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How to Make a Good Offer

In marketing for franchisors and franchisees, we often get asked this question: “How do we make a good offer?” Everyone’s trying to figure out how to turn online interactivity into off-line, in-store sales. And when done right, a compelling offer can do just that.

When you’re working with an advertising agency, they will collaborate with you and manage the entire process from creation to analysis. But you don’t always have that luxury, especially when you’re working at the local level. Oftentimes the most effective ads are the ones you can create from one-on-one interactions with your community and learning from them.

So how can you create offers as compelling as or even more effective than the national campaigns?

Before looking at how coupons can be created well, let’s make sure we’re viewing them through the right lens.

Advertising Is Experimentation

You conducted science experiments in your biology or physics classes, right? Maybe you did that Mentos and Diet Coke experiment, or dropped feathers and a bowling ball from a balcony? All these experiments yielded the expected results: the Diet Coke and Mentos create a reaction that erupts, and the bowling ball will hit the ground before the feather.

But what happens if you change the elements by one? What if you drop the Mentos in a jug of milk? Or what if you dropped feathers and a bowling ball in a vacuum chamber?

Different elements mixed together produce different results. So you can’t see someone’s campaign and expect that the results will carry over immediately to you. All factors would have to be exactly the same for that to happen, and even then it might not.

Advertising campaigns are psychological experiments. Theories, not guarantees. So treat every campaign as a learning experiment.

While you may expect to get incredible results each time, that’s not often the case. It may be due to the budget, audience, type of offer, phrasing of the description, the image itself or something else.

[bctt tweet=”Ad campaigns test theories, results not guaranteed.” username=”rallioHQ”]

It’s easy to get discouraged when an offer you’ve worked so hard on and pushed online doesn’t bring in any customers. But having an attitude that no coupon can work only hurts your efforts to find a coupon that does work. Instead of getting upset or throwing offers out altogether, realize it’s simply an experiment and see what you can learn from it.

With that in mind, let’s look at how to create a compelling offer for your customers.

Strategy

When you’re creating an offer, start by thinking of your audience. If you’re not thinking of your customers first, no matter how much money you put behind this offer, it will flop.

Are you trying to reach as many people as possible? Then make sure your offer is as wide as possible to be redeemed by the most people. On the other hand, if you’re targeting a niche audience, create an offer specifically for that audience and their needs.

If you’re struggling to think of ideas for a good offer, ask yourself these questions and write down the answers that come to mind:

  • Which customers are more likely to be returning customers?
  • Which customers would we like to see more of?
  • What’s a popular item/service?
  • What’s a highly requested item/service?
  • Will we have any beloved items back in stock soon?
  • Will any beloved items be going out of stock soon?

If you have time and spend, run multiple offers for your business. Through testing the type of offer, you can see what incentive has more pull for your customers.

Execution

Now that you have your starting foundation — the compelling offer for a specific audience — you need to actually create the collateral marketing that offer. But this is easier said than done, right?

While you’re creating your offer, review these elements to make sure you’re optimizing it for the highest rate of action and completion:

Clarity

Firstly, make sure you have clarified your offer and what it is for your customers. Simplify it as much as possible, and put it in the language they are used to. Don’t use internal product numbers if you use descriptive names front-facing.

Now is also the time to spell out any terms and conditions you have for the offer. One per customer, by appointment only, expires at the end of the month and other details should be ironed out now before the ad gets pushed live.

Image

Keep your image simple and eye-catching. Think about all the other images your customers are going to be seeing. Does it stand out? Is it too overwhelming? Was it taken well? Is it high enough resolution to see it clearly?

Urgency

Adding a sense of urgency or a limit to the ad can increase clicks, engagement and ad uses. Phrases like “Limited time only,” “Only a few days left” and “Only the first 10 customers” can motivate people to act fast while the offer is weighing on their minds.

Note: If you don’t have a way to remind people about the offer after they’ve saved it, you might find a higher engagement rate than opt-in or claim rate. Try to get them to sign up for a reminder or send it to themselves so they won’t forget.

Social Proof

If you can, add a numerical figure to endorse your product. Has the offer been downloaded a thousand times? Have hundreds of people endorsed your product? Has your service saved a customer thousands of dollars or given them hours back in their day? Use that to your advantage and state it in your offer.

Promotion

OK, so you’ve created your offer and are ready to promote it. How do you market your offer?

Organic Promotion

Good ol’ fashioned word of mouth and social sharing. Post your offer or a link to learn more on your major social media networks, and email it to your subscribers. For a lengthier campaign, spend some of your marketing to create handouts or in-store collateral about your offer.

Paid Advertising

Whether through social promotions, Google PPC, display advertising or magazine inserts, advertising can effectively reach the people you’re trying to reach. Or it can flop.

Before you start, review the expected results you’ll get from each and have a way of tracking which campaigns are driving people to convert. Most social media ad networks have analytics in place and conversion pixels you can use to track what people do with your ads. Make sure to implement unique coupon codes for separate distribution channels to clearly be able to analyze the results at the end of the campaign.

Influencers

Why try to reach your audience through commercials when you can connect directly with them through an influencer? If you know you’ll be running a campaign in a few months, reach out to someone who has a large following made up of your audience and see if they’d be willing to work with you to promote your offer. While some influencers may work for the branding and awareness, most will expect to be compensated for sharing your offer with their audience.

Management

Great, now you’ve pushed your campaign out to all your fans, you’ve sponsored your posts across Facebook and Twitter, and you’ve reached a large audience through a local influencer in your industry. You’re not allowed to lean back, put your hat over your head and take a nap! You need to keep engaging and managing the offer throughout the life cycle of the campaign.

Monitor

Keep checking in on your campaign. If you’re running multiple ad campaigns, what results are you seeing so far? Are some performing better than others? Are you finding any issues with your campaign so far? You’ll only know if you’re being alert and watching the progress.

One of our clients was running their campaign and wasn’t seeing any results from their ad set. When they reviewed the ad campaign, they realized they had shared the wrong URL: It was off by one letter. They were able to fix it because they were observing and monitoring their campaign.

[bctt tweet=”Be on top of what’s happening during your campaign” username=”rallioHQ”]

Adapt

As in the above example, if you’re monitoring your campaign, you can make changes on the fly. Alterations can be simply made online, while you might not be able to make them with direct-mail or print pieces.

With online ads such as Facebook ads or Google AdWords campaigns, test different versions of the ad at one time. Then during the campaign, see what’s performing the best and pause the other ones. Copy the best performing ads and tweak their language, imagery or landing page to see if they improve the results. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Review

Once your offer campaign has ended, it’s not the end. You’ve reached the most important part of the ad campaign: the review process.

Brand Awareness

Before, during and after the campaign, analyze how much your audience discusses your brand on average. The best campaigns produce high awareness during the campaign, and the after-campaign average is higher than the before-campaign average. Review your campaign analytics and look at web mentions to see how frequently your brand and the offer are mentioned.

Brand Engagement

As much as you can, track how people talked about your offer and campaign. It can be easier to do with digital campaigns since you can see how many people liked, shared, retweeted and mentioned your offer. But you can also use a monitoring software such as Mention to track specific campaign keywords across the web to see if anyone found the offer a different way.

ROI

Probably what you’re most interested in determining, the ROI (return on investment) of your campaign gets to the bottom line of whether your offer and promotion process produced the results you were expecting. Don’t forget to compare these figures with your other campaigns, the cost of an average purchase and the rate of new to returning customers.

While looking at the entire ROI of the campaign, make sure to also look at the ROAS, or the return on ad spend. To do this, divide the return from the ad campaign by the ad spend for that campaign. Calculating the ROAS for each advertising or promotion channel (including organic) can help you see what methods of delivery bring the best results for your campaigns.

Learning

Remember at the beginning when I said ad campaigns are experiments and you’re testing your theories? That won’t mean anything if you don’t determine what you’ve learned from them. Maybe this campaign reinforced your ideas about your customers and what they’re interested in. Or maybe the results were unexpected. Review the analytics and come up with new theories based on these results.

Successful campaigns are grown and discovered through testing, trial and error. Make the best guess for what your audience will react to, and then track the results. Regardless of whether it was successful or an abysmal failure, look at the data, make adjustments and try again.

Categories
Social

The Real Reason Social Media Is a Problem for You

This is not a post telling you all the things you’re doing wrong on social media. Nor is it a list of things you should be doing to increase your social presence.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I’ll tell you what we will be discussing today. It has much more to do with mindset than mistakes or lists of things to do.

Don’t get me wrong: Those lists of action items for your social media pages — such as those you may have read in many of our other blog posts and others out there on the interwebs — are not to be discounted in any way. By all means, you need real strategies and ideas to make your social pages work for you.

But at the same time, you don’t want to view those tasks as loathsome. Wouldn’t it be nice to get excited about tackling social media marketing? You see, as with anything we do in life, our attitudes about it make all the difference between failure versus success. Dread versus enjoyment. Disgruntlement versus joy.

It’s All About Mindset

As someone who actively pursues ways to shift my mindset from negative to positive — via personal development books, websites and a regular yoga practice — I wanted to invite you to shift the way you think about social media in general.

That is to say, if you have the mindset that social media is difficult, time-consuming and tedious, then it most certainly will be so. If, however, you view it as an asset to your business, then you will more easily embrace social media and take steps to make it work for you.

You might even start to enjoy social media marketing. You with me here? Great! Let’s dive in.

via GIPHY

Problem or Opportunity?

The first thing is to start thinking about social media as an opportunity for your business rather than a problem. I know what you’re thinking: What kind of opportunity, aka return on investment, are we talking about here?

It’s a tricky question because you cannot simply measure your ROI based on direct dollars. Your customer engagement and the growth of your audience over time are other measures of success that deliver value to your organization. Ultimately, it’s the combination of metrics, both tangible and intangible, that paint the complete picture of ROI for your business.

Some metrics are measurable in dollars and cents; for instance, if you create a coupon offer using Rallio’s proprietary technology, you can easily track exactly how many people redeem the coupon. If, on the other hand, you post a photo of you and your staff volunteering at the local soup kitchen, and you earn several likes, shares and comments, then the return is less measurable. Here, you’ve increased your customer engagement and enhanced your business’s reputation.

Both of those metrics are critical in considering what kind of opportunity social media presents. And each leader in your company probably has a different idea about which metric is more important.

If there’s one thing we can agree on, however, it’s that there is undeniably plenty of opportunity for the taking in social media. How you choose to view those opportunities is up to you and your cohorts. Let’s take a closer look at the different types of opportunities around which you can create a mindset for success.

[bctt tweet=”Think about social media as an opportunity for your business rather than a problem.” username=”rallioHQ”]

Tangible Returns

As I mentioned above, online offers present some of the easiest ways to see a tangible return, but here’s the key: It only works if 1) customers can easily redeem the offer, and 2) you are able to track redemptions.

My colleague Becca Edwards goes into great detail about how to create slam-dunk online offers in this post, and I highly recommend reading it. And be sure to get in touch with us via sales@www.rallio.com to see how our coupon technology works at a brand and local level.

With online offers, you have a chance to see which types of offers work the best, and then you can lather, rinse and repeat with future offers, or create similar offers your audience would like to see. If an offer doesn’t get a good return, you can tweak things going forward so you have more people redeeming the offers.

Not-So-Tangible Returns

On the other side of the coin, you see returns that have more to do with analytics, such as organic and paid impressions, ratings and reviews, and engagement with posts. You see how people respond to different types of posts by liking, sharing and commenting on them. Over time, you see the number of page likes grow.

In this post, you can learn more about the social media analytics that matter most to your business. In the meantime, take a look at two main opportunities that are present in building your brand on social media.

  1. You get to interact one-on-one with customers. Think about it. There was a time when the only way to have real conversations with customers was if they showed up in your store or if they sent you an angry email. Nowadays, you get to chat with them and respond to their comments, questions and complaints in real time. You get to show them there are real people with real personalities working at your business, and they care about their customers!
  2. Build a following, and you stay top of mind with customers every day. If you put the time into engaging with customers regularly in a non-salesy way, they will be more likely to visit your page often and share it with friends. Then, when you have a chance to meet a need or present an offer, they will want to listen to your message and take action. Over time, you will become the go-to person in your industry, and when a need arises, you’ll be the first person they think of. How’s that for an opportunity?

[bctt tweet=”Nowadays, you get to chat with customers in real time. #socialmedia” username=”rallioHQ”]

Less struggling, more ease. That’s what we’re going for here. And ultimately, more money in your pocket if you successfully grow your audience and engage your customers to buy.

Think you can shift your mindset to embrace social media as opportunity? Or are you already there? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Categories
Social

7 Things Your Competitors Can Teach You About Social Media

Competition isn’t a bad thing in business. It keeps you on your toes, allows you to improve continually, and gives you a chance to see what works and what doesn’t with your target audience.

Social media has made it easier than ever to research your competition and take a lesson from their customer interactions. Knowing what to look for as you check out their social profiles can give you a huge advantage in the marketplace. Here are a few things to investigate on your competitors’ pages. 

1. Identify Your Target Audience

You might not already know who your target customer is, especially if you’re a new business. Start by tracking down businesses that offer a similar product or service, and then hop on their social pages.

From there, you can begin studying the types of people frequenting the pages and interacting the most. Are you seeing mostly moms, young professionals, teens, millennials? Male or female? Read the comments to get an idea of who your target customer might be.

2. Study How They Engage With Customers

Now examine how your competitors interact with your target audience. Are their pages littered with complaints from customers that have gone unaddressed? Or are complaints handled promptly to customers’ satisfaction? How about positive comments? How are those handled?

Not only will you learn customers’ likes and pain points, but you’ll also identify how you can pick up where your competition is leaving off. Make it your priority to respond to customers within the hour, using a friendly tone of voice and wording that’s appropriate for your target customers. Your diligence and attentiveness to customers will earn you a reputation of being trustworthy, respectful and helpful (while your competitors flounder!).

via GIPHY

3. Mimic What’s Working

Which competitor posts are getting the most likes, shares and comments? Which posts inspire positive reactions from customers?

On pages with heavy customer engagement, you’ll get an idea of which type of content resonates with your audience. Is it curated content, case studies, images, quotes, videos? A combination of posts? Take note of the most effective posts so you can repackage similar content and calls to action on your page.

Also, although the majority of your content should be non-promotional in nature, you’ll want to sprinkle in posts about special promotions and contests. Be aware of how often your competitors post self-promotional content and how customers respond so you can learn the best ways to present this type of content.

4. Avoid What’s Not

On the flip side, which posts get negative feedback … or no feedback at all? Here’s where you have a chance to be a fly on the wall to know how an audience reacts to certain types of content.

Side note: If the page overall doesn’t appear to get any customer engagement, it could be because customers are not seeing the page in their newsfeeds. Whatever the reason (lack of advertising, for example), that page might not be the best example for you to study. However, if the page gets interaction on some posts but not all, then you can be reasonably confident in studying how customers engage with the content.

In the case of negative responses to posts, take note of content that makes customers angry or upset. That’s not to say you should never post anything controversial, but do so cautiously. While thoughtful dialogue and debate is good, offensive is not, and you probably don’t want that kind of commentary on your page.

[bctt tweet=”Be a fly on the wall to know how an audience reacts to certain types of content.” username=”rallioHQ”]

5. Identify the Best Times to Post

In addition to the types of content, be aware of the times of day when customers seem to interact with content the most on competitors’ pages. Look at key times of day, such as early morning, lunchtime, dinnertime and late evening. Over time, you can identify patterns and post your content when your audience is most likely to see it.

6. Establish Yourself as an Expert

As a business owner, you are an expert in something. Perhaps your competitors have already demonstrated their expertise with a target audience, and you might think there’s no room for another one. That’s simply not true!

You can involve yourself in conversations that give you an opportunity to showcase your ideas, knowledge and authority on the subject. Join Facebook and LinkedIn groups that relate to your industry. Track keywords on Twitter and Instagram so you can respond to users’ comments. Go wherever your target customers are hanging out so you can become top-of-mind with them.

Avoid saying anything negative about competitors, as that just makes you look desperate. Instead, rely on your own expertise to convey information with confidence. Your customers will pick up on your tone and learn to identify you as the go-to person on a particular topic.

I’ll give you a great example. I’m a member of a Facebook group that’s just for local moms. People post all kinds of comments and questions on there, and sometimes people will post something looking for a good real-estate agent. Oftentimes, in response to these inquiries, people in the group will tag a friend of mine who has established herself as the go-to person for any questions about home buying and selling, mortgages and the like. She didn’t do it by bashing competitors; she did it by providing great customer service, helpful information and a friendly tone of voice. Simple as that!

[bctt tweet=”As a business owner, you are an expert in something.” username=”rallioHQ”]

7. Post Content That They’re Not Posting

As you’re noticing what competitors do post, note what they don’t post, too. Start brainstorming ways you can communicate with customers in fun, novel ways. Creativity goes a long way toward gaining loyal followers!

What information have you learned by studying competitors’ social pages? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

 

Categories
Reputation Social

Should You Try to Get More Facebook Likes?

The quick answer is no. You should try to get more engagement.

The long answer is more complicated.

First off, let me make a few disclaimers here. I’m not addressing the businesses that have five, 10 or 30 likes. If your business only has as many likes as you have employees, you need to boost your likes to at least a couple hundred. I’ll write about how to get those first initial likes in another post.

But let’s say you have 350 likes. You may think it’s most important for you to get 1,000 likes, and it does help build social trust for people who find you from their friends and family. But after your first hundred or thousand likes, you may be wondering if you should still be prioritizing growing the fans on your page.

Why does the number of likes matter?

Having a following on social media sites, including Facebook, indicates to your customers and people checking you out that you are well-liked, that people respect your business and approve it. Just like the numbers on a sales page (“6 million people have taken my course and changed their lives”), a high number of likes gives social proof and credence to your venture. The theory goes: The more fans, the better your business must be.

Then why not keep trying to grow your Facebook page and surpass POTUS and Rihanna? Why stop when you still haven’t reached 10,000 fans or 100,000 fans, or even 1,000 likes?

Because likes don’t mean people care.

I know, that sounds completely contrary to everything I’ve said so far. Hear me out.

Over the past few years, Facebook has dwindled the amount of posts from businesses in a person’s newsfeed to 1 to 2 percent. That’s because people have used Facebook less when they’ve seen more advertisements and posts from businesses than from their friends. And people have specifically said they want to see more of their friends’ posts, so Facebook is catering to the needs of the people to keep a strong and active community.

[bctt tweet=”Likes don’t mean people care” username=”rallioHQ”]

Facebook’s decision makes marketing more difficult for business owners and their Facebook brands. Whereas before, every post you created could come into a person’s Facebook newsfeed, nowadays only 2 to 3 percent of your audience will see a post from a business they follow.

So your fans may like your business as a whole (“Yeah, I like buying my groceries at Home & Heart Co.”), but that doesn’t mean they like what you have to share. And if they don’t like what you’re posting enough to engage and share it with their friends, then your very large page will be very, very quiet.

Now, here’s the catch.

You should still try to get more Facebook likes, but as a secondary goal. Your first goal should be engaging with your current fanbase.

Pro Tip: Likes don't mean people care

At this point, you might have just enough likes in comparison to other local businesses and can start focusing on crafting engaging posts. But what if you have thousands of page likes with hardly a share on your posts?

First, review your content and make sure you’re not making any of these social media mistakes. Then, analyze your content for engagement and see what type of post gets the most engagement.

Start posting the most engaging content more frequently, and keep monitoring what gets the most shares. If you’re looking for ways to create more shareable content, check out these ways to get more shares on Facebook.

When you have a post that has outperformed all your other successful content, sponsor it on your Facebook page to your fans and their friends. This boost will act as the spark to generate more organic engagement on your page posts (but will only work if you’re posting similar content regularly.) Keep analyzing your content engagement to create more and more shareable Facebook posts.

Remember, the transition to having an engaged Facebook page doesn’t happen overnight. But here’s the funny thing: Having an engaged audience will bring more people to like your page anyway. So in a way, you’re growing your page likes without focusing on it.

Yet you’re not growing your likes for a number; you’re growing an engaged audience. And that, even if small, is much more important.

How are you engaging your audience? And in what ways has building an excited fan base also grown your following? Let me know your strategies in the comments, or tweet us on Twitter.

Categories
Social

Best Ways to Build Your Brand on Social Media

It’s every brand’s dream to have a huge following on social media. When your customers are talking about you in positive ways, they’re doing much of the work to spread awareness of your brand, for free.

Still, there are brands that struggle to establish themselves on social media, and they can’t figure out why. Today, we’ll explore the best ways to make a name for yourself so you can spend less time chasing down customers and more time nurturing relationships with your fans. Make these strategies your top priority, and you’ll see your business grow exponentially.

Respond to Your Customers

This point is perhaps the most important of all because it can make or break your reputation. Most customers nowadays will not pick up the phone and call customer service when an issue arises. Instead, they’ll take to social platforms such as Twitter or Facebook to air their complaints. J.D. Power estimates that 67 percent of consumers have used a social channel for customer service, and for that reason, it’s imperative that you have a system for “listening” and responding to these concerns.

Consider the following exchange between Jet Blue and one of its customers when, during a flight, the passenger’s TV wouldn’t work:

Within minutes, Jet Blue responded:

The customer, pleased with this response, tweeted back: “One of the fastest and better Customer Service: @JetBlue! Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving”

Not only did Jet Blue help its customer, but it also helped its own reputation. Can you imagine the backlash if Jet Blue had ignored the tweet or tried to defend itself?

Don’t Just Respond. Go Above and Beyond

You should also use social media to respond to positive comments from customers and to exceed expectations. Author and business consultant Peter Shankman writes about his experience of jokingly requesting that @Morton’s deliver a porterhouse steak to Newark Airport upon his arrival.

Not missing a beat, Morton’s picked up on the tweet and, you guessed it, did exactly that. Shankman was understandably blown away.

While Shankman makes it clear that his tweet was in jest and he had no expectation of a Morton’s steak actually being delivered, he nonetheless marvels at this feat of customer service. The lesson here is not necessarily to meet customers’ every whim, but to seize opportunities to go above and beyond whenever possible.

Shankman writes: “Stay on top of what people are saying about you. Respond accordingly. Perhaps most importantly, have a chain of command in place that actually lets you do these things in real time. Had Morton’s had to get permission to make this happen, at 5:10pm on a Wednesday night, there’s no way it ever would have.”

Make Social Media Your PR Platform

Although there’s still value in taking your message to media outlets, the beauty of social media today is that you can also deliver your message directly to customers. Let’s be clear: It’s not about sounding like a PR pitch when you interact with customers online. Rather, think of it as an opportunity to build trust and confidence in your brand.

One of the best ways to help your message resonate with customers is by creating local, personal content. Images of customers (taken with their permission, of course) are a powerful way to let your clientele speak for you without you having to “sell” anything to your audience.

For example, a hair salon can show photos of a client before and after getting a cut and a style. This provides an opportunity to discuss their services, products and hairstylists in a way that resonates with their audience. An automotive repair shop can show photos of a dented car alongside “after” photos showing the results of their repairs. You get the idea.

[bctt tweet=”It’s not about sounding like a PR pitch when you interact with customers online.” username=”rallioHQ”]

Create a Community

This tip closely follows the one above. Once you establish yourself as a trustworthy brand where people don’t feel pressured to buy, then you can begin to create a community of followers who want to follow whatever you’re up to.

One great way to accomplish this feat is by posting real-life photos of yourself, your staff and your lives outside of work. Become more of a friend to them than someone trying to sell them something, and they’ll be eager to receive your updates.

You can take things a step further by creating offline events and publicizing them on social media. For example, a yoga studio could plan out special workshops and classes to be held in-studio, create the events from its Facebook page and invite followers. Bringing the offline world into online conversations encourages people to connect with one another and with your brand.

Be a Thought Leader

As a business owner, you have expertise in certain subject matters. What knowledge do you have to share with the world? Social media provides the perfect platform to educate communities and demonstrate that you are the “go to” person in your industry.

Try creating a webinar on a topic and promoting it on your Facebook page. If you have a white paper or another thought piece, you can breathe life into it through a webinar and take questions from your audience. You’ll build not only your community, but also your brand awareness and bottom line.

woman-hand-smartphone-desk

Network With Complementary Businesses

Businesses used to have to rely solely on in-person networking events such as chamber of commerce meetings to meet other business owners. Now you also have the ability to network with people around the globe online.

There are likely dozens of businesses that complement yours beautifully with which you can build relationships and a strong referral network. When fellow business owners hear a need from a client that they can’t meet but that you can, you want to be the first person they think of. You can develop mutually beneficial networks, tagging one another on social media whenever possible.

Seek out those networks where you have something in common and build from there. Let’s say you’re a mom in business; you can locate other business-owner moms through various Facebook groups and by using hashtags on Twitter and Instagram. As you focus on building relationships with these people and not selling, you’ll find that people you have never even met will refer business your way simply because you share the commonality of being a mom.

via GIPHY

What other ways do you spread the word about your brand without coming across as salesy? Leave your comments at the end of this post.

 

Categories
Social

6 Reasons to Improve Your Online Offers for Better Results

To drive more customers into your store, the easiest solution is to create an online offer and share it far and wide. People who are interested (and who weren’t before) now flock to your establishment to get that discount, and now you have a busy, thriving local business.

But that’s not always how it works out, is it?

Instead of the rush and clamor to enter your store, it may be even slower than usual. People trying to redeem their coupons may be getting frustrated with the current process. Or you may wonder whether what you’re offering is really making a positive impact on your growth.

If you’re thinking you can improve your results, here are six reasons why your coupon codes may not be driving the return (and the customers) you want:

You’re Overdoing Them

Do you only post coupons on your Facebook page? If so, you might be devaluing your products and services to the customer. Here’s why:

When you casually create coupons, you dilute the actual value proposition of your brand. Moreover, you’re saying that the coupon value is the “real” price over the listed one since you’re using that discount constantly. Coupons and discounts can effectively boost sales and create a larger customer base, but excessive coupon use could hurt the long-term success of your business.

You’re Using the Same, Repeatable Coupon Code

With the complexity of creating new coupon codes on POS systems, it can be simple to create one or two new coupon codes and disperse them everywhere. But using the same barcode could be costing you a lot of money in sales.

[bctt tweet=”How much money have you lost to employees scanning one reusable coupon?” username=”rallioHQ”]

Remember, coupons are a marketing tool to get people into your store. But it’s not unheard of for employees working at a register to have a printed coupon with a code on hand to scan repeatedly for customers. As customers go through the checkout stand, they keep swiping the same coupon for each transaction, even those who weren’t being incentivized by the coupon to buy anything. That could be thousands (or millions) of dollars each year that you’re losing to misusing your coupons.

You’re Making them Difficult to Save

Once a customer has found your coupon, how easy do you make it to save? If you’re like many companies that use online coupons, you’ve posted it as an image or embedded it into your website. Some savvy people will know how to email themselves the link, save it as an image or even screenshot it. But without a clear call to action on how to keep the coupon (like a send to email or text it to me option), you’ve made it much harder on your customers to save your coupon for future use.

You’re Making Them Frustrating to Redeem

Wait, you’re saying I have to print this out and bring it in? Since you only offer one per customer, I have to sign up for your club so you can track it? How many things are excluded from this offer in the fine print? And I have to download your app to redeem it?

An example of a coupon with one too many restrictions
An example of a coupon with one too many restrictions

These examples describe hurdles your customers would have to jump before purchasing from your business. Again, coupons create an incentive for new customers to try your services and introduce them to your brand, so you want to make their first experience as simple and easy to complete as possible.

You’re Making it Hard to Find a Location Near Your Customers to Use the Coupon

If you only have one location, you shouldn’t be concerned about directing customers to the right place. But with tens, hundreds or thousands of locations, you want to help potential customers find the location nearest them quickly.

For multi-location businesses, it’s important to display all the stores near the person who’s looking at the coupon. Even if it’s been shared to someone on the other side of the country, they should see the locations offering the coupon that are nearest to them. With our coupon feature in Rallio, we automatically queue up the nearest locations to the customer in a map on the coupon.

You’re Not Calculating the ROAS

ROAS? Don’t you mean ROI?

Actually, no, ROAS is slightly different from the ROI. To be a bit technical, the ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) calculates the revenue received from a specific campaign.

ROAS = revenue / advertising spend

Online merchants can track ROAS through tracking codes and confirmation pixels, on their website, but how do you track an online coupon to a physical visit at a brick-and-mortar store? Unless you have a system in place that connects the online ad spend to the purchase amounts, you won’t be able to track the success of your coupon campaigns. And you won’t know what offer really has the greatest impact.

I’m curious to know how you currently use coupons at the local and national level. Do you create one type of coupon across the brand? Does each franchisee or owner create their own on top of the overall offers? How do you make them easy to use for customers while tracking their success? Let’s discuss in the comments and compare with other brands and local businesses.

Also, I want to let you know about a coupon option to make your offers more successful. If any of these reasons were major pain points for you and you’re looking for a solution, I want to offer you a demo of Rallio.

We’ve worked with multi-location businesses that have thousands of locations, and coupon creation, management and analysis turns out to be much more complicated than it seems. To help our clients, we built a coupon technology to save them money, time and effort. Now they are less concerned about losing a fortune with online coupons and have seen incredible results from people sharing them with their friends.

If you’re interested in seeing how our coupons work at a brand and local level, send us an email at sales@www.rallio.com.

Categories
Social

How to Reach More People on Facebook

It’s the question every franchisee and brand marketer has been asking for the last few years, ever since Facebook diminished the reach of page posts to 1 to 4 percent of all page followers: How do I get more people to see my content?

The answer lies with the amount of engagement your posts receive. See, Facebook created an algorithm that shows content to people based on what they’ve engaged with in the past. If you don’t engage with a Facebook page, then Facebook will show content from that page to you less.

And now based on customer feedback, Facebook will be restricting the content shown by pages in people’s News Feeds, focusing on what content received shares.

Us marketers are losing our minds. We’ve worked hard to build our audience and our follower base, so why is Facebook doing this?

Over the past few years, Facebook has seen a decline in original sharing by individuals. Less people are creating unique posts about things happening in their daily lives. And Facebook wants to ensure their userbase stays connected and shares unique, individualized content with them and not their competitors.

We can learn from their decision. In fact, knowing the problem Facebook’s having helps us create better content for our business, our customers, and for Facebook. Win-win-win, right?

Bottom line, we need to create more content that people want to share. Firstly, because Facebook now focuses page posts’ organic reach on the number of shares it receives. And secondly, because when a person shares a post, they can write their own comment about the post before they share it. In a way that gives the page post new life from the perspective of the person, personalizing it to their friends.

Powerful.

So what are some types of posts that can get more shares? Here are a few you can implement at the local level:

6 Ways to Get More Shares on Facebook Posts

    1. Local events and celebrations: Think holidays, local fairs and parades, and even the special anniversaries and success stories about your employees. Did one of your interns just graduate from college? Are the owners celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary? Did you have a booth at the July 4 celebration? Post these local, heartwarming stories on your page and focus on the person or event. (Not the time to ask people to share.)

    1. Customer stories: With their permission, take a photo of your happy customer and feature them on your Facebook page. If possible, share a part or all of their story on the post. Use this opportunity to feature people who had part of their life change through your service or product, and include others who simply have a positive story to tell.
    1. Curated content: It’s easier now than ever to look for similar, popular content that other pages are sharing or that your customers are posting. Take a customer’s photo from Instagram and post it to all your pages linking back to the original poster. Or find an interesting post from another Facebook page and share it on your wall. If you find it shareable, your customers will, too.

[bctt tweet=”Businesses need to post the content people want to share” username=”rallioHQ”]

    1. Helpful, relevant articles: Sometimes the most interesting thing in the world is a bit of good, old-fashioned information. Whether it’s a thought piece or breaking news, a perfectly timed article can be a viral hit among your community. Stay aware of current events in and out of your industry, and when you find a piece that’s really powerful, share it with your followers. Or, better yet, figure out what they want and write it yourself.
    1. How-to videos: Now, don’t pass this one by because you don’t think it’s relevant to your business. While it would be best to have the how-to video be about a topic customers can apply to their lives (such as tax or insurance tips), people will also share how-to videos that they probably won’t do but are cool, interesting or “mind-blowing.” Look at this video below: Few people are going to make those cookies, but they’re beautiful enough to share.

    1. Facebook live: Remember the Chewbacca-mask lady? She originally went live on Facebook before going viral across the world, and all because she shared something a bit ridiculous with her followers. Don’t be afraid to be a bit silly; people are looking for authentic and transparent businesses, so opening up a bit and showing what you’re really like (with or without the Chewbacca mask) can brighten someone’s day.

    1. Funny videos: If you have a creative idea — like these dentists who like to post their dubsmash videos to Facebook — then post a few videos and see how people react. Do they comment with a bunch of emojis? Do they tag their friends in the comments (a form of sharing with a few people)? Do you see them sharing on their Facebook pages or on their friends’ pages? Test different videos and see which ones generate the most shares from your customers.
    1. Sponsored posts: Artificially creating shares can lead to more organic shares. And Facebook’s made this easy for businesses to do, indicating that if your posts aren’t encouraging organic shares and engagement, then you can pay-to-play with the ones that are. While it’s easy to boost any post, wait until one gets more reactions, likes and shares than the others, and sponsor it to your audience and their friends.

How are you working to increase engagement on your Facebook posts? And what posts on your page get the most shares? Let us know in the comments what you’ve seen work and not work for your business.

Categories
Reputation Social

Are You Letting Your Franchisees Destroy Your Brand?

As a franchisor, you devote considerable time and resources to getting your branding just right. From developing a logo and messaging to creating brand guidelines and marketing materials, there’s a lot that goes into that initial blueprint for all of your marketing efforts.

At the corporate level, your brand looks solid. But what happens at the local level when franchisees start posting on social media? Here are some possible scenarios:

  • They change your messaging, interpreting it in a way that doesn’t match your goals
  • They use your logo incorrectly or alter it
  • They post information that conflicts with your corporate page
  • They post randomly and inconsistently
  • They post imagery that isn’t in line with your brand guidelines

The list goes on.

If you’re like many of the clients with whom we work at Rallio, giving the social-media car keys to franchisees is risky business at the local level. The branding and messaging you worked so hard to develop can easily become diluted, out of brand and unrecognizable from its original form.

So why does this brand disaster happen? Let’s look at three of the top reasons.

Reason #1: They lack corporate-approved resources.

If your franchisees are posting whatever they want on social media, it could be simply because they don’t know what else to post. Unless you supply them with corporate-approved imagery and messaging, you’re leaving it up to them what to post on their pages.

What to do about it: Devote resources to creating polished, professional images that will complement local posts created by your franchisees. Encourage them to add a personal touch so their pages include more than just corporate images. For example, they can post behind-the-scenes snapshots and location-specific promotions.

Our client Fantastic Sams does a great job of disseminating corporate-approved images (using the Rallio platform to manage the process), while also encouraging franchisees to post their own local content. Here’s an example of a corporate-created post that was used by a franchisee:

And here’s an example of that same franchisee adding a local touch:

Reason #2: You have no social-media guidelines.

Do your franchisees have a “Wild West” mentality that causes them to think they can do whatever they want on social media? If so, then perhaps you haven’t clearly stated what they can and cannot do. It all begins with social media guidelines that define how franchisees should approach social media, as well as what the approval process is for their content.

What to do about it: You might already have guidelines in place for print and web marketing and advertising. Build on those guidelines by telling franchisees the parameters for social media. Do you want to be able to review their content before it gets posted? Or are you OK with supplying corporate content and letting them post at the local level without your approval? Spell it out so there’s no confusion.

The clearer you are with your social-media guidelines, the less likely it is that franchisees will go rogue. (And rogue franchisees can not only destroy your brand, but your reputation as well. See my recent article on this topic for more information.)

[bctt tweet=”Clear #socialmedia guidelines lessen your chances of having rogue #franchisees.” username=”rallioHQ”]

Reason #3: You haven’t prioritized social media yourself.

If you don’t see social media as important to your brand, then your franchisees won’t, either. At best, they’ll ignore the social platforms and potentially miss out on opportunities. At worst, they’ll ruin your brand and reputation, as mentioned above.

What to do about it: Whether you like or dislike social media, there’s no denying its existence. And once you make it a priority at the top level, you take back control of how your brand appears in the public eye. You help your brand overall while also helping franchisees to post in the smartest, most efficient way possible. Remember, the goal is to have one brand and multiple locations … not multiple brands and multiple locations!

[bctt tweet=”You want one brand and multiple locations…not multiple brands and multiple locations! #franchising” username=”rallioHQ”]

Our platform lets multi-unit businesses create a unified social media presence while still enabling individual owners to customize content to reach local customers. Post across thousands of locations, manage imagery, control messaging, monitor keywords, view analytics and generate new business — all from one convenient dashboard. Interested in a demo? Drop us a line at hello@www.rallio.com.

Categories
Reputation Social

The Most Important Social Media Analytics You Should Know

Social media analytics remind me of the Wikipedia rabbit hole. You try to look at one simple thing, and next thing you know, you’re several pages away on a completely different topic. Fascinating information, but is it really useful?

The amount of data available to review can appear overwhelming. And unless it’s your full-time profession to review and analyze trends and changes over time, you only have time for the numbers that will actually make a difference to your business.

Before You Start!

I know, you’re excited to dive into your social analytics. But not so fast. If you don’t know what you need for your business goals, then all the social data in the world will be worthless.

For some, all you’re thinking about is your bottom line: Did I make another sale from this social media post? But think a bit larger than that. Not everything will result in a direct sale, but that doesn’t mean it’s not valuable.

Here are a few examples of things you can look at before looking at your goals:

  • What are your goals for your business or your franchise location?
  • What effort can you put into your social media marketing?
  • What are your key performance indicators (KPIs) already being used in your company?
  • How are you currently tracking success? How are you measuring the results of your online initiatives?

[bctt tweet=”What are your goals for your business or your franchise location?” username=”rallioHQ”]

Note: All these questions might seem overwhelming, but over time they become easier. Start with one thing at a time and tie in other analytics gradually. For instance, you can start with understanding your follower growth numbers one month and then look at your engagement figures the next. And don’t forget these questions should guide you to better inform your online and social media presence, but you may find certain analytics work better for your industry and goals. Test, analyze and refine for best results.

Follower Growth

It’s a no-brainer that having a local following can build trust and keep you top of mind. But it’s not enough to simply look at your total likes and followers in a vacuum. To get the most out of your social media pages, you need to look at the data over time, assess where your audience grows the most and the least, and see how you look next to similar local businesses.

  • Is your following growing over time?
  • Which social media sites are growing the most? What are you doing to keep that growth strong?
  • Which social media sites are growing the least? What can you do to improve the rate of growth?
  • What countries and cities are your followers from? Are they in your service area?  
  • How do you compare to your local competition? Are you growing at a similar rate over time?

Engagement

“Engagement” acts as a kind of catch-all word for people’s interactions with your business online. Likes, retweets, comments and shares make up some of the most common uses of the word engagement. However, people can connect with your business in less obvious ways, too.

For instance, a person doesn’t have to go to your page to engage with you. They can take a picture at your location, mention you in the post, and then share that on all their social networks promoting your business. Unless you’re watching, you might miss some of your best interactions with your fans.

[bctt tweet=”A person doesn’t have to go to your page to engage with you” username=”rallioHQ”]

In a sense all press is good press: If people are engaging with you a lot online, it will increase your social proof and visibility to their friends and similar audiences.

However, the type of engagement you’re getting can make or break that strategy. If the bulk of your comments are complaints or protesting customers, the quality of your branding will plunge.

  • What’s the engagement rate of your posts?
  • What’s the ratio of positive comments to negative comments?
  • Are people mostly commenting on your posts, reacting, sharing, or simply watching/looking at them? Is this what you’re expecting?
  • How often are people checking in to your location on social media sites?
  • How often do people tag you in their pictures and posts?

Reputation

What customers report about you can build your business or greatly hinder its growth. With 67 percent of consumers affected by online reviews, the ratings you have and how you respond to them will impact your brand, trustworthiness and sales.   

  • How many reviews does your location have across top review platforms?
  • What is the average rating on each site?
  • What is the average rating across the top review sites?
  • How many new reviews do you get a month?
  • How long ago did someone leave the last review?  

Advanced:

Website Analytics

If you don’t have some type of analytics setup, now’s the time to start. Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Clicky, Piwik and WebTrends are all options to manage and track your website traffic and data. From reviewing where people are finding you online, you’ll be better able to tweak and change your marketing strategies to encourage visits both online and in person.

  • Which social media sites are sending you the most new traffic?
  • Which social media sites are sending the most returning traffic?
  • Which social media sites keep people on your site the longest?

Directory Listings

As a business with a physical location, you know how vital it is that people can find you when they’re searching. A wrong address leading customers on a wild goose chase or incorrect open times can frustrate the people who are ready to buy. For local businesses, it’s imperative that you know how you appear on local search sites and directories.

  • Are my top location pages claimed across the web?
  • Is my location data accurately completed?
  • Is my data consistent across all the platforms?

Conversion Rate

Whether you’re running social campaigns organically or with an advertising budget, you can track clicks, leads and purchases from social media platforms to your website or in-store activity.

Tracking code and pixels (Facebook, Twitter, Google and others) monitor when a person goes to a specific landing page or completes an action. When visited, the page triggers the code, which reports back to the social media or advertising source. They can be used to track online sales as well as email sign-ups, coupon downloads, pdf or resource downloads, and form submissions.

Note: Even if you’re not experienced with HTML code and tracking pixel placement, these sites give you the specific code and instructions for exactly where to put it. If your website is managed by corporate or by a separate company, ask them to put the tracking code on there for you.   

  • Is my conversion rate meeting the average of 2.35 percent?
  • How has my conversion rate changed month over month?
  • What are people doing once they go to the landing page?

What have you been tracking, and how do you measure success for your local business? Share the most important question you ask in the comments.

 

Categories
Reputation Social

6 Things You Don’t Want to See Your Franchisees Do on Social Media

Most top brands today would agree that having a presence on social media is a must. If your business has multiple locations run by individual owners or managers, however, it’s not enough to tell your franchisees to set up accounts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. They’ll need some guidance to execute their social media properly and effectively.

Without any direction, you leave them free to do whatever they’d like, and that’s a risk you don’t want to take. Left to their own devices, your franchisees may start posting content that should never see the light of day. Here are the six major things you don’t want to see your franchisees posting on social media, along with a pro tip for each that you can share with your franchise owners and managers.

They Make Offensive or Incendiary Comments

Particularly now in this politically charged climate, it’s tempting to step on a soap box and spout off about a candidate or an issue. It’s one thing for them to stand up tactfully for things they believe in; it’s another matter entirely to make racist, sexist, homophobic or other inflammatory remarks. In an instant, these kinds of comments can destroy your brand’s reputation, and it could be all because of one insensitive comment.

Consider the tweet from IHOP last year showing a stack of pancakes and the text “flat but has a GREAT personality.” The tweet was viewed as offensive and quickly removed, but not before drawing fire from proponents of gender equality and body-positive messages for women.

6 Things You Don't Want to See Your Franchisees Do on Social Media

Pro Tip: Let your franchisees know that anything they post on their pages reflects your brand as a whole. Their posts should represent your brand’s philosophy accurately and not potentially alienate an entire customer group.

They Share Trade Secrets or Other Confidential Information

Do you want your secret-sauce recipe posted on Facebook? Or confidential reports and documents leaked to the public through a LinkedIn update? No? Then you’d better make it clear to franchisees that even seemingly innocent posts have the potential to expose information you would prefer to keep quiet.

Pro Tip: Advise franchisees not to share confidential information about your brand, both on their location pages and on their personal pages. Put it in writing as part of their franchise agreement so it’s clear what they can and cannot post.

[bctt tweet=”Pro Tip: Advise franchisees not to share confidential information about your brand.” username=”rallioHQ”]

They Complain About You, the Franchisor

Franchisees who post negative comments about the franchise parent company make your brand seem disjointed, disorganized and untrustworthy. If they don’t have confidence in the brand, why should anyone else, including customers and potential franchisees?

Pro Tip: Create an avenue for franchisees to provide feedback and make formal complaints if needed. If they have a means to voice their concerns, they’ll be less likely to vent on social media. This system prevents public commentary about private matters that should stay between franchisor and franchisee. It also gives you a chance to consider valid concerns and use the feedback to improve your overall brand.

They Argue With Customers

When customers are upset with their experience at an establishment, you can bet they’ll be posting about it on social media. They might take to their own personal pages to vent, or they might post directly to the location’s page. If a customer posts a negative review on a franchisee’s page, the last thing you want is a virtual fist fight between customer and franchisee. Not only does it make the customer even angrier, but it also makes the franchisee and your entire brand appear unprofessional and tarnishes its reputation.

Pro Tip: The way your franchisees handle customer complaints speaks volumes about your brand. If a customer complains, it’s best to acknowledge the complaint, apologize publicly for any inconvenience and offer to resolve the matter immediately (taking it offline if needed). One great example is FedEx’s response when a delivery driver was caught carelessly tossing a package over a customer’s fence:

They Over-Share Their Personal Lives

A personal touch is great on social media, but there’s a fine line. While customers might love to see photos of a franchise owner having fun with family, friends and pets, no one needs to see the 37 different photos he snapped at the bar with his buddies.

Pro Tip: Encourage franchisees to approach social media with the same professionalism and sense of responsibility they would at a job. Remind them that if it’s online, it lives on forever, and they may never recover from a drunken photo or tweet.

They Do Nothing

On the opposite end of the spectrum are franchisees who, rather than overshare, post nothing at all. The location page is visible, but there’s no activity on the page, or worse, customers are posting on the page and the franchisee is unresponsive. To the world, the franchise appears to be either closed or indifferent about its customers. (See our post about local social pages for an example of the problems this kind of situation caused for jeweler Zales.)

Pro Tip: Tell your franchisees that regularly posting on social media improves customer engagement and satisfaction. Take it a step further by supplying them with corporate-approved content that’s polished, professional and on point. They can mix in this content with more personalized, behind-the-scenes content directly from their locations.

The Rallio platform is designed to help solve the problem of supplying corporate-approved content to franchisees. Are you a franchisor with multiple locations? Head over to www.rallio.com to request a demo, and tell us below what else you don’t want to see your franchisees posting on social media.

 

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