Marketing to Millennials: 8 Strategy Tips for Success
The “baby boom” famously gave rise to the biggest population expansion in world history. Now, we’re living through the generational echo of that boom. In 2020, millennials, the generation raised by the baby boomers, took over as the largest generation in America. And as they grow in age, income, influence, and means, one thing is clear: Millennials have money to spend. But competition for that money is fierce. Advertising to millennials isn’t the same as advertising to Generation X or Generation Z — the two generations on either end. Knowing how to target millennials means learning their values, their priorities, and constructing messaging that won’t rub them the wrong way. In short, it requires that you learn how to “speak millennial.” Fortunately, we’re here to help you do just that. Who are millennials? The famous “baby boom” took place from 1946 to 1964 and Millennials are the large generation descended from the baby boom about one generation later, born between 1981 and 1996. As of 2023, millennials are people aged 27 to 42. They earned their name because people early in their generation were first becoming adults at the turn of the millennium. Millennial marketing 101: top tips 1. Prioritize mobile-first marketing In addition to coming of age around the time of the millennium, the youngest millennials were still pre-teens when the first smartphones came out in the late 2000s. As such, they’re the first generation of adults who are used to today’s mobile-first method of navigating the world. Although many millennials own a desktop, the average millennial spends about 211 minutes on a smartphone per day, compared to only 31 minutes of desktop use. That’s why a millennials’ marketing initiative has to start there: on millennial turf. But the term “smartphone” is vague. What are the apps and sites mobile millennials are using? We’ll dive into the numbers later, but for now, you can find them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, and Snapchat. In short, millennials are willing to listen to ads, but only if you find them in the right spots. Millennials are twice as likely to listen to video content on their smartphone than on television. Even better, people watching these videos are 1.8 times as likely to take action on the ad. Why? Because people watching on their smartphones tend to be more active — researching a product while they shop, for example. 2. Remember that brand values matter When you learn how to market to millennials, remember this: Millennials are a principled bunch. One study found that 83% of millennials care about whether a brand aligns with their personal values. To millennials — perhaps shocked and startled by the 2008 financial crisis — it’s not enough to simply spend indiscriminately. They have to feel that what they’re spending their hard-earned money on is going toward a worthwhile brand. That may be why millennials consider themselves more brand-conscious than Generation Z, the generation coming up after millennials. About seven in 10 millennials consider the brand when they make a purchase, which is higher than the five out of 10 that is average for all U.S. adults. This means today’s brands have to not only be conscious of their image, but of creating messaging that resonates with these millennials. While baby boomers watching your YouTube ad might not resonate as much with brand messaging that touches on core values like sustainability and environmental impact, you can expect that millennials are indeed listening. Of course, not all brands naturally lend themselves to sustainability and environmental impact messaging. You may want to consider the other brand values that resonate with millennials, including: Health and wellness Transparency Authenticity Customer support The unboxing experience 3. Prioritize experiences over entertainment “Pics or it didn’t happen!” Ever hear this familiar millennial refrain online? It’s not a coincidence. Millennials make their experiences a point of emphasis, perhaps more than any other generation. If the 2008 financial crisis affected millennials’ attitude toward money, it also reflects another one of their defining traits: They tend to prefer experiences over things. For many millennials, that preference shows up most notably in the need to travel, with about 65% of millennials currently saving up for a trip. You can’t understand how to market to millennials without getting hold of this basic principle. But it’s not just frugality and temperance that are driving these trends. Some believe that millennials are the first generation of consumers for whom shareable content is a priority. “Modern consumers care more about creating an Instagram-able memory than purchasing the hottest new product,” writes customer experience futurist Blake Morgan in an article for Forbes. 4. Be authentic You might remember “authenticity” as one of the key brand traits towards which millennials tend to gravitate. What is it about authenticity that makes millennials more likely to purchase from you? And why do they bother with it in the first place? For starters, authenticity works with every age group. It just so happens that millennials in surveys rate it even higher a priority than Boomers and Gen X. Like anyone else, millennials like to make their own decisions. They’ll even happily tap on a Facebook ad if they feel its values align with their own. But when brands blatantly attempt to dip their toes in the water in a way that feels inauthentic to their core values, ad-savvy millennials have a way of seeing through it. What does authenticity look like in practice? To start with, authenticity is rare. According to the same source, most consumers believe less than half of brands actually practice authenticity. But there are a few other keys to driving authenticity in the minds of millennials. User-generated content: 60% of consumers rated user-generated content as the most authentic. Today’s mobile-friendly audience constantly seeks out word of mouth and online reviews to conduct product research. It follows that any brand willing to put user-generated content like reviews out front is the brand striving to be authentic. Social media: Millennials like to share their triumphs and their frustrations with the public. That’s why it’s sketchy to them when a brand doesn’t maintain a social media presence or actively respond to customer complaints online. To millennials, this means the brand must be hiding something. Also, consider looking into influencer marketing, which helps brands reach out to trusted social media celebrities. Customer segmentation: To help avoid the clash between messaging and the target market, brands should conduct customer segmentation and handle their advertisements appropriately. Avoid blanketing an audience with vague messaging and focus on speaking directly to smaller groups of potential customers, one segment at a time. 5. Use visuals In the same millennials marketing survey quoted above, millennials pointed out how easy it is to see through old tricks like stock video and photography. Brands that put out authentic content will also put out original content, including behind-the-scenes videos or original photographs. The old saying that a picture says a thousand words still has meaning here. But your brand’s messaging shouldn’t be limited to a two-dimensional medium. Consider a website like sketch London, which users can actually interact with. Millennials offer plenty of loyalty to brands — but only to brands that have earned that loyalty through two-way messaging. Visuals like an interactive website can help reinforce the “conversational” approach of your brand. But you can also turn to social media for more visual interaction. Caption contests, customer highlights (such as featuring a specific customer in a post or having them “take over” your social media accounts for a day), and other visual displays of fan interaction show that you’re committed to a two-way conversation. 6. Maintain your blog Believe it or not, there are few things as unsettling to a millennial as visiting a company website and finding out their last blog post was from 2019. It’s the digital marketing equivalent of pulling up to a store and finding the interior offices completely abandoned. But you shouldn’t maintain a blog just to avoid this conundrum. You should make your blog a reason to visit your website. Statistics suggest that well-written blogs can create a 55% increase in website visitors. So, you aren’t only doing it as a strategy for marketing to millennials. You’re also doing it for the search engine algorithms that are looking for recent, fresh, updated content. And given that 55% of millennials ignore brands that don’t show up well in search results, you can consider a clean, fresh, frequently-updated blog a good way to reach out. It’s true that many millennial shoppers may only glance at your blog before purchasing. But that glance can be well worth the time and effort it took to create that post. Not only do enhanced search results help you attract more customers, but millennials performing online research want to tick off the “active blog” box before they decide to buy from you. After all, in their minds, if you can’t manage a blog, what does that say about your ability to cater to modern shipping standards? Refund policies? Or even the quality of your product? 7. Offer incentives In one respect, millennials are much like any other generation: they can’t pass up a good incentive. But you should pay attention to the quirks of millennial advertising preferences if you’re going to create a compelling incentive. While a simple coupon will entice just about anyone, keep in mind that millennials value more than money. As Forbes notes, millennial employee incentives often focus on providing millennial employees with more options at work. It might be simpler to cut them a check, but in practice, millennials value time and experience just as often as financial incentives. Your digital marketing approach should reflect that. Millennial buying preferences are shaping the world in unexpected ways, as well. For example, many millennials — by now well-versed in shopping online — bring their B2B preferences to their functions in B2C roles. When millennials are shopping with a company’s budget, they may look for the same differentiators they look for when shopping for themselves, including: Incentives for customer loyalty: This is just as true in B2B as it is in direct-to-consumer brands. Millennials understand the value of consistent business and are willing to shop around until they find a brand that’s willing to invest in a long-term partnership. Choose-your-own-incentive plans: Some millennial customers may choose a price discount if they can. But the back-and-forth between the buyer and the brand is just as important for millennials. Offering multiple options for incentives and allowing the customer to choose which they receive gives them a sense of investment — they’re creating a bargain of their own making. Experiences over things: Receiving a gift card from a company is hardly an Instagram-able perk. But gift packs with unboxing experiences speak the language of the modern digital buyer — as do other experiences that reflect the products and services your company provides. Don’t be afraid to get creative in finding ways to turn your offerings or professional services into a one-of-a-kind experience. 8. Make inbound marketing informative There is no single master key to unlocking all millennials’ hearts. But if you track your inbound marketing data with precision and consistency, you may find a few patterns for marketing to millennials that pop up over time. Information from your inbound marketing is only going to get more important. Millennials, after all, care more about privacy than previous generations. And in the coming years, as regulations crack down on sharing customer data with third parties, advertisers will need first-party data to glean information about their customers’ preferences. First-party data is the knowledge you get directly from your audience. When they fill in their address, for example, you’ve gained some demographic information about your market. But not everyone is going to fill out a shipping form right away. You need other ways of getting information from inbound customers, such as: Surveys Email addresses Customer service interactions and feedback Social media polls and feedback In the future, leads aren’t only going to be valuable because they represent a potential purchase. They’re going to be valuable because warm leads also come packed with information you can use to tighten your messaging and make more sales. How to target millennials through paid ads Millennials are just as open to paid ads as any other generation. But it may not seem that way if you can’t quite figure out what they’re searching for online. To write paid ads that resonate with millennials, try to keep the following in mind: Millennials often search as part of product research: Try to remember the intent behind every keyword. For example, someone typing “best DSLR camera reviews” is likely in the market for a DSLR camera. Someone searching for “best stock photography” might be in the same overall photography segment, but it sounds like they’re not looking for a camera. Make sure your message meets search intent before you give up on a campaign. Use advertising to gather information: Yes, the primary goal of advertising is to drive sales. But as first-party information becomes more valuable, you should also use ad campaigns to test your marketing hypotheses. According to Adweek, 65% of millennials are more than happy to trade information for incentives, like discounts. Keep mobile in mind: Your paid ads should appear far more on mobile than desktop. Considering the aforementioned 7:1 ratio at which millennials use phones as opposed to home computers, you’ll be more likely to find your audience with a focus on mobile advertising. How to advertise to millennials on social media Approach your millennial advertising campaign as you would any new agency project, as many of the same principles hold up when you’re marketing to millennials on social media. Social media platforms like Twitter say when they’re displaying a sponsored ad, true. But millennials aren’t going to completely avoid ads that speak to their needs directly. To better learn how to advertise to them on social media, make sure the message matches the platform. What social platforms do millennials use? Facebook Despite Facebook’s reputation as being for everyone — including older audiences and baby boomers — today’s millennials still use it at astonishing rates. For example, 87% of millennials in the U.S. use Facebook at least once per week. And that’s good news: Facebook is one of the most sophisticated online platforms for advertising, especially when nailing down a specific target demographic. Twitter Marketing to millennials on Twitter is to find them in their element. Sponsored tweets with videos are especially powerful for connecting your brand to a Twitter user’s specific need. It’s worth noting that millennials on Twitter tend to be the affluent millennials, according to Twitter’s own data. This makes the platform a surprisingly appropriate place to advertise big-ticket items. Pinterest The median age on Pinterest is about 40, or the age of the older millennials. This makes the platform another great outlet for marketing to millennials who have had some time to form a career, generate disposable income, and grow in affluence and spending power. YouTube Your YouTube marketing strategy should highlight the importance of visuals that resonate with millennials. With over two billion worldwide users, t’s not just millennials on the platform. But YouTube will give you a “101” course in advertising to millennials. You’ll have to hook them in the first few seconds of every video, supply worthwhile content that entices them to learn more, and build a strategy that represents your brand as transparent, authentic, and willing to engage with your audience. How to plan a millennial marketing campaign with Wrike Ready to turn your knowledge of how to advertise to millennials into practice? Our professional services management software can help you organize these insights, plan your campaign, and align your team for precise marketing execution. A millennial-targeted advertising campaign won’t happen by accident, but Wrike’s marketing campaign templates will help you get your bearings as you whittle down your target audience to one of the most important demographic segments in the world. Use Wrike’s project management workflow templates to break up the production into smaller steps, ensuring you don’t bite off more than you can chew at any particular milestone. You can also integrate members of your team into Wrike so that everyone is on the same page when it comes to brand messaging and authenticity. After all, if you’re going to speak to today’s millennial, it helps to speak with one voice. Get started with Wrike today.
What It Means to Be a Digital Project Manager
Today's most effective project managers are the ones who have moved their teams and processes online. Using online project management, collaboration software, and cloud file storage systems, work is getting done efficiently and with better results. These digital project managers are the new faces of project management, and if you are looking to dive into the field, you need to start preparing now.
How to Create an Omnichannel Marketing Strategy (Infographic)
Think about how many devices and platforms you use a day. Smartphones, laptops, tablets, social media apps, emails — the list goes on. And on each and every one of these platforms lies an opportunity for a marketing campaign to reach you — to speak to you in your language and find out what makes you tick. An omnichannel marketing strategy is an integrated approach to digital marketing, where customers are served at every stage of their buyer journey, no matter where they spend their time. Chances are, you’ve experienced omnichannel marketing many times when searching for something to buy. If you’ve ever entered a store and gotten a notification from that store’s app while browsing or seen an ad for a product just after visiting its brand website, you’ve caught a glimpse of omnichannel marketing in action. The benefits of a great omnichannel marketing strategy are vast, including: Increased brand retention and loyalty Improved brand recall Increased revenue Better customer targeting While creating an omnichannel marketing strategy that works for your brand may sound complex, these five steps make the entire process easier. Use technology to your advantage and get to know your customers with our step-by-step guide.
Ultimate Tips for Social Media Management in 2022
Social media management is the process of planning, creating, publishing, and monitoring content on one or more social media platforms. Social media management is quite complex, often involving multiple strategies and channels. In addition to learning the basic best practices, social media managers must also stay up to date with trends, continuously monitor reports for improvement, and organize their project plans in a way that makes it easy for their team to follow every day. In this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn more about social media management and the tools you need to succeed. Keep reading to discover everything the modern marketer needs to know about winning the game of social media. Social media management explained Social media management strategy is a process that involves analyzing and developing a strategy tailored to the business goals of each individual client or brand. It involves monitoring social media conversations, creating and distributing content, and measuring and reporting on the effectiveness of the strategy. If you’re interested in becoming a social media manager or strengthening your skillset, this guide is for you. Why is social media management important in 2022? In 2022, social media will continue to be an integral part of any company's strategy. It can help them reach their goals and connect with their customers. Social media marketing management allows you to build and manage all of your brand's components through engaging content that connects with audiences. It also produces higher ROI for paid and organic advertising online. With the seemingly never-ending rise of social media, businesses can now reach out to their potential customers wherever they are, as long as they understand how to do it. What is a social media manager? Social media managers are responsible for developing an overall strategy and managing a variety of online activities. Their primary goals include driving sales, helping customers, and developing effective campaigns. What does a social media manager do? A social media manager is in charge of representing a company's brand across multiple channels. They can respond to comments and create content. A social media manager may help organizations improve their online presence or even build their following from the ground up. What skills do you need to become a social media manager? Social media managers need to be skilled at creating engaging content, backend platform analytics tools, and keeping up with the latest social media trends. While there are countless other skills, these are the main ones you need to succeed. How can you become a social media manager? There are opportunities for social media managers in companies, although many choose to freelance and start their own agencies. What are the most prominent social media platforms for businesses? At any given time, there are usually one or two social media platforms that people generally consider to be the most popular. But no matter what’s trending, businesses in 2022 can count on using each of the following tools as part of their strategy: Facebook Facebook allows you to post text and photos, as well as videos and pictures from your business. This can be very powerful for communicating with your customers and potential customers. Facebook demographics In January 2022, it was revealed that almost 10 percent of Facebook's audience was made up of women between the ages of 18 and 24. The platform's biggest demographic group was men between the ages of 25 and 34. Perks of marketing on Facebook Facebook is a massive social network that has more than 3 billion active users. It can be incredibly effective if you use it the right way. Take advantage of its reach, the wide variety of features you can use to interact with users (think groups, pages, etc.), and paid advertising options. Challenges of marketing on Facebook Getting a Facebook page up and running requires a lot of time and effort. Like any social media account, you may also need a dedicated staff member to manage the page and create engaging content. But Facebook specifically has more complex and in-depth uses which require someone who is knowledgeable and willing to keep up with their ever-changing rules. For example, even if your business page has been up for more than five years, you may still run the risk of losing it because of new violation terms, and there is little to no recourse when this happens. LinkedIn LinkedIn is a great way to connect with like-minded industry experts and symbiotic brands that fuel your brand’s network. It's also a great way to market your company and attract new talent. LinkedIn demographics Almost 40% of LinkedIn's global users are between 25 and 34 years old. The platform's 35- to 54-year-old age group is responsible for 30% of its total user base, while the 18- to 24-year-old group accounts for 24%. Perks of marketing on LinkedIn LinkedIn is a powerful marketing tool that enables you to connect with a community of professionals and drive actions that are important to your business. Use it to promote your brand and attract followers. Challenges of marketing on LinkedIn LinkedIn rewards longtime users, so it may be hard to get traction at first. You may even find that a competitor is already dominating the space, which means you’ll have to alter your approach in a way you wouldn’t on other platforms. Instagram Instagram is a great tool for businesses to boost their brand awareness and build and track their audience engagement. It can also help them find new customers and develop effective marketing strategies. Instagram demographics According to a report released by Instagram in January 2022, over 17% of the platform's users are men. More than half of the global population is aged 34 years or younger. Perks of marketing on Instagram Having an Instagram business profile gives you the tools and functionality you need to run your business efficiently. It includes features such as analytics, call-to-action buttons, and third-party integrations. Challenges of marketing on Instagram Bots, growth, and finding the best posting schedules are the main challenges of marketing on Instagram. They all require time and effort to master since there is no one size fits most strategy. Twitter With Twitter, you can stay up-to-date with the latest news and events happening in the world. It's also a great way to build brand awareness and improve your public reputation. Twitter demographics In 2021, the global audience of Twitter was composed of over 35 million users aged 25 to 34 years old. The second-largest demographic on the platform was users aged 35 to 49 years old. Perks of marketing on Twitter Twitter is useful for customer service and community building. You can also use it to grow your brand voice. Challenges of marketing on Twitter It's hard for new users to figure out all of Twitter's tricks and nuances, especially since it has so many little-known details. In addition, the platform is based on a 280-character limit which makes it incredibly short-form. TikTok TikTok helps businesses of all sizes create and manage their ads, promote their brand, and increase their follower count. TikTok demographics In the US, 25% of TikTok's active users are aged 10-19. There are also 22.4% of the company's active users in the U.S. who are aged 20-29. Perks of marketing on TikTok TikTok is a great tool for businesses to create effective and engaging advertisements that will make their brand popular with the masses. With this app, you can design and create branded challenges that will allow users to participate, among many other opportunities for engagement. There are also great TikTok ad opportunities. Challenges of marketing on TikTok Getting noticed on TikTok can be hard, especially if you're not experienced in video editing. You’ll have to get used to shooting hours of content only to edit it down into a logical story using the tiny in-app editing features available through your phone. Your videos may also be seen by the “wrong side” of TikTok and receive more hate than love, depending on your brand or product’s political affiliations. YouTube If you're looking to improve the effectiveness of your video marketing, then planning a YouTube marketing strategy is a great place to start. It can help you reach a wider audience and increase your traffic. YouTube demographics According to data sourced from Statista, the total number of YouTube users is 53.9% male, while 46.1% are female. This data is based on the company's reporting structure, which supports both male and female users between 16 and 64 years old. Perks of marketing on YouTube YouTube is a vital part of any company's marketing strategy. It's easy to upload and import video content, which makes it an ideal tool for any business. Online video marketing is also a unique opportunity for small and medium-sized businesses. Challenges of marketing on YouTube Getting into the YouTube space is a long and hard journey. There are many steps that you need to take to create and publish a video, let alone make sure it is seen by your target audience. Creating a successful YouTube channel requires a lot of hard work and consistent dedication long term. Snapchat With Snapchat, marketers can reach out to their audience in real-time. It's a great tool for storytelling and local campaigns. Snapchat demographics As of January 2021, Snapchat’s female users make up more of its population than male users, with women aged 13 to 17 accounting for 11.8% of the platform's total audience globally. Perks of marketing on Snapchat According to a study conducted by Snapchat, adding commercial content to your campaign can help boost promotional results. It found that the addition of these ads doubled the lift across the funnel and increased awareness of the Discover brand’s content. Challenges of marketing on Snapchat The platform skews toward younger audiences and is based on the concept that the content disappears shortly after being shared, which means marketers have to tailor their marketing plans to these two factors. Social media management tips to live by No matter which platforms you use, there are several tried and true best practices you can follow that will optimize your campaigns. Conduct competitor research Before you start working on your online presence, it's important that you identify and organize all of your competitors. This will allow you to evaluate their current state and how they're doing in terms of their online presence. You'll want to look for both direct and indirect competitors. A direct competitor is a business that offers the same product or service to the same customer base as yours. An indirect competitor is a business that sells products and services to a different customer sector. Having a good understanding of your indirect competition helps you identify areas of potential growth. Audit your current social media performance Start by reading each profile with fresh eyes. Open your backend analytics and data tools. What goals did you originally set for this platform? Assess whether or not those have been reached and why. Keep in mind that as you continue to manage your brand’s social media, you will learn a lot along the way, meaning your old goals may become irrelevant as you better understand the platform and your audience as a whole. You can also compare your profiles to your competitors’. What do they have in common? What are they doing that you aren’t? How do their statistics align with yours? Make a note of all of this. Also, be sure to see whether or not they are engaging in influencer marketing and if it makes sense for your brand to do so as well. If your audit reveals some weaknesses or poor performance, that’s okay — simply conducting the audit in the first place puts you ahead of the game! Set realistic SMART goals One of the most effective ways to make goals more powerful is by using the SMART mnemonic. There are many variants, but the main one is usually: S - Specific It’s clear and detailed. For example, setting a goal to get 100 more Twitter followers is more specific than “getting more followers on social media”. M - Measurable It usually has a quantity attached to it. Followers, comments, and likes are all easy to measure and track on social media. A - Attainable Is it actually possible to get 1 million views on your very first-ever YouTube video? Probably not. Instead, conduct research on what is realistic and what isn’t before getting started so you aren’t unnecessarily disappointed later on. R - Relevant Does this goal align with your greater marketing objectives? What about the company’s goals for the quarter or year? For example, you may feel like everyone is on TikTok, so your brand should be too. But take a beat to decide if it’s truly relevant to your needs before you begin allocating valuable time and resources towards it. T - Timebound Make sure you add a due date or time range in which the goal needs to happen; otherwise, you may find yourself and your marketing agency deprioritizing it when other projects come in. Work out a realistic budget The general rule of thumb is to spend about 5% of your revenue on your marketing budget. It may be more for B2B or less for B2C. Make sure your budget includes tools to make the content, a marketing project management tool, and any additional help from third-party collaborators. Know your audience and their platforms Before you start looking for potential customers, it's important to get a general idea of who they are. Your ideal customer is someone who is interested in what you're selling and how it fits into their lifestyle. Gather as many details as possible about them to create a personalized marketing strategy. There are a variety of social media tools that can help you find out more about these people, such as Facebook's Audience Insights tool. You can also plug in all of the information from your personas into your social media platform of choice to create new audience demographics. Also, check the information you already have access to, such as customer service and sales department analyses. Ensure to provide customer support Get to know your audience and build authentic relationships with them over time. Respond quickly and generously to complaints made online. And always take constructive feedback to heart. What is a social media posting tool? A social media scheduling tool is a tool that helps you manage the various posts that you'll make on your social media accounts. It can be used to ensure that you're always up to date with the latest trends and information. Using one in combination with a digital marketing project management platform can greatly improve the efficiency of your campaigns. Top social media posting scheduling tools for business There are many effective tools for planning, scheduling, posting, and analyzing social media content out on the market; however the following brands we highlight here are leaders in the space. Hootsuite Ryan Holmes created Hootsuite in 2008 to manage various social media platforms. Its user interface features a dashboard, which allows users to manage their accounts and connect with other social networks. Buffer Buffer’s goal is to help users manage their social media accounts. This app allows them to schedule posts to various platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, as well as analyze their results. Sendible Sendible helps agencies and businesses plan and manage their social media strategies. It’s especially adept at managing multiple accounts on the same platform. SocialPilot With SocialPilot, digital marketing professionals can easily manage their social media activities. It allows them to schedule and publish posts from their editorial calendar, analyze their performance, and monitor their followers' activity. Sprout Social With Sprout Social, brands and agencies can manage their social media conversations and get the most out of them. What is social media management software? The point of social media management software is to enable organizations to effectively manage and engage with various social media platforms all at once. This means having a space to plan out campaigns, implement strategies, and receive real-time feedback. Working off of spreadsheets alone may work in the short term, but in order to scale faster and more effectively, you’ll need to adopt social media management software. Features to look for in the best social media management tools The following features are ones you’ll use to save time, streamline your social media workflows, and get the most out of your strategy on a daily basis. Scheduling Scheduling refers to content posting. These types of features will automate the posting process so that your content is reaching the right platforms at the right time without having to manually log in and prep pieces. Automation Automating can mean everything from triggering an automatic response to @mentions on Twitter to reposting the same piece of content across all channels at once. Free templates There are free templates for every aspect of social media management including ones for implementing and monitoring strategy. For example, Wrike offers a social media planning template. App integrations Third-party tools can work in sync with your project management solution to eliminate repetitive administrative work, allowing teams to focus more on content quality than data entry. Reporting and analytics These tools allow users to get better insight into what’s working well on their social media profiles and what isn’t. This insight can be used to determine future goals, budgets, and more. Why use Wrike as your social media management tool? Wrike's marketing project management software helps you get the most out of your marketing campaigns. With Wrike, you and your team can manage all of your marketing projects in one place. It allows you to monitor and track your social media campaigns. Here’s how: Centralize communication Break down silos and make collaboration easier. Centralizing communication is a crucial step in making social media management easier for everyone. It also makes it easier to react to developments in real-time. Visualize everything With Wrike, you can get a 360° view of your marketing project. Take a deep dive into individual post-performance or zoom out to see macro views of all your campaigns and omnichannel marketing. Monitor progress Results are the most important thing when it comes to social media management. With Wrike, you can track and communicate with your followers in real-time within one single platform. Align workflows With marketing project management tools such as Wrike, you can improve the efficiency of your marketing efforts and increase the effectiveness of your workflows by viewing where all of your social media projects overlap. This can help your team uncover roadblocks before they happen or reallocate resources on the fly without missing a beat. Customize your dashboard There are many factors that go into making a successful social media strategy for marketing. From the type of team that you hire to the goals that you set, the types of project management tasks you’ll need to do can vary. With Wrike, you can easily create and manage customized workflows that make sense for your team and will help you get more done in less time. Access reports With Wrike's marketing project management features, you can visualize and gather valuable business intelligence quickly. See how your campaigns are performing, which channels are or are not sparking, and whether or not your audience is engaging with your output. Respond in real time Social media moves quickly. With Wrike, your team can automate notifications and see comments made directly on the marketing assets so they can act immediately. This can help cut down on review cycles so you can shorten the time between conception and publication while also improving the quality of your content. It’s also necessary to respond to followers quickly, especially if something has gone wrong. Next steps The best, most successful social media management practices use the right tools and techniques to pull it all off. A project management software can help you organize your goals, teams, and content all in one place. It can also help you analyze and finetune your approach as you go. Discover how Wrike can help you improve your social media planning and execution with our free trial.
Advertising on TikTok: A Marketer's Guide
Ocean Spray was a company that had been around for some 90 years. It knew its market. It knew its product. Building a viral smash success on a fresh platform seemed like a distant dream. Yet, thanks to TikTok, that’s exactly what happened. It all began when an Idaho potato farmer named Nathan Apodaca posted a video of himself on a skateboard, zooming along a highway, with Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” blaring in the background. As if this wasn’t an unusual enough setting, he was drinking a big bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice at the same time. The video took off like gangbusters. Ocean Spray gained some 15 billion media impressions, enough to make a noticeable improvement in the company’s overall sales for the quarter. It’s proof that, if you haven’t already engaged with TikTok marketing, you’re missing one of the biggest opportunities since the advent of social media. But a TikTok marketing strategy still requires forethought, learning from the best examples, and a strategic approach. That’s especially true if you want to maximize your chances of achieving viral success. How is TikTok changing marketing? For the unfamiliar, TikTok is a social media app built on short-form videos, often with viral soundbites and song selections playing in the background. It’s not only trendy but capable of building its own trends — many of which can look downright strange if you haven’t used the app yourself. TikTok is changing marketing due to a few factors. First, its reach is nearly unprecedented. It’s reached over 2 billion downloads, according to Forbes. In the U.S. alone, it has over 100 million active users every single month. But it’s more than raw totals. The short-video format has connected with the smartphone culture in a novel way. Consider all that TikTok has achieved: Opening “viral” success to the masses: YouTube, Vine, and the Internet as a whole made viral videos famous. Viral videos, in turn, made mass appeal available to anyone who could put together a remarkable video. TikTok, it seems, has achieved viral engagement at scale. It’s never been easier to create a video that “blows up.” TikTok’s algorithms give even small-following users the ability to hit widespread success if their video earns high engagement rates in the early goings. This means that while mega-influencers are highly successful, TikTok success is just as wide open to micro-influencers. Putting trends into hyperdrive: We’re all familiar with social media trends. The ALS “Ice Bucket Challenge” in 2014 raised $114 million for ALS services, reaching almost every celebrity with a social media account. TikTok’s unique approach to promoting videos makes it possible to almost engineer smaller trends at will. Don’t worry — below, we’ll tackle some examples of how brands have achieved this. Creating a direct conduit to a younger audience: Millennials were the first generation growing into maturity with smartphones. But they’re getting older. TikTok is largely Gen Z-driven. Over half of the population of Gen Z is on the platform, as opposed to 36% of millennials. As Gen Z grows in influence and purchasing power, TikTok is becoming the go-to medium for reaching them. These are just three points demonstrating how TikTok is changing marketing. But the best way to figure that out is to experience a viral hit yourself. After all, TikTok isn’t just about silly and fun trends and enjoying yourself. If you do it right, you can use TikTok for business marketing, just like the world’s top brands. Is TikTok good for marketing? If you’re coming from a traditional marketing mindset, the average TikTok marketing campaign might look strange at first. Guacamole dances? Dressing up in costumes to order burritos? Again, more on that later. But these trends only reflect the shifting demographics of social media engagement. Average engagement rates with micro-influencers on TikTok, for example, outpace those on YouTube at a rate of 18% to 1.63%. TikTok’s unpolished, short-form videos tend to create the feeling of connection between influencers and followers. This is particularly true with the prevalence of behind-the-scenes videos. Many top YouTubers put together highly polished, edited videos that skew closer to traditional television. TikTok feels more informal. For this reason, even YouTube has tried to cash in on the short-form video trend, allowing its own users to post small, bite-sized updates. In other words, marketing on TikTok has become so successful that it’s even starting to influence how the other social media platforms approach their user base. TikTok marketing examples Not everyone on TikTok is doing a great job. Some brands may feel a bit like they’re shouting into the wind. Other brands just seem to have a knack for it. So what separates the brands that know how to do it from the brands that don't? A solid TikTok marketing strategy usually emphasizes two elements: engaging influencers who already have a substantial following and creating an incentive to share and engage. In each of the TikTok advertising examples below, you’ll see how large companies reached out to influencers big and small to create viral hits using these two elements. 1. #Boorito from Chipotle To capitalize on Halloween, Chipotle initiated a “#Boorito” campaign. The premise was simple: Order your burrito in a Halloween outfit for a discounted price. Chipotle gave away free burrito orders for a year to the TikTok users who could generate the most engagement via TikTok likes. Additionally, the brand reached out to influencers like Brittany Broski to get the word out. By the time #Boorito hit, Chipotle was already a TikTok marketing veteran. The #Boorito campaign even outdid its previous campaign, #GuacDance, which generated 430 million views in just six days. 2. Dunkin’ and Charli D’Amelio You don’t have to create a hashtag like Chipotle did to achieve success. Dunkin’ gave D’Amelio an excuse to post on TikTok by creating a “Charli” drink — and then D’Amelio posted about it to her TikTok page, including how the name of the drink looked on her receipt. That was all – a simple, direct interaction with a social media influencer. The results? Dunkin saw its app downloads spike by 57%, and cold brew coffees experienced a sales boost of 20%. 3. Warner Music’s promotions in Argentina and Mexico A company doesn’t have to enlist an A-list TikTok influencer like Charlie D’Amelio to see results. Some companies have good experiences with micro-influencers who have small, engaged followings. Other companies strike a balance somewhere in between. For Warner Music, promoting Justin Quiles’ #DjNoPareRemix meant finding influencers who would be more relevant in Argentina and Mexico. Rather than opt for one major celebrity, they chose six distinct TikTok influencers to spread the word. Across the six videos the influencers produced, the promotion gathered 1.5 million likes with an average engagement rate of 17%. How to plan a TikTok marketing strategy Ask yourself this: How do you start any new marketing strategy? Do you feel like you’re slapping it together last-minute, or do you have the systems in place to carry out your plan with stunning precision? If it feels more like the former than the latter, let’s get back to basics. Here’s how you can create a TikTok marketing strategy, even if you’re working from scratch. Bring your project under one dashboard: Before you do anything, get organized. A TikTok marketing campaign will include several different elements, from reaching out to influencers to planning strategy. Use a solution like Wrike to get an entire team on the same page. This will also distribute easily-digestible timesheets you can assign to team members. Centralize your communication: One TikTok campaign isn’t going to be enough. Sure, you might have the success of an “Ocean Spray” on the first try. But chances are, you’re going to have learning experiences along the way. To better adapt for future campaigns, centralize your communication with marketing project management and avoid siloing your teams. This will help everyone digest the appropriate feedback for future improvement. Start with a template: Even if TikTok is new to you, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Work from a marketing campaign template to automate much of the process of getting started. Create a schedule: Posting to TikTok should include a schedule, just as you’d approach any content or social media marketing campaign. Use an editorial calendar template, so you don’t have to start from scratch here, either. Use what’s worked in the past: Have you had success on YouTube? Instagram? Take lessons from those. You can start with social media calendar templates from our digital marketing offerings to easily replicate what’s worked for you in the past. Research your hashtags: It’s poor form to create your own hashtags on a whim. You have to know what’s already trending. What are people already searching for? Because TikTok’s algorithms sufficiently randomize a video feed, feel free to use high-engagement hashtags that would otherwise seem to have high competition. In fact, adding hashtags with over 1 million mentions is common and often effective. Research the appropriate influencers: If you’re going the TikTok influencer route, your budget will have a lot to say here. But even micro-influencers can be well worth the investment. Platforms like Grin and Upfluence will introduce you to the influencers who are relevant to your target demographics. Creative incentives: In each of the TikTok advertising examples above, experienced brands used a two-pronged approach to their campaigns: influencers and incentives. Influencers help get eyes on your campaign, while incentives drive home the need for engagement. Put it all together, and you have a recipe for consistency. Keep in mind that not every campaign will hit. Some will generate a little light engagement, while others may take off and develop lives of their own. And it’s not always easy to predict which will be which. TikTok boasts some of the highest engagement rates around. But you won’t find out the full potential of your brand until you take the time to consistently create content that sets you up for success. Why use Wrike to create a TikTok marketing campaign? TikTok and Wrike. Never thought the two words would go together? You’d be surprised. Any campaign benefits from proper planning, after all. And once you’ve read our Ultimate Guide to Marketing, you’ll better understand how our project management tools can make every stage of your campaign easier. Think in terms of building a system, not a goal. As bestselling author James Clear advocates, putting the proper systems into place is far more effective for long-term success than chasing goals. As Clear says, “Goals can provide direction and even push you forward in the short-term, but eventually a well-designed system will always win.” Even if you’re new to TikTok marketing, having a system in place immediately puts you at an advantage over those without clear direction. Consider all you can accomplish even before you start engaging with influencers and creating engagement incentives: Creating a plan: As the old axiom goes, failing to plan is planning to fail. We’ve previously written about creating global marketing strategies that incorporate the four Ps of marketing: product, pricing, promotion, and place. With TikTok, the emphasis is on promotion (engaging influencers), and place (getting more eyes on your videos via the TikTok algorithm and early, high-engagement performance). You can double down on your TikTok campaigns by never posting anything haphazardly. Engaging with TikTok trends: How do you know what kind of video will get engagement? By observing for yourself. Follow the same accounts as your target audience — this will get TikTok’s algorithms sending you similar content as your audience enjoys. Observe the hashtags and the principles behind the most successful viral videos. What do they have in common? Which fits your brand the best? How can your brand come to replicate and expand on these ideas? Put it all together with an omnichannel marketing plan and you’ll find ways to drive more engagement than ever before. But remember the unique quirks of TikTok, its algorithm for sending users videos to their feed, and how you need to have a plan for driving engagement on every video for the platform to send it to more user feeds. Apply those lessons consistently and you’ll have a recipe for an eventual viral video. And even if it’s not the one you thought would take off, remember: It’s all part of the overarching strategy for TikTok marketing success.
Top Tips for Creating a Twitter Marketing Strategy
Twitter can be complex. Similarly, the techniques and methodologies that brands use to implement their Twitter marketing strategy add yet another layer of difficulty. While some marketing project managers prefer to follow Twitter best practices and cross their fingers, others know that putting a strategy down on (virtual) paper ensures growth and success on the platform long-term. For those who prefer to know what they’re doing on Twitter and why their efforts (and budget) matter, having a strong Twitter marketing strategy is a no-brainer. In this guide, we’ve answered your most frequently asked questions about Twitter marketing, provided a curated list of essential tips, and listed the exact tools you need to achieve your next benchmarks. What is a Twitter marketing strategy? A Twitter marketing strategy is an action plan that aligns with your company’s concrete goals for this particular platform. A good Twitter marketing strategy involves creating and publishing content that will attract new followers and improve your brand recognition. Why is Twitter good for marketing? Twitter is not as creative as other platforms like Facebook and Instagram. However, it does have an advertising audience of 353 million and is the first in line for customer service as far as social media apps go. Not only is Twitter a must-have social media tool, but it’s also effective for engaging individuals, sharing time-sensitive content, and staying up to date with what’s going on in the world as it relates to your business. How to create a Twitter marketing strategy Despite its fast-paced nature, Twitter still requires a bit of strategic planning and discipline to get the most out of it. Not to mention the fact that it’s important to be prepared for all the unexpected conversations that happen on Twitter. Having a strategy in place will help you respond to any situation that may arise while also building a strong marketing and sales funnel for your brand. Here’s everything you need to know to successfully implement a Twitter marketing strategy. 1. Evaluate your current strategy You should check your existing social media accounts both on and off Twitter to make sure they're in good standing. This will help identify any issues that need addressing now before you launch the next phase. 2. Define clear goals Having clear goals is the first step to achieving success on any social media platform. You should create goals that are specific, measurable, and time-bound. These should align with your company's greater objectives and be realistic about the resources you have to dedicate to the project. You’ll also need to get specific about which metrics you’ll use to measure progress and how often you’ll check in with goals. Remember that there are a ton of different metrics available but not all of them will be applicable to your particular goals. 3. Check out the competition By carefully analyzing the accounts of your competitors, you can learn about their weaknesses and develop a stronger strategy. Look for common themes, tweet frequency, and their most popular tweets to better understand what your audiences are looking for. You can also use this information to improve on what they’re already putting out there in your own content. Pro tip: You can also get digital marketing inspiration from original strategy examples found elsewhere that you can make your own on Twitter. 4. Create a Twitter guide Your company’s customized Twitter guide should include a code of conduct and a clear set of style guidelines anyone can replicate. First, follow a clear responsibilities policy to ensure that everyone is on board with how you’ll deal with the variety of scenarios you may find yourself in on Twitter, which can be a well-known hangout for pot stirrers and ‘trolls’. Even something as simple as accidentally having multiple team members answer the same questions can create a lot of confusion and lead to unproductive discussions. Following actionable guidelines will prevent these common roadblocks from happening in the first place. Next, remember that a good social media style guide is also helpful to keep your team's communications on track. This will prevent branding mistakes and minimize miscommunication. Keep in mind that your brand personality should be consistent across all platforms. It should also communicate your company's values and goals. 5. Create your Twitter profile Having a professional Twitter profile can help strengthen your brand and inform your audience. You also want to make sure that your handle is consistent across all platforms. Here are the steps you’ll need to take in order to get started: Create a handle. Your username is the first thing that people will see when they look at your profile. It should include your company's name and other recognizable details. Add a profile photo. Make sure your imagery keeps to the correct dimensions and is high-resolution. Add a header image. Your profile should also feature a clean and prominent header image. It can help provide insight into your company culture or reflect on current campaigns. Write your bio. A well-written and snappy bio is also important to stand out from the crowd. You can also use a tagline or a creative image to highlight your brand personality. Include a link. Send click-throughs to your homepage or a dedicated landing page for Twitter audiences. Choose a location. One of the most important elements of your profile is your location. This is very important for small businesses as they want their customers to be able to find them offline. Add a birthday. Use the date your company was founded or an important launch date. 6. Start a Twitter content calendar A social media content calendar is a great way to align your content across all your channels and identify potential conflicts. It can also help you plan ahead and capitalize on any opportunities that arise. Another benefit of planning out your calendar is that it will help you determine if you're sharing a balanced mix of content. Although you can schedule some tweets to go out ahead of time, the social aspect of social media will still require you to respond to DMs, mentions, and retweets promptly. 7. Schedule some tweets ahead of time Get ahead of the competition by scheduling your tweets to go out on optimal days and times. Doing so will allow you to maximize the engagement and visibility of every post. Unfortunately, you can't always schedule 100% of your tweets or else the platform may flag you as spam. However, it's possible to save time by pre-scheduling content that's already planned in advance. 8. Create a monitoring plan Once your marketing strategy is in place, it's time to regularly evaluate your progress and set goals against those that you set. Use the same project management platform to evaluate your Twitter data and run reports to keep everything in one accessible place. 9. Use social listening Twitter isn't just about speaking. It's also about listening. Through social listening, you can learn about the opinions of other people about your products and services. It can help you develop a more authentic and loyal customer base. 10. Consider paid ads Paid ads aren’t right for everyone, but they can help your new Twitter marketing strategy gain more traction faster. Twitter Ads are a great way to target specific audiences. They allow you to measure the effectiveness of your campaign and find the right messages for your brand. Even if someone doesn't follow your brand or hashtags, a promoted tweet can still show up in their timeline. You can also interact with them in the same way as organic content. 11. Include link tracking Just like you link track on your sales pages, email newsletters, and other social media, Twitter offers another way to obtain data on customer buying journeys. Track the link in your bio as well as any company website links you tweet out. The metrics provided by link tracking tools allow you to monitor how people navigate to your website and measure the effectiveness of your campaign management. They're also useful for analyzing your bottom line as you improve your conversions and traffic over time. 12. Use all of Twitter’s features This one may take some time, but it’s worth noting that the best way to maximize your Twitter marketing strategy is to use every last tool the platform has to offer. For example, did you know Twitter allows users to host live chats? Use a live chat to discuss a topic, ask customers for their opinions, or collaborate with a brand partner on something you're working on. Twitter marketing tips There are countless tips on the internet about how to do Twitter well. The truth is most of your success depends on trial and error plus consistency over time. Here are some of our curated Twitter marketing tips that we’ve either used or seen work firsthand. They serve as a good jumping-off point for any foundational strategy. Start with one, then mix the rest in over time. Think big-picture. One of the most important factors to consider is how Twitter fits into your overall social media strategy. Assign daily supervision. Busy accounts may require a team member’s attention to monitor them every day or even every hour. Have a backup team member for every single account in case one is out-of-office. Plan one month out. A 30-day content plan will help you grow your Twitter following fast. It will also help you track your social media campaigns and analyze what resonates with your audience. Use lists. Through lists, you can get in touch with the conversations that matter to you most. These feeds are curated by the accounts that are most likely to have influential discussions. Develop your voice. Although you can use images and videos to attract followers, a well-written and compelling voice is very important to have on Twitter. Tweet authentically. Don't send tweets that sound like they're coming from a robot or a script. Instead, communicate clearly and politely. Stand out. Follow a unique and original message whenever you post on social media. Doing so will make your Twitter content more engaging. Use polls. Twitter polls allow users to pose questions with multiple choice answers. Gather valuable feedback and opinions about your customer preferences and favorite products. Add photos and videos. Visual assets can help you convey a message more effectively. They can also be used to reinforce an important point or highlight a chart or infographic. Use hashtags. Hashtags are a great way to boost your visibility and discoverability on Twitter. This feature is essential for new accounts. Add branded content. For example, creating a branded hashtag is a great way to organize and promote content about your business. It can also be used to search for user-generated content related to your products. Track trends. Follow trending topics to get notified about new posts and hop on relevant themes. Think before posting. Although most Twitter users rely on the mobile app, search engine preview snippets of profiles may show recently deleted tweets. So think through each message before you hit publish — otherwise, it may come up on Google days, weeks, or months from now! Engage, engage, engage. It's important to create a two-way channel of communication on Twitter to engage your audience. Creating content that encourages your followers to interact with each other is also important. Get verified. A verified profile helps prevent people from being confused with fake and duplicate accounts. Twitter marketing tools to get you started There are three main marketing tools you’ll need to get started, regardless of your goals or strategy. Data measuring and reporting Asset storage Project management platform Without the help of data measuring and reporting, brands aren’t able to perform well on Twitter. The feedback from key metrics such as retweets helps marketers better understand their audience, grow their following, and reach as many new timelines as possible. Asset storage is another essential Twitter marketing tool. Between branded links, third-party links, photos, videos, GIFs, and more, having one central location where all of your Twitter content assets are stored is both convenient and strategic. Last but not least, the most important Twitter marketing tool you can use is a project management platform. Twitter requires you to create content, respond to public and private messages, track data, and keep up with the latest features. A great project management tool will allow you to do all of that in one accessible place so you can stay on top of all the moving parts while focusing on your chosen strategy. Why use Wrike to build your Twitter marketing campaign Like other social media platforms, finding success on Twitter requires a strategy and an intentional approach. That is why using a marketing project management tool is so important. Wrike's marketing project management software lets you track and communicate with your team across all your campaigns in one place. Not only does it help break down silos and make communication easier, but it also gives you a 360° view of your Twitter and related social media campaigns, allowing you to see all of them in one place. Wrike's software also helps you track communication with your team across all your campaigns in one place, so you’re always on the same page, even with Twitter’s fast-paced conversations. If last-minute tweets or replies need approval, team members can easily see your feedback and loop approvers into ongoing conversations via @mentions, which can help cut down on review cycles. For productivity, Wrike's marketing project management software helps you streamline your processes and achieve your goals. Doing so will increase the visibility and efficiency of any strategy you implement. With all of Twitter’s moving parts, having full transparency into your workflows is essential since bottlenecks are that much harder to resolve. If you run a social media strategy on any other app, you already know that project management for digital marketing is different from other project management disciplines. That is why Wrike developed flexible workflows that make it possible to eliminate the guesswork and get more done in less time. Twitter has many complex moving parts with real-time feedback, so solid data reporting is mission-critical to getting it right. Wrike's marketing project management software features dynamic reports that allow you to visualize and gather business intelligence quickly. Ready to take action on your new Twitter marketing strategy? Get started today by organizing your social media plan into assigned tasks and timelines using Wrike’s two-week free trial.
How to Track your Digital Channels with Digital Marketing KPIs
In the good old days of digital marketing circa 1971 (when the first ever email was sent), the best indicator of campaign success was whether or not someone looked at what you put out into the world. Now that technology is more advanced and the market is flooded with content, marketers need to use a more sophisticated approach. Enter digital marketing KPIs. Today, agency and marketing directors use digital marketing project KPIs to improve profit, streamline resources, and prove return on investment to their clients. Keep reading to discover the definitions, examples, and tools top marketers use to remain competitive in today’s digital landscape. What are digital marketing KPIs? KPI stands for key performance indicator which is also known as performance metrics. A digital marketing key performance indicator is what marketers use to measure the success of a particular strategy or marketing channel. The KPI or KPIs you choose will depend on what your goal is for the project. Marketers will often choose one or two primary KPIs to support their main goal and a handful of relevant secondary KPIs to support any additional objectives. For example, let’s say you run a social media campaign on Twitter and your goal is to increase your engagement percentage within your existing audience. Your primary KPIs will be the number of comments and retweets each original tweet receives. There are three main categories of digital marketing KPIs to know: 1. Awareness Awareness is all about getting your brand in front of as many new people as possible. If your brand is already established, the next challenge is to help potential customers learn about new products or services they might be interested in. Common marketing tactics in this phase include cold emailing and calling. 2. Conversion The goal of this phase is to make a sale. Marketers often do this by building long-term relationships and trust. Content like blog posts and podcasts with problem-solving advice for the audience works well for this stage. 3. Analysis After you make a sale you can use analysis KPIs to determine how much you spent in resources to acquire each new customer. This information will inform your next campaign. Why set KPIs in digital marketing? KPIs in digital marketing prove return on investment to clients and stakeholders. They also help you measure progress, streamline processes, and quantify what would otherwise be intangible marketing benefits. Using KPIs in digital marketing will help you better understand why something does or does not work for your particular brand or strategy. Without KPIs, marketing agencies run the risk of throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks. If your agency does not assert its value and authority through actual proof, it’s hard to get or keep clients long-term. KPIs translate into concrete numbers that prove what you’re doing is getting real results. Who sets KPIs in marketing? At an agency, a marketing or agency director will set the KPIs. Otherwise, the responsibility falls on the campaign manager. Whoever chooses the KPIs also has to come up with a plan for tracking them. They may adopt related marketing tools and habits to make sure results are consistently recorded and monitored throughout the lifetime of each campaign. Agency project management tools such as Wrike can help streamline these processes. Users can easily assign monitoring and reporting tasks to designated teammates so that nothing slips through the cracks. Marketing KPI examples Marketing KPIs differ from project to project, platform to platform, and goal to goal. Use these most common marketing KPI examples below as a jumping-off point: Email marketing KPIs 1. Number of emails successfully delivered, opened, and/or replied to What it is: The total of all emails interacted with compared to the total sent. Why you need it: This information tells marketers if their messages are getting through to inboxes. It also demonstrates whether or not the subject line is persuasive enough and if the campaign promotes further engagement. How to measure it: Use an email marketing campaign software to bypass spam filters and track open rates. 2. Embedded link and CTA button click-through rates What it is: The percentage of people who have both opened your emails and clicked the link or button inside. Why you need it: The click-through rate shows how effective your offers or calls to action are. How to measure it: Add a link tracking app to test components like CTA messages, colors, and placement. 3. Social shares and forwards What it is: The number of times a post has been shared or sent to other people from social media. Why you need it: Sharing is a high-value form of engagement that gets your posts in front of more people which is great for increasing impressions and expanding your audience. How to measure it: Most social media apps include this information within your Analytics. Social media KPIs 1. Number of followers versus number of unfollowers What it is: The total number of people who have followed your account that day or week compared to the number of people who have unfollowed your account in the same. Why you need it: Ideally you'll have more followers than unfollowers but this KPI shows whether or not your content is targeting the correct audience and is interesting enough to keep their attention. How to measure it: Your number of followers is publicly available at the top of your social media profile. However, you may need to use a third-party app to track unfollowers. 2. Likes, comments, and shares What it is: These are the top forms of engagement for any social media post regardless of what platform it's on. Why you need it: Better engagement equals higher conversion rates, steadier audience growth, and stronger relationships over time.= How to measure it: This information is made publicly available on most social media platforms. 3. New impressions What it is: The number of times your content was organically shown to someone on the platform whether or not they interacted with it. Why you need it: This social media KPI demonstrates reach, which you should aim to increase over time through paid ads, better engagement, and more followers. How to measure it: Creator analytics or a behind-the-scenes app will show your new impressions by day, week, or month. Content marketing KPIs 1. Unique visits What it is: The total number of people (or IP addresses) clicking on your website within a given time frame. Why you need it: Unique visits document the volume of traffic over time, which is useful for selling products and services. However, some unique visits might be from bots which is why it's critical to also track engagement and conversions at the same time. How to measure it: Website analytics platforms like Google help users track this data after it’s set up, which means historical data will not be available. 2. Average time on page What it is: The average amount of time all visitors (both unique and returning) spend on each individual web page. Why you need it: Your goal should be to make the average time on page high because it will likely lead to better sales conversion rate. Plus it shows that your content is relevant to your audience. How to measure it: Website analytics tools will help you measure it. 3. Link and CTA button click-through rates What it is: The percentage at which all site visitors click on links and buttons. Why you need it: Most website links and buttons are tied to sales or important data capture such as email newsletters. Having a high rate of success means that your offers and audience are in alignment. How to measure it: Website analytics tools or third party link tracking apps are best. SEO KPIs 1. Keyword search engine ranking What it is: How high your website ranks for a specific keyword or phrase within popular search engines. Why you need it: Your goal should be to rank number 1 on Google and Bing. Or on the first page, at the very least, so that more people will find and click on your website. How to measure it: Type in your keyword phrase into a search engine to see if it shows up or use a tool like SEMRush for more advanced analytics. 2. Organic traffic What it is: Site traffic from anything other than paid ads. Why you need it: High rates of organic traffic means that more people are finding your products and services by simply searching related questions or words, which indicates that your SEO strategy is working. How to measure it: Use a website analytics tool.3. Link click-through rates What it is: The rate at which people are clicking on paid search advertisements or web pages that appear organically in search results. Why you need it: For paid ads, the link click-through rate shows how effective your copy is. How to measure it: Website analytics and third-party apps help you track individual links. Also, whichever search engine advertisement platform you use will likely track this data automatically. PPC KPIs 1. Click rate What it is: Percentage of people who see your ad in search engines and click on it. Why you need it: The higher the percentage, the more persuasive your copy is. How to measure it: Your advertising platform will have user analytics for you. 2. Sales conversion rate What it is: The total number of sales divided by the number of interactions with a given paid ad. Why you need it: This number shows whether or not the offer promised in the ad is still relevant for the audience the ad is being shown to and if it aligns with their expectations enough to persuade them to buy. How to track it: Your advertising platform will have these statistics for you.3. Cost per acquisition What it is: The dollar amount you pay for every new customer you obtained through a paid advertisement. Why you need it: This shows exactly where your budget is going and whether or not your campaign is worth reinvesting in.How to track it: Use an analytics tool or divide the total cost of the PPC campaign by the total revenue made from it. What are the challenges of marketing KPIs? The main challenge of marketing KPIs is choosing the right ones, monitoring them effectively, and turning data into actionable insights. To choose the right marketing KPIs every time, create SMART goals then match KPIs to link your channel type (like email or social media) to your desired outcome. To monitor them effectively, make sure that all your KPIs are measurable and that there are tools in place to capture all related data. Finally, turn data into actionable insights by using a professional services management platform to create automated reports plus easy-to-read insights. What to do when KPIs aren't met Now that you have your digital marketing KPIs set, it’s important to know what happens if your KPIs are failing. If they’re not connected to strategy, overshooting (or undershooting) your goals, or are too outdated now, the best way to get back on track is to adopt a marketing project management solution like Wrike. Why Wrike can help you with digital marketing KPIs Wrike helps directors and managers use digital marketing KPIs to make informed decisions. Wrike Report automates marketing, data capture, assessment, and reporting using visual graphs so that KPIs are easier to understand. At-a-glance updates like these save time and make collaboration that much smoother. Marketing teams can also create templates for repeated campaigns or to relive the success of another client’s strategy for a new project. Use Wrike’s two-week free trial to visualize your objectives and key results (OKRs) so that your KPIs are bulletproof throughout any project.
How to Improve Your Social Media Marketing Productivity
Social media marketing can be extremely time-consuming. Monitoring mentions, responding to comments, managing your engagement on multiple profiles and doing everything possible to ensure you get the best results from social media—it all adds up to a lot of time spent using and switching between different apps. A good social media management tool can save you a lot of hours, while also improving your results. This infographic lists 5 top social media management tools on the market right now, rated by customer reviews. Infographic brought to you by Seriously Social and G2 Crowd. Credit: Ian Anderson Gray The real trick when finding social media management tools is to find the one that has the features you need, whether based on the social channels you use, or the goals you have for your social media marketing efforts. From there, it’s a case of finding the perfect plan for your dashboard that provides the features you want at no extra cost. Sometimes this can prove problematic, as many tools have hidden costs that you may not know to look for. Let’s examine how you can use social media management tools to improve your productivity. Customer Relationship Management Social media has always offered a way for businesses to have a closer relationship with their customers, but now, it’s more important than ever to not only respond as promptly as possible to any inquiries, comments and customer service issues, but also to create a more personalized experience for your followers. Social media management dashboards are now incorporating more complex CRM tools. For example, you can organize and segment your audience by tagging users. Many tools also allow you to see all of the past conversations you’ve held with a certain social media user. This way, you’re always in the loop and by showing you remember past discussions you give that personal touch that can help build stronger connections with your followers. More and more businesses and marketers nowadays are using influencer marketing to reach a bigger audience and get more traffic, engagement and make more sales, and a social media management tool can help you in those efforts. You can use it to identify any influencers that are already in your list, as well as other influencers in your niche. From there, it’s just a question of engaging as much as possible with them, in order to build mutually beneficial relationships. A social media management tool with a strong CRM function can help you not only with customer service on social media, but it can also help you develop stronger relationships and to find more potential leads. Set Up an Editorial Calendar In order to be successful on social media, you need to post updates often and at the right times. Being organized with your content can help with this in the long run, especially if you’re using an editorial calendar, which is a feature I’m seeing more and more in social media management tools. Up until recently, one of the biggest draws of social media management tools was that you could easily schedule updates for your social media accounts. Now, though, tools make it easier to schedule your content more intelligently and help you make sure you don’t miss any opportunities to raise your traffic and engagement. Evergreen content is also on the rise, with more and more marketers striving to create content that will remain relevant months and even years from now. If you have any evergreen content, make sure to add it to your editorial calendar in order to re-publish it regularly and get the most out of it. Collaborate with Your Team When you have multiple social media profiles to manage and don’t want to work 24 hours a day, the best thing to do is to get some of your team members to help. Find a tool that has team management capabilities – the more, the better. This will not only free up some of your time, you might find that some of your team members are better at social media and getting better results. Most tools will allow you to assign tasks to team members, which they can see when they open their own accounts. For instance, if you’re get a lot of mentions and comments, you could have someone from your team assigning the most important ones directly to the head marketer, while they respond to all the other mentions. Some tools also include a breakdown of analytics by team member, so you can see what each person’s response time is, what kind of engagement they’re getting, and more. How Are You Using Social Media Marketing Tools? Social media marketing has evolved a lot over the years, and marketers’ needs are changing as well. Social media management tools are evolving to meet those needs, and are becoming more than just tools for scheduling and publishing to a few social accounts. How are you using these tools to become more efficient and productive? Share your favorite tools and tricks in the comments below. Author Bio Highly regarded on the world speaker circuit, Lilach Bullock has graced both Forbes and Number 10 Downing Street with her presence! Listed in Forbes as one of the top 20 women social media power influencers, Lilach has been crowned the Social Influencer of Europe by Oracle, and is a recipient of a Global Women Champions Award for her outstanding contribution and leadership in business.
Online Marketing 101 (Infographic)
“Welcome to the team! Have you met John and Rita in SEM & SEO? You’ll be working closely with them. Oh, and make sure you connect with Nancy, she’s in charge of lead scoring and nurturing. The email and mobile marketing teams are in these rooms. How much experience do you have with marketing automation, again?” Woah. Who knew there were so many pieces to the digital marketing puzzle? If you’re new to the world of online marketing, don’t fret. We’re here to help you fit the pieces together — and figure out exactly where you fit in. Check out our new infographic cheat sheet on the basics of major online marketing approaches: Like this infographic? Embed it on your site with this code: Wrike Social Project Management Software Related Reads:6 Digital Marketing Trends to Watch in 20157 Steps to Developing an Agile Marketing Team (FREE eBook)
Understanding Absolute Cell Reference: Using Excel for Budgets and Calculations
Tasks like planning budgets or reviewing progress for a business initiative can go far more smoothly if you have a strong grounding in the basics of putting together a spreadsheet in Excel. One concept you'll have to understand is how to use cell references, including the difference between relative and absolute cell references.
The Beginner's Guide to Online Marketing (Free eBook)
In the past decade, the number of people connected to the internet has exploded. Now, almost 3 billion people are online, sending over 100 billion emails, posting 500 million Tweets, and watching 3 billion YouTube videos every day — and the numbers keep growing! As more customers flock to the internet to socialize, conduct daily business, and make purchases, marketing departments are also evolving to incorporate new online marketing approaches and teams. With so many new marketing roles, strategies, and tools popping up, it can be tricky to keep track of them all — or understand exactly how they all relate to each other. Click through the Slideshare presentation below to learn the essentials of 5 popular online marketing approaches, then download the full eBook for a complete guide to digital marketing. Beginner's Guide to Online Marketing Download the free online marketing eBook to read tips on creating or improving your strategies, gather new tool suggestions, and get a better understanding of the online marketing world.
4 Ways to Arm Your Team for Content Marketing Success
The Content Marketing Institute recently held its annual conference, Content Marketing World, and also published their B2B Content Marketing Study. Some trends that became very clear from both the survey and the event. We’re going to be increasingly flooded with content from brands Content marketers will continue to hone their skills, so content will get better and better To stand out, your content needs to be both unique and consistently delivered You’ll need a management approach, tools, processes and people in place to have an effective Content Engine To focus on the last point, and to arm your marketing plan for content marketing success, the effective management and operations of the content marketing team requires four things: 1. An Agile management approach to adjust to constantly changing demands from both internal stakeholders and customers. (See 7 Steps to Developing an Agile Marketing Team.) 2. A tool to manage communication, workflows and project management. (Learn more about Wrike for marketing team collaboration.) 3. Appropriate resources and access given to the content creators, designers and web developers to support rapid and regular content creation. 4. A collaborative relationship with the marketers who handle social media, advertising, email marketing/marketing automation. Learn more about the approaching content wave and the key takeaways from Content Marketing World 2014 in our Slideshare. Standing Out: Content Marketing World 2014 Takeaways #CMWorld Is your marketing team ready? How is your marketing team approaching the increasing need for high quality content? Let us know in the comments!