Tag Archives: welcome campaign

Why News Feed Contests Are Worthless (By Themselves)

13 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by in Facebook

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Facebook recently announced a change in their news feed algorithm. One of the biggest parts of this change is the filtering of “high quality” versus “low quality” content. Without being too explicit, Facebook has strongly suggested that “low quality” content consists of asking for comments, Likes, and shares.

Also, if you remember back to a couple weeks ago, Facebook has completely changed up their requirements for running contests. Now, instead of being restricted to third party apps, you have the option to run contests straight from your news feed – for free*.

Since this change, you can require Facebook metrics – Likes, messages, and comments (NOT shares) – as forms of entry into your contest. Some of this is probably due to the fact that tons and tons of pages were already doing this and it’s hard for Facebook to police, but there’s probably a little more to why Facebook did this…

I mean, why would Facebook make this change to their news feed filter, then turn around and “legalize” news feed contests? If running an effective contest involves using Facebook metrics and a strong CTA, it seems pretty fair to say that your typical contest on Facebook will look like, “Click Like to win a free cupcake!” “What does ‘wi-fi’ stand for? Comment below for your chance to win a free router!” “Post a pic below of your favorite vacation spot and you could win a free trip there!”

So I’m allowed to make statuses like the above, asking for Likes and comments … but they probably won’t get shown in my fans’ news feeds. Uh, my head hurts…

This reasoning from Facebook is why running a highly successful contest from your news feed also requires creating an ad that drives traffic to it. *Not really that “free”, huh?

What to do about it

Well for starters, you could run a Facebook ad. Keep it short and sweet with an engaging picture. If you don’t get good results from that, here’s why your Facebook ads absolutely stink.

You also have the option of using third parties. Now, I know what you’re saying – Why would I use an extra service that’s probably not free to do something I can do for free? I totally understand, just hear me out…

With news feed contests, you really aren’t getting anything in return for your prize, giveaway, discount, whatever, except for some nice news feed engagement and a little extra exposure. There’s no data collected, re-marketing opportunities, or opt-in forms to be filled out. You basically just have the opportunity to engage your fans and get more Likes. And at the end of the day, Likes don’t necessarily pay the bills.

Just remember, it all comes down to what you are looking for…

If you want a totally free, no-extra-software option, run a news feed contest. Still want to run a news feed contest, just with a little more assurance that your fans will see it? Run a Facebook ad alongside. Want to collect more info on your fans and market to them later? Acustom Facebook app is your best bet.

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Google Analytics Email Marketing Dashboard For Beginners – This is a must read for anyone who uses Email Marketing

23 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by in Bloging, Email Marketing, Multi Channel Marketing

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Brought to you from the fine folks at Marketing Land and
Online Marketing Mavin Carrie Hill

With the sophisticated software and programs available today for email marketing, the state of emails I receive from huge corporations blows me away. Historically, email marketing has been an afterthought. There are those that do it well. Really well. But it seems to me that a majority of email marketing is this last-minute, “crap I forgot to do this,” throw something together, send-without-testing nightmare that converts a fraction of what it could — or nothing at all.

So, what is the difference between doing it right and doing it completely wrong? Tracking. If you’re consciously tracking how well your email marketing efforts are performing and truly analyzing the conversion rates, there’s no way you’d relegate it to last minute.

Read the entire article here Google Analytics Email Marketing Dashboard for Beginners

 

An introduction to good practices for Welcome mails

04 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

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To make your welcome emails work well, start by thinking through the range of motives that lie behind someone visiting your website and signing up for email? Let’s look at one example: A prospective customer has searched online, Facebooked friends for recommendations and ended up visiting your site, they haven’t purchased but have signed up for email.

Putting this into a real life context; a customer walks into your store, browses through several different items but doesn’t buy anything. In their way out they ask if you can send them further information about the products they were looking at.

Would a salesperson watch them walk away or would they take some time to tell them why they should buy from you, the great range that you have, present a few customer favourites or highlight your no quibble returns policy and help them make their mind up there and then?

This in essence is a Welcome Campaign.

If you’d said that in the example above you’d ask about what exactly they were interested in or how much they had to spend, then this is like using a Preference Centre to send more targeted welcome campaigns.

So if you’d be proactive in the real world, why wouldn’t you be so in the digital one? Given that if no initial welcome message is sent, the open rate can fall by 25% a few weeks after signing up, then the importance of a welcome campaign is clear. Open campaigns often have THE highest open rates of any type of email campaign since they’re the first dialogue.

So what makes a great welcome campaign? Click here for the entire article.