Get Local Clients on Budget [Covid Opening Strategy]
Updated: Feb 20, 2021
Editor's Note:
For the past few weeks we've been experimenting with Online Advertising strategies for Covid Reopenings across the continent to help local businesses attract clients.
The Problem: The biggest issue we found is that there is just too much advertising targeting the same local areas. As a result, Visibility of ads goes down, while Costs go up.
Focusing on Results across different platforms we developed an approach that helps balance the Volume of Results and Cost per Result.
In this guide, I will share this approach. I hope it will help you organize your plans and get Results as well.
In this Guide:
Winning Approach & Results - Organize Promotion Efforts to get a Volume of Results on Budget
How to attract audiences that have purchsed from you in the past
How to find New Prospects Cost-Effectively maximize Sales
How to Stand out on Social Media Organically
Winning Approach - Increase Closing and Retention Rate
In order to work around the overwhelmed Digital Advertising platforms, we developed a formula that helps you to stand out and balance the volume of Results with a good Cost per Result.
While there are multiple factors to consider, we found the most success using the
Familiar + (New + Value + Incentive) formula as it balances the volume of Leads and Sales with Cost per Lead.
Figure 1, McKinsey Consulting consumer Decision Buying Journey, translated into Digital Marketing approach by Boost Shop.
In a nutshell
Following this approach, we use Emails and Retargeting to retain existing clients. We combine it with targeting relevant audiences on Facebook and applying multi-layer Retargeting, value offers and Deals to help increase Closing Rate for the New Prospects.
Retain Past Clients:
According to Hubspot, you're 60-70% likely to sell to an existing customer, compared to the 5-20% likelihood of selling to a new prospect. Retention matter, especially in a scenario where online competition has increased.
Acquire New Clients Effectively:
Target a broad audience initially, this will give Facebook enough room to learn who is the most likely to convert into lead, while you will get comparatively low cost per action. (according to Facebook data)
Retarget - now that you know who is really interested in your specific offering, you can target these Users at a fraction of the Cost. (Boost Shop Internal data)
Nothing closes a Sale as well as a good deal, find the deal that will work for you & the consumer, see tips in the next steps.
The Results:
The graph to the left shows the average results from multiple industries, that we were able to achieve so far, following the Familiar + (New + Value + Incentive) formula.
Here is why this formula works:
Includes multiple platforms - so that you don't have to go all-in on one platform, as it tends to increase Cost per Result.
Balances New and Returning clients - while New clients bring in the Volume, Returning Clients help keep the average cost down.
Establishes a Connection - we don't recommend always going for the "Buy Now" advertising. Establish a connection, give value first, the Sale will follow.
Multiple Layers of Retargeting - this approach implements multiple Layers of Retargeting, with different ad text and offers along the way, helping you maximize the gains.
The best part is that it's a circular journey. Meaning there is a high chance to retain new clients. This will lower your Cost per Result in the future. So let's jump into it and see how this model can be implemented!
Step 1 - Go for Past Clients & Familiar Audiences First
Depending on what promotion channels you relied on in the past, it should be your first choice this time as well.There is a couple of benefits in reaching out to your past clients and users who heard about you before:
Cost-effectiveness - reaching out to these people will most likely be cheaper that reaching out to the new audience.
More Results - people who are familiar with you offering, or people who bought from you in the past are more likely to buy from you, Hubspot estimates that the chance of a past customer to buy from you is 60% - 70%.
Combining the cost-effectiveness with familiar audience will help you get outstanding results.
Here is a couple of tactics that will help you reach your Familiar audiences:
Email - to give you a rough understanding of results you can potentially get - take a total amount of emails you have, expect an Open Rate of 10-25% and 3-5% Purchase Rate.
Retargeting on Google or Facebook - Retargeting shows your ads to the users who are already familiar with your website. If a user has has visited your website before, they are more likely to buy from you.
Keep in mind, you need between 100 to 1,000 Users on your retargeting list in order for it to work, for privacy reasons.
In case you don't have an extensive email list or a retargeting audience on your Facebook account yet, it's a good idea to start collecting email addresses right now and to install a Facebook pixel on your website, to accumulate an audience of Visitors over time.
Pro-tip - when you create retargeting audiences from your website, think what actions highlight user's interest. Say, Contact Us page visit, or click on a phone number as a general example.
Step 2 - Find New Clients Too
While the Familiar audiences are a a good way to create a base, we still recommend finding New Prospects to balance the Volume and Cost per Result:
Volume of Results - While Familiar audiences will get you the best Cost per Result, in order to generate volume of Results, you need to get a Interested Visitors to your website.
Cost per Result - Once you do have multiple Relevant Visitors on your website, you will be able to identify the most interested ones and Retarget them as they move closer to purchase, thus decreasing Cost per Result.
Remember, it's a circle, new clients will add to your audience. Except for making a sales, you will be able to retain some of the new clients, communicating with them directly and likely up-selling or cross-selling your other products and services to them.
While past clients are an extremely effective audience, chances are you won't have enough scale. Search for New Clients by targeting high intent audiences.
Step 3 - New Prospects - Give Value, Retarget
While in some cases, the "Buy Now" approach can work (think plumbers), in most cases you need to create a story and communicate with a customer as they get closer to making a purchase, it's just customer service!
One of the best ways to do this, is to truly help a prospect solve a problem or answer a question they have as they consider purchasing a product or service that you sell. This sounds like a no-brainer, but you won't believe how many businesses don't get it right.
Give Value - Example:
Say, you sell children's shoes. And in order to generate new orders instead of saying "Buy Now", you create an article or a video that helps parents avoid mistakes when choosing the right shoes for their children.
This way, instead of advertising your product directly, you start building a connection with the parent.
That's the same idea as if they were already in your store and asked you a question. This way, you establish connection with the prospect remotely.
If you select the right targeting and create a valuable piece of content, Users will definitely engage with it and this will start the process.
Remember on this step we are not trying to close a sale yet, we are aiming to find users who are interested in purchasing products or services that you sell.
If you select the right targeting and create a valuable piece of content, Users will definitely engage with it and this will start the process.
Step 3.2 - Retarget
Now that the prospect knows about you, you should retarget them with your product offering. Following this approach, you will stand out from the crowd, because your store will feel familiar, so the consumers will be more likely to buy from you. More details on how Retargeting works available here.
Next, give them a few days and see if they actually make a purchase.
Pro Tip - keep in mind, that most products and services have a consideration period. To put things in perspective, it may be from a few minutes for a chewing gum to a few years for buying a car. Plan your Retargeting for these time-frames.
Pro Tip 2: make sure your ads are not annoying, we generally aim to show an ad to a prospect not more than 3-4 times a day.
Step 4: Create an Offer, Retarget Further!
By now, some of the New Prospects may have already purchased your product, however, chances are you can still get more of them to buy from you. At this point, it time to bring in the big guns - Create an Offer.
This will help you close even more Sales from the Users who initially watched your Video or read your Article. Nothing catches User's eye as much as a good deal. Think about what deal you can offer and when is the best time to offer that deal.
Now, create an Offer Ad on the platform that you work with. For many products and services, Facebook will be the right choice. One of the benefits of choosing Facebook to advertise a local business is that it will give you more exposure if you create an offer. Facebook knows that consumers love good deals, and Facebook loves consumers. Once you create a deal, you will see better results in both, Advertising and Organic Social Media posts.
Depending on the results you see so far and the volume of Users you have attracted to your website, you may want to analyze your website data to see if there is enough users who performed valuable actions on your website.
We are looking for actions like Add to Cart, Contact page visit, etc. In case you already have a 1,000+ of these, I would recommend using them as an audience.
However, even if your campaign has driven at least 1,000 website Visits in total, this audience may still be valuable.
One of the benefits of choosing Facebook to advertise a local business is that it will give you more exposure if you create an offer.
Tips to Create an Offer:
Tips to create an effective offer:
Set an Expiry Date - this will create urgency to make a purchase, Facebook recommends 7 days before the offer expires.
Ideal Discount - if you decide to go for a discount, in our experience, 20% off works the best.
Reminders - if a customer saves your offer on Facebook Ads, they will see up to 3 reminders to redeem the offer, that's just a free bonus.
In-Store or Online - you can choose if you want this deal to be redeemed online of in-store.
Provided that you have the right targeting on the initial steps, by now, 40-60% of your initial audience would have already made a purchase. You can change your targeting and re-use this strategy again with different audiences.
Another valuable Step is to engage Organic Social Media to build a community around your brand. We will add more information on this soon, stay tuned!
Wrap Up:
Remember, it's always better to start with the plan in mind, instead of just jumping into work.
I hope, this guide helped you get new ideas about promoting your business as well as a general understanding of the results you can potentially get.
Now is the time to turn this plan into reality.
It's time to get Results!
Director of Digital, Growth360