Recognizing the immense value this group brings to my business, I’m eager to contribute by sharing my unique “Holy Grail Copy” methodology. This approach, though unconventional, has been pivotal in building multi-million-dollar businesses for both myself and my clients.

To pique your interest, someone once said about my frameworks:

“Your strategies are like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumb trail leading to the Witch’s House. But in this case, you’re the witch, and what you conjure is pure magic.”

Let’s dive in.

A few years back, I sold one of my companies internally. This move allowed me to amalgamate my diverse passions into a singular, powerful persuasion strategy. When I unveiled it last year, we observed:

• $383 per email subscriber.
• $209 per FB Group Member.
• $1.83 EPC, while the industry average was $0.53.

These figures are far from ordinary. And here’s the secret behind them:

Introducing Holy Grail Copywriting (HGC):

HGC’s core principle is “Start at the Finish Line.” In perception management, you can strategically position yourself within your prospect’s hierarchy of needs. By aligning your product with their most pressing desires, selling becomes effortless.

The 5-Step HGC Process:

1. Identify Your Prospect’s Most Pressing Pain:

While basic marketing emphasizes targeting pain points, it’s crucial to differentiate between passive pain (complaining without action) and active pain (which drives action). The key is to focus on the latter.

Differentiate Between “Moaning” and “Moving” Pain: Understand the spectrum of pain. A stubbed toe is Moaning Pain, a mere inconvenience. In contrast, the urgency of a severed thumb is Moving Pain, demanding immediate action.

Apply the DUG Checklist: Grasp the essence of the DUG checklist, a tool to categorize pain into:

• Desperation: A situation so dire that immediate action is the only option. Example: Think of a business owner teetering on bankruptcy’s edge.
• Urgency: An imminent threat that demands swift action to prevent dire consequences. Example: Picture a smoker discovering early signs of lung cancer.
• Gravity: Deeply held values or priorities that might override other considerations. Example: Visualize a parent prioritizing their child’s needs over lucrative opportunities

2. Tailor Your Product to Alleviate That Pain:

Understand what relief from this pain looks like for your prospect. Then, either create a product or reposition your existing one to offer that relief.

• Craft or Reposition Your Product: Determine the ideal solution for the identified Moving Pain and ensure your product aligns with that vision.
• Introduce Novelty: Unexpected solutions to pressing problems are often the most enticing. Always introduce an element of novelty to stand out.

3. Infuse Your Product with Unique, Attractive Qualities:

Creating allure in a product is an art. At its core, allure is about evoking emotion, creating a connection, and making a product more than just a tangible item—it becomes an experience. One of the most potent tools to achieve this is storytelling. Stories have the power to breathe life into otherwise mundane products.

• Identify Popular Cultural References: Draw inspiration from powerful symbols like the Infinity Gauntlet.
• Integrate Psychological Triggers: Weave in elements of storytelling, unique mechanisms, and shared values.

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4. Use a Religion-Inspired Persuasion Sequence:

Religions have, for millennia, captivated the human spirit. It has an astonishing 83% penetration rate. They’ve done this through powerful narratives that touch upon the very essence of human existence, desires, fears, and aspirations. At the heart of many religious texts is a sequence that resonates deeply with believers: Sin, Salvation, Heaven, and Hell.

• Sin (The Problem): This represents the pain or problem your prospect faces.
• Salvation (The Solution): Here, you introduce your product as the answer.
• Heaven (The Benefits): This is the promised land, the utopia that awaits.
• Hell (The Consequences of Inaction): The bleak future that awaits if the problem remains unresolved.

5. Promote Your Product Using Diverse Marketing Angles:

With AI now optimizing ad performance, the key is to provide it with diverse data. I use the TADA Template, which helps generate multiple ad angles based on dominant human emotions. This approach allows for rapid testing across various channels.

In summary, Holy Grail Copywriting is about creating a magical “escape from moving pain” novel product, pitching it via religious persuasion sequence and shouting it loud via an infinite angle approach on paid and social media.

So there you go. Hope it helps you make a mint!

I hope this enriched perspective proves invaluable to you. If you want to find out how Holy Grail can best be deployed in your business, please email my assistant with the subject line “HOLY GRAIL!” here: john.holygrailoffer@gmail.com

The post Holy Grail Copywriting: The 5-Step Mental Model Behind Blockbuster Marketing Campaigns appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

It’s getting harder to remember a time when the internet didn’t dominate the business landscape. In retail, entertainment, and many other industries, ecommerce and digital services have long surpassed their high-street counterparts. 

So, how exactly has ecommerce changed the way we do business? And, in turn, how has that changed the way we market? First, let’s look at how ecommerce affected the balance of the economy. Then we can start to understand why marketing has had to adapt to new digital techniques.

What is eCommerce and How Has it Impacted the Economy?

Since the early 2000s, the ecommerce market size has been growing rapidly. It only keeps accelerating, too. According to Insider Intelligence, US ecommerce sales are predicted to pass $1 trillion in 2022. Worldwide, they expect to see $5 trillion in ecommerce sales. 

Image sourced from McKinsey

As more businesses had success selling their goods and services online, others naturally followed. We have also seen a change in consumer attitudes as the convenience of online purchases proved popular. 

The fact that the global market size of ecommerce continues to grow reflects these changes. At the same time, advancements in logistics, distribution, and business technology continue to develop to support new ecommerce demands.

Moving Retail Online

When we think of ecommerce, the first thing that comes to mind is online retail. Consumer giants like Amazon have made online shopping fast, safe, and convenient. But small businesses have also found greater success by moving to ecommerce models.

That’s in part due to the greater reach of online channels. Social media and other sources have offered an inexpensive way for SMEs to reach a much wider audience. 

The Rise of On-Demand Entertainment

Growth in mobile device use has grown alongside ecommerce and digital services. Instant access to entertainment on the go is something that modern consumers have come to expect. 

This has led to the success of online subscription services in TV, gaming, and other entertainment. It also developed social marketing through sponsored, promoted, or monetized content on social video apps like TikTok or YouTube.

Small Business Opportunities

E-commerce gives small businesses a chance to compete with the marketing reach of much larger businesses. Through smart social media campaigns, SEO optimization, and other digital marketing techniques, small businesses can cut through the noise in competitive markets. 

Ecommerce Types

There are four distinct types of ecommerce businesses. Each has its own style of marketing. 

Image sourced from Digital Skill Blog

B2B

Businesses that sell directly to other businesses. These include SaaS companies like these providers of small business VoIP in Canada.  

B2C

Businesses sell directly to the customer. This could include online retailers or subscription services like Netflix. 

C2C

Customers selling to other customers. This includes the second-hand goods market and resellers operating through auction sites like eBay. 

C2B

Customers selling to businesses. This one sounds counter-intuitive, but what we’re talking about here is contract service provision. This can include freelancers, product testers, and so on.  

What is the Impact of Ecommerce on Marketing?

Marketing is nothing if not adaptive. As ecommerce has emerged and evolved, marketing has gone through many changes. Starting from simple banner ads and email campaigns, digital marketing has come to mean so much more.

The Decline of Traditional Marketing

As digital e-commerce marketing has grown, traditional marketing methods have fallen out of favor. They haven’t gone away entirely, though, and some businesses still make good use of TV, direct mail, SMS & sales calls, and even the good old billboard. 

New Marketing Channels

The decline in traditional methods was driven mainly by the growth of new online channels. These offer much higher reach at a relatively low cost. Social media sites, in particular, have allowed marketers to interact with their audience in new, more direct ways.

Customer Data & Efficient Targetting 

The most significant advancement in marketing from the rise of online culture is the use of customer data. This part of digital marketing is still advancing as new technologies like data analytics drive marketing insights.

Of course, customer feedback existed before the digital age. Yet, traditional marketing surveys had limited reach, and they could only tell you the customer’s direct opinion. Digital data is not only more accessible, but it also demonstrates customer behaviors. 

In analyzing these behaviors, marketers have found the greatest advantages in demographic targeting and customer engagement.

Free to use image sourced from Unsplash

10 Advantages of Ecommerce in Marketing

Why did ecommerce manage to overtake traditional retail and other markets? Well, there are some distinct advantages that ecommerce provides. 

1. Availability of data
2. Omnichannel marketing
3. Less physical restrictions
4. 24/7 sales & support availability
5. Global reach 
6. Digitization of products & media
7. Social & influencer marketing 
8. AI and advanced BI (Business Intelligence) technology
9. Marketing on the go
10. Marketing automation 

Whether it’s customer data at your fingertips, a global audience, or the ability to advertise straight to a customer’s mobile, ecommerce extends the reach of a business. That extends the reach of your marketing efforts, too. As your reach expands, your ability to target specific users or user groups increases as well.

Ecommerce Areas & Their Digital Marketing Techniques

Digital marketing and ecommerce are related, but they’re not the same. It’s more accurate to say that digital marketing evolved alongside ecommerce. Any business can use digital marketing, even if they only have a minimal online presence.

Website-Based Ecommerce Marketing

Services like Shopify UAE have made it simple for even small businesses to establish an ecommerce presence. These and larger online retailers tend towards SEO optimization as their main driver of traffic. 

SEO optimization is the process of making your site more visible in search engine rankings. It’s a cost-effective way to get your services in front of customers who are making either general or specific searches in your business area. 

On-site marketing is still a popular digital marketing tactic. It works on two levels as well. You can source inbound traffic to your website’s landing page through ads and backlinks on other websites and provide the same service to others to generate additional revenue. 

E-commerce businesses that are focused primarily on their website will also make on-site optimization a priority. Slow-loading websites are a major reason for high bounce rates in ecommerce. Your bounce rate increases by 32% as your page load time increases from 1 second to 3 seconds. That means it’s vital your marketing is backed up by good site performance.

Mobile Ecommerce & Mobile Marketing

Mobile apps and mobile browsing are other areas where digital marketing has had to adapt. Standalone mobile apps have led to the growth of personalized marketing via push notifications and in-app advertising. 

Personalization is based on analyzing a user’s habits and tailoring ads and offers to their preferences. This is a powerful tool for increasing ecommerce sales. Studies have found that up to 76% of customers are more likely to purchase from brands that personalize. 

Image sourced from McKinsey

More customers, especially in younger demographics, now choose to browse on mobile devices. That means that web-based e-commerce management has had to react to the shift as well. Mobile optimization is now as important to ecommerce software and sites as their desktop performance. 

Digital marketing for these sites can also take advantage of the benefits that come with personalization. On-site ads and offers, email campaigns, and more can be personalized by leveraging your customer data.  

Social Media Marketing 

Social media marketing is now used across all consumer-facing industries. Many B2B businesses maintain client links in part through social media networks like LinkedIn, too. There’s more to social media marketing than setting up a brand account and posting ads, though. 

Social listening (or social monitoring) is a popular way for marketers to gauge how their business is perceived. This indirect form of collecting customer feedback can lead to insights into your brand awareness and drivers of satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) in customers.

Influencer marketing, where brands work with online personalities, is also part of social media marketing. In most cases, brands target influencers with a highly relevant audience demographic or those with a wide reach (i.e., large follower counts). 

Social media has proven popular as a channel for customer communication, too. Many customers now prefer to reach out to brands with queries over channels like Twitter and Facebook. 

Customers expect quick responses, usually within 24 hours, when they reach out on social media. This means social media managers have become an important asset both for customer service and digital marketing purposes.

Free to use image sourced from Pixabay

Email Campaigns & Digital Marketing for Physical Businesses

Some businesses will never be able to do without a physical location. Even if this is you, you can still benefit from the advancements in digital marketing that have come with ecommerce. 

As we mentioned above, more traditional digital avenues like email marketing can benefit from personalization. Digital services have also integrated older methods of communication that remain popular, like VoIP with SMS functions. 

Final Thoughts: Ecommerce Has Changed Marketing For Good

Ecommerce and the rise of technology in everyday life have changed marketing forever. That doesn’t mean that marketing’s role has diminished, though. If anything, marketing, and especially digital marketing, are more relevant than ever.  

The post How Ecommerce Transformed Marketing  appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

The big season is almost upon us. Is your small business ready?

It is harder and harder to compete with corporate websites with huge advertising budgets.

When just lots of consumers think the term “holiday sales” is synonymous with Amazon and Walmart, it is too challenging to get your products in front of buyers’ eyes.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday routinely transform the fate of otherwise struggling businesses from precarious to solidly profitable. Holidays are a time when people are looking to spend more than usual. 

Millions will shore up their savings year to have the money for the purchases they want. Large brands spend months strategizing the holiday season promotions they’ll roll out to maximize their sales.

Unfortunately, small (ecommerce) stores are frequently caught flat-footed. They don’t invest resources or time into getting their business well-positioned for the looming flood of customers. If large businesses cannot afford to ignore the season, neither can small ones.

Here are three steps content and SEO can help your holiday promotion and marketing efforts:

1. Identify New Seasonal Landing Pages to Put Together and Promote

Holiday season when everyone is busy buying gifts for everyone, including friends, family and obviously themselves, is the season of new unexpected searching trends to emerge. 

People start thinking about buying things differently: They buy not for a need of something, but to stand out and make the best gift.

SE Ranking keyword suggestion tool allows you to research those new buying decisions by allowing you to filter out words you cannot compete with and focus on your niche. You can also filter results by difficulty to find search queries with lower organic competition:

Once you have identified those search queries with big potential, create new landing pages of related products and link to those landing pages from across your site. 

This trick can work for both service- and product-based businesses, because holiday sales are done by all types of businesses these days. For service-based businesses, researching holiday searching trends and bundling services with related products will help boost sales and create word-of-mouth marketing opportunities.

Setting up these seasonal landing pages is also a great idea because this gives you more pages to promote on social media. These could be “collections” of products that would serve a specific holiday searching pattern and all of these could be linked off from the main “Christmas gift ideas” section. You can set these up with plugins for WordPress or “Collections” feature for Shopify.

Depending on the nature of your business, it may be a good idea to set up a separate mini site to make sure your main site remains focused. This idea makes sense when your holiday promotions and lists do not align well with your current brand and product positioning.

Setting up a separate project is quite affordable these days, even for small businesses. All you need is a new domain. You can host it on your current server, and use free CMS (e.g. WordPress) and free themes.

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2. Create Seasonal Content to Target Semi-Transactional & Informational Queries

Many of those search queries you’ll come across will be purely informational. Think about all kinds of DIY ornaments, costumes, packaging, etc. that is being researched prior to the holiday season. 

Informational search intent means a searcher is looking for answers to questions, tutorials and how-to videos without willing to buy anything.

Semi-transactional intent search intent refers to a searching journey that can actually result in a purchase, even though it was initially planned as a research rather than a buying process.

Both of these types of keywords are useful for boosting your holiday sales for a few reasons:

• People may buy even if they didn’t initially intend to buy (hello, holiday impulse shopping!)
• That traffic will enrich your data and grow your audience, so that you can re-engage those people with things like retargeting ads (i.e. ads targeting the past users of your site).
• This content brings brand awareness, especially if it attracts bloggers and journalists who can link to your site.

It all comes down to:

• How well your content engages your audience
• How well your content is optimized for conversions using contextual calls to action.

To give you just a quick of how content may turn readers into buyers, here’s two examples of contextual CTAs in action:

And here’s another example, only in SaaS industry:

Note how contextual CTAs in this example perfectly align with content on the page. That is exactly why you need to develop lead magnets for just about any content you put on your blog.

3. Identify Your Best Timing

Your own web analytics will give you lots of clues as to when your past-year’s holiday traffic started peaking. 

Google Trends is another great tool to identify the best timing for your seasonal content and its promo to start. For example, based on that tool, it looks like the interest in “ornaments” starts growing consistently mid-October, year after year:

Another tool that is helpful for picking your timing is Visualping that offers a cool SEO monitoring feature allowing you to monitor your competitors’ landing pages to be the first to know when they put up their holiday promos. 

With this trick, you’ll never be behind your competitors in starting your pre-holiday marketing.

Conclusion

Holiday season is overwhelming for small businesses trying to make the most of consumers’ hectic buying decisions. Discoverability becomes the most important marketing factor when urgent and impulse shopping drives consumers to buy the moment they see what they need (even if they didn’t know they needed it).

Holiday marketing starts with thinking about the products you want to be included in your promotion. Next, use your email list to reach out to existing customers with heads-up of what goodies are in store for them. By the time the big season arrives, you need to have all the assets and data ready to start marketing and remarketing your products to your current and future customers.

The impact of the holiday promotion could give your sales a momentum that lasts for months.

The post How to Use Content & SEO to Support Your Seasonal Marketing appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Did you know that 130 million users use Facebook and Instagram to discover sales and buy products during Black Friday weekend alone? 

This means that setting your shop up for success is an excellent way to attract all shopaholics into your business and make serious money. But, with so little time, how can you know what you’re supposed to do? 

Well, after talking with Meta experts, I’ve put together an easy-to-follow checklist with everything you need to do AHEAD of Black Friday if you want your Instagram or Facebook Shop to be a huge success this holiday. 

So read on, and start planning now!

11 Things you need to do to get your shop Black Friday ready

The key to a successful Black Friday is reaching the right audience with the right products. In years past, this meant a well-placed ad in the local newspaper or a spot on the radio. But today, the best way to reach potential shoppers is through social media. And of all the social media platforms out there, Instagram and Facebook offer the best buying experience. 

Facebook and Instagram Shops provide an easy way for businesses to showcase their products and reach a wide audience, and offer a convenient way to browse and purchase items with just a few clicks. Plus, since most users are already using these social media platforms *we’re talking about more than 3 billion*, it has become a natural way to shop. 

So if you’re a business owner looking to take advantage of Black Friday, setting up an Instagram or Facebook shop is a must, and here are the best tips to do so: 

1. Start planning your holiday strategies if you haven’t already

For many businesses, Black Friday is make-or-break time, when they can either turn a profit or end up in the red. That’s why it’s so important to have a solid plan in place for dealing with traffic. 

By mapping out a strategy beforehand, businesses can avoid being overwhelmed by the high demand and ensure that everyone has a positive experience. This means, planning your offer and deals ahead of time, placing your ads budget, doing product inventory, organizing customer service, etc. 

Regarding offers, Instagram and Facebook Shops allow businesses to set up coupons and discount codes during checkout, and timely offers to display their deals. Offer parity with your site is key. So be sure to review #7!

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2. Update your Meta Shop banners 

In order for retailers to lure customers into their shops, they need to make sure their signage is up-to-date and eye-catching. This is especially true for banners, which are the first thing people see when hunting for good deals and promotions. 

A well-designed banner can help to create a sense of urgency and excitement, convincing shoppers that they need to act now in order to get the best deals. These act as hero images from a traditional site, but for your Instagram Shop.

Additionally, they can be used to highlight specific sales or promotions, making it easy for shoppers to find the products they’re looking for. After all, what good is a sale if no one knows about it?

So if you’re looking to make the most of this busy shopping day, don’t forget to update your social shop banners with eye-catching designs. It could make all the difference in attracting customers to purchase in your store.

3. Make your organic media is shoppable

Facebook and Instagram Shops allow you to tag a product every time you post a picture, reel, story, or video. This is especially relevant because it drives users from an organic publication to your shop where they can check all the information about the item they’re interested in. 

Plus, tagging can give you clean insights to how they’re interacting with products and creatives. 

Hat tip: Did you know that you can tag your products in the description of your feed posts? No more using ‘link in bio’ in your copy for your organic posts. Use the @ symbol and choose ‘products’, once you have found your product select it and BAM, your product is now linkable in your Instagram post’s description!

4. Set your products up for success

Each product description should contain anything and everything a user needs in order to buy. This includes: 

• Engaging and informative product descriptions

Standing out from the crowd of sellers can be especially hard during the holidays. However, a great way to do that is to make sure your product descriptions are clear, concise, and compelling. 

No matter if you’re selling clothes, accessories, or home decor, a good product description will tell potential customers everything they need to know about a product, including its features, benefits, etc. Plus,  it should also be engaging, so that shoppers are tempted to click “add to cart”, so don’t forget about the call to action and use strong and convincing language to urge the buyers to take your deal. 

Be sure to exclude urls in your product description because it’s not allowed. Keep your product descriptions centered on benefits and remember, users often have 1-3 seconds to evaluate the efficacy and interest in a product from a product description.

• High-quality images

Images that are well-lit and clearly show the product details can be the difference between a customer clicking “add to cart” or moving on to the next item on their list.

For Instagram and Facebook Shops, images need to be at least 500×500 pixels. Additionally, it’s important that you include more than just one image and focus on features. 

Extra tip: according to Meta experts, if your product is in the lifestyle category, detailed product images can help you increase your possibilities of making a sale by 6-8%. 

Extra extra tip: Include an image of a customer’s selfie with the product. Showcasing real customers using or holding your product makes a big difference with your conversions.

• Include price, availability, and sizes

No one will buy anything from your shop if you don’t have this information! So check your products and make sure that all of them include the deal price, pieces in stock, and sizes (this one applies only for items that are in categories like: Clothing Accessories, Newborn & Baby Fashion Accessories, and Costume Accessories)

Regarding sizes, you can (and should) add a size chart to help users feel confident in the purchase decisions and potentially reduce return rates. 

Bear in mind: July 2022, Meta changed the basic information each item showcased in their shops needs to have in order to be displayed, so click here to discover everything your products need to have!

5. Update your catalog

An outdated catalog will make it difficult for them to find what they’re looking for, and they may decide to do their shopping elsewhere. 

So, it’s important that you check and update your catalog to display all the products that are on sale to help your customers make important purchase decisions and drive sales. 

Taking this into account, your catalog should: 

• Have all the products displayed with their variants
• Include product details: complete all data fields (materials, ingredients, multiple images, videos, and size charts where applicable)
• Be maintained: update collections with new items and inventory quantity. Regarding this, you can use Meta Pixel to automatically update your catalog and reduce operational load. 

6. Enable checkout on Facebook and Instagram Shops

Redirecting users to your own website or another platform in order to complete a sale is inconvenient and can lead to lost sales. So, it’s HIGHLY recommended that you set up your shop with checkout, if you’re allowed,to help potential customers discover and buy your products on one platform. 

**For eligible stores in the US, all fees are waived through the end of 2022 for enabled checkouts.

Onsite checkout can be set up in Commerce Manager and it’s available for US shops only; it will give insights into shopper demographic and full-funnel conversion data which, in return, can help you optimize your campaigns. 

7. Offer Parity

An Instagram or Facebook Shop is an extension of your store, but in a more consumable form that doesn’t require users to go from a place to another in order to buy something. This means that both should offer the same data: from prices and deals, to contact information and banners. 

Why? Because some people may find your social shop and make their purchase there, meanwhile others would prefer to go to your website to get more information about you, so offer parity is a must if you want to build trust with potential customers. After all, no one wants to find mismatched prices!

8. Enable product reviews 

By reading reviews, users can get an idea of what other shoppers thought of a particular item before they make a purchase and it can help them make informed decisions. That’s why they’re a key player when it comes to driving sales during Black Friday. 

Regarding this, US shops with onsite checkouts have access to ratings and reviews and can manage them in Commerce Manager, which will allow you to check customer feedback and answer them. 

Remember this: you need to have a shop with onsite checkout to enable product reviews and ratings. 

Moreover, it’s possible to import reviews from 3rd parties! For now, Yotpo and Bazarro are active, meanwhile, Okendo and Stamped.io will be available with the reviews section in the next quarter. 

9. Don’t forget about user-generated content

User-generated content has the added benefit of being more authentic and relatable than traditional marketing materials. It’s this human element that can be critical in helping persuade undecided shoppers to make a purchase. In fact, UGC drives a 9% increase in CTA clicks for buy now or view on the website

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During Black Friday, this type of content can be a valuable tool for helping brands connect with consumers and build trust, so it’s important to include it in your strategy. 

For this, you can use images and videos of different customers using, wearing, and loving your products or provide buyers with information like “how to use” or tips that can help them make the most out of an item. 

If you go to the UGC section of your commerce account, you can find UGC that’s ready for potential use in your stories and in your Meta Shops. You can find any images that tagged your handle or used one of your branded hashtags. When you find images that you’d like to use, you can send a request to that user’s profile for permission of usage of that media in your store.

It’s really that easy!

10. Leverage Shopping Ads and Catalog Ads

Instagram shopping ads allow businesses to showcase their products directly in the Instagram feed. 

By tagging product photos with relevant information, businesses can create ads that include pricing, product descriptions, and a link to purchase the product. These ads are designed to be highly visual and engaging, and they provide a convenient way for users to learn about and purchase products without ever leaving Instagram. 

On the other hand, Advantage+ Catalog Ads are a must-try for those businesses that have a large catalog of products and don’t want to be bothered by having to create a different ad per product. Instead, this type of ad helps you to create one campaign for all your products and show it to people that are interested in even one item from your catalog by creating an individual ad. 

By integrating Catalog and Shop Ads into your paid media plan for Black Friday, you can attract possible customers and take them through your sales funnel all in one platform. 

If you’re not familiar with these types of ads, you should start experimenting and scaling them as you see fit from now on! Also, don’t forget to set up your CPA!

*** Black Friday ad ramp up should begin by September 20th. October 15th is the BIG day when everyone enters the Meta Ads marketplace and auction pressure increase***

11. Prepare your customer support service

Answering questions from possible customers in less than 24 hours increases their possibility to make a purchase by 50%, that’s why it’s important to invest in effective customer service to help users get a clear understanding of your business and build trust. 

With Facebook and Instagram Shops, you can get an email every time someone asks specific questions and reply by using the feedback tag on Commerce Manager. These replies become publicly available helping future customers see that social proof to make better buying decisions.

However, this feature is only available if you have enabled checkout and are an admin to the commerce account.

When should you start?

The peak of users eager to get Black Friday deals starts from October 15th to the big date *yes, more than a month before Black Friday*, so it’s crucial that you start optimizing your Instagram and Facebook Shops ASAP. 

And, if you feel like this long list may overwhelm you and already give you a headache, at Mongoose Media we have a team of experts that will take this task from you and make the most out of your shop to go from plan to bestselling during the holidays!

The post What You Need to be Doing NOW to Get Your Shop Ready for Black Friday appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Time to update your old-school item information, folks! Meta changes are coming to Facebook  and Instagram Shops, and that means your listings need to meet some new requirements.  

Starting July 18, 2022, Meta will change the basic item information they need to display an item.  This is so buyers can make more informed decisions before they check out. 

So what does this mean for you? If you’re selling products on either of these platforms, you’ll  need to make sure that each one follows all the new requirements. Otherwise, your products  simply won’t appear in our shops. 

But don’t stress! We know that this might be a bit of a hassle, that’s why we put together a  checklist with everything you need to change so your products will keep appearing on Meta:  

1. Item descriptions can’t be the same as the title 

Meta wants you to talk about every little detail about your products. That’s why you can’t  use the name of the product as the item description!  

Product descriptions are essential for convincing buyers. They should be clear, concise,  and persuasive. After all, you want people to buy your product, right? But what exactly  should you include in a product description to make it convincing? Here are some tips to  write the best description that Meta and your future buyers will love:  

– Highlight the features of your product that would be most appealing to the  customer. What makes your product unique? Why should they buy it? Be clear  and concise in your explanation. 

– Use strong language to describe your product. This doesn’t mean using flowery  or exaggerative language; just make sure that your descriptions are convincing.  Use active verbs and concrete nouns to paint a picture in the customer’s mind. 

– Finally, don’t forget to include a call-to-action in your product description. Tell the  customer what you want them to do, and make it easy for them to do it.  

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2. Images need to be at least 500 x 500 pixels 

In today’s world, a picture is worth a thousand words. And when it comes to selling  products online, those words had better be convincing. After all, potential buyers can’t  pick up and examine the product in person, so they rely on the images to give them an  idea of what they’re buying. And if those images are anything less than perfect, it could  mean the difference between making a sale and losing out to the competition. 

So, resize and reupload your images! 

3. Descriptions can’t contain any links 

Remove all the links inside your item descriptions. With this requirement, Meta is trying  to minimize driving traffic to other websites. That way, the buyer can complete the  transaction within the shop.  

4. Items in certain product categories must have a size 

When you’re shopping online, one of the most important things to look at is the size of  the item you’re interested in purchasing. After all, you don’t want to end up with  something that’s too small or too large.  

That’s why items included in the next categories have to provide information about the  sizes:  

● Clothing Accessories 

● Newborn & Baby Fashion Accessories 

● Costume Accessories 

So check out the categories of your items, and be sure to add the sizes if needed!  5. Items have been out of stock for too long 

Let’s face it: there’s nothing more frustrating than finding the perfect dress (or pair of  jeans, or handbag…) online, only to discover that it’s out of stock in your size. You try  refreshing the page, just in case there was some mistake, but alas, no luck. So you  leave the site empty-handed and vow never to return. 

Think about it from the customer’s perspective: when you’re browsing online, you want to  find what you’re looking for quickly and easily. If an item is out of stock, it’s just wasted  space on the page–and wasted time for the shopper.  

That’s why Meta will hide the items that have been out of stock for almost 12 months.  So, if the item is in stock, update the quantity available! 

So, what are you waiting for? Get your products ready to sell on Facebook and Instagram by  July 18th! 

If you’re still unsure of how to change all the necessary information, our team is more than  happy to help. Just give us a call or shoot us an email – we would be more than glad to assist.  In the meantime, keep calm and shop on!

The post 5 Changes to Instagram Shops that CANNOT Be  Ignored appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Few industries have as much potential for success as online sales, but successful eCommerce positioning can be challenging when your plans don’t match reality.

You know exactly what that means because you’ve seen it already. It’s the LinkedIn ad that has nothing to do with your job or the tech you use. Or it’s a fad diet supplement on Instagram when you’re really after those futuristic earrings or the latest kicks held up by your favorite sneakerhead. Getting positioning right means it’s easier to understand your market and get those ads and drip campaigns right. 

It sets the tone, ensures you’ve got the right audience, and helps execution turn into conversions. Your business deserves that, so here are five common positioning challenges and how your reality might look different.

Awareness: Your Business & the Hungry Market

The first step in most customer value journeys is building awareness of your products and brand. You’re doing a lot of heavy lifting in the eCommerce space. By not being in traditional retail and competing with brands around the world, you’re the top advocate for your products and the best place for people to learn about you.

When facing that, many companies come out with a core plan. They say: I’ll target a hungry market that wants exactly what I’m selling because everyone is always shopping online!

The reality is that it’s hard to find a hungry market, and customers may be buying a lot online, but they’re not shopping in many different places. Your best audience is out there, and they are hungry, but you will have to research and find them.

Then, you place your message in front of them. This can happen in a variety of ways and one of the most advertised options is buying lists. Unfortunately, there’s so much data available that it can be hard to get started with a reasonable and narrow target.

Addressing this positioning challenge starts with a review of the current market. Look at competitors and brands that you like that are successful. If your product is in a new category or you have a specific position you haven’t seen elsewhere, look for similar approaches in other market segments.

Focus research on where potential shoppers are. For those of you with established brands looking to rekindle interest or gain new markets, slim down where you A/B test to ensure you’ve got reliable attribution.

Awareness is an immediate need and something worth a long-term investment. Look for ways to solve specific issues for your customers today and showcase yourself as a reliable, long-term alternative. Tackle the bigger emotional hooks behind what you offer — improving relationships or giving people back their free time instead of accomplishing a specific task — so that you’re not trying to fit a narrow product-and-problem niche.

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Conversion Strategy: Leaning on Promotional Support

After people know about you and can find you, it’s time to start selling. That’s the bulk of an eCommerce business’s operations, and most plan on letting their products speak for themselves. I mean, you make a great product, and people should be able to recognize that immediately, right?

In reality, not so much.

ECommerce is crowded, and there’s a lot of differentiation that needs to happen to promote your products to generate leads and sales. This work includes how you show off your products as well as the broader offers your store makes.

If your product is better, but a competitor has a more compelling offer, you may still lose out on the sale. You need messaging that resonates with your audience and keeps them engaged. Even if someone doesn’t convert when they see your first message or content, it can put you top-of-mind for when they are willing to buy.

Where should you start? Create relevant offers for your different audiences. Target people with something they could use or enjoy. Be sure to consider their budget and initial offers that may get your foot in the door for a repeat purchase. Here are some elements to remember:

• Free offers need to provide value and answer questions or propose problems to solve.
• Provide your audience a low-risk option if your business thrives on repeat purchases.

• Explain why someone should take a chance on you. 
• Match offers to the perceived value. If you’re selling coffee and don’t want to make a free offer or a $10 bag, be sure that the big package you sell for $90 feels like it is worth much more.
• Help your audience feel like they “get their money’s worth” at every step

Create a few core offers and promote these everywhere. That way, your audience gets what they need no matter how they find you, and no one feels upset for using the banner discount and not the Facebook one that arrives a week after their purchase because of retargeting. Simplicity is an easy way to keep products flowing and keep shoppers happy.

Subscriptions: Not One-Size-Fits-All

One of the more common plans any eCommerce company hears today is that everyone offers a subscription, and you should too. In reality, it doesn’t make much sense for every business, and customers don’t want it from every business. Sometimes people just want to buy once and get everything they need without signing up for continual charges on their accounts or credit cards.

You address the subscription question with detailed research into what people want you to offer and what you can offer. Typically, subscriptions require high SKU counts, which comes with a lot of consistent ordering and capital investment. Increasing SKU and inventory count also increase your inbound shipping, warehousing/storage, and fulfillment costs. 

The question to ask your business and finance partners is: Will a subscription make up for that?

If the answer is unclear, review potential recurring options and product lifetimes to see where you might have an add-on instead of a consistent replacement. That approach can allow you to create a subscription-like element or feeling without needing a high volume of SKUs. 

Here, you would tie a product or option with a specific order number. So, everyone gets the same item in package two regardless of when they sign up for the service. If person A signs up in August, they get the item in September. When person B signs up in December, they get this item in January. You control the flow and don’t have to order high volumes of new SKUs monthly.

Excitement: Not Everyone Is the ‘Fun’ One

Most people getting into the eCommerce space are very excited about their operations and products. They feel customers are going to be just as excited! Positioning often relies on that level of excitement to encourage sales and relationships without necessarily building up that excitement for a novel audience.

But what if you sell something more helpful or relaxing than exciting? What if the biggest feeling is a sense of relief when your package hits the front porch? Or what would you do if a customer doesn’t know you well enough to be excited before they use your product for the first time?

The reality is that your business must make a case to customers unfamiliar with the brand who have limited attention spans, even for a product category they enjoy. The emotions you want to elicit must be created and nurtured across multiple instances. And excitement isn’t always how people react.

The market for home delivery of pet food and meals is more than $1.67 billion — while the pups may all be excited, many owners are just glad that the food arrives and they don’t need to rush to the store.

That proves you don’t have to be the “fun” brand to build out an empire. And you can’t force people to view you as the fun brand, anyway. Get to know your company through the eyes of your customers. Start with a hard look at your brand and products. How do existing customers talk about you? How do they talk about your competitors? What do they want that’s different from competitors that you can tackle? 

Use those answers to create a difference for your brand. It might be the excitement about being the hot new thing, or you could uncover an angle even more lucrative.

Reviews: Requires More Than Love

One final area to touch on is how products spread. We’ve all been told for more than a decade that word-of-mouth has better returns than advertising. In the eCommerce space, this translates to reviews being a top way to generate confidence in a product and convert those eyeballs. The trouble can be getting the reviews you need.

Many eCommerce owners will tell themselves, “People will love my product so much that they come back to my website just to fill out our review and comment sections, no matter where I hide those on my site.” So, they add whatever integration or toolkit is native to their eCommerce platform that comes up first in the plug-in search for “reviews.” 

Those elements get stuck on a page randomly, and then the mission accomplished banner is hung.

Maybe you get lucky, and the right comments live next to your products in an easy-to-use menu. Or you get it wrong, and money flows down the drain because no one can find or understand the 12-star review platform.

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Reviews are golden for eCommerce because they can drive conversions and give you shareable quotes. You also get feedback for what isn’t working (just as important). Generating reviews, however, takes a plan. People are willing to provide reviews, but you’ve got to ask and make it easy for people to answer. Here are a few things to help.

First, put reviews on product pages and ensure the platform is understandable at a glance. Let people leave detailed items, rate by stars, or even add photos. Don’t make a system that’s too cumbersome or asks for details people don’t want to use. Requiring a registered account could prevent people from leaving their thoughts.

When you ask, make sure it is at an appropriate time. The post-sale follow-up should occur after people have received your product and when they’ve had enough time to try it. Use the same channels that your other interactions followed — so if you sent confirmation and shipping status via text, use text to ask for a review.

You may also want to try different review types. If someone bought your product via Instagram, consider asking for a post or comment. That might drive more people to your sales channels and yield better conversions than a review on your website.

The trick here is to keep asking your newest buyers and test different options to see what increases the number of reviews you receive and where these reviews best impact conversions.

Your follow-up

ECommerce businesses are primarily marketing and sales machines. This will take up much more of your team’s time than product development, procurement, and fulfillment. That means positioning is at the heart of your success. While we’ve looked at common concerns around emotions, reviews, sales options, and chasing the subscription wave, those are only the first steps to help you succeed throughout the Customer Value Journey.

This framework will help you craft a plan based on your business and current capabilities. ECommerce is exciting. The tools that allow you to sell and succeed are fascinating. Use that potential to create something amazing to drive you forward with a purpose. Your bottom line will thank you.

The post Planning Vs. Reality – 5 Typical Ecommerce Positioning Challenges appeared first on DigitalMarketer.