How Are You Engaging With Consumers on Your Website?

Let’s play a game where you guess what generation I am classified from clues that I give you. First clue is that I am in bed every night at 8:30pm. Second clue is that I don’t have a TikTok account. Third clue is that I have seen Engelbert Humperdinck live in concert…twice. From those three stats, you might say I would be considered a Baby Boomer, so I’m anywhere from late 50’s to early 70’s. Believe it or not, even though I am an old soul, technically I am a millennial. For the most part, I don’t have the “normal” qualities of a millennial and I act more like a Baby Boomer, however, when it comes to certain things, I certainly am a millennial!

One of the times I am is when it comes to dealing with or interacting with a business. If I want more information on something or even if it’s something customer service related, I want to find the way to interact with them the least; I don’t want to pick up the phone or go to their location. I would much rather go to the website, their Facebook page, text with them, or utilize a Live Chat feature they might have on their website. Live Chat is a great tool for businesses to incorporate into their website because it allows for consumers to interact with a business the way that they want to. Me, being a millennial, would much rather go to a website and use Live Chat to speak with someone and give up my contact information. My parents on the other hand, they are “old school” and feel more comfortable going to a physical location or picking up the phone and speaking with someone. Here is an example of how Amazon is a business that offers various ways for their consumers to interact with their team by having the Live Chat feature, or requesting a phone call:

Having a Live Chat agent on a website is the difference between brands talking at consumers, which is all a traditional website can do, and talking with their consumers. Live Chat is staffed by live humans who are trained agents that have knowledge about the business from their website, and through a series of questions that the business will answer. The other upside to having a Live Chat agent is that it allows for a business to have representation 24/7/365, without paying an employee to be available 24/7/365. With over 50% of consumers saying that a business needs to be available 24/7, Live Chat is a great tool to make that a possibility. Also, by having representation around the clock, this allows for leads to be captured, even when a business isn’t open. If it is late at night and I am just getting around to check out a product or service and I go to a website that has Live Chat and can give them my contact information for them to follow up with me, that is something that I can check off my to-do list, and there is nothing more satisfying to a millennial than crossing off something on their to-do list!

Another reason to consider adding a Live Chat feature to a website is because of the increasing amount of information that someone can receive from a Google Business Profile. This can act almost like a full screen sized mobile ad because it lists the address, hours, phone number, if that business accepts appointments, reviews, service options, updates, directions, menu (if applicable), and more about that business. Because of this, searchers are getting the information they are looking for without even going to the website, resulting in a “zero click search”. Live Chat can integrate with a Google Business Profile so the chat option can appear in Google Maps on a mobile device, and also in Google Search on a mobile device. Sixty five percent of Google searches do NOT result in a click to a website, so even if potential customers don’t visit the website of that business, they can still interact with that company, because of Live Chat.

When it comes to digital advertising, Live Chat isn’t exactly considered a marketing tool, but more of a lead generation tool. The main goal of the live chat agent is to gather four key pieces of information:

The visitors name
The visitors contact information (a phone number or email address)
What that visitor is looking for is something that business offers
The geographic location of that visitor

If the chat agent gathers that information, that is considered a sales lead and the business can then follow up with that lead. Live Chat is also a great way to demonstrate a return on investment because you’re able to the trail that consumers are engaging in. We can show how many people saw an ad, clicked on it, went to the landing page, and then initiated a chat with the Live Chat agent. From there, the business receives the transcript of the chat that look place and can follow up with that person and convert them into a customer. This is a great tool that shows the sales journey from someone seeing an ad because of a targeted campaign, to become a customer.

Now for certain types of businesses, it might make more sense to have a Virtual Assistant type Live Chat on their site, instead of a Live Chat agent. Virtual Assistant is for simple conversions like signing up for a newsletter, collecting emails, or asking for more info, without paying per sales leads that comes through.

Virtual Assistant is an automated bot, so it is not staffed by a live agent, and instead of paying $10 per lead fee, the business pays a flat fee per month. If a business isn’t trying to obtain leads but instead are trying to get more email addresses, or newsletter sign ups, subscriptions, etc., having the Virtual Assistant is the more cost-effective route.  Keep in mind Virtual Assistant does not currently integrate with a Google Business Profile or have the ability to do SMS text messaging, like the Live Chat agent.

With this option, the website visitor is presented with up to four options to choose from. After the visitor clicks one of the options the Virtual Assistant can ask for name, email, phone number, and offer a link to a page of the website.

Here are some example bot options for when the Virtual Assistant asks, “What can I help you with?” to visitors:

Home Improvement

Free Estimates
Scheduling
Support
Contact Information

Legal

Free Consultation
Contact Information
Existing Clients

Medical

Services
Appointments
Patient Support
Contact Information

B2B

Pricing
Products
Contact Information
FAQ

Education

Tuition
Tours
Contact Information
Current Students

As consumers, one thing that we have come to expect when dealing with a business is good customer service, no matter where we go. When helping businesses come up with ideas for their ads, one of the top things I always hear when I ask “what sets you apart from your competitors?” is that they have excellent customer service. That isn’t something that sets you apart from your competitors because that is something that is expected everywhere, but customer service has become a broad term. Does it mean adding a personal touch, responding quickly to questions, not being on hold for long, or maybe offering a discount? To me, the wanna be Baby Boomin’ Millennial, it means all of those, but something else I really enjoy, is being able to interact with a business the way I want to, when I want to.

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How to Create Compelling Online Videos

Video is Hot Hot Hot and stats prove that it is in high demand by digital users.

User-generated and professional videos increase brand engagement by 28%.

Particularly millennials trust user-generated content and video twice as much.

And 80% would rather watch a live video than read a blog. https://livestream.com/blog/62-must-know-stats-live-video-streaming

Hopefully you keep reading this blog to learn more about how to create online videos that will ultimately engage your audience.

First step is to remember the ABC and D’s

Attention, Branding, Connection & Direction.

Let’s talk about them each individually.

ATTENTION:

Capturing your audiences’ attention from the start is key and keeping their attention. Attention is a top driver of high-performing ads. What does this mean? The first five seconds is crucial, considering all we are exposed to online daily. Consumers love a good story and this can be done with great audio or visuals or both.  You can achieve this with exaggerated reactions, sound effects or voices that cut thru the clutter.

Imagine you are telling a story to a family member or close friend; you need to jump in right from the beginning in order for them to be interested in what you have to say. Focus on what you have to sell whether it be a product or service. Using multiple angles and close-ups are also some nice video tips to keep the user engaged. It is important to pair that with nice  visuals to draw the viewer in. For instance, if I saw this video below, I would wonder why is there a dog and a kid in space and I want to view more.

Many believe videos have to be overproduced, but many user-generated content videos perform just as well as higher quality content as it seems more genuine.

BRANDING:

Making sure your video conveys an accurate picture of your business or brand is important. This can be with consistent logo usage, colors and text. Don’t abandon things that would not resonate to the users and are off-brand.  This can also include consistent music, voices and/or jingles. If these standards have not been established, it is important to make some decisions so they can be carried out across all creative messaging. You want them to remember your brand and set the tone for what your brand is.

CONNECTION:

If you have ever met someone for the first time or even gone on a first date, it is important to connect from the very beginning. First impressions are key. In this case remember after you hook them in the beginning and grab their attention, you want to keep their attention. Make sure your video is not too long and is fluid and follows the flow of a heartbeat, nice highs and lows. You can do this with repeating visuals and make sure the story you are telling is not complicated and continue to use close-ups and visuals to carry it out.

DIRECTION

Lastly, direction. What is it you want the consumer to do? Remember a special offer? Call a number? Visit a location? Feel a certain way about your brand? This should be woven into the video and also included at the end as reminder to the user to DO WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO DO. If  you have ever heard the phrase, “Keep it simple stupid!”, this is important so it is clear what you want them to do. Do not overcomplicate things by having them remember too many steps. The call to action should be simple and concise.

Ok, now we have covered the A, B, C and D’s. You are Ready for the Action!

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How do Clients use Digital Advertising in October?

The Starbucks Pumpkin Spice latte debuts today, August 30, 2022.  Yes, there’s a feeling in the air with marketers, that October is right around the corner.  That means pumpkin-spiced everything. Walks to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness. A high volume of commercials from the politicians who are running for office.  Fall is officially upon us, and advertisers have a lot of reasons to advertise in October.

I think October is primarily known for being home to Halloween.  And with Halloween comes haunted houses, city-wide Halloween Movie Nights, themed nights at bars, and so on.  With events, you typically don’t have the opportunity to promote for months at a time.  In fact, you only usually get a full month’s commitment to run in 3 or 4 weeks.   Luckily, with digital, promoting an event is something that you can do.  When promoting an event for Halloween themed events, as mentioned above, there are a few products that are most popular.

Facebook and Instagram:

Let’s face it.  As people start prepping for this holiday, pictures and conversations of costume ideas get shared, liked, and some of them even go viral.  Having presence on these social media platforms will be a great place for your client to promote their events.  Using Facebook and Instagram, there are 2 types of ads that are the most effective.

First, the Carousel Ad.

What’s great about these Carousel Ads are that you can showcase so many aspects of your clients’ events.  Is there a costume contest?  Food and drink specials? Specialty music?  Do they have photos/videos from last year?   We recommend a combination of 10 images or videos to showcase what’s taking place at the event.  That means up to 10 different ways to get someone’s attention!   And each image or video can link to a different page of the client’s website that talks about that aspect of the event.  Are they selling tickets?  Have one of the images link to the page where a customer can buy a ticket today.  Is it a Haunted House and they are only open on weekends?  Have an image talking about hours and link to the page of the site that lists the hours.   This type of ad offers so much flexibility.

The second ad type that you can use is the Event Response Ad.  This is something you would pair with the carousel ad above.  Event Response ads can work with either B2B or B2C events because you get to choose the targeting criteria.   Facebook layers thousands of targeting categories on everyday users, like where they are, their job title, their age, gender or interests.  On the left side of your Facebook Business Page is a link called “Events”, where you create a free event with the date, address, and all other pertinent details:

From there, we use that event to target potential attendees inside their News Feed.   When someone expresses interest in your event by clicking “Interested”, the event details will automatically be added to their calendar on Facebook.   Facebook continues to gain frequency on those interested by posting alert reminders about the event as it draws closer.   Your event also will show up in your friends News Feed as something they could be interested in.   Here’s an example of an Event Response ad with advertising power behind it:

When using Facebook to target people for Halloween, here are a few categories that may help:

Halloween

Haunted Attraction

Haunted House

Halloween Costumes

Halloween Horror Nights

Horror Movies

The 2nd product to target your October events are Social Mirror Ads.

These ads are knocking it out of the park with our clients, averaging 7x higher CTR than the national average!  With Social Mirror Ads, we are taking your Social Media content, from any of the 8 major social media platforms, and mirroring that content onto other apps and websites to target potential customers when they are not on social media.

The first step is the client would give us the URL of the social post they want to use to create the ad – in this example, it’s a tweet that this advertiser published:

Then, we take that post and create it as an ad – that looks just like (and links to) the social post.  Again, these ads are running across thousands of apps and websites (not the social media platform).

Whether your client is like most other businesses, using Facebook and Instagram, or on any of the other 6 major social media platforms:

Twitter

LinkedIn

Pinterest

Snapchat

YouTube

TikTok

We can even create a Story Ad which mimics many of these platforms story format.  Using this type of advertising allows them to enhance their social media presence by putting it in front of their target audience when they aren’t on social media.  This is a great opportunity, especially for those clients that invest a lot of time and money into the creation of their content!

Targeting through Social Mirror also allows you to be pretty specific when looking for your customers.  Here are some categories you can use via Social Mirror:

Halloween

Halloween Candy Buyers

Halloween Costume Buyers

Halloween Super Shoppers

Halloween Products

Halloween Party Supply

Halloween Decorations

Halloween TV Specials

Halloween Enthusiasts

Holiday Entertainment Lovers

Horror Enthusiasts

Horror Movie Fans

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to help your clients promote their upcoming Halloween events, or just change their targeting to the demo of people that are going to spend a LOT of money on Halloween.  Also, as you’re speaking with your clients, here are a few stats you can share with them.

Americans spent around $10.14 billion on Halloween in 2021 (a record high).
The average amount spent on costumes, candy, decorations, and greeting cards per person is $102.74.
45% of consumers shopped for Halloween in September of 2021 or earlier.
39% shopped during the first 2 weeks of October.

During October, you also see a lot of pink, representative of the support for Breast Cancer awareness.   In my career as a radio salesperson, and even since I’ve entered the world of digital 6+ years ago, I’ve seen a lot of business owners give back to their communities by supporting their local Breast Cancer organizations.

There are a lot of ways to be able to do this and for businesses to promote their dedication to their community.  One of the top ways that I would recommend to a business owner would be using video.  I say this because when someone can convey their message verbally, there’s a lot of power that can be used in the tone of your voice, as well as in the words you speak.

There are a lot of video options out there, but I’ll share our top recommendations.

Video Pre-Roll

Have you ever gone to watch the latest highlights on ESPN of the game that took place yesterday?  Or maybe wanted to go watch a DIY tutorial on HGTV?   If you did, you probably saw a commercial play before you can watch the content you went there to watch.   That’s a video pre-roll ad.  They are either :15 or :30 in length and can be done with behavioral targeting, keyword targeting, artificial intelligence, and retargeting, and can run across all devices. These ads can be skippable or un-skippable, but that isn’t something that the advertiser is able to dictate. Whether ads are skippable or not is determined by the website in which they are appearing. By having a combination of skippable and un-skippable ads, those un-skippable ads are aiding in branding and awareness, and with skippable ads, research shows that people who have the option to skip but don’t, are the consumer who are really interested in your product or service.

Another opportunity to utilize video is through OTT (Over-The-Top) Advertising.  OTT is video programming that is transmitted via the Internet, not cable or traditional broadcast. People can watch their programs of choice by watching through connected TV’s (like an Apple TV), using a set top box like a Roku or a Chromecast that turns their “dumb TV” into a smart TV, or through a gaming console. These ads are similar to TV ads where the ad will run inside of the programming that the user is streaming, and they can be :15 or :30 in length.

Using both Video Pre-Roll (VPR) or Over-The-Top (OTT) to promote a business’ desire to give back to the community is a great strategy.  Here are a few of the categories you could choose from for your clients’ targeting:

Charitable Donors

Interested in Charity by type of Charity (Animals, Health, etc.)

Charity Event Attendees

Amount people have donated to charity

And in this case, for Breast Cancer Awareness specifically:

Breast Cancer Fund Raisers

Breast Cancer Caregivers

Charity Walks

Cause marketing is a great opportunity for your clients to give back to the community and bring awareness not only to their generosity, but also to the cause they are supporting.  In October, I’m sure there are many options, Breast Cancer awareness just being one of them.

Lastly, come October, Politicians are in full swing of their Ad Campaigns, which makes right now a great opportunity to start speaking with those candidates, their representatives, and the organizations behind issues.  No matter what side of the political spectrum you fall on, you know you’re going to see and hear ads from everyone that’s running.

Digitally, we see a lot more money being spent online (over 22% of budgets).

So where online is money being spent?  From what we saw this year during the primaries, there are a few products that I saw get most of the budget:

Over-the-Top (OTT)

Social Mirror

Mobile Conquesting – Address Targeting.

Since Over-the-Top (OTT) and Social Mirror were covered earlier I won’t repeat the same info.  However, here are just some of the reasons these two products are used (think behavioral categories):

Mobile Conquesting Address Targeting

I think we can all agree that every time there’s an election, we get bombarded with pieces of direct mail for every candidate we know about (and maybe some we didn’t).   Well, think of Address Targeting as Direct Mail for the Internet.

These politicians have huge databases.  Maybe it’s from their team knocking on doors, or information they’ve gathered in other manners.   How this works is the political team would provide you with the list of physical addresses.  Then we draw hundreds or even thousands of tiny geo-fences around an address (business or residential) to serve ads to consumers on their mobile phones and tablets.  Address Retargeting is continuing to serve ads to those same people when they leave their houses and use their mobile devices.  Advertisers can target a list of current customers, past customers, or any type of first party database list they have collected.  These ads can be mobile display or video ads.

Here’s a visual of impressions served to hundreds of targeting addresses:

With this tool, they can pinpoint the exact houses (or businesses) they want to reach.  We can also reach 100% of an address list that they have (except for PO Boxes and specific apartment numbers).   This strategy also uses frequency within the campaign, meaning we want to hit each of these addresses’ multiple times throughout the month, as opposed to just one time with Direct Mail.

Keep in mind that because Address Targeting is sent through mobile devices, be aware of the conversion you are asking the end consumer to complete on the website.  Typically, for political, it’ll just be branding and awareness, but if someone has to fill out a long form, a multi-field application, or a conversion that is better suited for a computer with a keyboard, this product may not be a good fit.  You want to make sure the action you’re asking a customer to complete after they click your ad is easy to do on a mobile device.

Whether your clients sell pumpkin spiced lattes, own a Haunted House, are supporting Susan B Komen or another non-profit, or are wanting to get elected for a specific office, October is jammed pack full of advertising opportunities.   These are just a few.

The post How do Clients use Digital Advertising in October? appeared first on Vici Media.

Are You Investing in Digital this Political Season?

The “ber” months are approaching quickly and that means cooler weather, reasons to eat a lot of pie, and everyone’s favorite- political season. That’s right, political season is already ramping up and we are seeing and hearing ads for all sorts of political races from local ballots to nationwide races. This year, political ad spending is set to smash records in the midterm elections with $9.7 billion dollars being spent on political ads during the 2022 election season.

Now, chances are that your particular candidate isn’t going to have millions of dollars to spend on a digital campaign, but take a look at your local races like Mayors, Clerk of Courts, County Assessor, District Judges, Prosecuting Attorney, State Representatives for your area’s districts, Family Court Judges, etc. On the local level, there are a lot of different ways you can use digital for political races and get a slice of that political pie.

The map above is broken out into congressional districts and it’s a great illustration showing the predicted percentage of local spending that political advertisers will take up as we march closer to that political window. Anything shaded in dark blue to light purple and then into dark purple means that those areas are predicted to have political spending be as much as 50% of the local ad spend, so this can help give you an idea on how much is going to be spent in your area for political.

Something else that can be helpful when talking to political candidates or campaign managers about how much they are looking to spend is to ask them what the average amount spent per eligible voter is. That number can vary greatly from $5.00 a voter, to more than $100 a voter but the average amount spent per eligible voter is $40.87. When talking with campaign managers or candidates themselves, you can ask them what their win number is, or how many votes that they have calculated that they need to get in order to win. Most will have calculated this number or at the very least looked at the prior election to know what the win number was for that winning candidate, and then you can multiply that by the number spent per eligible voter to get a benchmark on what a budget should be. For example, if we are dealing with a candidate with a win number of 500, their budget with a per eligible voter spend of $40.87 would be $20,435. That sounds like a pretty hefty number, but their opponents are looking at the same numbers they are, so they want to be aggressive!

When it comes to political races, broadcast TV is going to continue to get the elephants share of the spend, but digital ad spending is the next in line with the highest level of ad spend at $697 million dollars being spent. With 43% of voters searching for more information about a candidate after viewing an ad, digital is coming up at the heels of broadcast TV. Broadcast also has some restrictions when it comes to running ads because they don’t have endless amounts of inventory, so this is a great opportunity to talk about different digital offerings, like Over the Top (OTT) for those campaigns getting shut out of broadcast TV due to limited inventory.

OTT is definitely a top product for political and it’s estimated that $1.5 billion will be spent on OTT ads this year, which is surpassing the $1.3 billion that is expected to be spent on Google and Facebook. By using OTT, it is great for that top of funnel awareness to get the candidates name out there, but it also allows you to get more targeted by utilizing Behavioral Targeting, Artificial Intelligence, and Retargeting, and the targeting categories are really great for political:

Another well-known strategy for political is Mobile Conquesting because of the ability to target by some type of database list. Anybody who is running for an office is going to have access to all kinds of database lists either that they have collected, or through their affiliated party. With Mobile Conquesting Address Targeting, they could target voter lists so that we are reaching people that are affiliated with a certain party, or donor lists where we show ads to previous donors and ask them to donate again. With this strategy, we are going to reach 100% of that list and they can use display ads, video ads, and even add in Cross Platform targeting ads where we are reaching people on multiple devices and not just on their mobile device.

Now if the candidate doesn’t have a list to target or just wants to reach a little bit more of a broader audience, we can use Mobile Conquesting with Behavioral Targeting. With this targeting strategy, we can actually target by Congressional District as the geo, and the categories are also pretty specific:

The most common type of political campaigns are those that are running for offices, whether it be local, statewide, or national, but there are other type of political campaigns that you want to keep your eye our for, and those are ballot initiatives. Ballot Initiatives is a means by which citizens may propose to create, amend, or repeal a state law or constitutional provision through collecting petition signatures from a certain minimum number of registered voters. These types of initiatives or campaigns also have advertising budgets. One really good resource to use when looking for theses ballot initiatives is ballotpedia.org. This website lists national elections, state elections, city, county, ballot measures, local elections, etc., and all you have to do is go to the left side and look at ballot measures in your area and you can get an idea for what is being proposed, created, amended, repealed, etc..

Now that you have an idea on who you want to talk to and even some products that you want to talk about, here comes the hard part and it’s getting that meeting. How do you reach out and make yourself stand out compared to all the different types of media that are also trying to get a piece of the political pie? How do you position yourself as an expert? How do you make the candidate or campaign manager want to meet with you instead of someone else? You want to make sure you are using a valid business reason! Ask them if they are looking to target people by their political affiliation, interests, age, income, or voting district, and talk about the products you can do that with such as Video Pre-Roll, Social Mirror, OTT, Native Display, Native Video, or Display ads. Maybe reaching a large Hispanic population is something that they are interested in. If so, you have an entire presentation deck tailored for that. Talk about all the different ways that they can use a database that they might have with Native Email Matching, Facebook Custom Audience Matching and Lookalike, or Mobile Conquesting Address Targeting and Address Retargeting.

Once you do get that meeting, make sure you are doing your homework ahead of time. There is the potential for a lot of money with political campaigns, so you want to be prepared. During that first meeting, have an idea of who their target voter is, but clarify it with the candidate or campaign manager. Are they looking for certain ages or genders, is there a certain income they want to target or certain interests. If it is a Democratic candidate, be sure to highlight some of those categories that they will be interested in. If there is a certain ballot initiative, see what categories would be the best fit for that initiative. Ask them what the geo is that they want to focus on. If it’s a county race, you will want to make sure you are hitting all the zip codes in that county. Also, check out their Social Media accounts to not only see what accounts they have, but also get a feel for what they are about, their style, where they’re from, and even their values so that you have an idea of who you are going to meeting with and representing.  Don’t forget to use your Political Capabilities Presentation deck that we’ve created for you in your shared drive.

Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll even find out what kind of pie they like.

The post Are You Investing in Digital this Political Season? appeared first on Vici Media.

Are You Following the Proper Steps to Close Digital Sales?

ABC is an acronym for a lot of things. If you’re learning CPR, they teach you ABC to look for Airway, Breathing, and Circulation. If you’re a parent, ABC could mean “Another Blowout Coming”. In the broadcasting world, ABC stands for American Broadcasting Company. In sales, ABC is most commonly known as “Always Be Closing”, and in this case, ABC isn’t as easy as 1-2-3, so let’s look at some ways to make it a little easier when pitching and closing your digital prospects.

In a typical sales process, there are six steps:

Prospecting
Preparation
Presentation
Overcoming Objections
Closing the Sale
Follow UpFor prospecting, some great tools that you can use when looking for digital clients are Ghostery, SpyFu.com, and Facebook. Ghostery is an app you can download on your phone, or a paid extension that you can install on your browser. What you’re using this for is to see if that prospect has any advertising trackers. If they don’t have any advertising trackers, that is a good prospect to start from the beginning and mention some easier products like Display Ads. with. If they do have some trackers, this is a great opportunity to talk about some of the more advanced products like Social Mirror ads, Amazon, or Mobile Conquesting.

With Spyfu.com, you can look and see what some of the most popular keywords are that people are searching for for that business. This can help you get that first initial meeting with the prospecting by using a valid business reason like “We can target keywords related to your business such as (insert keywords found from SpyFu.com).  We do this by showing your online ads to people who visit webpages that contain your keywords. Can I schedule a meeting with you to talk about this and some ideas to market your business?”

For Facebook, you can actually see if a business is currently running ads on Facebook. If you go to their Facebook business page and go to Page Transparency, it will show it they are currently running ads or not.

If we take it one step further, we can see where they are running ads. If you click “Go to Ad Library”, now you can see they are running on Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Audience Network, and Facebook Messenger. If they are not using all the platforms that are available, this is where you can use your valid business reason to talk about Facebook and all the platforms that are available. “I was on your (Facebook) or (Instagram) page today and I was wondering if you were taking advantage of all the new ways Facebook now has to target your ads with products like Carousel ads with click to call options or Lead Ads, and run these ads not just on Facebook but on Facebook Audience Network which features thousands of top apps Facebook has partnered with, Facebook’s Messenger app, and even where we can take list of potential or past customers and target them with your Facebook ads. Can I schedule a meeting with you to talk about this and some ideas to market your business?” If they are doing all the platforms, you can complement them on using Facebook as a piece of their marketing puzzle, and talk about using that same post, but reaching people on other websites and apps with Social Mirror ads.

Now that we have our prospecting down, let’s look at what is involved for step two where we are going to do our preparation. The worst thing you can do when going into a sales presentation is to be unprepared.

Before you meet with the prospect, do your homework. See what kind of trackers they have from Ghostery, look up their keywords on SpyFu.com, see how many locations they have, look at different social media sites and see what kind of platforms they use. The answers for all these questions are not only going to help you put together your presentation, but it’s also going to show the prospect that you took the time to do some research before meeting with them. During that first meeting, you are also going to figure out a little bit on what they have done in the past that has worked for them, where they want to reach people, who their target audience is, and what goals they would want for a digital campaign. Are they looking for in-store sales, or website traffic, or branding and awareness? That is important information to know in order to come back with a custom proposal to pitch back to the prospect. You also want to be sure to ask the prospect how much budget they want to use and when a good time would be to get back together and go over the customized proposal. The goal of that first meeting with the prospect is to get the second meeting, step number three.

When presenting the tailored presentation to the prospect, communication is key. Be sure to guide them through the process so they know what to expect. You want to gain the credibility and trust with the prospect because if they feel confident in you and you come across as wanting to help them and they trust you, they are more likely to move forward with the sale, bringing you to step number five, closing the sale.

Before we get to ABC, closing the sale, there are some points that you want to make sure you are hitting as you are presenting your presentation. First, remember that you want to present yourself as an advertising expert. You want to make sure that you’re explaining the products in a way they client can understand and that you’re expressing your belief in the plan. For example, “These are the categories for Facebook that we found that are going to be best to reach the audience that you want in order to solve your challenge. We’re also going to include Retargeting because we know people are going to your website, so we want to stay in front of them”. That is going to help you build that credibility and trust. You also want to let the prospect know that you are looking at this marketing plan from their point of view and physically say to them “Here’s what I would do”. Those five words strung together carry a lot of weight. If you deliver this with confidence and put yourself in their shoes, it’s going to show. “I think these might be the best categories that might make the most sense” compared to “these are the best categories that are available to target your audience on Facebook” is a big difference and it comes across with a lot more confidence.

You also want to incorporate trial closes into your presentation. Trial closes are questions you are asking during the presentation that move the prospect further to that “yes”. Ask them how they feel about what you have presented so far and be sure to use open ended questions, or questions that can’t be answered with a “yes” or a “no”:

With all the information you’ve received so far, what questions do you have?
How do you feel about the product and what we’ve discussed so far today?
What do you think about the products I’ve presented?
If you could change something about this proposal, what would it be?

By asking these types of questions, you can better understand the customer’s perspective and draw conclusions about their needs.

The next step is overcoming the objections, and more than likely, you will get some during the closing process. The first thing you want to do is listen and not interrupt when the prospect starts to talk. Let them empty their cup. Active listening will make the prospect feel like you have good intentions, and it will help to continue and build that trust and credibility. You also want to summarize the prospects intentions and repeat back to them their concerns. This is another opportunity to ask more open-ended questions that could help you to reveal other concerns they might have. When you respond to them, address all the pain points that they mentioned, even if they seem trivial.

Now comes the fun part; you’re going to go ahead and close that deal! When you do close the deal and you get that pretty John Hancock signature, talk to the client about some potential conversions to track and show them how that would work. Show them those conversions on a laptop or a desktop, but then also show them on a mobile device. Ask them what type of creative they will need. Is that something they are creating or is that something your team is creating? If they are creating it, you want to make sure they have all the correct specs to do so. If you are creating it, what kind of look or colors do they want the ad to have? What is the click through landing page? Sometimes it is the homepage of the website, but sometimes it’s not. If they are promoting a certain sale or a certain product, you want to be sure they are landing on that offer page or that service page. What is the call to action going to be? Do they want to sell tickets, do they want phone calls, people to go to the website, or click on a certain page? You also want to explain that the client most likely won’t see their ad, and be sure to get out ahead of that one. Also give them a sample report for the products that you pitched and let them know you’ll come back and go over their monthly reports with them. This last step is tying everything together and putting a pretty little bow on it. You are continuing to guide them through the process and also continuing to strengthen that credibility and trust.

And then the final step in the sales process, is to follow up. Don’t just sell the deal and then only come around when it’s time for a renewal because you won’t get one. Be sure to stay in touch with the client. Sent them an email with a fun little factoid or stat about their industry and digital advertising. Keep on top of their creative and make sure it is being changed as needed. Make sure their website it secure and up to date. Be sure you’re holding their hand all the way from the beginning to the end.

Now that you know your ABCs, it can be as easy and 1,2,3, so go out and do it all over again.

The post Are You Following the Proper Steps to Close Digital Sales? appeared first on Vici Media.

Getting Started with Google Business Profile: Your Ultimate Guide

Your Google Business Profile allows business owners to have more control over the information which Google displays about businesses when it populates Search results pages and Google Maps.  This used to be called Google My Business but has since been renamed.

If you’ve ever been to Google and searched for a business name directly, you’ve probably come across something that looks like this.

This box on the right is called a Knowledge Graph.  When you search for, in this case Crane Jewelers, the search engine gets the information in the Knowledge Graph from the Google Business Profile that the owner of the business has completed. It’s also using that information to populate Google Maps:

And also the “Snack Pack”, or the local listings:

Why is Google Business Profile so important?

On average, businesses receive 943 Search views of their Google Business Profile listing information on a Google search results page and 317 Maps views each month.
A typical business receives up to 59 actions (meaning clicks to your website, clicks to call, and other options that people can take when they view your Google listing) per month on a Google Business Profile.
64% of consumers have used Google Business Profile listing info on a Google Business Profile listing on a Google search results page to find contact info for a local business.

With all this traffic that’s coming to our businesses, it’s important to optimize your Google Business Profile.  Here is a list of items that you can optimize with your profile:

Claim your Business Profile
Complete every section of your Google Business Profile account
Be meticulous with contact information
Select primary and secondary categories
Mark off applicable attributes
Write a complete “from the business” description
Publish Google posts weekly
Upload new photos weekly
Answer questions
Collect and respond to reviews
Add your products and/or services
Set up messaging
Maintain your Business Profile

Before we dive into each of these and show you how to optimize them, think of Google just as you do the homepage of your website. The Google Business Profile needs to have all that pertinent information.  The reason is because almost 50% of searchers DON’T click beyond the search page.  They are now getting all their info from your profile, without even landing on your website.  This is called Zero-Click searches (they are searching but not clicking through to your website):

When you’re maximizing your Google Business Profile, it’s all about improving your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

First, let’s start by sharing with you how you get to your Google Business Profile:

Go to google.com/business
When you do that, you’ll see this come up. If you already have a profile, you’ll need to be the Admin in order to enter information.  If you don’t have a profile, you can sign in and sign up for an account.

Google is in the process of changing how you update your information, so you may see a pop-up message that says:

If you do, you just click on the “Manage on Search” button above.  Google is getting away from having a dashboard where you go to manage everything.  Then, if you’re logged into Google, you can type “Google Business Profile” and it will bring up all profiles that you are an Admin for and you can click the “view profile” button:

When you do that, you’ll get something that looks like this:

You can see the Knowledge Graph on the right-hand side, and over to the left, you some areas that you have the ability to edit.  That allows you to manage the information that would populate into the Knowledge Graph.

Let’s start off with the “Edit Profile” button.

The first thing you want to check is the business information.  This is where it’ll list contact information, location info, hours, and more.   When you fill out that information, it’ll all show up right here:

Then you want to go to “Products”:

When you do this, you’ll have the ability to type in and edit all the different products that your business sells.  It will allow you to also leave a description of those products:

Once you do that, this is where the information will show up in your Knowledge Graph:

Next up, you could list services.

Any services you offer you can add and list right here:

Once you have those updated, this is where they’ll show up in the Knowledge Graph:

The services are important. This is where the search engines pull information to match the query that people type into the search bar.  The more information you can input there, the better, as when someone creates a query, the algorithm looks here in the Services section to find a match.

Then, you want to add photos, a logo, and your cover photo.  These are all very easy to do, as they use a drag and drop feature:

When you update those, you’ll see those reflected in your Knowledge Graph here:

Take a second and review the part with the photos.  It’s very easy to complete.  However, a lot of small businesses don’t spend the time to do that, and keep it updated.   Here’s why you should:

Searchers are 42% more likely to request directions to a business if its Profile has photos.
Searchers are 35% more likely to click through to its website.
Businesses with more than 100 photos get 520% more calls, 2,717% more direction requests, and 1,065% more website clicks than the average business.

Spend a little time and ensure you have that section updated.

Next, in your Profile screen, you’ll see this button, the Promote button:

When you click here, you’ll see this screen:

Performance is metrics about your Google listing.  It’ll allow you to choose the time frame that you want, and then you can see how much traffic you had to your website, how many calls, messages, how many click to directions, and more.

Towards the bottom of that informational page, you’ll see “How people discovered you.”  This tells you how people came across your listing.  Was it through mobile, desktop, etc.   And then, on the right-hand side, you can see some of the keywords or phrases that people had searched for when your listing came into view:

Next up, ask for reviews!  So important!

When you click this button, it’ll take you to a page that provides you a special link for your business.  You can provide that link to your customers. When they visit that link, it takes them directly to where they can leave a review for your business:

Once a customer leaves a review, they automatically get populated into the Knowledge Graph.

For the “Add Update” button, think of this as adding a post to your Knowledge Graph.

When you do, you’ll come this page.

Here, you have up to 1500 characters, which is a pretty lengthy update.  You can choose a button, and even add photos.  This is just another way to add to the material in the Knowledge Graph.  You can also add an offer here, like some kind of discount.   Or, you can even add an event, like a sales promotion or something like that.

When you do, this is where all this information gets populated in the Knowledge Graph.  You’ll see they look like little individual posts.

Now, let’s look at the Customers button:

When you click on that, you’ll see this drop-down menu:

Clicking on Reviews will show you all your reviews that you’re received, as well as your responses:

If you don’t know this already, reviews are IMPORTANT!  Not only do people read reviews, but close to 75% of people ALSO read the business’ responses to those reviews.

The more reviews that you have, the more likely people are to engage with you, so the more reviews you get, the more leads you’re likely to get.

The more positive reviews you have, the more purchases you’re likely to get.  Consumers research and read reviews before making decisions. In fact, they read a minimum of 10 reviews before feeling confident in making a decision.

The higher your reviews, the higher your rank!  Google rewards businesses that have frequent and positive reviews.  They are a definite local SEO ranking factor, as confirmed by Google itself.

Next, is Calls:

Under this section, you may see this:

This is something that Google is rolling out rather slowly.  This may or may not be available.  To find out, click the “Learn more” button.  It’ll tell you if it’s available to you at this time or not.  If it is available, that means someone could click on your phone number from your Profile and Google would track it (showing information here).

A few things to know before you turn this feature on, if it’s available:

Once a call history is on, customers connect to you through a Google Forwarding Number instead of through the number on your profile. And, at the start of a call, you’ll get an automated message that says “Call from Google”
On your Business Profile Listing, customers see your business number. But, with this feature activated, when they click the “call” button on your profile, their call is forward to a unique number to reach you that Google assigns.  This number is different from the one on your profile.  So, on their phone dialer they see a different number.
When possible, the forwarding number shares the same area code or prefix number as your business. Otherwise, a local number in your geographic region is used.

If you click Messages:

This is a feature that you can turn on, and you can receive text messages from potential customers who have questions.  By default, this is not activated, so you do have to turn this feature on:

If you do turn it on, then someone would see this option when they Google a business or if they are in Google Maps:

If they decide to do that, then they will see a customized greeting and they can text back and forth with that person.

If you click Q&A:

This is where you can view any question that a person has asked the business, and where business owners can respond.  We suggest going in and populate questions on your own, similar to FAQ’s so that there’s content prepopulated:

When you do this, you’ll see them show up here in your Knowledge Graph:

A Google Business Profile should be updated weekly.  It will help your SEO ranking.  It’ll ensure everything is correct.   It also allows you the chance to ensure that all questions that are asked are answered, and all reviews are responded to.

As you can see, there is a LOT that a business can do on their own to help themselves.  This is a great start to get your online profile started.

Once you’ve done this, then you want to take a look at SEO and Online Reputation

The post Getting Started with Google Business Profile: Your Ultimate Guide appeared first on Vici Media.

Health & Wellness & Digital

When the pandemic hit in early 2020, I do not think anyone had any idea how it would impact our daily lives. Work environments changed, school dynamics changed and the world of 6 feet of separation changed every industry, especially the health care world.

Common conversations in any household include words and phrases like “exposure”, “contract tracing”, “vaccines”, “is it a cold or covid?”, “quarantine”, “tests”, “mask-up” and more.

All eyes and ears are focused on health and wellness and the constant question in everyone’s mind is, “where do we go from here?” At first you think of all the new-ness Covid has brought about, like testing, vaccines, and self-diagnosing and education, but it has affected so many health-related businesses in so many ways. We are all in need of self-care and making sure we are mindful to take care of ourselves. Some ways this can be accomplished is through nutrition, diet, exercise, mental health and preventive health and wellness. And with all our routines and lifestyles changing, the medical landscape has been changed significantly.  As we adapt, it is essential for advertisers to pivot and keep up with the latest trends and strategies to reach their audience in a whole new way. U.S. Ad Spending for the Health & Wellness category surpassed $900 Million in Q4 2021.state-of-health-wellness-ads-report-2022

Some of the digital leaders for health and wellness have been mobile marketing, social, display and video. Social climbed the charts in 4th qtr 2021 with with a 70% share of spending. Vici has seen many great success stories in this space in a variety of different types of health and wellness campaigns.

Here are a few that topped the charts.

Category: Fitness

Background:
A national wellness membership brand was looking to determine the best media mix for their membership campaign for their nine locations.  They needed to penetrate a 5-mile radius of all locations, as research showed most members will travel within 5 miles of their home to visit a gym/wellness facility. Their main membership push is in the Winter to Spring months.

Strategy:
Focus on targeting prospects that look just like their best customers. The target customers for this campaign were adults that “follow a regular exercise routine”, that like basketball, weight training, swimming, cardio, and exercise regularly. To target these prospects, we recommended geo-targeting specific neighborhood based on previous membership heat maps and active users utilizing Mobile Conquesting and behaviors that coincide with their core customers. For example: families with children, singles, couples, HH income $75k+ and market for fitness, health clubs, aftercare programs, swim, basketball, personal training and group exercise.

Results:
After the launch of the campaign the click thru rate was a .92, 13 times the national average, and 1,532 memberships were obtained. The next promotion yielded 3,135 memberships and the next season 3,795 memberships. Overall, the success continues to climb and memberships top season over season.

Category: Healthcare – Addiction Treatment

Overview:
A regional Addiction Treatment Center, who turned to digital advertising to generate more leads saw great success and was looking for new ways to reach
more people who suffer from addiction, especially during COVID-19. The goal was to increase patient lead intake online.

Digital Strategy:
Facebook Social Mirroring was recommended to broaden the reach of socialaudiences outside of their Facebook app. An online campaign was designed
and launched utilizing a Social Mirror strategy to engage adults who feel isolated and alone and need help. The call to action was, “I want treatment now” that directed them to a phone # or a click to landing page with comforting messages about positive connections that could connect them with help and encouraged them for them to fill out a form or engage in live chat messaging.

Results:
The additional impressions that ran for this campaign on social mirroring were 150,806 and resulted in 4,421 clicks with a click thru rate of 2.93%. This is a remarkable percentage as it is nearly 42 x the national average. Plus, the campaign had 163 view thru visits (home page visits)
and 11 new patient conversions in the first month of launch.  With a per patient ROI of $3500, the client was thrilled with the results of this cutting-edge strategy.

Category: Public Health

Background:
County health department wanted to use digital advertising in a branding and awareness campaign aimed to promote COVID-19 safety measures and provide testing locations and information to the Hispanic community.

Strategy:
The client utilized Mobile Conquesting categories targeting Hispanics and demographics set to Hispanic or Latino ethnicity combined with Geo-Fencing and Geo-Retargeting. A social strategy was also included and involved Facebook Video ads using categories to target Hispanic community members in provided zip codes who also had their browser set to Spanish. All ads were created in Spanish.

Results:
The campaign served 1,071,509 impressions and reaped an impressive 12,890 clicks resulting in a 1.20% CTR which is 17.19 times the national average.  The campaign was able to track almost 200 view through visits to the homepage and drove an estimated 500 trackable visits to testing locations. The Facebook portion of the campaign received an incredible 58,237 post engagements and almost 250 post shares. The client has renewed the campaign and is extremely pleased with the results.

Category:  Health and Wellness

Background:
With Heart Month around the corner our Hospital Client wanted to increase screenings for a heart disease risk assessment called a “calcium heart scan”.  With complicated language and a very niche market it would be challenging to isolate candidates through offline marketing only.  The Client was looking for a solution that targeted current cardiac patients who had been given information by their primary physician that they might be at risk for heart disease.

Strategy:
We identified the ideal patient profile and the typical behavior of a patient who is minimally aware about their risk for heart disease.  We determined that it was important that the Client be found for key Heart related searches online as that is where patients typically turn, but also that we reach out to ideal adults via online and offline methods to find patients not already aware of their risk.  We built a 13 week program of broadcast radio, and health targeted behavioral and keyword display ads.

Results:
The client reported, “Call volume to our tracking number increased 93% in January from the previous month and 17% in February from the previous month.  We saw a 16% increase in booked appointments in January from the previous month and a 20% increase in February from the previous month.  We are thrilled with the results!”

US digital ad spending will grow by nearly 50% in the next four years. By 2025, the digital ad market will top $300 billion—more than three-quarters of all media spending. Digital has eclipsed all other forms of advertising. Healthcare is a large % of where the rise will be coning from. What does your digital check-up look like for 2022 and beyond?

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Do You Know How to Speak Digital?

It’s one of my favorite episodes of Friends; The One Where Everybody Finds Out. Monica and Chandler are dating, and Joey is the only one that knows but Rachel and Phoebe eventually find out, except Monica and Chandler don’t know that they know. “They don’t know that we know they know we know.”

Sometimes this is how it can feel when talking about or explaining digital to businesses. There are so many different terms that can mean the same thing, or can mean completely different things, and people don’t want to get caught off guard and admit that they don’t know something. The only thing worse than getting caught off guard when asked if you know something or not, is not knowing what it is in the first place, so let’s talk about some digital buzzwords and acronyms are arm you with how to explain them when talking with advertisers.

Some of the most used terms in digital are Geo-Targeting and Geo-Fencing. These two are constantly getting used interchangeably, but they have their own identities. Geo-Targeting is the overall geographic area (“Geo”) a business wants to show their ads in. Usually, it’s a zip code or series of zip codes, a large radius around a location, a city, entire state, or even a country. As an advertiser, we don’t want to reach EVERYONE in that geographic area, so now we can add in different targeting strategies like Behavioral Targeting, Keyword Targeting, or using Artificial Intelligence. Geo-Fencing is a very tight radius around a location, which is usually around 500 feet, with no other targeting strategies layered in, so ANYONE in that tight radius has the potential to see that ad.

One strategy that gets used a lot when it comes to digital that I just mentioned was Artificial Intelligence (AI). Artificial Intelligence is showing an ad to people across all devices using machine learning to target consumers based on who is engaging with the ad. The way that AI works is, it refers to systems or machines that mimic human intelligence to perform tasks and can improve themselves based on the information they collect. For example, search engines can provide automated recommendations for products a person might be interested in based on users’ shopping habits. With our digital advertising, we are using a specific type of AI called machine learning which is systems that learn or improve their performance based on the data they consume. It’s important to note that although all machine learning is AI, not all AI is machine learning.

Cookies is another term that comes up a lot when talking about digital, especially the last couple years as Apple has made moves to block third party cookies from Safari and with the iOS 14+ updates. Mozilla’s Firefox is another browser that also blocks third party cookies, and Google has announced a 2023 deadline to deprecate cookies and no longer support third-party tracking cookies. Before we get to cookies, let’s talk about pixels. A tracking pixel is a small piece of code placed on a website that allows the website owner to gather information about visitors on a website—how they browse, what type of ads they click on (to determine behaviors), device, browser, IP Address, to track conversions, or serve retargeting ads. Although similar, a pixel is different from a cookie, but they are often used together. Both can be used to track the behavior of users across web sites, but the difference is how the information is delivered and where it is kept. Cookies are saved in an individual’s browser, such as Google Chrome. They cannot follow users across their devices, and users can block cookies or clear their cookies. Tracking pixels send information directly to servers, so they do not rely on the user’s individual browser. Pixels can follow users across all of their devices, and users cannot disable pixels like they can disable cookies.

Now the good stuff, the cookies. First party cookies are tracking pixels (code) that have information about a website visitor that is used by the website (or app) that the user is on. For example, filling in your username and password automatically because you’ve told the website to save your login uses a 1st party cookie. A website publisher can still collect behavioral data about its users, like what they click on, what content they engage with, etc., but the website publisher (or app) can’t share it with other companies without the users’ consent (like clicking on a button that asks you to allow cookie tracking). These types of cookies are not going away; they’re here to stay. Third party cookies are tracking pixels (code) that has information about a website visitor that is then shared with another company (not the company that owns that website). For example, retargeting and conversion tracking uses 3rd party cookies. Some products that we are offer like LinkedIn, Mobile Conquesting, OTT with On-Site Visit Tracking, Facebook & Instagram, and Amazon Targeting (display, video and OTT) all use first party data where each of those companies has collected information about their users.

When it comes to third party data, we integrate with top third-party data providers like BlueKai, Eyeota, Factual, Lotame, and Oracle, so almost any audience we want to target is available to us through these data provider companies. This data is layered over the ad inventory we bid on through the ad exchanges.

Ad Exchanges is a technology platform that works with publishers and ad networks and purchases their impressions to then sell them to advertisers. Advertisers can purchase directly from an ad exchange, or access ad exchanges through a Demand Side Platform (DSP). So what is a Demand Side Platform? That is a technology platform that allows buyers to manage, purchase and optimize programmatic inventory from multiple ad exchanges and Supply Side Platforms (SSP) through one interface. Inventory can be purchased through real-time bidding or programmatic direct deals which are direct deals between ad sellers and ad buyers. A Supply Side Platform is a technology platform that allows publishers (websites and apps) to manage and sell programmatic inventory for advertisers to bid on. Supply Side Platforms connect to multiple ad exchanges and DSPs at once to maximize the opportunity to sell inventory.

Now that we talked about where we can buy ads from, let’s look at the different ways we can buy ads. Programmatic buying is the use of automated technology for media buying. Programmatic advertising encompasses multiple ways of placing digital ads. It includes things like Real-Time Bidding, Private Marketplaces (PMPs) and Programmatic Direct buying.

Real-time bidding (RTB) is an automated process where advertisers can place bids, in real time, for specific display ad placements. Real Time Bidding is a programmatic process, but not all programmatic advertising takes place through RTB technology.

Private Marketplaces is where advertisers can only access the private marketplace with an invitation. Typically, top publishers (websites and apps) do this and offer their ad inventory to highest bidders among the select advertisers with whom they’ve done deals granting access to inventory not available on open auctions and premium access at a lower price.

Programmatic Direct is a very similar model to the private marketplace, with the exception that advertisers and publishers agree on specific inventory based on a fixed CPM. Because the CPM is predetermined, there is no bidding process involving other publishers.

One of the most popular digital products is Video and there are a lot of different ways to utilize video, but since there are so many ways to use it, it can be another situation where the terms that come along with using it starts to get confusing. Ad-Supported Video On Demand (AVOD) are streaming platforms like Tubi, PlutoTV, and Crackle. These platforms make their money off showing ads in between their content. As a result, the platforms are free for viewers. If you are watching a streaming program for free, it’s AVOD.

On the other side of that there is Subscription Video On Demand or SVOD. These are streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney+, Discovery+ whose content requires access to a paid subscription, and typically (although not always) doesn’t have ads.

When selling video ads against a TV or cable provider, they are offering Addressable TV or Linear TV. Addressable TV is serving different ad content to different audience segments watching the same TV program on IP connected TVs and set top boxes of cable companies or satellite providers like Comcast, DIRECTV, and Dish. Compared to the OTT digital offering we offer, with addressable TV, targeting is limited to the subscription data the company has access to. Linear TV is traditional television viewing. To watch a show, the viewer must tune in (or DVR) a specific channel on a television at an appointed time. Viewers access linear TV via cable or satellite or through over-the-air broadcasts.

One other way to watch TV and movies is through a Set Top Box. I like to think of these as what makes a “dumb TV”, a regular old TV, a “smart TV”. It is a device that is connected to TVs giving them internet access which convert digital video signals into TV signals. Set Top Boxes could be Apple TV, Fire TV, or  Roku boxes.

One of my favorite “party tricks” is being able to explain why people are seeing certain ads, or why that one ad keeps following them wherever they go when they’re online. People think pretty much Bob Kahn when I explain how it works, so go ahead and add theses terms and acronyms in your bag of tricks to impress your friends when you’re out this weekend.

The post Do You Know How to Speak Digital? appeared first on Vici Media.

How Are You Overcoming Digital Objections?

Being in sales can really make you relate to the life of a toddler in the sense that they are constantly told “no”. For example, when my three-year-old wants to wear shorts but it’s snowing outside, he hears “no”. When he refuses to eat his dinner but asks for ice cream before bed, he again hears “no”. When he wants to ride his bike without a helmet, there it is again; “no”.

Five of the most well-known people today failed before they had success. Oprah Winfrey worked on a failed news show and was demoted from her primetime co-anchor role. J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, had her novel rejected by 12 different publishing houses before it was eventually accepted by Bloomsbury. George Lucas, the writer of Star Wars, had the film rejected twice by studios before 20th Century Fox agreed to take a risk. Michael Jordan didn’t make the high school basketball team. Thomas Edison tried inventing the light bulb 1,000 times before prevailing.

What they all have in common, is that they overcame objections. Everything we do in life is going to come with objections, but the way you answer them is what is going to separate you from your competition and get you one step closer to that magic three letter word of “yes”, and selling digital isn’t any different.

Some of the most common objections that you might hear are “Why can’t I do this for $500 a month?” and “I just want to try this for a month and see if it works.” Digital is a frequency medium, so the more that someone sees the ad, the more likely they are to take that next step. With a smaller budget, it isn’t going to have enough frequency to make an impact so it will turn out to be a waste of money. Explain that we don’t want to take a pebble and throw it into an ocean because that just isn’t going to have an impact. We are reaching a very targeted audience, so those people need to see the ads as many times as possible. In 2021, it was estimated that the average person encountered between 6,000 to 10,000 ads every single day, so we want to give them the best chance of success and we’ve found that campaigns that have lower investments have a lesser chance of getting the results that they are looking for. Also, as a campaign progresses, the exchanges’ algorithms learn more and can predict better who will respond to ads, based on prior performance.

Unlike traditional types of advertising like radio, TV, direct mail, or even outdoor where the business can physically see or hear their ad in action, digital is the complete opposite. Most likely, that business is NOT going to see their own ad, and that can be another objection you come up against. If that’s the case, explain to them that digital ads are all bought in real time. For example, ff I wanted to buy stock in Proctor and Gamble, I wouldn’t go right to Proctor and Gamble; I would go to a stock exchange. Buying digital ads works the same way.

Since the buying of digital ads is done in real time, we can’t tell the business to go to usatoday.com at 3:00 this afternoon and they can see their ad. There are also millions of ad impressions available to bid on, we don’t win every impression that we bid on, and we don’t bid on every available impression. When purchasing ads, we are only buying brand safe premium inventory and we integrate with the top Brand Safety partners like Grapeshot, Integral Ad Science, and DoubleVerify. DoubleVerify authenticates the quality of digital ad impressions for the world’s largest brands ensuring viewable, fraud-free, brand-safe ad environments, so we will only bid on inventory that matches the client’s targeting strategies AND is on websites/apps that are authenticated by DoubleVerify. This is something we do for all Display, Native Display, Native Video, Video Pre-Roll, Household IP, OTT, Online Audio, and Social Mirror campaigns.

Another common objection is “I tried digital before, and it didn’t work”. When I’ve gotten this objection in the past, I equate this one to a diet. I’ve been to the gym before and I’ve done diets, but it didn’t work. Well, that’s probably because I wasn’t doing the right type of exercises or eating the right type of foods or didn’t stick with it long enough. The same thing is going to apply to digital advertising. First, ask the business what kind of advertising they did previously. When it comes to the term “digital advertising”, there are a lot of variations of what that might mean. Sometimes the same word can mean the same thing, and sometimes it’s the opposite. For example, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) can get used interchangeably, when they are actually two different digital tactics. You can also dig a little deeper and find out how the campaign was targeted. Was it using broad demographics and/or age like women 35-54, or was it really getting to that core target audience and targeting by behaviors or keywords. If the business wanted to reach women 35-54, we can bring that a step further and target by:

Women’s Clothes
Corporate Women
Affluent Women’s Shoppers
Mom’s in the Kitchen
Career Women
Athletic Women
Moms
Single Moms
Soccer Moms

Going back to the diet analogy, ask them how long they did the campaign and how much they spent on it. You also want to determine what that call to action was that they were using. If the call-to-action button didn’t match the landing page, they probably didn’t get a lot of conversions because as consumers, we don’t want to have to search for that offer that we were interested in. For example, if I see an ad that is promoting a $1,000 discount, I expect to land on a page talking about that particular offer.

The bottom line with this objection is that digital does work when it is used the right way. If it didn’t work, local businesses wouldn’t continue to buy it and use it as a marketing strategy.

Another difference with digital campaigns compared to traditional advertising is that certain digital products are purchased on a cost per thousand basis, or simply the price a marketer would pay to receive 1,000 campaign impressions. That can be difficult for businesses to understand when they are used to buying TV or radio ads at $XX per spot, or billboards for $X,XXX per month. Because of the confusion, advertisers might say they can’t justify spending a certain amount of money in exchange for a certain amount of clicks. With this objection, you want to remind the business that clicks doesn’t necessarily equate to sales. If someone clicks on an ad but then doesn’t do anything else, what good is that click? This is an opportunity to talk about tracking conversions. When tracking conversions, we can show what someone did AFTER they clicked on the ad. Maybe they made a purchase, or filled out a form, or made a phone call. Those metrics are going to carry more weight than just seeing clicks. The national average click through rate is just .07% proving that most people don’t click on ads, so by tracking conversions, we can show that return on investment (ROI). Mobile Conquesting and OTT with On-Site Visit Tracking are additional metrics where we can show the ROI since we can show how many people saw an ad, and then went to that location within 14 days. By using Facebook Lead Ads or Live Chat, or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) with the lead extension, we can show how many people saw an ad and then took the next step by becoming a lead.

Certain digital product also have the capability for a Match Back report which will demonstrate a business’ ROI. With this, the business would keep track of their “sold list”, and then we match that against the original list of people that were targeted, and now the business can see how many customers were from those targeted ads. This report is available for Native Email Matching, Facebook and Instagram Custom Audience, Mobile Conquesting Address Targeting, Amazon Custom Audience Matching, Household IP Targeting, and LinkedIn Custom Audience Matching.

Those objections are just a few of the more broad ones that you might come up against when pitching digital to businesses, but if you have confidence in what you are presenting and believe in the product, you will find yourself knocking down the “no’s” and turning them into “yes’s”.

The post How Are You Overcoming Digital Objections? appeared first on Vici Media.

Why is Live Chat an Important Part of a Digital Campaign?

There are very few cities in the world that never sleep.  New York City and Las Vegas are the two here in the United States that come to mind.   And while I’m based out of Las Vegas, I do have a bedtime and don’t operate 24 hours.   What about you and your business, do you operate 24 hours a day?  Can your customers reach you and your business 24-7?

Trick question, right?  Customers of yours always have access to your website, which is a good start.  At lease they can see what you’re all about.  But can those customers reach your business at all hours?  In most cases, I’m going to guess the answer is no.

This is where a lot of businesses can take advantage of the opportunity to communicate with those customers that have questions after hours.  With the average business being open only 9a-5p, that leaves 16 hours a day where potential customers could be craving information about your business.  Do we just let them visit our website and hope there’s enough information on there to get them to come back during business hours?  Or is there another way?

That’s where Live Chat comes into play.  I’m not talking about a message option that is run by bots or automated responses.  I’m talking about an actual chat option that is managed by LIVE Chat Agents that have information about your business.  Real people talking to real people matters.

How does Live Chat work?

Live Chat gives you an opportunity to engage potential customers and get more leads through a chat box and a text-to-chat on your website.  No matter what form of advertising you have in your media mix, driving traffic to your site is one of your ultimate goals.   Why not have a way to talk to them when they get there?

On a smartphone, the visitor has the option to chat live on the website or chat by texting.  If the mobile user selects the TEXT US option, the button will go to a text number provided by our Live Chat team that will match the area code of the business’ phone number.  Then once the text conversion is complete the client will receive the transcript and will always receive the visitor’s phone number because that is automatically captured on a text chat.

The Live Chat function gets provided to you inside of a container tag (pixel) that sits on the back end of the website.  It generates the live chat box, along with the text to chat for smart phones.   As someone visits your site and scrolls, the Live Chat bounces and settles in the bottom right of the website (on a desktop/laptop).   The Live Chat box is designed to match the colors of your website as well.

The chat agents that manage your website will have information on your business.  This information is gathered prior to launching, and we have specific questions that we’ll ask you to make sure we have the proper information.   While these Live Chat agents are conversing with your potential customers, their goal is to get the phone number or email of the visitor, so that you and your team can follow up with that lead.  When providing the information about your business, you don’t have to provide a script. Our team will create one based on the information that is provided.   You can provide special offers that the Live Chat agent can mention as well.

Another feature that our Live Chat tool has is what we call “Call Connect.”  There’s no additional fee to add in this option.  If you want this option, during business hours, once the agents gather the lead information, visitors will be asked if they want to be connected immediately to talk on the phone with your business.  The Live Chat agent then rings your business and connects you and the customer.

Here’s a few recent enhancements to Live Chat:

For the Call Connect option, you can have different locations’ lead transcripts sent to different email addresses. (up to 10 locations). This means that for those businesses with multiple locations, you can have the leads/transcripts emailed to the store that the customer wants to connect to via phone.
Live Chat now integrates with Google Business Profile, formally Google My Business. The Chat Option can appear in Google Maps on mobile…AND in Google Search on mobile.  So even if the potential customer doesn’t visit your website, they can still interact with your company.

You might be asking; well why do I want this to be on my Google My Business profile if I am trying to drive traffic to my site?

It turns out that 65% of Google searches do NOT result in a click to your website. The reason for this is because the user gets all of the information they need straight from the Google Business Listing.  They call this a “Zero Click Search.”  Having a chat option here enables you to interact with the user if they don’t come to your website.

Here are a few more questions you’re probably thinking about right now:

Q: Is it possible to tell if a lead came from the Google Business Profile vs the chat on my website?

A: Yes, we can pull that information for you.

Q: If we can’t place a Container Tag on our site, will the Google Business Profile integration still work?

A: Without a Container Tag, we can’t place the Live Chat function on your website, but it CAN appear in the Google Business Profile as long as you can access the account and accept our integration request.

Q: How many Google Business Profiles can I set up on 1 Live Chat account because we have multiple locations?

A: Up to 5 locations can be included at no additional setup fee.  If you have more than 5 locations, we can discuss what that looks like for you.

Q: What languages can you have Live Chat set up in?

A: English and Spanish

Q: Why do I need Live Chat or Why does it work?

A: There are several answers to this question:

53% of consumers are more likely to do business with a company they can contact through a chat app (link to source in webinar)
73% of customers find live chatting to be the most satisfying way of communicating with a business.
89% of consumers would like to connect with businesses through mobile messaging.
42% of consumers say live chatting is their preferred way of giving contact info – higher than ANY other lead method.
42% of chat leads come outside of normal business hours
51% of consumers say a business needs to be available 24/7.

Remember, Live Chat is not Artificial Intelligence (AI) and it is NOT a message bot.  It’s staffed by live humans who are trained chat agents, giving your potential customers the ability to interact with someone 24/7/365.

How are you communicating with the potential customers that visit your site?  Are you letting them leave without getting a chance to interact with them?

Here’s your chance to change the way you communicate with them.

The post Why is Live Chat an Important Part of a Digital Campaign? appeared first on Vici Media.