In the fiercely competitive outdoor gear market, innovative marketing strategies are essential for brand growth and customer engagement. Among these strategies, giveaways stand out as a powerful tool.

They are more than just a means to distribute free products; they are a conduit for creating a lasting impression, fostering community engagement, and enhancing your brand’s image. Drawing on the principles of “4 Season Selling,” this comprehensive guide aims to provide professionals in any industry with a deep dive into the strategic planning and execution of effective giveaways.

Yes, the examples used are within the outdoor industry but this will work across the board. 

Understanding the Strategic Value of Giveaways

Giveaways go beyond the mere distribution of free items. They are a potent mechanism for generating excitement, building brand awareness, and fostering a sense of community among your audience.

The strategic implementation of giveaways can lead to increased brand loyalty, higher engagement rates, and an expanded customer base. However, the success of these initiatives hinges on their alignment with your brand’s identity and the interests of your target audience.

Establishing Clear Objectives

The foundation of a successful giveaway lies in its objectives. It’s crucial to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, gather customer data, or perhaps introduce a new product line? The objectives you set will guide every aspect of the giveaway, from the choice of products to the promotional channels and the mechanics of participation.

Product Selection: Aligning with Brand Identity

The choice of giveaway products is a critical decision. These items should not only resonate with your target audience but also reflect the quality and ethos of your brand.

For instance, a brand known for its durable and high-quality camping gear might choose to give away a premium tent or a set of advanced camping tools. The products should serve as a representation of what your brand stands for.

Leveraging Influencer Partnerships

In today’s digital age, influencers play a pivotal role in shaping consumer preferences. Partnering with influencers who align with your brand’s values and appeal to your target demographic can significantly amplify the reach of your giveaway. This collaboration should be strategic, focusing on influencers who genuinely resonate with your brand and can authentically endorse your products.

Creative Mechanics for Enhanced Engagement

The mechanics of your giveaway should be simple enough to encourage wide participation yet creative enough to foster genuine engagement. Consider incorporating interactive elements like photo contests, where participants can showcase their adventures using your gear, or storytelling competitions that involve sharing outdoor experiences.

These approaches not only engage your audience but also provide you with content that can be leveraged in future marketing efforts.

The Importance of User-Generated Content

User-generated content is a goldmine for any brand. Encourage participants to share their experiences with your products, be it through photos, videos, or testimonials. This content is not only more relatable to potential customers but also serves as an endorsement of your products’ quality and appeal.

Optimal Timing and Comprehensive Promotion

Timing your giveaway to coincide with significant events, such as the launch of a new product line, a major outdoor event, or a seasonal change, can increase its impact.

Promote your giveaway through all available channels, including social media, email marketing, your website, and in-store displays if you have a physical presence. This multi-channel approach ensures maximum visibility and participation.

Adhering to Legal and Ethical Standards

It’s crucial to ensure your giveaway is compliant with legal regulations and ethical standards. This includes clear terms and conditions, proper handling of participant data, and adherence to platform-specific rules, particularly on social media. Maintaining transparency and ethical conduct not only protects your brand legally but also builds trust and credibility with your audience.

Analyzing Results for Future Success

Post-giveaway analysis is vital for understanding its effectiveness and for planning future initiatives. Evaluate key performance indicators such as participation rates, social media engagement, website traffic, and any subsequent changes in sales or customer inquiries. These insights will inform your future marketing strategies and help in refining your approach to giveaways.

Building Long-term Relationships with Customers

View your giveaway as the beginning of a long-term relationship with your customers. Engage with participants after the event, offer them exclusive discounts, invite them to join loyalty programs, and keep them informed about new products and initiatives. This continued engagement can convert one-time participants into loyal brand advocates.

When strategically planned and executed, giveaways can be a significant asset in the marketing toolkit of outdoor gear companies. They offer a unique opportunity to engage with your audience, enhance brand visibility, and drive business growth.

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It’s about creating an experience that connects with customers on a personal level, reflecting the adventurous spirit of the outdoor community.

Crafting a Narrative Around the Giveaway

Developing a compelling narrative or theme around your giveaway can significantly increase its appeal. For instance, if you are launching a new line of winter gear, consider a giveaway that emphasizes adventure and resilience in extreme conditions. This narrative not only makes the giveaway more interesting but also helps in creating a cohesive marketing message that resonates with your audience.

Integrating Social Responsibility

In the outdoor gear industry, social responsibility and environmental stewardship are often important to the customer base. Integrating these elements into your giveaway can enhance its appeal. For example, for every entry, you could commit to planting a tree or contribute towards conservation efforts. This not only incentivizes participation but also aligns with the values of your brand and your customers.

Utilizing Data-Driven Insights

Leverage data analytics to tailor your giveaway to the preferences and behaviors of your target audience. Analyze past engagement data, customer surveys, and market research to understand what excites and motivates your audience. This data-driven approach can greatly enhance the effectiveness of your giveaway.

Personalizing Customer Interactions

Personalization can significantly boost the impact of your giveaways. Use customer data to personalize communication, offering participants tailored recommendations or exclusive deals based on their interests and past purchases.

This level of personalization can create a more engaging and memorable experience for customers.

Creating a Seamless Digital Experience

In today’s digital age, ensuring a smooth online experience for participants is vital. This includes an easy-to-navigate giveaway page, clear instructions, and a straightforward entry process. A seamless digital experience reduces barriers to entry, encouraging more participants to engage with your brand.

Engaging with the Community

Community engagement should be a key component of your giveaway strategy. This can involve partnering with local outdoor clubs, organizing events, or engaging with followers on social media. Building a sense of community around your brand can enhance loyalty and turn customers into brand ambassadors.

Measuring Success Beyond Numbers

While quantitative metrics like participation rates and follower growth are important, qualitative aspects such as customer feedback, brand sentiment, and the quality of user-generated content are equally crucial. These metrics provide insights into the emotional impact and brand perception improvements that result from your giveaway.

Leveraging the Giveaway for Long-Term Brand Building

Consider the giveaway as a step in a larger brand-building strategy. The relationships and insights gained through the giveaway should be leveraged for long-term brand growth.

This could involve follow-up campaigns, targeted marketing initiatives, or loyalty programs designed to keep the participants engaged with your brand.

Innovating and Evolving

The outdoor gear market is constantly evolving, and so should your giveaway strategies. Stay abreast of the latest trends, technologies, and customer preferences. Experiment with new platforms, collaboration models, or giveaway formats to keep your campaigns fresh and relevant.

Reflecting on the Giveaway’s Impact on Company Culture

Finally, it’s important to reflect on how your giveaway aligns with and impacts your company’s culture. A successful giveaway should not only resonate with your customers but also with your employees. It should reflect your company’s values, mission, and vision, fostering a sense of pride and purpose within your team.

Final Thoughts

Giveaways, when thoughtfully executed, can be much more than a marketing tactic. They can be a powerful catalyst for brand growth, customer engagement, and community building. By keeping your objectives clear, aligning with your brand values, and continuously learning and adapting, your giveaways can become a cornerstone of your marketing strategy in the outdoor gear industry.

The post Maximizing Impact with Strategic Giveaways: Enhancing Brand Loyalty and Engagement appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Starting a business can be overwhelming, but leveraging the power of Pinterest to market your products or services doesn’t have to be.

Whether you’re just getting started on the platform or looking for advanced tactics and strategies to enhance your current Pinterest marketing strategy, this guide has you covered.

You’ll learn how to create compelling visuals that stand out in the feed and advance techniques like influencer collaboration, facilitating customers through board organization, audience segmentation, and more!

By implementing our proven Pinterest marketing tips, you’ll set yourself up for long-term sustainable growth to take advantage of everything this powerful visual-oriented social media platform offers.

Keep reading below if you want to increase your reach and sales while driving meaningful engagement with potential clients!

What Is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a visual-based social media platform that allows users to “pin” images, videos, and other content related to their interests.

With over 440 million active monthly users, it has become a powerful marketing tool for businesses of all sizes.

Pinterest users can create boards to organize their pins into specific topics. They can also follow other users to keep up with their content and engage with them by liking, commenting, or repinning interesting posts.

Why Do You Need A Pinterest Marketing Strategy For Your Business?

Pinterest is an excellent growth tool for businesses, and they need to focus on dedicated Pinterest marketing strategies for two major reasons.

First, Pinterest gets a lot of traffic that’s looking to buy. According to Pinterest’s research data, its users are “90% more likely to say they’re always shopping.”

This means if you have a product or service to offer, Pinterest could be an excellent source of qualified leads for your business.

Second, unlike other social media platforms, Pinterest is a long-term investment. People come to the platform to find inspiration for their projects and ideas.

This allows you to build meaningful relationships with potential customers, raising brand awareness and driving sales over time. That’s why smart brands include Pinterest in their social media marketing campaigns.

Now that you understand what Pinterest is and why it’s important for your business, let’s understand what goes into creating an effective Pinterest marketing strategy.

Top Ingredients Of Winning Pinterest Marketing Strategies

Let’s dive into three essential components that make up a successful Pinterest marketing strategy.

#1: Distributing High-Quality Content

Creating high-quality content is the foundation of a successful Pinterest marketing strategy. When crafting visuals for your pins, you’ll want to make sure they stand out and capture your audience’s attention in the feed.

Similarly, you need to ensure the content is distributed correctly. For instance, you must leverage the right type of pins to promote your online store, blog, recipes, or DIY projects and ensure you’re targeting the right audience.

#2: Promotion & Optimization

Once you have your content created, it’s time to promote it and optimize your campaigns. You want to ensure you’re using the right keywords so that people can easily find your content.

You can also use influencer collaborations, A/B testing, and analytics tools to measure the performance of your pins and ensure you’re getting the most out of your campaigns.

#3: Community Engagement

Finally, fostering meaningful relationships with your audience is key to building a successful Pinterest presence. You want to engage with your followers by responding to comments, liking pins, and repinning content from other users in your niche.

This will help you build brand loyalty and trust, essential for driving long-term growth on the platform.

By following these steps, you can create a successful Pinterest marketing strategy that will help you reach and engage with potential customers while driving sales in the long run.

Now that you know how Pinterest marketing strategies are created, let’s dive deep into tricks of the trade and learn Pinterest best practices.

9 Tips To Create An Effective Pinterest Marketing Strategy

Here are 9 Pinterest marketing tips that will drive growth.

#1: Get a Pinterest Business Account

When signing up for Pinterest, you can choose between a personal or business account on Pinterest. While they are both free and allow you to post pins, the latter provides some advanced features that give it an edge over a personal account.

How?

With a business Pinterest account, you can extend your reach by unlocking tools such as Pinterest Analytics, Pinterest Business Hub, rich pins, and all other types of pins. This gives you more control over the type of content you post and allows you to track your performance.

Sounds amazing, right? Our step-by-step guide will teach you how to set up your business Pinterest account.

Also, it doesn’t matter if you have already created a personal Pinterest account. The platform allows you to create a linked Pinterest business account with every personal profile.

So, if you wish to use Pinterest as a marketing tool, sign up for a business account.

#2: Create A Professional, Attractive, & Optimized Pinterest Profile

Your Pinterest profile is an extension of your brand, so you want to make sure it looks professional and optimized. You can customize your profile by:

• adding a profile picture with a logo
• writing an engaging, keyword-rich bio
• using a unique, keyword-rich user handle or profile name
• uploading a banner image that relates to or describes your business
• adding the link to your website and social profiles

This will not only make your profile look more attractive, but it will also help you increase the visibility of your pins to other Pinterest users.

Remember, the quality of your profile plays a key role in determining the success of your Pinterest marketing efforts.

#3: Learn Pinterest SEO and Perform Keyword Research

Just like Bing or Google, Pinterest is a search engine. The only difference is that it is a visual search engine.

Still, search engine optimization rules (SEO) apply to Pinterest as well. This means there is an algorithm behind pins appearing in the Pinterest feed, and you need to optimize your content for relevant keywords to compete with other pins.

That’s why keyword research is so important. But how do you find keywords that your target audience is searching for?

The easiest way to find relevant keywords is by leveraging Pinterest’s “search bar autocomplete” feature. Simply type in the root keyword related to your business, and the search engine will provide you with a list of related keywords.

Or, you can go to https://trends.pinterest.com/ and use Pinterest Trends to find trending topics people are interested in. Browse those topics and categories to find keywords related to your business.

When your keyword research is complete, use them in your profile bio, pin titles, pin descriptions, board titles, and board descriptions to optimize them for the Pinterest search engine.

Besides keywords, Pinterest looks at the following ranking factors to decide which pins will show up in the results:

• Topic relevance
• Quality of your pin
• Your engagement rate
• Quality of your profile (Pinner Quality)
• Domain quality of your business website

#4: Create & Organize Your Pinterest Boards

When setting up your Pinterest board, it is important to focus on both the aesthetics and organization of your boards.

So, choose a theme for each board based on the content you plan to post, and group similar boards together.

Why?

This will help Pinterest users quickly find the content they are looking for.

For example, if you have an online store, you can create boards for different product categories like clothing, accessories, shoes, etc.

Similarly, if you have a blog, organize your boards according to the topics you write about, such as fashion, beauty, lifestyle, etc.

Also, add board covers to your Pinterest boards to make them more visually appealing to visitors.

Finally, remember to link each board to your website or social media profiles whenever possible. This will help your blog or e-commerce store more website traffic.

#5: Create Compelling & High-Quality Pins

Pins are the lifeblood of Pinterest. After all, this is where your content will be discovered and shared by other users.

So, you must ensure your pins are high-quality and visually appealing.

To create high-quality pins, you should use images or videos that are relevant to the topic and have clear, eye-catching text, if any.

Also, use bright colors, simple designs, and interesting visual elements to make your pins stand out from the crowd.

In addition, always remember to create pins with the right aspect ratio. Pinterest recommends using a 2:3 aspect ratio or 1000 px by 1500 px images for best results.

Incorrect pin sizes can have your images cropped automatically by Pinterest, thus reducing the visual impact of your pins on both desktop and Pinterest app views.

But it’s nothing to worry about, as plenty of free online tools can help you quickly resize images or create pins from scratch.

Canva and Adobe Spark, for example, are some of the most popular free tools you can use to create attractive pins.

#6: Write Enticing, Keyword Rich Descriptions

While creating attractive visual content and enhancing the visual appeal of your Pinterest profile, remember to include keywords in your Pinterest pins’ and board descriptions.

Using keywords in your descriptions will help you gain more visibility and engagement on Pinterest. This means these descriptions will work well for both Pinterest SEO and users. The platform will understand that you want to rank for a particular term, while users will see what your content is about.

However, you need to be careful while writing board and pin descriptions. Why?

Because you get up to 500 characters to write a pin description.

It doesn’t mean that all of the 500 characters will appear in search results. Only the first 30 to 60 characters will most likely appear in the Pinterest feed.

Keeping this information in mind, here is what you should do:

• Include relevant keywords in the first 3 to 5 terms.
• Try to have your brand name in the first line.
• Place keywords naturally and don’t stuff them too much.
• Include a call-to-action to drive traffic to your store or blog posts.
• Finally, make your descriptions enticing and engaging.

#7: Understand And Leverage All Types Of Pins

The best thing about using a free business account is the freedom it gives you to create different types of pins.

While a personal account can only post idea pins and static pins to share ideas, a business account lets you post the following:

• Image pins
• Video pins
• Story pins
• Rich pins

Rich pins are the most interesting and useful of them all. They help you gain more visibility on Pinterest because they’re interactive in nature and facilitate users. How?

They fetch and display information from your website when a user clicks on them.

For example, product pins can include prices, availability information, and links to product pages. Recipe pins can show ingredients, cooking times, and nutritional information.

Similarly, article rich pins include the headline, author, and a brief blog post description.

So, no matter the type of rich, each one of them offers additional information about your products, leading to more engagement and better chances of conversions.

Important: When you link product pins back to your website, it helps improve your domain quality, ultimately strengthening your Pinterest SEO strategy.

#8: Use Your Pinterest Business Account Tools

Besides the option to post all types of pins, Pinterest business accounts come with some powerful features that can help you analyze, optimize, and promote your content for better performance.

For starters, Pinterest Analytics offers insights into your pins, boards, and overall profile performance.

You can track data like impressions, clicks, saves, and follows in order to understand user preferences and optimize your content accordingly.

Then, there is Pinterest advertising, which lets you use the Promoted Pins (or Pinterest Ads) feature to showcase your best pins in front of more people.

You can even target relevant audiences and measure the success of your campaigns using Pinterest Ads Manager.

How does it work?

At the highest level (campaign level):

1. Set a budget for your campaign
2. Choose one of the following campaign goals: awareness, engagement, and traffic.

At mid-level (ad group-level):

3. Choose your target audience.
4. Select your ad dates.

At the bottom level (ad-level):

5. Select your pins to promote

You can choose any of the following ad formats:

• Collections ad
• Video ads
• Carousel
• Idea ads

That’s it — run ads, analyze performance, and adjust your Pinterest strategy accordingly.

However, the results of your campaigns depend heavily on your goals.

While awareness and engagement campaigns can increase brand awareness, traffic campaigns can get you more website visitors.

So, choose your goals wisely.

#9: Engage With Your Target Audience

Engagement is the key to success on Pinterest.

That’s why it’s important for you to actively engage with both your followers and target audience.

You can do this by leaving comments on pins, repinning content from other users, and responding to questions and messages. This helps build trust and credibility, which can lead to more engagement on your pins and website.

You can even join group boards and collaborate with other creators in your niche.

This allows you to reach a wider audience and get more exposure for your content.

Plus, it’s a great way to network with influencers and get additional promotion for your brand.

So, start engaging with other users on Pinterest today and reap the rewards of success!

AND that’s a wrap!

Buckle Up For Pinterest Success

By now, we’re sure you know that Pinterest should definitely be a part of your social media marketing strategy.

As with any other platform, success on Pinterest takes time and effort. But with the right strategy, you can leverage Pinterest to create a powerful presence for your brand on this highly engaging social network.

However, if it seems overwhelming or overly technical, consider completing this: Social Media Marketing Certificate.

Or follow our 2023 step-by-step guide to set up your Pinterest business account and create an effective Pinterest strategy to generate leads and drive sales.

The post The Complete Pinterest Marketing Guide: 9 Tips For Business Growth in 2023 appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Search optimization is bigger than ever…

…and it’s NOT just about ranking on Google.

No, I’m not talking about Bing optimization or Yahoo! optimization or DuckDuckGo optimization.

In fact, I’m not talking about optimizing for general search engines at all. 

I’m talking about a different kind of search optimization. A kind of optimization that, depending on your business, might be far more important than improving your organic rankings in Google.

I’m talking about vertical SEO (search engine optimization).

In this post, you’re going to learn…

• What “vertical search” is
• Why it’s so critical for so many companies, and finally…
• How to use the IBSO (Intent-Based Search Optimization) process to rank in search engines other than Google — such as Amazon, Pinterest, YouTube, and more

Ready to get started?

We’ll begin with how vertical SEO is different than Google SEO.

General Search vs. Vertical Search

Let’s say you own a Thai restaurant, and you’re trying to get your site in front of local people who are searching online.

One search query that you want to target is “Thai food.”

But as anyone in the restaurant business can tell you, Google is NOT the only important search engine you have to keep in mind.

For local restaurants trying to attract new customers, Yelp is just as important as Google is.

But here’s the thing: Yelp and Google are different kinds of search engines with completely different algorithms.

Google is what we call a “general search engine.” You can go to Google to search for just about anything you can imagine.

Yelp, on the other hand, is a “vertical search engine.” In other words, it focuses on a specific niche, industry, or vertical. It’s more of a specialty search engine.

In the case of Yelp, that vertical includes local businesses — like restaurants, bars, hotels, and so on.

Other examples of vertical search engines include…

• Amazon (for physical products)
• Indeed (for jobs)
• Trulia and Zillow (for real estate)

So, why is vertical search so important?

Research shows that searches conducted on vertical search engines are growing — especially on the all-important mobile device.

A 2013 comScore report revealed that vertical search grew 8% YoY while Google searches declined 2% YoY.

Meanwhile, an article in The New York Times revealed that Amazon gets more shopping searches than Google does.

Now, I’m not saying you need to be optimized for ALL vertical search engines. That wouldn’t make sense at all.

But optimizing your business for the right vertical search engines can have a huge effect on your bottom line.

So, the next thing you might be wondering is… how do you know which vertical search engines are important for your business?

And to answer that question, let’s turn to a concept called IBSO.

Introducing: Intent-Based Search Optimization (IBSO)

If there’s one SEO mistake that companies make all the time, it’s this:

They improve search rankings that don’t have any effect on their business. 

In other words, they either target the wrong keywords, optimize the wrong pages, or focus on the wrong search engines.

They end up with better rankings… but those rankings don’t translate to more traffic or conversions.

So, how do you avoid this super-common mistake?

By following IBSO.

Intent-Based Search Optimization, or IBSO for short, is a search optimization process that can help you to optimize your site not just to get better rankings…

…but to get more traffic, customers, and revenue.

Here’s what it looks like:

IBSO consists of six steps. Each step is simple and straightforward by itself, but when followed in a specific order, they can be very powerful.

Let’s run through all six steps now:

Intent-Based Search Optimization Step 1: Intent

The first question is simple: What is the prospect searching for? What’s the search query?

For our example, let’s use “Thai food.”

Intent-Based Search Optimization Step 2: Context

Next ask yourself: Why are they searching for this?

In our example, the answer is pretty simple. Because they’re hungry! It’s lunchtime, and they’re looking for something to eat.

Intent-Based Search Optimization Step 3: Asset

Next, you’ll have to think about this search from the searcher’s perspective. What is it they’re looking for? What sort of asset will satisfy their search?

By “asset,” I mean…

• A page
• A piece of content
• An application
• A tool

…or something that will make their problem go away.

(RELATED: Perfect Content Marketing: How Content Generates Leads and Sales at Every Step of the Funnel)

In our Thai food example, the asset that makes sense is a listing.

In other words, a page that contains information about the restaurant — its hours, menu, reviews, location, pictures, and so on. Information the searcher can use to determine where they want to go for lunch.

Intent-Based Search Optimization Step 4: Channel

Now that you know which asset will satisfy the person’s search, the next thing you need to figure out is: Where should that asset live?

In our example, we’ve determined that the asset they are looking for is a listing that contains information about the restaurant.

So where should that listing live?

Some of the vertical search engines that make sense for restaurant listings include:

• Yelp
• TripAdvisor
• OpenTable
• Google Maps

Many of the channels you list out in this step will be search engines, each of which has different ranking factors. Which brings us to…

Intent-Based Search Optimization Step 5: Optimization

Now that you know what kind of content to create and where to put it, the next step is to figure out how the prospect will find that asset.

When we talk about search optimization — whether it’s SEO for a general search engine like Google or optimizing for a vertical search engine like Yelp — this is where that search optimization takes place.

This is where it becomes crucial to understand different search algorithms and how each channel ranks the different assets on its website.

In our Thai food example, some of the things we’ll need to optimize for on Yelp include:

• Getting more legitimate reviews
• Raising our average review score
• Optimizing our profile for the right keywords

We’ll dive into this step in more detail in just a moment. But first, let’s discuss…

Intent-Based Search Optimization Step 6: Ascension

Here is where you have to think about the next step in the Customer Journey. What do you want people to do AFTER they consume your content asset on the channel from Step 4?

What’s the next step?

In our Thai food example, the next step might be for the person to check out our menu and call to make a reservation or to place an order for delivery.

And that’s it!

That’s how you go through the IBSO process to determine what sort of content assets your business needs to develop and where they need to live.

Before we move on, let’s do another quick example:

• Intent: What are people searching for? For this example let’s take a search query we have a lot of experience with here at DigitalMarketer: “Content marketing certification.”
• Context: Why would someone search for that? Typically we find it’s because they want a better job — whether it’s a promotion, a brand-new job, or to enter into a new field entirely.
• Asset: What sort of asset would a person be looking for when they performed that search? Someone looking for “certification” isn’t interested in short, easy-to-read posts; they’re looking for in-depth training. That’s why the best sort of asset for this search query would be a big pillar blog post or an article around the “ultimate guide to content marketing.”
• Channel: If we built that asset, where would be the best place to put it? Obviously, we should post it on our blog, but there’s another great vertical search engine that makes perfect sense for people who are looking for a better job — LinkedIn.
• Optimization: Now, how will prospects find that asset on LinkedIn? Simply put, this is where we have to optimize the post for vertical SEO on LinkedIn.
• Ascension: Finally, what do we want to build into our asset that allows people to take the next step? In our case, we would include a link to the sales page for our Content Marketing Certification.

Now, let’s talk about…

How SEO Fits Into IBSO

I want you to notice something: IBSO has six steps, and we didn’t even mention search optimization until Step 5.

That’s because truly effective search optimization requires more up-front thought than most people give it.

Most marketers start by performing keyword research (Step 1 in IBSO), then jump straight to trying to optimize their site for that keyword (Step 5).

And they fail to take the time to figure out why people are searching for that query, what they’re really looking for, and where that asset should live.

This is a big part of the reason why so many marketers have such a hard time with SEO. And it’s also why many companies are able to increase their rankings without actually increasing their revenue.

But following IBSO can change all that.

And that’s why it’s important to figure out the Intent, Context, Asset, and Channel for your search term before you focus on the actual optimization process.

So, let’s talk about that stage in more detail by going through examples of how you can rank on several of the most popular vertical search engines.

How to Optimize for Search on Amazon

If you’re an ecommerce company selling physical products, there’s no doubt what the #1 biggest vertical search engine in your space is.

It’s Amazon.

This ecommerce giant has developed its own sophisticated search algorithm designed to return the search results that are most likely to maximize sales.

With that in mind, here are five Amazon product page elements to optimize for:

Optimize for Vertical SEO on Amazon Step 1: Sales Velocity

Sales velocity is defined as the speed at which you are receiving orders. Basically, it boils down to getting a high volume of sales as quickly as possible.

To this end, product launches are an important part of getting traction on Amazon.

By doing a promotional launch of your product, Amazon will think: “Oh, this is a hot product!” And as a result, they’ll start showing your product higher in the search results.

Here’s an example of a promotional page for an Amazon product that worked very well:

Obviously offering your product for such a significant discount will eat away at your profit margins. In this case, it will even cost you money.

But the beauty of a product launch like this is that you don’t have to keep it running forever.

Once your sales velocity picks up, your Amazon rankings will improve.

Then you can discontinue the coupon deal and enjoy the increased sales that come as a result.

Optimize for Vertical SEO on Amazon Step 2: Verified Reviews

Verified reviews are a big part of the Amazon algorithm. The reason why is pretty simple: because Amazon knows that a high number of good reviews increases sales significantly.

Having trouble generating reviews on Amazon?

Try checking out a program like Feedback Genius. It’s well worth the investment if Amazon is an important part of your business.

Optimize for Vertical SEO on Amazon Step 3: Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Often, the search results you see on Amazon aren’t necessarily for the best products… but for the best-optimized product pages.

With that in mind, it’s important to create compelling search results that will increase your click-through rate (CTR).

If more people click on your product page, you will get more sales — and Amazon will be more inclined to display your product.

So, how do you do that?

By optimizing every element of your product listing page, including…

• Product name
• Product image
• Product price and discount
• Reviews
• Availability

Here’s a great example of a well-optimized product listing — in other words, what people see on the Amazon search results page:

Optimize for Vertical SEO on Amazon Step 4: Content

Step 3 was about optimizing your product listing.

This step is about creating the most compelling product page you can so that once people click on your product listing, they will be more likely to purchase your product.

To do this, it’s important to research your competitors to see what the best-selling products are doing. Then work on creating keyword-rich product pages by optimizing all the elements on that page:

• Product title
• Images and/or videos
• Product price and discount
• Reviews
• Product description
• Technical details (if applicable)
• Product details (if applicable)
• “From the manufacturer” details (if applicable)

Here’s the product page for the skin care serum we showed above. Notice how each of the “About the Product” bullet-points is a big, meaty paragraph full of benefits:

(RELATED: 13 Ways To Use Amazon.com To Pick Products and Niches, Craft Winning Offers, Increase Conversions And More)

Optimize for Vertical SEO on Amazon Step 5: Category

Finally, it’s important to make sure your product is listed in the correct category and is targeting the most relevant keywords.

This is vital to ensuring that your page shows up for people who are actually searching for you.

How to Optimize for Search on YouTube

Let’s say that your content asset (Step #3 of IBSO) is a video.

If that’s the case, then a likely channel for your search will be YouTube.

Here are the top five things to optimize your videos for on YouTube search:

Optimize for Vertical SEO on YouTube Step 1: Thumbnail Images

This is one of the most important things to optimize for on YouTube to increase video views. A good thumbnail will grab people’s attention and compel them to click on your video.

Here are some examples of good thumbnails:

Notice something all these thumbnails have in common?

They all make good use of text overlay on top of an eye-catching image.

If you aren’t sure how to create a thumbnail like this, it’s surprisingly easy — just sign up with Canva to customize your own thumbnails for free.

Optimize for Vertical SEO on YouTube Step 2: Engagement

Engagement metrics are a strong ranking signal for YouTube.

As more people like, share, and comment on your video, YouTube will start to find your content more engaging — and your YouTube rankings will increase as a result.

So, how can you optimize your video for engagement?

Creating a high-quality video is always a great start.

But you can also make calls-to-action (CTA) within the content of your video itself. Ask people to…

• Like
• Share
• Comment

…on your video. By doing this, you can create a noticeable increase in your engagement metrics.

Optimize for Vertical SEO on YouTube Step 3: Content

Remember that YouTube is owned by Google. As a result, many of the traditional SEO techniques can help to improve your YouTube rankings.

So, what can you do?

Optimize your video’s…

• Title
• Description
• Tags

…to include the keywords you want to rank for.

Here’s an example of a video that ranks for the keyword “how to tie a tie.” Notice how many times they use that keyword in the video’s description (the text below the video):

Optimize for Vertical SEO on YouTube Step 4: Video Retention

When trying to rank for vertical search, it’s helpful to think about things from the search engine’s perspective. What do they want searchers to do?

In this case, what does YouTube want people to do?

Well, YouTube earns its revenue from advertising — and the way they maximize that is to keep people on YouTube as long as possible.

With that in mind, another way of increasing your YouTube rankings is by improving your video retention rate. In other words: get more people to stay on your video longer.

You can see a graph of your video retention inside the YouTube Creator Studio:

One tip to increase video retention is to use a technique called “open loops.”

In other words, open a loop at the beginning of your video to pique viewers’ attention… then wait until later to pay it off. Like, “More on that in a minute, but first let’s look at…”

Novels and TV shows open loops all the time.

Typically, at the end of a chapter or an episode, a character is confronted with a shocking revelation or finds herself in a difficult dilemma. The loop has been opened.

And what does this get you to do? You turn the page or binge-watch the next episode to learn how it plays out and close the loop.

Use this tactic in your YouTube videos.

If you can arouse viewer’s curiosity at the beginning, they’ll stick around just to get the payoff when you close the loop.

Optimize for Vertical SEO on YouTube Step 5: Optimize for Ascension

Finally, always keep in mind what you want people to do next — after they finish watching — and include a CTA near the end of your video.

Do you want them to go to your website?

Download a free report?

Watch another video?

Here’s an example of a YouTube video from DigitalMarketer. Notice the CTAs are 1) to click to watch another YouTube video and 2) to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Keep in mind, YouTube wants people to stay on YouTube. So, anytime you can get people to click on another video, that will help your YouTube rankings even further.

(RELATED: How to Get 76,974 Youtube Views in 10 Days (The story of Emily Faith))

How to Optimize for Search on Pinterest

If you sell products online, Pinterest just might be a highly valuable vertical search engine for your business.

Here are four things to optimize for search on Pinterest:

Optimize for Vertical SEO on Pinterest Step 1: Images

Pinterest is a visual network, which means it’s crucial for your images to stand out and catch users’ attention.

Remember what we said about YouTube thumbnails? Using overlay text is vital to making your images stand out.

Here are a few examples of images that stand out from the pack and get high click-through rates:

A big part of the reason why these images stand out is because of their descriptive and eye-catching overlay text.

Another key is to use as much real estate as possible. For instance, this pin is 243×805:

Optimize for Vertical SEO on Pinterest Step 2: Board Covers

Your board covers are another important element to optimize for. And once again, using text overlay is essential here.

You want your board covers to be super descriptive so people know exactly what’s in each board. Here’s an example of that from DIY Ready:

Pay attention to how simple and clear those board titles are. We’ll talk about why that’s important in the next step. (« See that? I just opened a loop. )

Optimize for Vertical SEO on Pinterest Step 3: Keyword Targets

In Step 2, we mentioned how important it was to clearly describe each of your boards.

But what keywords should you use to do that?

Generally speaking, you want your board phrases to be as simple and descriptive as possible.

Don’t try to get cute with board names like “Mason Magnificence.” Instead, keep it descriptive with keywords like “Mason Jar Crafts.”

Nobody really knows what “Mason Magnificence” means. But everybody knows what “Mason Jar Crafts” are. And if someone is interested in mason jar crafts, that is what they’re going to search for.

One great way to find keywords inside of Pinterest is by using the auto-suggest keywords inside the search bar.

So, if you’re looking for keywords related to “mason jars,” then type “mason jar” into the search bar and see what keyword suggestions pop up underneath:

Then use that exact same keyword (exact match) for your board title to get the best search results on Pinterest.

Once you know your keyword, include it and keywords related to it within the description of your board:

Optimize for Vertical SEO on Pinterest Step 4: Don’t Forget to Optimize for Ascension

Finally, keep ascension in mind!

People typically use Pinterest as a sort of visual “wish list.” If someone pins a product, they’re interested in purchasing it!

So, give them a clear and easy way to visit your product page and buy from you.

(RELATED: How Ezra Firestone Generated $41,254.34 in Ecommerce Sales From $775.50 in Pinterest Ad Spend)

How to Optimize for Search on: Review Sites Like TripAdvisor & Yelp

Review sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp are hugely important for many companies, especially local companies like restaurants, hotels, and bars.

Here are the most important things to optimize for on review sites:

Optimize for Vertical SEO on Review Sites Step 1: Legitimate Reviews

Don’t game reviews. Operationalize them.

In other words, never try to game the system by generating fake reviews. Even if you’re able to get away with it for a little while, you won’t get away with it forever.

Companies like Yelp depend on having legitimate reviews. As a result, they put a LOT of time and money into making sure their reviews are real.

If you try to generate fake reviews, they’ll find out sooner or later — and you’ll end up doing more harm than good to your search results.

Instead, go to work actually delivering a good service!

Improve your product, customer experience, and customer service to actually deserve more 5-star reviews.

Then start to ask for email addresses and reviews at the point of sale, so you can make sure you are asking for reviews on a regular basis.

Many review sites even have tools that can help generate more reviews from your customers. Here’s an example of such a tool called “Review Express” from TripAdvisor:

Optimize for Vertical SEO on Review Sites Step 2: Review Score

Next, understand that your review score trumps your review volume.

It’s better to have 100 reviews with a 4.5-star average than 10,000 reviews with a 2.2-star average.

Two things you can do to increase your review score are to rescue filtered reviews and to respond to reviews.

Review sites will frequently “filter out” reviews that they think might be fake. But in the process, sometimes they filter out real, legitimate reviews. 

Whenever this happens, you can reach out to that site and let them know that this is, in fact, a good review — “rescuing” it from the filtering process.

Next, reply to your reviews. It doesn’t matter if it’s a good review or a bad one; the important thing is to show people that you’re responsive to customer feedback.

If people see that you respond to your reviews online, it will give them the impression that your company is paying attention to its customer reviews and actively trying to provide a good customer experience.

Optimize for Vertical SEO on Review Sites Step 3: Own Your Profile

Finally, make sure that you own your profile so you can verify that everything on there is accurate and consistent with your website and other online listings.

In some cases, you might need to start a new profile. In others, you’ll need to claim an existing unclaimed page. Many review sites will let you claim your business — you’ll have to go through a series of steps to verify that it is, in fact, your business.

To do this on Yelp, for instance, look for the “claim this business” link:

Next, when optimizing your profile, make sure to…

• Use keywords where it’s natural to do so
• Use categorization appropriately
• Flesh out your profile using lots of images

All these things can help improve your review site rankings while also helping to convince more people to give your company a try.

A New Way to Think About Search Optimization

If you take one thing away from this post, let it be this:

Search optimization is about more than Google.

But it’s impossible to say exactly which non-Google search engines are the most important because they vary from business to business. 

To find out which search engines matter most to YOU, simply go through the IBSO process described in this post.

And if you want to become a true search optimization master…

…one who knows how to improve not just rankings, but traffic, customers, and revenue…

Then check out our Search Marketing Mastery course.

It’s the highest-level search marketing course we offer. You’ll learn how to increase your search rankings, drive more traffic, and transform that traffic into sales and valuable leads for your business.

The post Growing Your Business with Vertical SEO: How to Use the IBSO Process to Rank in Amazon, YouTube, Pinterest, & More appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Yes, more people use Facebook.

However, users on Pinterest are signing onto the platform to plan, buy, and do. That’s a much different intention than users signing onto a platform to watch cat videos.

And, when you consider that 50% of women and 50% of dads in the United States are using Pinterest—that’s some buying power. (Hint: that’s 47,000,000 American users.)

See where I’m going with this?

If you need more reason to pay attention to Pinterest, then let me let you in on a little secret: Very few marketers get Pinterest, which means there is opportunity left on the table, and you can rake it in by learning the basics.

(RELATED: How Ezra Firestone Generated $41,254.34 in Ecommerce Sales From $775.50 in Pinterest Ad Spend)

This is exactly how I got started establishing a Pinterest presence for BabyList during my time as their CMO.

Using the incredible results from the three strategies below, we were in a great position when we were given access to Pinterest Promoted Pins—a venture that resulted in a 40% increase in revenue during its first five months!

Those steps were basic, but powerful, and they’re what I’ll be sharing today.

Let’s get started.

Step #1: Forget Your Profile

Everyone thinks you have to start with a Pinterest profile, and then you have to find and save cool pins to your profile day and night to gain followers.

These people are WRONG.

And I understand their confusion.

Every other social platform makes you start with a profile and encourages businesses to build their number of followers.

But Pinterest is different.

While you do need a Pinterest profile to spend advertising dollars on Pinterest, you DON’T need a profile to get tons of traffic from Pinterest.

Let me give you an example.

The grocery store Trader Joe’s does not have a Pinterest profile, but I know they get tons of traffic from Pinterest.

How do I know Trader Joe’s gets tons of traffic from Pinterest?

Here’s the trick: You can go to “www.pinterest.com/source/[enter_url_here]” to see what people are pinning from ANY website.

So, let’s see what people are pinning from traderjoes.com by typing in www.pinterest.com/source/traderjoes.com:

Look at that! Recipes from the Trader Joe’s website are being saved to thousands of Pinterest profiles, all without Trader Joe’s having a Pinterest profile. Huzzah!

Step #2: Figure Out What People Like Pinning

Okay, now you know you don’t have to create a profile to get Pinterest traffic.

What’s next?

Start by getting a feel for your competition on Pinterest.

To do this, type your best search terms into the Pinterest search bar.

For example, if I have a toy company, I’d type “toys” into the Pinterest search bar. If I’m a motivational speaker, I’d start by typing in “motivational speaker” into Pinterest.

What comes up for your search terms? Which pins have the most re-pins?

Now, a lot of people think of Pinterest as a social media site, but it really functions as a search engine.

So, treat Pinterest like Google.

Type in your search terms, see who wins them, and strategize on the content you can create to get you to appear among the results.

(Related: Episode 66: Creating Content that Converts with Laura Hanly)

To illustrate, during my time as CMO of BabyList, I realized there was a lot of potential for us when it came to baby gear searches on Pinterest.

Search terms like…

• “best stroller of 2016”
• “baby swaddle blanket”
• “how to cloth diaper”

So, we created blog posts to target these searches… and it worked.

We got 100,000 more visitors to our site as a result.

(Related: How To Write Blog Posts That Sell)

Step #3: Add Vertical Images to Your Posts

Once you have blog posts that match well with Pinterest search terms, you have to make sure there is an awesome VERTICAL image included in the post.

Buzzfeed has some great examples.

When they write a post they think will do well on Pinterest, they always include a vertical image with the post, as they do in the article below:

See the vertical image/collage that’s featured at the top of the post?

At this point, you might feel overwhelmed – I have to add vertical images to all my blog posts now?

Believe me, this can be simpler than it seems.

You just need…

1. A portrait image that matches your blog post theme (I love Stocksy for finding images).
2. A way to overlay the title of your blog post on top of the image (I love picMonkey for adding text overlays – you don’t even need a designer).

Your pins don’t even have to be professionally designed.

In fact, I believe the pins that look homemade do better than the super well-designed ones because they look less like ads.

Try these simple three steps and take your Pinterest game to the next level and leave your competition in the dust.

The post Get the 3-Step Pinterest Jumpstart Plan that Led to a 40% Increase in BabyList’s Revenue appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

That’s the question I posed to ecommerce expert and Smart Marketer founder Ezra Firestone at the 2016 Content & Commerce Summit.

Within in ten minutes, Ezra shared with me the assets he’s using to create a journey that turns a prospect into a customer…

Check out the video (with its transcript) to learn:

• The best top of funnel conversion asset.
• The simple video that is working best in Ezra’s sales funnel that you can create, too.
• What Ezra calls “integrated social commerce” and how it will change ecommerce.

Want to get notified the next time we upload videos like the one above? It’s easy, simply subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Video Transcript:

The post How a Multi-Million Dollar Ecommerce Brand Uses Video, Facebook, and Pinterest to Close More Sales appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Okay, let’s get down to it.

Take a look at this…

Between January 1, 2016 and January 31, 2016, one of my Shopify stores generated $1,422,500.15 in revenue. (If you haven’t checked out my DigitalMarketer Lab “Set Up Your Shopify Store in a Weekend“ Execution Plan — do it now!)

On Facebook & Instagram I spent $429,014.02.

Of that $429,000 only $22,000 of it was spent on Instagram.

We had to slow down our growth rate a bit in order keep our supply chain functioning, so we cut Pinterest Ads off in mid-November. As you can see here we $0 in spend for January.

We spent $5,242.70 on Google. We also had to cut Google in mid-November to slow things down a bit but left a few campaigns running so we did get in some ad spend with Google in January.

And here’s how the numbers actually breakdown of the numbers for my store from January:

• Total ad spend: $434,256.72
• Total revenue generated: $1,422,500.15
• Total initial profit before ad spend: $810,825.08
• Total initial profit after ad spend: $376,568.36

Shopify actually shows $1,430,007.92 in revenue which is $8k higher than Google Analytics.

I have a few companies that do multiple 7 figures a year, but this one is the biggest. Let me tell you a bit about it.

BOOM! is the first pro-age cosmetic line for women of every generation. It’s a pared-down skin care and cosmetics company that I created with my business partner, Cindy Joseph.

We created BoomByCindyJoseph.com to sell our products and increase awareness of the Pro-Age Revolution, a movement focused on shifting the anti-age perspective of our society to a pro-age perspective. We have gotten an incredible response from the pro-age community and women of all ages, especially those who identify as “Baby Boomers.”

I’ve been focusing my attention on ecommerce for the last decade, and as a result I’ve gotten very good at it. There are three areas that I’ve especially mastered and are the focus of today’s post:

• Generating visibility
• Creating conversions
• Engaging customers in a conversation that turns them into repeat customers

That’s the secret sauce, by the way: traffic and conversion are great, but what really kicks a business into high gear is repeat business.

In this article I’m going to show you my exact ad campaigns, sales funnels and engagement sequences that are making me over $1 million dollars a month. I hope you will then copy them and use them in your businesses. (Seriously, that’s what you should do.)

Let’s get started.

The Big Four

First we have to fix your traffic problem. Don’t be embarrassed—most people have an offer and traffic problem.

The main problem I see—time and time again—is most people don’t have a consistent and scalable visibility source in place for their business.

There are 3 main problems people have when they attempt to generate visibility for their businesses (i.e. when they buy traffic), and I’m going to share them with you in a minute. But first let’s take a look at the traffic landscape.

The first thing you’ll spot on the traffic horizon is what I call traditional, “query based” traffic sources. This is the traffic that I grew up on. Check out this video:

“Query based” means people type in a search term (a query) and are then shown an ad relevant to their search, like on Google. And there are other query based traffic sources out there, too.

As an advertiser, you get to choose which search queries you bid on and show your ads for. It’s a fantastic form of advertising because, since you know what the person is looking for, you can show them a relevant offer.

They have already decided they want that kitchen organizer thing that organizes other kitchen organizer things, and they’ve gone looking for it (searched on Google), so all you have to do now is show them some pictures of your product and a describe it to them and give them a way to buy it.

And it’s fantastic traffic when you can get it.

Here’s the problem: it’s generally pretty expensive, and it’s limited. There are only so many folks out there searching for kitchen organizers…

Next you have contextual advertising.

Contextual advertising where you choose whom you want to target with your ads based on context.

When I got started, contextual advertising wasn’t so great because you really only had one data point on each person, which was whatever web page they were visiting at the time. For example, if they were visiting a page about cats, you could show them an ad related to cats. That’s as advanced as it got in those days.

In the last 10 years, multi-data point contextual targeting has caused a seismic shift in online advertising, making it so much easier for business owners to reach highly targeted groups of customers. We now have access to thousands of data points on any one person, and we can combine these together to create audiences of people that we think will be receptive to certain content and offers.

We have demographic data points available to us…

• age range
• gender
• ethnicity
• relationship status
• housing status

…along with behavioral & interest data points like past purchase history and what movies they like.

There are only 4 significant places to buy this information and put messages in front of users. I call them The Big Four:

1. Google (Google Search, Google Shopping, YouTube, Google Display Network and more), which offers both query-based and contextual targeting.
2. Facebook, which offers contextual targeting.

3. Instagram (owned by Facebook), which offers contextual targeting

4. Pinterest, which offers a combination of query-based and contextual targeting.

Outside of The Big Four, there are other channels to purchase visibility like Amazon. Other comparison shopping engines, other social networks like Twitter & LinkedIn. Content networks like Outbrain and Taboola, and more.

All of my businesses focus almost exclusively on The Big Four, and I can’t think of a single business model where one of the 4 wouldn’t have the potential to be your main traffic source.

A quick aside: you should always hold the goal of having more than one working source of visibility.

If you are 100% dependent on a single source of visibility, you put yourself at serious risk. When I got started in ecommerce, drop-shipping was the name of the game, and organic traffic (via Google SEO) reigned supreme.

Eventually, Google grew tired of people manipulating their algorithm, so they released a series of updates making it harder to “game” their system and manipulate the organic search rankings of web pages.

It struck a devastating blow to drop-ship ecommerce. Half the business owners I knew (I’m talking six- and seven-figure operations) were out of business overnight because their one source of visibility had dried up.

These days, private labeling is all the rage, and Amazon has been crowned king of the traffic jungle. But business owners who depend solely on Amazon put themselves in the same vulnerable position as the drop-shippers who relied only on SEO.

That may sound like a real downer to you, so let me balance it out with some good news: once you get one source of visibility working, it’s easier to get more working.

But I digress. Let’s get back to the story at hand. Now that you know the landscape of the traffic world, let’s talk about the main problems keeping traffic-buyers from being profitable.

Big Four Traffic Problem #1: Targeting Too Broadly

If you put your message in front a group of people who are not interested in your offer, you shoot yourself in the foot at the very start.

The success of your advertising hinges on your targeting. There are now so many options and data points, and the potential pool of people is so big, that it’s very common for people to create target audiences that are much too general.

The key with targeting is specificity.

You’re like an archer honing in on the bullseye: you don’t care about all the stuff outside your very tight focus, you’re aiming for a very specific and highly-leveraged goal (the one that scores you the most points). In this analogy, your target audience is your bullseye — it’s where you can direct your message to get the most highly-leveraged results, and the most profit!

Unlike an archer’s target, however, your bullseye is not going to be outlined for you in red paint. So the next thing you have to do is test A LOT of interests, groups and behaviors. From there, you “follow the scent,” meaning you see what works and then do more of that.

You have to be willing to test. I’ll tell you more about the exact types of targeting we use later in this case study.

Big Four Traffic Problem #2: Selling The Click

It’s not enough to target the right people — you also have to capture and hold their attention long enough for them to consume the content of your ad and decide they want to click on it.

One cool trick we use for this is The Rule of Upper and Lower Thirds. These are lines of text that we lay over our images to create an additional headline in our ad. (Note: on some networks, like Facebook and Instagram, the text cannot take up more than 20% of the image.)

We also use faces in our ads. In our market, we have found that advertisements containing a person’s face tend to perform better than advertisements without one.

Yet another tactic we use is to “cartoon-ize” our ads. And most of our ads stack these elements. For example, we’ll have a person’s face, drawn as a cartoon, along with a lower third of text.

You want your ad to catch people’s attention, but not to the extent that the ad is no longer relevant to your offer page. If you use a picture of lips (because people really like to click on ads with lips on them for some reason), but you send folks to a page about cats, it’s just not going to work.

You must ensure that your ad text and imagery is congruent with the landing page it sends people to. This is known as Ad Scent, and you can learn more about it from this post.

(RELATED: Perpetual Traffic — Episode 12: The Perfect Cold Traffic Ad: “Ad Scent”, the One-Two Punch, and the Guard Down Trick)

Big Four Traffic Problem #3: Post Click Engagement

 Okay, so you targeted someone with an ad — you piqued their curiosity — and they clicked on it…

Now you have to actually engage that person in a conversation they are interested in, and convince them to do business with you. This is the meaty part of driving traffic (even if you’re selling spirulina powder).

Now you must elicit a “yes” to consuming your sales message and a “yes” to purchasing your product.

ecommerce is about flow, and you need a “yes” at every step to make it work: “Yes, I will view your product and read the description; yes I will add it to my cart; yes I will continue to billing,” and so on until you’ve made the sale.

This is where the sales funnel comes in.

A “sales funnel” is an eComm lingo term for a series of web pages that you send people through in a specific order to elicit a specific response. In other words, it’s a deliberate sequence of engagements designed to get people to say yes to your offer.

(RELATED: How To Architect The Perfect Conversion Funnel For Your Business)

There are a number of effective sales funnels, and most businesses use more than one at a time. When it comes to buying visibility for a business, you need to get at least one to work.

The purpose of that essential first sales funnel is for front-end customer acquisition. That means your funnel takes prospects from a traffic source, engages them in a relevant conversation, and holds their attention long enough for them to become a customer.

Once you have that one sales funnel working and a steady flow of customers coming in, you can add more.

I have tried dozens upon dozens of sales funnels over the years, and I keep coming back to one specific model that works for every business and every market I’ve ever tried.

It is the core acquisition model for all of my current businesses.

It just so happens that my million-dollar-per-month Shopify store also uses this funnel.

95% of our paid visibility (traffic we buy) goes directly through this specific funnel…

The Dipsy Doodle and The Don Daliber

This is the process and art of amplifying content as a means for generating interest in a product or a service.

Here’s what it looks like:

The main way this differs from traditional query-based advertising is that we are not sending people directly to an offer page or product page. Remember, with query-based advertising it is quite easy to send people directly to an offer page. Since you know precisely what they are looking for, you can show them an offer for exactly that thing. Now, if you intend to get contextual and social advertising to work for your business, you need to add a step before you get to your offer.

We call this step a DIPSY DOODLE page. Essentially, it is a piece of content (generally a written article or video) that engages the prospect in a conversation about a topic relevant to them or a problem they have. At the end of the article, you allude to a suggestion or solution… which is your product.

To put it in NLP lingo, you’re “reversing the frame.” Instead of chasing people with an offer saying, “hey, buy my stuff,” you engage them with a piece of content saying, “hey, look at this cool article.” That piece of content then mentions a relevant product, and provides a link to check it out. So the customer ends up chasing the offer, instead of the offer chasing the customer. They are interested in the article; they consume the content; the content suggests your product; they click on the link and end up on your sales page.

Here’s how we do it for BOOM!…

We target audiences of women (generally 45+ and in America) with this article on Facebook, Google, Pinterest, etc

Here’s an example of the some of ad creative we use:

When a prospect clicks on our ad, they land on an article page on our website titled, “5 Makeup Tips For Older Women By Makeup Artist Turned Super Model Cindy Joseph.”

This is our Dipsy Doodle pre-sell page.

We are engaging prospects in a conversation about a topic they find interesting, and within the article we are alluding to a solution (our products).

We have a few interesting things happening on this page to supercharge its efficacy. First, we are using exit intent software (also known as on site retargeting) called Opti-Monk to make an offer to the people who land on the page and attempt to leave without looking at our offer.

If someone lands on the page and attempts to scroll out of the window, we pop up a Lead Magnet. Our goal is to collect email addresses of potentially interested parties so that we can follow up and make an offer at a later date. Notice that the Lead Magnet we use is another piece of content.

Here’s what that looks like, when it pops up:

And here it is after you’ve submitted your email:

In this 30-day period we generated 6,553 new email leads from this one exit-intent offer. These leads are added to a pre-purchase email automation sequence. We follow up with them with additional content and offers with the intention of turning them into customers.

This pre-purchase email automation sequence was responsible for $44,817.99 of our total revenue in January.

It’s important to note that this is not an exit-pop up; it’s an exit intent offer. It opens in the same browser window that they are already in; it does not pop up a new browser window.

Exit pop-ups are not allowed by most advertising networks, but exit intent offers are. You must make sure you are using exit intent rather than an exit pop-up if you’re going to be purchasing traffic as your front-end acquisition strategy.

Here are some of the types of messages we send people whose emails we’ve captured via an exit intent offer:

Retargeting is another important element of this page. Inside of Facebook (and Google, etc.), we have a retargeting audience of all the people who visited this page and didn’t buy. We follow up with these people using ads and Dipsy Doodle pre-sell content — generally another article or video.

Here is some of the ad creative we are using:

Just the top part of the funnel, the follow-up that’s included between exit intent opt ins, and our retargeting produces about 20% of our revenue.

When someone sees our ad, clicks on it, consumes the content on the pre-sell page, and clicks through to our offer, they land on our ecommerce store.

But that’s not the only viable place for them to land. In your case, you might send them to a long form sales page, a webinar opt in page, a product detail page… You get the picture.

The offer can be anything.

In my information marketing business, my main sales funnel uses Dipsy Doodle articles to lead people to webinar opt in pages. In my SaaS business, I use Dipsy Doodle pre-sell articles (in the form of case studies about the software itself) to lead to long form sales letters about the software. Again, this is not just eComm specific; the offer can be anything.

Since BOOM! is an ecommerce store, we send people to the main category page on our store. From there they can consume information about our products and click through to an offer page (product detail page). From a product detail page, they can add the product to their cart.

Store Page:

Product Detail Page:

Shopping Cart Page:

We have the prospect on our cart page, and the next page they encounter in the sequence is our checkout page. This page is the final “yes” we need from them. Once they’ve said “yes” to this page and filled in their billing and shipping information… They are officially a customer!

There are a couple of things about this page worth noting, and they’ll help your conversion rate on checkout pages:

• We have multiple payment options (PayPal and credit cards).
• We also have an abandon cart email sequence in place.

This means that when someone gets to the checkout page and enters their email, even if they don’t finish any more of the page, we store that information and add them to an email sequence that attempts to get them to come back and purchase. Not only do we store their email address but we also take note of the items that were in their cart so we can communicate with them specifically about the items they were interested in.

(RELATED: The Ultimate Guide to eCommerce Email Marketing)

Heres what that email sequence looks like:

The first email goes out 4 hours after they abandon.

In it, we ask them to return to their shopping cart, and we introduce some scarcity. We move a very high volume of product, and as a result we sometimes run out of stock, or have stock running a few weeks late (getting our supply chain in better condition is one of our top goals for 2016, but that’s another story).

We use that fact as an opportunity to introduce some scarcity into our cart abandonment email sequence, and ask people to finish their order before we run out.

The next email happens 24 hours after they abandon, and is just another reminder to place their order.

After 2 days, we send a social proof email designed to engage them with a piece of content and get them back to our website.

On day 4 we begin a discount ladder. We found that people who were on the cart abandonment list who hadn’t purchased after 3 days were pretty much gone for good, so we introduced a discount offer at the 4 day mark. This has significantly increased the number of sales we get from our abandon cart email sequences.

On day 5 we send another social proof message, and on day 6 we send a time constraint email letting people know that the discount opportunity will expire in 24 hours. This time constraint reminder email works very well.

After that we send a mix of content offers and promotions, but 90% of the revenue generated from the abandon cart email sequence cycle happens within the first week.

Okay, just as a reminder. Here’s where we are so far in our funnel:

• We’re running an ad online and someone clicks on it
• They land on a content engagement page
• From there they click through to an offer page
• On the offer page they add a product to their cart
• They go through to the checkout page
• Finally they complete their order

Normally you’d send them to a post-purchase thank you page, but in our funnel we do something a little bit different.

We add an additional set of offers as one click upsells. These are offers that can be added to a person’s order with a single click of a button. They land on a page that makes an additional offer and they can either accept or decline that offer.

(RELATED: Customer Value Optimization: How to Build an Unstoppable Business)

Our goal with this page is to increase our initial average order value (AOV). The higher the AOV for our store, the more we can afford to spend to acquire customers. You can have one or more upsells in your funnel and even some downsells. There’s no right or wrong way to do post-purchase one click upsells. Different things will work in different markets. In general, you can expect to increase additional front-end revenue by 15-30% by adding one click upsells to your funnel.

After they see our upsell sequence, only then do we take them to our post-purchase thank you page. I want you to notice a couple things about our post-purchase thank you page:

• We have a video where we thank the customer for their order, tell them what to expect, and ask them to like our Facebook page.
• We have an incentivized social sharing widget where we ask all people to share their purchase on social media or through email. We use a tool called FriendBuy for this.

At this point in the funnel, we’ve now driven traffic and converted a sale. The next steps are to…

• Deliver on what was promised
• Engage your customer with relevant content
• Make additional offers

This will create repeat customers and increase your overall lifetime customer value. A great step in this direction is to have a dynamic and engaging post-purchase automation sequence.

Here’s an example of some of the emails we send to customers after they buy from us:

Immediately after their purchase, we send a thank you/welcome email.

Days 1-5 we send a few pre-arrival emails. These are designed to build excitement before the product arrives. We’ve noticed that they increase reviews and reduce buyers remorse and refunds.

Days 6-11 we do a cross-sell sequence. We make offers for complementary products. In this case, we use a long form video sequence (webinar) to make an offer for a complementary product. These emails only go to people who have not yet purchased that particular product.

On day 12 we introduce a social promotion in the form of a selfie request. We give them a chance to win $100 by sending us a selfie of themselves using our product. These are images we can use on our offer pages to increase our conversion rate.

On day 14 we send a survey request. This is a chance to get some written feedback from our customers, and take note of any suggestions they might have for us. We make sure each question has a comment box as the answer field.

We get SO much gold from this survey. We get insight into ideas for new products, ways we can improve, etc. It’s the best source of information we have for ways we can serve our customers better.

On day 16 we send the incentivized video review email.

We also have what are known as “win back campaigns” in place. We’ve done cohort analysis on our store and figured out when people are most likely to purchase again and what they are most likely to purchase based on what they purchased in their initial order.

So for example, if someone orders a BOOMSTICK Color from us, they are most likely to order another BOOMSTICK color within 30 days. So, if someone orders BOOMSTICK color and does not place another order within, say, 40 days, we have automation set in place that triggers an email sequence to begin making offers for BOOMSTICK Color.

We also noticed that if someone orders any item, they are most likely to place another order within 60 days. So if the 60 days go by and they have not purchased again, we automatically put them on a discount ladder and begin making them offers to come back and buy.

Funnel Page Features

Now I want to show you a few instances on our Store Page, Product Page, Shopping Cart pages that — again — you should really be copying.

First, we have another exit intent offer. In this case the exit intent offer is specifically about the products. It’s an incentivized opt in.

We’re saying, “Hey, give us your email address and we’ll give you 10% off your order right now.” So, if someone is abandoning any of those pages we try to save the sale by offering them a discount.

Because they have already shown interest in the products, we move on to making a more aggressive offer rather than just asking if they want more content.

When they are only on the Dipsy Doodle pre-sell, they haven’t shown interest in the products yet, which is why we only make a content opt in offer there.

Pop Up:

Pop Up Thank You:

We had $249,000 in orders (about ⅙ of total orders) in January from this coupon.

Second, we use ads to retarget people who visited these pages. You could retarget them with product-specific ads, but we find it to be more effective to retarget them with content. So if someone leaves one of these pages without opting-in, we also retarget them with more Dipsy Doodle pre-sell content.

Now I want to point out a few conversion notes related to your offer page. The offer page is the most important page in your funnel, because it’s where people make the decision whether or not they are actually going to buy from you. It’s where prospects start to turn into customers!

We drive a lot of traffic and are constantly running split tests on our offer page, so I want to show you a few conversion features we’ve discovered the secret sauce on:

• We have a hero shot of the product, a product description, and a product sales video—all above the fold. People prefer to consume content in different formats: some like to look, some prefer to watch, and others to want to read, so we cater to all media formats.

• Under our main product video we have what we call “third party pitch videos.” These are essentially PR pieces that were done about our product/brand. It always helps to have more than just us saying our product is great. Arbitrary 3rd party pitches of our our product have proven to be an excellent form of social proof.
• We have long form left-right content. You can scroll down the page and consume content and images as you go. There’s also a call-to-action at the bottom of the description so they don’t have to scroll up to click add to cart.

• We have a very strong social proof section of the page that includes traditional reviews as well as customer testimonial videos. These videos are acquired by sending past customers to an incentivized video review page. We email people after they buy and offer to give them a gift certificate to our website in exchange for a video review of the product they just bought.

• We have a cross-sell section where we offer them additional products.

So there you have it! That is a deep dive into some of the things we are doing to generate over $1M per month on our Shopify store. I’ve showed you everything from our advertising campaigns and sales funnels to our conversion strategies and email sequences. Thanks for reading, and I really hope you enjoyed it. Take what you like and use it in your business, then let me know how it goes!

The post Ecommerce + Paid Traffic: How Ezra Firestone Turned $434,256.72 into $1,422,500.15 in 30 Days Using Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google and Shopify appeared first on DigitalMarketer.