Last updated 1 day 18 hours ago
Last week, we announced an enhanced behavioral targeting offer for our display advertising service, ReachDisplay. But what exactly is display advertising, and why is it valuable for a local business? And how does behavioral targeting differ from other ways to target consumers surfing across the Web?
In this interview, Brian Kim, ReachLocal’s Director of Display Advertising, explains how display advertising works to grow your brand awareness with consumers surfing online. Plus, he discusses how behavioral targeting differs from site-specific targeting, and why targeting consumers, rather than sites, is highly effective for display advertising.
“If you think about how much time consumers spend online, it’s only about five percent where they’re doing real intensive search, and about 95 percent of their time, they’re actually browsing content that may not be related to what they’re searching about or interested in buying,” Kim says.
“But that doesn’t mean that they’re not interested still in buying the product they were searching for, maybe 20 minutes ago. So, display advertising’s a great way for you to go target them in that 95 percent of the time where they’re just browsing content.”
How does display advertising fit into your local business online marketing strategy? Will you be using behavioral targeting to reach more consumers browsing content on the Web?
Tamara Weintraub helps equip small business owners with information about local online advertising, social media marketing, and more as a blogger for ReachCast and ReachLocal.
Last updated 5 days ago
At ReachLocal, we are always striving to improve our quality and service to drive better results for our clients. Today, we’re proud to announce an improved display advertising offering featuring behavioral targeting.
Our behavioral targeting can help you target consumers who are relevant to your business even more effectively and efficiently than a broad display advertising campaign. Essentially, behavioral targeting shows your display ad to your target consumers, which helps you boost brand awareness with people who may be interested in your specific products and services. We offer 16 different targeting categories for local businesses to choose from, including auto, health, sports, and many more.
Now, we’re helping you do this more effectively – and at an even lower cost.
We sat down with Brian Kim, our Director of Display Advertising to get the rundown on what’s new with our behavioral targeting. Here are a few benefits of the new Behavioral Targeting offers he shared with us:
Lower CPM & Minimum Budget
First, we’re excited to let you know that we are launching a lower CPM across all our behavioral targeting offers, regardless of geo-targeting preferences. We are also reducing the minimum budget to run behavioral targeting.
Improved Results
Finally and most importantly, we’re excited to let you know that not only is the cost for behavioral targeting lower, but our new offerings also deliver improved results. According to Mr. Kim, the new offerings show dramatic increases in CTR resulting from improved bidding strategies, effective behavioral targeting, and optimization. That means our clients will see improved clicks-to-impressions ratios, providing even better results for building your brand and targeting customers who are relevant to your business.
What exactly is behavioral targeting, and why does it help boost display advertising effectiveness? Stay tuned for our video interview with Brian Kim next week to learn more.
To learn more about our display advertising and behavioral targeting, contact your local Internet Marketing Consultant today.
Last updated 8 days ago
Any business will tell you that retaining customers is easier than acquiring new ones. And, it can be at least five times more costly to acquire a new customer than to keep one, making customer acquisition an important focus for any local business owner. So what can you do to build customer loyalty and show your customers you love them?
1. Create a Customer Loyalty Program
Develop and execute a loyalty program that will keep your best customers coming back again and again. Use a punch card or customer identification number to track customer purchases, and then reward loyal customers with a freebie after a certain number of purchases. To make your program even more appealing, consider going beyond a discount to offer a free product or service. And, if you want to go mobile, consider a loyalty-card app through a service like Cardstar— which gives your customers one less card to keep track of and provides you with customer analytics that you can apply to future promotions.
2. Reward Customer Referrals
If you run business like a kitchen remodeling company or bridal boutique that rarely has repeat customers, you may rely on word of mouth for much of your business. So, rewarding customers for referring new clients to you can be a great way to instill loyalty while thanking your customers for their business. For instance, you can send a gift card to customers who refer a friend or family who becomes a new client for your business.
3. Build Gamification into Your Retention Strategy
Businesses of all types are using games to recognize and reward customers with not just discounts, but also with fun experiences that can result in repeat business. For example, many health and fitness clubs offer small attendance rewards to customers. One such business, Sunstone Yoga, gives out colored wristbands for completing a certain number of classes. Providing customers with a small token or prize incentivizes them to achieve certain levels of membership and tell others about your business.
4. Offer Your Online Fans a Special Deal
Often, your best customer advocates will publicly “fan” your business on a social media platform like Facebook, so craft a special deal just for them. This not only rewards your existing fans, but sharing deals online is also an easy way to boost social shares and new followers for your business
5. Say “Thank You”
Whether it’s in person, over the phone, or via a post card, thanking a customer for their business is an easy and inexpensive way to let your customers know you appreciate them. Giving your customers personal attention makes existing customers feel special , and personalized service can drive both online and offline word of mouth that can result in new customers for your business.
6. Give Your Online Followers a Shout-Out
Thanking or recognizing a customer publicly on a social media site like Facebook or Twitter is a great way to show your customers you care about them. So, publicly recognize, mention, “tag,” or tweet your local customers online as a way to show your appreciation. Most people love being recognized online, and chances are, they will share your post or retweet it to their networks, creating online word of mouth that could mean even more online traction and engagement for your business.
7. Provide Excellent Customer Service
Of course, the most effective way to show your customers you love them is to provide exceptional customer service again and again. Some cornerstones can include: making sure your staff is always polite both in person and on the phone, ensuring that you deliver service in a timely and efficient manner, and apologizing and addressing the situation immediately when you make a mistake. If you always make an effort to make the customer experience pleasant, they may reward you with repeat business and positive reviews that can lead to even more customers.
What has your local business done to show your customers you love them? As a customer, what has a business done to reward you in a fun and interesting way? Share your experiences with a comment!
Tamara Weintraub helps equip small business owners with information about local online advertising, social media marketing, and more as a blogger for ReachCast and ReachLocal.
Last updated 12 days ago
One of the hottest new sites year is Pinterest. In fact, ReachLocal recently launched an account on the site, sharing stats, facts, infographics, and other content from across the wWeb. If you haven’t heard about the social media site from a family member, friend, or colleague, here’s a basic overview of what you need to know about using Pinterest for local business.
What is Pinterest?
Essentially, it’s an online pinboard that allows you to post, or “pin”, an image that links back to a content source from anywhere on the Web to a curated board on your Pinterest account. It then showcases your image to a feed your followers see whenever they log into the site. Whenever they view your specific pin, they can also follow the link back to the originating source for the full content, whether it be a blog post, how-to article, or product showcase. Each pin is organized onto a “board,” which is a collection of images you curate under a specific topic of your choosing. You can create as many boards as you want and name them whatever you like, adding each board into a subject matter category like fashion, art, food, technology, and more.
Other users can subscribe to you as a user, or to your individual boards. What each user sees when they log into their account is a stream of images from all the accounts and boards they follow, creating a great interest discovery experience. You can also “repin” the content that other users have posted to one of your own boards, which means that Pinterest becomes a powerful way to discover and share new content, products, brands, and more.
So, why is Pinterest useful for online marketing?
For one, the site is driving a lot of traffic to business websites. A recent Shareaholic study showed that Pinterest accounted for 3.6% of referral traffic in January, driving more traffic than Google Plus, YouTube and LinkedIn combined.
In fact, if your business features images on your blog, website, or web store, you may already be getting traffic via Pinterest if your customers or fans have “pinned” your images using the site. Since whenever an image is pinned using the Pinterest shortcut it automatically links back to the referring source, it creates links back to your original content. Which means that when someone on Pinterest finds something they’re interested in, they can like it, pin it to their own board, and even visit the site directly to learn more or purchase the item featured. This all serves as a great opportunity for generating traffic to your web content.
What’s unique about Pinterest?
Pinterest isn’t simply about finding things to buy. Instead, it focuses on things users enjoy, giving them an easy way to catalog them, refer to them, and share them with people who have similar interests. That can include connections from existing social networks, like Facebook, but it may also include new connections who share a common interest, like cooking, crafting, travel, or technology.
Overall, what sets Pinterest apart is that it’s centered on the interest graph rather than the social graph. And this provides an interesting new way for consumers to interact with each other and with brands through their content. Because of the user experience of Pinterest, it’s very common for users to “repin” content they find useful or interesting, regardless of whether it originated from a brand or another user. That’s because a user’s boards become a form of self-expression, primarily by sharing content from other people – and businesses.
How can a local business get started on Pinterest?
1. Build a Business Presence on Pinterest
Currently, there is no distinction of business or brand accounts on Pinterest. But, to get started on the site, you’ll need to get an invite, as the site currently does not accept open sign ups. To do this, try asking someone you know who’s already on the site to send you an invite. Short of that, you could post on your business Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ account that your business wants to get involved, so you need an invite. Once you are able to sign up, put your business name in the First Name field in the sign up form so that it’s displayed properly on your account, then complete your profile to describe your business.
You may also want to send an invite to yourself via another email account once you’ve set up your business account so you can create a personal profile. This will allow you to experience Pinterest as a user so you can better understand how to use the site to appeal to consumers.
2. Share Content Your Customers and Fans Will Love
It’s important to think of your customers and fans when building your Pinterest approach. What kinds of content, topics, and interests do they enjoy? What would you as a user find interesting? Don’t limit what you post to just information about your products and services. Don’t just share images and links to your existing product pages, blog posts, and website. Instead, share content that other users will love sharing. For example, a local bakery could create boards for cupcake recipes, frosting tips, taste combinations, decorating ideas, party ideas, personal favorites, cake disasters, wedding planning, and other topics their followers might be interested in.
3. Follow Customers, Fans, Employees, and Like-Minded Businesses
After you’ve created your boards and pinned some interesting content, you’ll want to start following other users and establishing your business presence on Pinterest. Not only will this notify them you are using the site, it will also fill your stream with content that you can re-share. So, search the site for content you’d like to share from your brand, and follow some users – both individuals and businesses – who are sharing about common interests. And, don't forget to share with your fans and followers on other sites that your business is on Pinterest, too!
4. Create Pinterest-Friendly Content and Make it Sharable
Businesses who are actively sharing photography, images, and infographics related to their brand can boost their brand awareness and drive more traffic to their blogs and websites by keeping Pinterest in mind. You can pin your own images to appropriate categories to let followers know what new content you’ve posted so they can share it. You can also put a “Pin It” button on your blog or website, enabling viewers to directly pin your content from your site.
These are just a few tips for getting started on Pinterest as a local business. Are you using the site – personally or for business? What are your thoughts? Feel free to share you tips, tricks and ideas in a comment!
And check out ReachLocal on Pinterest to see what we're sharing!
About the Author
Tiffany Monhollon shares practical tips and insights about reaching consumers across the web. Follow her on Twitter and Google+
Last updated 15 days ago
Now that you’ve created and begun to optimize your local business’ Google Plus Page, how can you use this social media platform to share your content with even more customers and prospects? With a few tricks, shortcuts, and extensions, you can get the most out of your Google Plus business page. Here are 12 tips we’ve found that will help you optimize every aspect of your Google Plus page.
Profile/Page
1. Optimize your Business Profile for SEO. Make sure you are using target keywords in your business description. And, don’t forget to write a short, one-line description that appears under your name in your profile. This is essentially your page’s meta description and appears whenever someone mouses over your business name in their Google Plus feed.
2. Do Something Creative With your Photos. Because the images on your Google Plus Page are static, you can use them to do some creative marketing for your local business. For instance, you can take a page from big brands like Pepsi and Chevrolet, which have created multi-image panoramic scenes, or Fox News, which uses its Google Plus profile to showcase its anchors. Plus, you can change your profile images out as frequently as you like to keep your page fresh.
3. Create a Vanity URL for Your Marketing Materials. Your Google Plus page URL is a bit long and difficult to remember with all those random numbers. You can head over to Gplus.to to create a shortened vanity URL for your page that you can use on marketing materials like postcards and emails. Not only does a shortened link with your business name look more professional, but it’s also easy for customers and prospects to remember.
Posts
4. Edit or Add to an Existing Post. One advantage to Google Plus that you don’t get on Facebook or Twitter is the ability to edit a post that you’ve already shared. Accidentally misspell a word or include the wrong stat? No problem – you can easily fix it with the “Edit” option on the right side of your post. This is also a great feature if you want to add additional content to an existing post. Then, once you save your changes, they will automatically show up on your original post that you’ve shared with your circles.
5. Share a Post via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, & Other Social Sites. Google Plus does not natively include a way to share your posts directly to your other social media pages. But if you use Google Chrome as your browser, you can download an extension called Extend Share that lets you share posts from Google Plus to your Facebook, Twitter, and other social accounts, right from your feed. Once the extension is downloaded, you’ll see a “Share on” link below every post with your selected options. Make sure to keep your audience in mind before you cross-post and ask yourself if the type of content you’re posting makes sense to share on different platforms. For example, you might share a long entry you wrote on Google+ with your Twitter or Facebook community, but if you’re sharing a link to an article or resource, you can just share that natively to each site.
6. Add Basic Formatting to your Posts. Do your Google Plus posts look a little bland? You can jazz them up with a little bit of basic formatting. With just a few keystrokes, you can add bolding, italics, and strikethrough to your Google Plus posts: use the format *text* to bold, _text_ to italicize, and –text- to strike through a word or phrase. These shortcuts allow you to quickly add content like headlines or emphasize certain words or phrases, giving your Google Plus posts a little extra dimension.
7. Share a Post Privately with Someone. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Google Plus does not have a native private messaging feature. But, you can send someone a private post simply by adding "+name of contact’ to the individual you want to share your post with in the “Share” box. And, as long as you don’t share to Public, these posts won’t display on your Google Plus profile. Similarly, you can share content with yourself by either adding yourself to an existing circle, or creating a circle only for yourself. It works like sending yourself an email; for example, you can draft a post or take a quick note, share the post only with yourself, then go back later to edit the post and share it with your circles.
Notifications
8. Turn off Email Notifications. By default, Google will email you all notifications related to your account, whether someone shares a post with you, adds you to a circle, or merely comments after you on a post. To turn off or modify your email notifications, go to Google + Settings. Then, select Google+ from the left navigation and scroll down until you see “Receive Notifications,” where you can uncheck the boxes for the notifications you don’t want to receive. Your email account will thank you – but be sure to check Google Plus frequently to see all your new content and followers.
9. Mute a Specific Post. If you simply want to stop receiving notifications on a certain post, you can mute that thread from your Google Plus feed, so you will no longer see comments related to that post. Under your notifications page, scroll to the post you want to mute. Then, click the arrow to the right of the post and select “Mute this post."
10. View Notifications in your Chrome Browser. Another great Google Plus extension for Google Chrome is Notification Count. This works especially well if you turn off your Google Plus notification emails. It puts a counter right in your browser next to your search bar, so you can always see how many new notifications you have, no matter what you are doing. You can visit the Google Chrome Web store for an array of other Google Plus extensions that can help you get more out of using Google Plus a snap for your local business.
Management
11. Manage Multiple Google Plus Accounts. Now that I have both a personal Google Plus account and a corporate Google Plus account, having the ability to toggle between them is a necessity. You can switch between your Google Plus accounts with ease, so you can view and update your personal content and your business content without having to sign out of the other account. To manage your business Google Plus account from your personal account, you'll see the profile picture and icon for your business page on the top left sidebar of your home page. Select the down arrow and choose your business page icon to manage that account. To switch back, do the same thing and select your personal account.
Manage Google Plus from Your Mobile Device. If you’re not doing so already, make sure to add the Google Plus app to your iPhone, iPad, Android phone, or other Smartphone or tablet. This lets you keep up with all the great content in your Google Plus feed and update your business' status anytime, even while on the go.
What other Google Plus tricks and shortcuts have you come across that have worked for your local business? What Google Chrome extensions have you found that have improved your Google Plus experience? Feel free to share in a comment!
More Like This:
Tamara Weintraub helps equip small business owners with information about local online advertising, social media marketing, and more as a blogger for ReachCast and ReachLocal.
