Author: Aimee

A great social media marketing plan isn’t so great if you don’t measure its success.

Social media analytics are a critical piece of social media strategy, allowing you to see how well your posts and ads are performing as well as understand the people who interact with your posts and ads and how they feel about your business.

With all that intel, you can create social media content that gets your audience excited and grows your bottom line.

About Social Media Analytics

Social media analytics are the data and metrics that help you measure the performance of your social media accounts, both in the short term and over the long haul. 

This data is collected and curated by the individual social media platforms as well as various paid services, such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social and others.

Types of Social Media Analytics

A lot of data is available, and it’s up to you to prioritize which are most important to helping you meet your marketing goals. 

Types of analytics include:

• Performance measures of content, including impressions, reach, like, comments, shares, views and clicks.
• Audience information, including age ranges, gender, location and the types of devices they use.
• Paid ad performance, including clicks, cost per click, cost per engagement and conversion rate.

With paid tools, you can also get data on influencers, sentiment analysis and see how your analytics stack up against your competitors. 

What To Do with Social Media Analytics

Analytics can provide detailed insights into more than just the performance of a social media post. Through them, you can:

• Learn which types of content has the most impact, engagement and conversions to sales.
• Hear what people really say about your product or service.
• Understand who your social media audience is and tailor your content to meet their needs or grow your audience beyond your base.
• Learn about any customer service issues quickly.
• Know which of your social media accounts are growing and which aren’t and spot sudden changes or anomalies in followers as soon as they happen.
• See larger trends in content and conversations related to your business.
• Justify the need for social media and employees to support the effort.

Most importantly, it’s important to look at your social media analytics regularly. This will give you a feel of what’s “normal” for your accounts, so you can see the highs of good posts and the lows of posts that just aren’t working. Then adjust your strategy, doing more of the good and jettisoning the bad.

Don’t Be Intimidated

Figuring out which social media analytics to focus on can be overwhelming at first. The digital marketing team at Roanoke’s LeadPoint Digital can help you make sense of all the numbers. Our expertise, specialization, and access to advanced tools to help you get the most out of your social media strategy. Schedule a free consultation with us today to see how we can help you become a social media analytics rockstar!

When you want to connect with customers, email marketing works.

How well it works starts with the first thing a customer sees: The email’s subject line.

A good email subject line inspires while being short and to the point. It teases without being trite. It stands out among all the other emails in the inbox and makes customers eager to open the message and read on.

How to write email subject lines? Like all digital marketing, it takes a little practice. Here are a few tips to get you started.

Be Brief

Keep your subject line within 30 to 40 characters. That’s four to eight words, including spaces. 

If a subject line is too long, your customer won’t be able to see all of it, especially when checking mail on a smartphone. Plus, shorter subject lines are easier to read and will catch the eye of your customer.

Add Time Elements

Point out a deadline or that a limited amount of a product remains to add urgency and importance to your email. FOMO — the fear of missing out — drives action, in this case, opening your message to learn more. But remember: The goal is to inspire, not frighten or trick your customer. 

Don’t Try Too Hard

There’s content that is clever, and content that tries to be clever. Customers can tell the difference. So don’t try too hard to be cute, especially if cute isn’t really part of your brand. 

When you do come up with a fun, clever, pun-filled email subject line, ask a few other people to read it behind you. Make sure that your words make sense and that they don’t carry some other, unintended meaning.  

Write a Newsy Headline

Decades of journalism has proven the worth of straightforward subject + verb headlines. Those work equally well for email subject lines and add a professional tone to your message.

Need inspiration for a good email subject line? Look through online magazine and newspaper headlines to get some ideas.

Ask a Question

People are naturally curious and want to know get the answer waiting in your email message. A good question will draw your customer in and can really drive engagement rates.

Don’t Forget to Measure Success

Good analytics will show you what types of subject lines work with your unique customer base. 

Always track open rates and engagement as you go. Also try AB testing — write two different subject lines and split your email list in half. See which subject line gets a better response.

Want help crafting the perfect digital marketing campaign? LeadPoint Digital, Roanoke’s digital marketing company, is here to help tailor your message — complete with compelling email subject lines — for a successful campaign that gets noticed. Drop us a line for a free consultation with one of our digital marketing experts.

Everyone is talking about TikTok these days, a with good reason. With more than 1 billion active users of all ages worldwide, TikTok is driving trends that other social media platforms are following.

Because users flock to TikTok for its visuals — posts combine vertical video with music — and because it has worldwide reach across generations, TikTok is a fun and effective way for businesses to market their products and services.

Is TikTok right for your business? Let’s see.

What are the pros and cons of TikTok?

There’s a lot for marketers to like about TikTok.

• TikTok is pretty much everywhere. Its app has been downloaded more than 2.6 billion times and around the world. It has reach.

• Brands can get incredibly creative on TikTok, using low-production video and catchy music to show products in action.

• There’s in-app shopping.

But TikTok can be fickle.

• With so many users, it’s hard to get noticed immediately. 

• With so many brands already on TikTok, you’ll need to be extra creative with photo and video to stand apart from others with a similar product or service.

• Trends come and go quickly on TikTok. It can be hard for a marketing team to keep up.

• Because of its ties to China, Virginia has banned the use of TikTok on all government-run networks and computers. For example, Virginia Tech students can no longer access TikTok while on the university’s campuses.

What is your goal? 

Effective marketing relies on strategy, not flash. Think about your marketing goals. Do you want to sell a product? Increase brand visibility? Get new leads? You need to be able to make progress toward those goals through creative TikTok videos, where traditional marketing messages can fall very flat. Make sure your goals align with what the platform offers.

Is your audience on TikTok?

TikTok offers a lot of ways to reach segments of its users by searching interests or keywords. But those users may not be in your community — or even in your country. It pays to research your customers to see if they are TikTok users. Their engagement with your TikToks will be critical in helping to drive new customers and ultimately new sales.

Do you have the resources to make TikToks? 

For starters, are you on TikTok yourself? That’s the first step in understanding how to authentically use TikTok for marketing your business as well as see what kind of competition from other brands that you’ll be up against.

Next, think about content. It’s true that TikTok videos don’t need to be high-definition and high-quality. DIY video is preferred. But you will need a lot of creative ideas and, mostly importantly and often the hardest to get, people who are willing to be in those videos.

Reach Out to LeadPoint Digital for a Free Consultation

If you have questions about how to use TikTok for business, the team at LeadPoint Digital has answers. We offer expertise, specialization, and access to advanced tools, to help you reach and engage your target audience, drive website traffic, generate leads, and ultimately, increase your online visibility and business growth. Schedule a free consultation with us today to see how we can help your business!

Email marketing remains the most effective way for businesses grow the relationship with their current customers and introduce themselves to potential new ones.

Why? You can personalize an email message — something you can’t do with a social media post. And you can get robust insight into what your customers do with that email.

To be successful, like any digital marketing effort, email marketing requires a plan. 

Here’s how to get started.

Identify Your Audience

You know your product or service forward and backward. You should know your customers just as well: Who they are and what they want from your business. Also consider who else could be interested in your business and what they need to become customers. 

Identify Your Email Marketing Goals

Once you know who you want to reach, think about what you want them to do. Are you working to drive sales, highlight new products, write reviews, attend events, or something else?

This will help determine what type of email marketing will be most effective for your customer. For example:

• Newsletters are effective at engaging and inspiring customers.
• Abandoned cart emails recover lost sales by reminding shoppers they didn’t buy that item they put in their cart.
• Win-back campaigns target one-time customers who haven’t been back in a while.
• Promotional emails include a direct ask for sales.
• Event promotions include a direct ask to show up to something.

Regardless of which you choose, each email should include a call-to-action — an easy task for the reader, such as learn more, sign up, or buy a product.

Get Creative with Your Message

Practice, practice, practice. Write in a voice that matches your brand and is true to your mission. Create content that builds relationships with your customers. Perfect your skill at persuasive writing to make every word, from your subject line to your signature, count.

Measure Your Email Marketing Success

Email marketing offers plenty of analytics that lets you see what happens when a customer receives your email and allow you to keep improving on your content. Common metrics include:

• Open rate: How many people opened the email once it hit their inboxes?
• Click rate: How many people clicked on links embedded in the content?
• Unsubscribe rate: Did anyone ask to stop receiving your email?
• Subscriber interactions: Who did something or communicated back to you?

Ask the Experts

Hiring a digital marketing agency can provide your business with a competitive edge in the digital landscape. LeadPoint Digital offers expertise, specialization, and access to advanced tools, to help you reach and engage your target audience, drive website traffic, generate leads, and ultimately, increase your online visibility and business growth. Schedule a free consultation with us today to see how we can help your business!