twitter Users are known to drive 6.4X sales lift according to Twitter’s research. As engagement brings about a greater purchase, the frequency of posts and limited time messaging also increase sales, according  to the Twitter research.

    Video

    Create an engaged viewer experience by adding Haul and Prank videos to your Halloween content. Haul videos are popular during the Holiday season. Creating the same with a seasonal context and for a targeted audience increases the engagement.

    screen-shot-2016-09-26-at-1-03-09-pm

    Use Video for Storytelling. Target followed Brand Storytelling approach that engaged users with an approach that cued in great offers and deals for Holiday Season and followed it up with a promotional video spot that announces Ten Days of Deals.

  • The State Of Branded Content

    According to a quantitative study by IPG Lab and Forbes in collaboration with Syracuse University, “Storytelling : The Current State of Branded Content”,Branded content is proven to perform for memorability, brand perception and purchase intent/ consideration. With over 40 different test conditions, for different verticals and different types of content as well as Level of Branding, it was proven that Branded Content works for Brand Performance with high scores for aided and unaided ad recall, purchase intent and consideration.

    screen-shot-2016-09-25-at-2-47-30-pm

    The key findings from the study are:

     

    • Branded Content Works: Branded content is highly effective across the branding funnel and outperforms display ads. In addition to aided recall’s 59 percentage point increase, brand favorability was 7 percentage points higher and purchase consideration was 9 percentage points higher

    screen-shot-2016-09-25-at-3-30-50-pm

     

     

    • Branded Content Holds Up Over Time: Despite the loss of novelty often seen with ad products across time, branded content was as effective, if not more so, in 2016 compared to results seen in the 2013 study.

    screen-shot-2016-09-25-at-3-43-04-pm

    • Brand Interest Increases with Branded Content:Branded content may drive lasting interest in the brand. Consumers were 14 percentage points more likely to say they intend to seek out more information about the brand in the future. After seeing Branded Content, viewers are more likely to seek Branded Content from the site.

    screen-shot-2016-09-25-at-3-38-08-pm

    • Don’t Be Afraid to Mention Your Brand:‘Higher Branding,’ defined as 2x the number of brand mentions, caused brands to be perceived as more educational by over 7 percentage points and performs better on mobile devices.

    screen-shot-2016-09-25-at-3-46-55-pm

    screen-shot-2016-09-25-at-3-48-42-pm

    • Longer Form Branded Content Drives Millennial Purchase Consideration:18-34 year olds responded better to long articles, driving higher engagement consideration rates and aiding recall.

    screen-shot-2016-09-25-at-3-51-18-pm

    • Branded Content Is Perceived Better:Consumers perceive branded content as being more consumer-centric because it is less about selling products and more about providing value to consumers.

    For the complete study, Click here.

  • Five Content Marketing Ideas For Holiday Season

    Generating awareness with existing fans and followers for new launches and campaigns that require users to interact with your products increases engagement and conversions. Highlighting offers with a call to action increases awareness, and brings in the required click-through rate. Create a sense of urgency with your messages.

    screen-shot-2016-09-22-at-5-17-08-pm

    Engage your audience with content ideas that resonate with them in the context. Offering a freebie during the holiday season deepens the emotional bond with your brand. Include images and content for seasonal packs.

    screen-shot-2016-09-23-at-5-40-17-pm

     

    Start a series that creates an ongoing engagement with shoppers that start shopping early. This can be done with Early bird offers and clever ways to prepare for seasonal celebrations. The type of content that works for different content Genre based on a study of over a million posts by Buzzsumo and the results you can expect by way of traffic generation varies. Choose the type of content that works for your category.
    screen-shot-2016-09-23-at-12-34-06-pm

    screen-shot-2016-09-23-at-12-40-22-pm

    Start with User Generated Campaigns that are likely to generate participation.

    screen-shot-2016-09-23-at-3-59-54-pm

    Co-publishing content increases the chance of content discovery. Co-branding Content with publishers increases the engagement by nearly 8X.

    screen-shot-2016-09-23-at-12-39-03-pm

  • Key Insights for Content Marketing for Holiday 2016

    Holiday 2015 brought in a 60 percent growth in traffic and conversion rates.  The US retail online sales for Holiday Season 2016 are likely to grow by 13.3 percent according to eMarketer. Nearly 50 percent of shoppers have reported Holiday Shopping begins before Thanksgiving and nearly 25 percent start before Halloween.

    screen-shot-2016-09-21-at-9-39-35-am

    screen-shot-2016-09-21-at-9-46-57-am

    Optimizing your campaign for audience segments can get your campaigns and content discovered by the target audience . The content Eco-system for your audience segments varies for different demographic. Smartphones are essential in the content path of Holiday Shopper with 76 percent shoppers conducting a local search  and visiting a physical location within 24 hours.  Equally important is the growth of Buy Online and Pick Up in store with 32 percent using the option in 2015.

    screen-shot-2016-09-20-at-7-13-06-pm

    Optimize your campaigns for local search intent. 82 percent of the shoppers refer to Smartphones while shopping prior to visiting a store. The Queries with Local Intent increased by 2X during Holiday season 2015.screen-shot-2016-09-21-at-10-12-30-am

    Define your audience segments and develop a persona for each audience segment. With profiles for each segment you can find out the purchase behavior for each segment, depending on the time they are likely to start shopping and the content that works for each persona. For instance, targeting teens with a personalization content strategy might work better, whereas for targeting  seasoned mature shopper, an opt-in email strategy might bring in best deals on a weekly basis.

    screen-shot-2016-09-21-at-9-35-47-am

    Your Content Marketing Strategy  centered around your audience ensures sustained interest, throughout the holiday season. Co-promote your offers and campaigns with publisher boosts to ensure sustained interest. This will help your brand with Organic search results. Some of the tactics recommended by SEO experts WPROMOTE are to leave your Branded content on the main site navigation for SERP results. The content pieces that are likely to work for your category depend on what is popular with your target audience. For some categories, Gift Guides work better, while for others an image caption contest may generate increased engagement.

    According to WPROMOTE’s “100 Days Of Holiday” Whitepaper, the SEO firm recommends updating your website content and Metadata with Holiday related terms as early as October.

    Some of the charts from comScore reveal the weekly ramp up of online holiday retail sales making it important for brands to think their Online holiday retail strategy to be ready with Text Ads and Display Ads, as well as Social media strategy to be ready for online searchers and holiday shoppers.

    screen-shot-2016-09-19-at-12-03-30-pm

    The Traffic for Mobile and Desktops varies for different weeks. Keep in mind the changes in traffic volume and searches on mobile to optimize your bids accordingly.

    screen-shot-2016-09-17-at-12-45-13-pm

    Source: WPROMOTE’s Whitepaper “100 Days of Holiday” and comScore

Create your own website, free on WordPress.com.Create your own website.
Start free