Pets are incredibly important to their humans – they are another member of the family. Because good pet owners want the best for all members of their family, they tend to shell out quite a bit of money on their pets – whether for grooming services, veterinarian services, toys, apparel, boarding, or other expenses.

According to Forbes, as of 2024, 66% of U.S. households (86.9 million homes) own a pet. Further, 97% of pet owners consider their pets to be a part of their family.

A report from the American Pet Products Association (APPA), said that American pet owners spent $136.8 billion in 2022, purchasing the following pet products and services:

• Pet food and treats: 58.1 billion
• Vet care supplies: $35.9 billion
• Pet supplies and over-the-counter medications: $31.5 billion
• Other pet-related services, such as pet insurance, grooming, and training: $11.4 billion

Simply put, there are many people in America, and in Lancaster PA, who are willing to spend plenty of their hard-earned cash on their pets. So what are the best ways to reach that audience?

Pet retailers have been finding new, inventive ways to engage consumers with their brands when it comes to addressing pets’ needs. These digital marketing strategies are great ways for brands to distribute their message to reach pet owners.

Identify Your Target Audience

First and foremost, it’s key to understand exactly what your target audience wants. If you’re able to gather some research, particularly about age, types of pets, and spending behaviors, from first-party data, this will give you an understanding of what will resonate best with those who you hope become customers.

Prioritize Content Marketing

Typically, when pet owners have a question about caring for their pet, they’ll use a search engine, usually Google, to find answers:

• Appearing in search results can bring web traffic to your business’s site through content marketing. Content marketing gives brands the opportunity to create and share pertinent information through articles, blogs, or downloadable reports that are designed to target a specific consumer segment.
• Content marketing is an important and effective marketing strategy because it provides answers to the questions pet owners are interested in knowing. Informative content will help the pet retailer become a trusted source to consumers, promoting brand awareness while increasing traffic to pet retailers’ websites. Some examples of this type of content for your business’s website are:
• What are the best chew toys for dogs?
• What are the different cat litter options and which ones are really dust-free?
• Which cat foods are best for finicky cats?
• A review of different types of dog harnesses that are best for dogs that pull.
• How to groom dogs with curly fur.
• Dog dental hygiene – how to brush those teeth.

All of those topics provide information that pet owners might be searching for, and also are about topics relevant to your pet-related business. By creating great content on your site you are helping both your customers and your business.

Engage In Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing tactics for building brand awareness and increasing leads:

• The best thing about email is that when it’s sent to the recipient, they’ll open it on their own time when they know it’s convenient for them to read. This will give them a chance to absorb your communication more thoroughly.
• Email marketing comes in a variety of types: newsletters, promotional campaigns, invitations, survey emails, and more. These emails can be used strategically for different purposes. For example, if you’re trying to gauge what products would be most helpful to your email audience, you may send out a quick survey for them to complete. Offer your recipients a prize drawing to give an incentive to complete the survey.
• Email can help you build relationships with customers by sending emails that include behind-the-scenes stories, frequently asked questions, information about your staff, local pet news, and rewards for loyal customers. Your customers want to build a relationship related to pet care, because it’s another form of providing the very best for their pet.

Whether you’re a dog groomer, dog walker, pet store owner, or veterinarian, you’re most likely competing with some big brands for customers’ attention. Email marketing can help you build a bond with your customers that will position you as an authority on pets in your area. This will help you get to know your customers on a personal level, setting you apart from the competition.

Be A Trusted Resource for Your Audience

Pet owners committed to providing great care for their furry friends often have many questions. You can serve as a resource by providing answers for pet owners needing reassurance.

• Include a section on your website that addresses frequently asked questions or start a blog that allows you to feature experts to provide insights into pet care. This will help establish your brand as having a voice of authority and trust, which are critically important traits for potential customers to associate with a business that provides care for their pets. Further, when a blog or new website section generates new topics and discussion, it will contribute to your website ranking higher on Google search results.
• Remember to stay consistent with updated content. Potential customers will be drawn to a business that is reliable and always updating its website with new insights on how to serve pet owners.
• Be available to your audience. Part of building a trusting relationship with your audience includes opening the lines of communication, so customers feel they can ask about your products, services, and how it will impact their pet. Include contact information prominently on your communications and encourage customers to never hesitate to ask.
• Having a content hub of answers on your website will also increase the number of keywords included on your website, which will boost your Google ranking search results.
• Use this information elsewhere as well. You can create social media posts out of blogs and expert articles Make sure everything is under one umbrella of content strategy, and your message will be amplified to a wider audience.

Host or Participate in Pet-Friendly Events

Events are a great way to connect with customers and build your brand. Being face-to-face with your target audience will help you develop a more personal relationship with potential customers, as you have more of a chance to interact with them.

Naturally, pet owners will be most responsive to events that they can bring their pets to. This could include events at the dog park, pet-friendly restaurants, bars or cafés. In-person and pet-friendly events also may provide a chance for you to show potential customers how a product or service can be beneficial to their pet’s life. For events with vendors, set up a table with business cards and giveaway items, to increase the professionalism and logo recognition of your brand.

Build an SEO-Friendly Website

The quality of your website is critical because you really only have a few seconds to capture the interest of visitors when they land on your site. A good website has what it takes to reach, engage, and support your visitors – and encourage them to return.

A few critical components your website should have in order to reach pet owners include:

• Engaging images that tell your story, ideally real photos of your business, staff, and products. Stock photos just do not convey authenticity.
• Clear navigation throughout the website.
• Calls-to-action that will entice the visitor to click to purchase or contact you.
• Contact information for your business, by phone, email, and physical address.
• Design that aligns with your overall brand, logo, and name, including use of colors and fonts.
• Cross-linking between pages of your site to encourage visitors to keep browsing.
• Clear use of headings, paragraphs, and bullet points to make your content easy to read.

Build a Social Media Following

Customers turn to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and other social media platforms for a wide variety of information, including pet retail locations, new products, tips for their pets, coupons, and pet-friendly events. Facebook is the best social media platform for pet retailers to be on, but Instagram and other social media platforms are also worth exploring. With Facebook’s particularly targeted and effective Ads platform, you have a guaranteed way to reach the pet owners:

• According to The American Pet Products Association, it is estimated that approximately 37 to 47 percent of all households in the U.S. have a dog, and that 30 to 37 percent have a cat. With 90 percent of young adults ranging in ages 18 to 29 and 65 percent of adults overall on social media, there’s potential for a large amount of leads for pet retailers.
• Using Facebook’s analytics, you’ll be able to see what types of posts have the biggest impact on your audience and when most of your page’s fans are online. This information will help you craft content for the utmost impact.
• Creativity with social media can pay off. People tend to love photos of pets and cute animals on social media, so lean into that with your business.
• Consistency is key. The best way to build a following on social media is by having a consistent schedule, so your audience has expectations about when they will hear from you. Create a calendar to post a few times a week, and stick with it.
• Use social media ads and boosted posts. Not only should you be using your own social media page to post and build a following, you should also consider launching a digital social media ad campaign because it will allow you to reach a larger audience than just regular posts. Organic (unboosted) posts on Facebook will only reach a small portion of your followers, as low as 5%.  Facebook and other social media platforms want you to pay to reach more people. Boosting your posts is a low-budget, easy way to expand the reach of your posts beyond your followers, but the targeting options are limited. Using a social media ad campaign unlocks the full potential of targeting and audience on each social media platform.
• Ensure people know how to follow you on social media. You can display your social media handles on a sign in your store and they should be prominently featured on your website.

Tell Your Story Effectively

If you have decided to pursue a business centered on improving the lives of pets and pet owners, it is likely rooted in a personal story and a deep love for animals. People love to connect and bond over common interests and loves – and it’s important that you connect with fellow animal lovers in an authentic way.

Whether via social media platforms, blog posts, signage around your business’ physical location, or organic conversation, it’s important to be clear with customers and potential customers about why you love animals, why you sell the products or services you do, and why you’re the best in the business. When you are able to communicate these points with sincerity and enthusiasm, people will be more likely to invest in your brand as a whole. This can also really help with retaining customers for your business.

• Keep your story consistent and genuine.
• Inject emotion into your storytelling without being saccharine. People tend to be emotional about their pets, so remember that, when handled well, professionalism is not devoid of emotion.
• Use photos and videos. If there’s anything pet lovers to do, it’s taking photos of their furry family members. Chances are, they’ll love to see photos of yours as well. You can even ask customers’ permission to feature their pets on your social media page.
• If you can, partner with an influencer who can help you tell your story. If there is someone in your local community who posts constantly about their pets or works for an animal shelter or runs a blog that often talks about animals, reach out to see if they’d be willing to enter a partnership or become a brand ambassador. This strategy can open your business up to a whole new audience. You can look for influencers, who may not even consider themselves influencers, in different age demographics. For younger audiences, look to Instagram and TikTok. For a slightly older audience, look to Facebook and blogs.

Align With Animal-Related Causes Your Audience Cares About

According to Consumer Goods Technology, 82% of shoppers want a consumer brand’s values to align with their own, and they’ll vote with their wallet if they don’t feel a match. While it doesn’t make sense for a small business to take a stance on many current issues, you can bet your audience will be in alignment on issues that involve animal welfare. Don’t be afraid to make this a part of your brand story. It can even be a topic for your blog or it can be featured in social media posts.

TL;DR:

There are many ways to effectively reach an audience of pet owners, but the best is through a combination of SEO, social media and email marketing, face-to-face interactions and relationship-building, and an attitude based in authenticity.

If you are a pet retailer looking for more marketing ideas, contact us today. We’ll help you strategize and develop a plan that will both reach pet owners, boost your business, and help you make a true difference in the lives of pets and their owners.

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As a small or medium sized business owner in Lancaster County, PA, you’re focused on putting the right advertising in front of the right audiences. So, you’ve likely heard something in the news about third-party cookies being eliminated this year by Google Chrome. It’s important to have your finger on the pulse of these important changes – but it can be hard to get a full understanding of the details and how this will affect the marketing of your business.

This article will answer some of the questions you may have regarding third-party cookie elimination, what it is changing, how it can impact you, and what you can do to continue to advertise to the right people.

What are digital cookies?

According to Harvard Online, cookies are “little text files of information with small pieces of data (such as passwords or usernames) that are created by and stored within a web browser. These files identify your computer and can be accessed by the website at a later time, usually predetermined by the specific site.” These cookies are used by Google to report on how you’re using the site. Third-party cookies, specifically, track a user’s browsing behavior across sites. Advertisers and marketing companies use this data to show personalized ads and products to the correct audiences.

What has been the function of third-party cookies?

According to Adtelligent’s article, “How Third-Party Cookies Elimination Affects Programmatic Ecosystem,” third-party cookies have been the base for programmatic advertising since 1994. Their main functions include:

• Personalized ad targeting
• Cross-site retargeting
• Social buttons posting
• Third-party services placements (such as chatbot)
• Impressions measuring to user actions
• Detailed analysis of user behavior

With multiple functions, third-party cookies have been a staple for advertising for decades now. But with increased concerns about privacy, it has now become necessary to find other ways to deliver well-targeted digital advertising.

Why are third-party cookies being eliminated?

Third-party cookies are being eliminated because of the changing privacy landscape online. Since identifying and tracking individuals across the web using third-party cookie tracking is intrusive, regulators and legislators have been trying to find a way to address this issue for the last two decades.

Because governments and web users are demanding more privacy and transparency regarding their online behaviors and control over how their data is being processed around the internet, many new privacy laws around the world have been introduced to help protect user privacy and secure their data.

This is not a sudden decision, but rather a response to the growing concerns about privacy. Google’s decision to eliminate third-party cookies on Google Chrome is leading the charge of this effort to address privacy concerns. However, the transition, according to the blog post, “The End of Third-Party Cookies & What It Means For Digital Marketing,” is “partly motivated by marketing dynamics, including the rise of ad blockers and users’ preference for more privacy, and partly by strategic business decisions aimed at controlling the advertising ecosystem by leveraging first-party data.”

The Google Chrome web browser, which is the most commonly used browser, is planned to phase out third-party cookies by the end of 2024. Safari, Edge, and Firefox users are not facing this same deadline. While Chrome does make up over 65% of web traffic usage, it’s not a complete end to third-party tracking. If you use Safari, Edge, Firefox, you still may be subject to third-party tracking cookies.

Are first-party cookies being eliminated?

No. According to Cookie Information, “first-party cookies are often associated with short lived session cookies and essential cookies for website functionality, but first-party cookies can also be cookies used for tracking and analytics purposes. It is a common misconception to equate first-party cookies with mere short-lived essential cookies.”

Cookie Information also explains that, “third-party cookies, on the other hand, are often used for cross-site tracking, allowing third-party services to track users across multiple websites for targeted advertising and analytics. This cross-site tracking capability, in combination with being set from another domain, is the critical difference that distinguishes a third-party cookie from a first-party cookie.”

How is this changing the digital advertising landscape?

When third-party cookies are eliminated, websites will no longer be able to use these cookies to track users across different sites. As mentioned earlier, first-party cookies will still exist. However, user consent will be required unless the cookie is essential for the website’s functionality, according to the article, “Prepare for a Cookie-Free Future: Everything You Need To Know About Third-Party Cookies in Chrome.” The elimination of third-party cookies from Chrome is part of a broader initiative by Google to develop a privacy sandbox with open standards for user tracking while safeguarding privacy using new browser APIs.

This shift to privacy, while giving users more control over privacy and data, is significantly impacting the digital advertising landscape. With an increased emphasis on first-party data, business owners and marketers need to work harder to gather first-party data directly on their sites, which means providing users compelling reasons to give you their data.

In general, as captured in the DigiDay article, “‘It’s going to make our jobs harder’: Effects of Google’s third-party cookie fallout compound for marketers,” the job of marketers has completely shifted under these new regulations, with marketers looking ahead to new, adaptive strategies to continue to target messages to the right audiences with less data to pull from.

How does this affect my business in Lancaster?

As a small business owner who relies on marketing to gain a wider audience and more customers, it’s important to realize how third-party cookies impact your business.

As mentioned above, third-party cookies have been an important part of digital advertising, with many different functions. The good news is that every advertiser in the world is facing these challenges, and the elimination of third-party cookies will likely translate to new innovations that will improve advertising options while also respecting user privacy.

How will your business be impacted? According to an article by Lotame, here are a few of the key ways:

• Redefining Targeting Strategies: The conventional methods of tracking and targeting will be significantly limited, as marketers will no longer be able to leverage third-party cookies to create targeted advertising campaigns based on users’ browsing behaviors. In thinking of your marketing, you will have to shift your focus toward alternative targeting strategies so you are still reaching an effective audience, and LNP Media Group will be able to help your business with this.
• Increased Reliance on First-Party Data: First-party data has become even more important, with the elimination of third-party cookies, so your marketing approach should shift accordingly. You should think about investing more in direct customer engagement channels, like email marketing, loyalty programs, and customer feedback platforms for valuable marketing insights. This shift to first-party data will also necessitate more engagement strategies to collect such data.
• Exploration of New Technologies and Platforms: When one strategy goes away, it’s inevitable that new innovations will arise to take its place. New platforms and technologies for tracking and targeting will be on the horizon, so it’s important to be aware of what is up-and-coming and what makes sense for your business to integrate into its marketing strategy for the best ROI. Connecting with LNP Media Group experts will help you be aware of the newest innovations and developments.
• Diversification of Marketing Strategies: Diversifying your targeting strategy is more important than ever. The elimination of third-party cookies is a good reminder to not put your entire marketing approach into one single solution. Having a more diverse marketing strategy going forward means you will be even more prepared for future developments in digital marketing. As the elimination of third-party cookies shows, whether changes are gradual or unexpected, a spirit of adaptability is necessary for effective marketing.
• Increased Focus on Privacy: It’s important to realize that the shift to privacy-focused alternatives is indicative of a shift across the marketing landscape. Marketing strategies will succeed when they align with this shift to respecting users’ privacy, which may lead to more transparent marketing approaches overall. A new and improved marketing approach is one that does not disregard the value of user privacy.
• Cross-Site User Tracking Shift: If you use Google Analytics to track traffic trends on your website, you’ll find that the cross-site user tracking will become more challenging. According to Sellforte, the elimination of third-party cookies will impact the accuracy of cross-site user behavior analysis, so you’ll need to reduce your reliance on this data in Google Analytics.

To sum it all up, in this video, “What you need to know about third-party cookie depreciation” features Sam Dutton, developer relations engineer with the Chrome team, and Erin Walsh, a developer relations engineer with Android, as they break down some of these important points.

What can I do to target consumers in new ways?

Now that you have a better understanding of what third-party cookie elimination means for you and your business in Lancaster, you are probably thinking about next steps and how you can target consumers in new ways. This change in advertising also presents an opportunity – to rethink how you are approaching advertising, what innovations you can lean into, and how you can use experts to support your overall goals.

First up: you’ll want to connect with the digital marketing experts at LNP Media Group. In addition to keeping you up-to-date on important changes, innovations, and opportunities, our team will be able to strategize and target the audience segments most important to your business, in a variety of ways:

• Contextual advertising: When you put ads alongside relevant, trusted content, like on org, LancasterOnline.com, or the LNP newspaper, you can reach the people who will be interested in the topics that are also relevant to your business.
• Geofencing: This is an important tool that will remain available, as it relies on mobile and device tracking. Our blog post, Geo-Targeted Mobile Advertising, will help you gain further understanding of the benefits of geofencing. Basically, geofencing is precise location targeting of consumers, which helps us create a laser-focused campaign audience for your business. This is done through tracking GPS services that target specific relevant locations of events or other businesses where your target audience will gather. With geofencing, you can reach your targeted audience and present them with relevant and engaging offers and information. Contact LNP Media Group to learn more about how geofencing can change your advertising game today.
• Customer Match Audiences: Used for everything from increasing brand awareness to driving conversions, Customer Match lets you use your own customer data to reach and reengage with your customers, and people who are similar to your customers, across Google search, the shopping tab, Gmail, YouTube, and display, according to Google. This tool can be incredibly valuable for targeting the right kind of customers.
• Google Ads FloCs. Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) is a new way for advertisers and sites to show relevant ads without tracking individuals across the web. Google developed FloCs with the purpose of protecting individuals’ privacy by placing them in large groupings of thousands of people with similar recent browsing activity, without any of them being individually identified. In the current state of digital advertising, targeted digital advertising with FloCs will remain a privacy-approved option.

The elimination of third-party cookies is certainly an adjustment for advertisers and marketers everywhere, but it is not necessarily a negative shift. When you have the LNP Media Group team in your corner, you’ll feel equipped to face this change, and any other major changes, with the right advertising tools to continue to find success for your Lancaster business.

This is an interesting time in the digital advertising world, and it’s important to continue to adapt, be flexible, and stay ahead of the game amid the many changes. Contact us at LNP Media Group today, and we’ll work alongside you to create solutions that work for your advertising and marketing goals.

TL;DR:

Google Chrome is eliminating third-party cookies in 2024, meaning that previously available user targeting data will no longer be available to digital marketers. Connecting with experts at LNP Media Group will enable your business to find new avenues to reach your target audience.

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When evaluating the types of digital marketing that will be most successful for your small or medium sized business, one thing is clear – local marketing via Google search is more important than ever before.

How Has the Algorithm Changed?

You may have heard that the Google algorithm has been undergoing changes in 2024 – but what does that mean for your business?

Through March and April 2024, Google launched a core algorithm update, one of the most complex Google updates ever released. According to Impression Digital, the update sought to reduce spammy content by over 40%, and to adjust settings so that Google is not treating “low quality spam” with the same severity as pure spam. The update also targeted link spam, including creating low-value content for manipulative links and repurposing expired domains with drastically different content. The core update marked a shift in Google’s ranking criteria, reducing the importance of links and emphasizing quality, credibility, and substantive content.

This means, for your business, that when considering digital marketing, a focus on high-quality content on your business’s website is more important than ever.

Despite these shifts in the Google algorithm, one thing hasn’t changed – the importance of local SEO for reaching your audience via digital marketing.

What Is Local Marketing and Local Marketing SEO?

Also known as neighborhood marketing or local store marketing, local marketing is a marketing strategy that targets consumers and customers within a certain radius of the physical location(s) of a business. As a small or medium sized business, reaching an audience of customers in your area is incredibly important.

It’s also important to understand exactly what local SEO is. Local SEO is a strategy that helps your business be more visible in local search results on Google. Local SEO is an important tool to use when promoting your business to potential customers in your area.

To dig a bit deeper into how local SEO operates, let’s first look again at how Google works.

How Does Google Work?

Since local SEO is a part of the Google ecosystem of searches and algorithms, it’s helpful to have a background on how the biggest search engine in the world functions.

According to a blog by Google, “search algorithms look at many factors and signals, including the words of your query, relevance, and usability of pages, expertise of sources, and your location and settings. The weight applied to each factor varies depending on the nature of your query. For example, the freshness of the content plays a bigger role in answering queries about current news topics than it does about dictionary definitions.”

Google searches operate by checking ranking factors of your website in order to generate a list to match a search. A Google search uses the Google Index, a stored copy of all the sites it has discovered.

The programs Google uses to build its index are known as “spiders.” These spiders start on a single page, then follow links on that page to find content on new pages. The content discovered is stored in the Google Index at an incredibly rapid pace.

Ranking Search Results

Google uses its algorithm to rank the many sites it stores in its Index. A search triggers an algorithm to check the index and generate the list of websites to match search results. When you Google a topic, how often do you go to the second page of Google results? Likely, you stay on the first page and may even only click on the very top results – which means the ranking order of results is important and is why you want to place your business as high on the list as possible.

Search results are ranked based on relevance, prominence, popularity and also location. The Google algorithm understands that when someone is searching for a topic – particularly for a product or service – they are most interested in searches that are close to them in physical proximity. When someone is craving pizza, it is second nature for them to plug in “pizza shops near me” in the Google search engine – and this is also true for completely different services, such as veterinarians or hardware stores. Harnessing local SEO to promote your products or services means having a strong presence online that Google can index and present to searchers.

How Does Local Make a Difference For My Business?

To further emphasize the importance of local SEO for your Lancaster, PA business, it’s important to understand how often location matters to people conducting Google searches. According to Search Engine Journal, almost a third of all Google searches have local intent, meaning the searcher is looking for something nearby or located in a specific area.

In order to be more helpful to these frequent searches, Google has included proximity as a factor when it ranks search results.

In a blog on its Google Business Profile Help site, Google communicates that proximity is important in determining local search ranking, saying “local results are based on primary relevance, distance, and prominence. A combination of these factors helps us find the best match for your service.” The blog also informs marketers that “distance considers how far each potential search result is from the location term used in a search. If a user doesn’t specify a location in their search, we’ll calculate distance based on what we do know about their location.” So, even when someone is searching on Google and not specifying where they are, location matters.

Why Does Local Matter So Much Now?

Consumers Are Often Searching For Businesses That Are “Open Now Near Me”

One thing is certain – in this day and age, consumers typically do not prioritize patience. Think With Google’s 2022 Retail Marketing Guide showed that the local search term “open now near me” had a 400% year-over-year increase between the periods of September 2019 to August 2020 and September 2020 to August 2021. If your business pops up in search engine results pages, consumers can see your business hours and distance or directions on Google Maps, which can increase foot traffic significantly.

Further, an incredible 76% of users visit a business within 24 hours of searching for the product or service they need, according to mobile local search statistics from Think With Google.

Consumers Will Directly Contact Local Businesses from Search Results

When you have a solid Google Business Profile for your business, it can boost the amount of calls you receive. Think With Google also revealed that “60% of smartphone users have contacted a business directly using the search results (e.g., “click to call” options). This conversion between Google searches and genuine inquiries is largely due to having key contact information (name, address, phone number) in your business’s Google Business Profile and all other business listings. This demonstrates the importance of making sure all of the information is accurate and consistent.

46% Of All Search Users Are Specifically Searching for Local Businesses

A Google representative was quoted saying that 46% of searches have local intent, which illustrates how important it is to improve organic results with high-quality local content. Focus on marketing in a way that makes it easy for potential customers to easily find your businesses, learn about it, be engaged by your online presence, easily communicate with you, and then visit your business within the next 24 hours.

American Consumers Prioritize Shopping Local

These high statistics may make more sense when we take a look at the national trends of small, local businesses across the country. Studies show that, overall, consumers in America prefer to shop local and have a positive view of small businesses.

According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, most U.S. adults (86%) say small businesses have a positive effect on the way things are going in the country. Further, small businesses actually receive by far the most positive reviews of any of the nine U.S. institutions Pew asked about, among the military, churches and religious organizations, the military, labor unions, technology companies, K-12 public schools, colleges and universities, banks and other financial institutions, and large corporations.

Further, according to a survey from Bentley University and Gallup, more than six in 10 Americans (63%) believe businesses overall have a somewhat or extremely positive impact on people’s lives, marking a seven-percentage-point increase since 2022. When asked about small and large businesses specifically, 85% of Americans reported small businesses have a somewhat or extremely positive impact on people’s lives, compared with 42% who said the same about large businesses.

Research from IPX 1031 reports the following statistics related to Americans’ perception of small businesses:

• 57% of Americans are willing to pay more to support local businesses.
• 2 in 3 Americans try to shop locally over shopping at large retail chains.
• 90% of Americans would like to see more locally-owned businesses open in their area.
• 1 in 5 Americans shop at small businesses often.

These statistics from paint a clear picture: the perception of small, local businesses is generally positive throughout the country, and Americans are eager to find small local businesses to patronize. As a small business owner, you can capitalize on this positive public perception – and LNP Media Group can help you do it.

How Can I Best Leverage Local Marketing?

Local marketing is clearly important – so how can you start to truly harness its power for your small or medium sized business?

• Ensure local listings online are accurate and that your business is correctly listed when people search for your product or service in your area.
• Build strong content on your website – and don’t shy away from location-centric content.
  • This includes being detailed about the products and services you offer, what specials you may carry, and what makes your business stand out.
  • Your website copy should also be focused on the user. Make sure you are building copy that is directed toward useful engagement with your audience and helps users solve the problems or needs that brought them to your site in the first place.
• Verify and strengthen your Google Business Profile. As mentioned earlier, a strong Google Business Profile is key to strengthening your digital marketing presence.

How Can I Have the Best Google Business Profile?

To help your business appear higher in the list of search results, follow these steps, with links included from Google Support to help:

• Ensure your business’s information is updated and fully complete. Search results will prioritize profiles that have complete, accurate information. Accurate information on your profile will also lead to more engagement with potential customers. If your address or phone number changes, be sure to update your profile. Make sure to also include accurate business hours, including holiday, weekend, or any special hours.
• Manage and respond to reviews. Reviews can be tricky. But when you engage authentically with comments that customers leave on Google reviews, potential customers who come across your site will be encouraged by your responsiveness. When you receive positive reviews, it can boost your visibility and credibility. Read more about creating a link for customer reviews.
• Verify your business’s location. You can do this across various Google products, including Maps and Search. It is important that people are able to find your physical location with ease. Read more about Google Verification
• Include photos and visuals of your business, your products and/or your team. Photos can tell the story of your business, and potential customers like to place faces to names when discovering a new business for the first time. You can easily add photos, or other visuals, like short video clips, to your profile.

LNP Media Group can help you ramp up your local marketing efforts so that consumers can find your business and shop there! Contact us today, and we’ll help you develop a strategy that leverages local marketing and captures the right local customer base for you.

TL;DR:

Local marketing for online searches matters more than ever because Google’s algorithms prioritize physical proximity to the searcher. Consumers value the convenience of Google searches, and consumers demonstrate strong support for small, community businesses. LNP Media Group can help you maximize your business’s visibility online to a local audience that is searching for products and services like the ones your business offers.

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As a small business owner or manager, you might need to work a little harder to make sure potential customers in the Lancaster County area are aware of your business. Luckily, there are a number of strategies your business can take to give your name the extra boost it deserves. Brand advertising is a great way to improve the awareness of your business in the minds of consumers.

A brand advertising strategy helps businesses build customer loyalty. As Quantcast says, “the goal of brand advertising is to foster long-term positive recognition by establishing brand identity, credibility, and loyalty and connecting with prospects intellectually and emotionally.”

The following items are part of a successful brand advertising strategy:

• Long-term focus: Brand advertising aims to establish a brand’s presence and identity over time. The goal is to lead to sustained customer engagement and loyalty.
• Emotional appeal: Your strategy must create an emotional connection with your audience. But the particular emotions themselves can be whatever makes the most sense for your company. It can be anything from joy to humor to nostalgia. You should just make sure it’s positive, relatable, and memorable.
• Consistency: Keep your messaging, design, and tone consistent. This will help to solidify your brand image in your potential and current customers’ minds. When your brand identity is consistent, your customer base will be more likely to recognize it.
• Brand storytelling: A narrative is an essential part of brand advertising. This will personalize your brand and help to convey values, history, and mission.
• Audience-centric: Brand advertising is all about understanding and resonating with your intended audience. It’s not just about selling them a product — it’s about building a meaningful relationship with them.

How Does Brand Advertising Add Value to Your Brand

According to Instapage: “With more consumers aware of your brand, the more they trust and stick with you throughout the buyer’s journey.” That means they’ll be more likely to take action when they see a performance-based advertisement. Once you have the building blocks of a solid brand advertising strategy, you’ll start to see significant value added to your brand in the forms of actual leads and sales later on.

You can expect brand advertising to add value to your campaigns in the following ways:

• Establish your identity — A brand identity consists of your logo, fonts, brand colors, general web presence, and more. Once that happens, you’ll be able to make a great first impression on your current customers.
• Build brand credibility — People will only buy from the brands they trust, and you can build trust with effective brand advertising. Create this credibility by establishing yourself as an industry leader against your competitors.
• Build strong connections with prospective customers — The best brands offer solutions and build connections with their prospects. If someone feels like they can’t form a personal connection with your brand, they’ll likely dismiss you.

In this article, we’ll help you to create a plan for an effective brand advertising strategy for your business. You’ll walk away with the tools to establish trust, loyalty, and long-term success.

What Small Business Owners in Lancaster County Need to Understand About Brand Advertising

Brand advertising is incredibly powerful too. When it is done correctly, it can take your small business to the next level. But before you can achieve that goal, you need to understand what your business stands for and why your business even exists. Here are some important things that small business owners need to know about brand advertising:

• Branding and marketing are two completely different things — Branding and marketing are not the same thing. Branding answers the why behind your brand. Marketing defines the ways that your brand is perceived in the world. Understanding the difference between the two is critical to the success of your business.
• Creating brand guidelines is crucial to your success —  Creating guidelines provides tips for a clear understanding of your brand by employees and your customers. They should include the following items:
• Visual components
• Your mission and vision
• Values
• Messaging
• Tone and voice
• Brand personality
• Target demographic
• Buyer personas
• Your brand is an iceberg — As ExtraCo Banks says, your brand is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much more to it than what’s on the surface. Your brand isn’t just fonts, colors, and your logo. It also needs to include your mission, vision, values, tone of voice, messaging, and more. These foundational pieces establish consistency with your brand and its personality.

When you take the time to understand the power of your brand and build upon it, you’ll create an infectious culture around your brand. Prospects will be drawn to your brand and customers will provide repeat business. That strong foundation will easily set you apart from the competition, providing success for years to come. 

7 Questions to Ask Before Deciding on a Brand Advertising Strategy

Brand advertising is important to any small business. But before you dive in, you need to finalize key components of creating a strategy. Here are some questions to consider before doing that.

How are Google Ads relevant to a small business in Lancaster County?

A strategically built Google Ads campaign ensures the right people see your ad at the right time. You can target audiences based on location, language, demographics, and interests. The Google Ads platform also lets you create engaging ad copy to entice prospective customers to click to your page. That means you’ll be able to create ads that appeal to consumers in Lancaster County looking for a specific product or service. Getting their attention at the right time means those consumers will be more likely to make a purchase.

What is a branded keyword?

Branded keywords are phrases or search terms that are associated with your brand and/or the products and services you offer. Your brand name and any common misspellings should be included in this list. While these keywords can be discovered through social media, make sure you don’t confuse them with hashtags or mentions online.

Keep tabs on branded keywords to make sure you’re always looped in about the conversation surrounding your small business. Tags or mentions online will always trigger notifications. But the use of branded keywords on social will not. For example, a customer may be praising or venting about your business online, without tagging you. If you have a pulse on your branded keywords, you’ll never miss an opportunity to interact with your customers.

What is a non-branded keyword?

On the flip side, non-branded keywords are those that do not reference your business’s name or any common misspellings of it. While it’s important to rank for branded search terms, non-branded keywords are crucial for attracting prospective customers to your website.

For example, let’s say you run a children’s clothing boutique. Using non-branded keywords will allow your brand to be seen even if a consumer doesn’t know your brand yet, and is just using general search terms for a children’s clothing store in Lancaster County. That’s the power of non-branded keywords.

Ranking for non-branded keywords will help consumers come across your website when they are searching for services or products you sell. If you match their search intent, you’ll be able to convert them into customers.

What is brand name bidding?

Brand name bidding refers to purchasing your own name as a keyword in Google Ads. As Fraud Blocker says, “The primary goal of brand bidding is to capture high-intent traffic from users who are already familiar with your brand, while also protecting your brand against competitors who may want to capitalize on your brand equity.” This involves targeting search terms that include your brand names, product names, and any other term your business has trademarked. Doing this has the potential to perform better in organic Google searches and have some impact on your online reputation.

Should I pay for Google Ads on my business’s branded keywords?

The answer here is typically yes. Bidding on your branded keywords ensures your competitors cannot rank for them. As Abigail Beene with HawkSEM says, your competitors may attempt to bid on your keywords so their business will outrank yours.

She says: “If you have someone searching for your company, they will want to appear next to you or above you on the search results page so potential customers can check out their brand instead.”

If customers are searching for your business’s name, you’ll want to make sure your brand name comes up first in the search results. Try to set aside a small amount of your advertising budget to ensure you show up at the top of the search engine results page.

Are there some situations in which my business shouldn’t pay for Google Ads on branded keywords?

Believe it or not, there are some disadvantages to bidding on your own branded keywords. According to HawkSEM, here are the situations in which you should not bid on your branded keywords:

• You have a strong organic presence — Bidding on branded keywords helps to ensure your business name comes up when consumers search for you. But if you already have a strong organic search presence, there’s no need to spend money on your keywords.
• You’ve got a limited budget — If you only have limited money set aside for advertising, bid on non-branded keywords instead. That will help you cast a wider net for potential customers.
• You have minimal competition — Bidding on branded keywords ensures that your competition can’t rank for those keywords instead. But if you don’t have the competition, there’s no need to spend that money.

What do I do if a competitor is already buying my branded keywords?

As of June 2019, Google abolished the restrictions that stopped brands from bidding on a competitor’s branded keyword. Competitors just can’t use your trademarked brand name in ad copy. If you find yourself in that situation, you have a few options:

• Own your brand name — When someone else buys your branded keywords, they’re not interested in posting ads promoting your business. Write strategic ad copy that positions your brand in a positive way and attracts customers.
• Reach out directly to the competitor — It doesn’t hurt to reach out directly to your competitor and ask them to remove those ads. In some cases, your competition may not actually be aware that it bid on your keywords. An advertising agency may have done that on their behalf.
• File a trademark complaint with search engines — If your brand name is trademarked, you can file a trademark complaint to prevent all advertisers from using your brand keywords in ad copy. This won’t stop 100% of infringements, but it should greatly reduce them.
• Bid on your competition’s brand keywords — If your competitor owns your keywords, beat them at their own game. Keep in mind that if you bid on another brand’s keywords, your cost-per-click (CPC) will be higher. But if you have the resources, there are benefits to the cost. Search Engine Journal says, “By targeting the competitor that bought your brand, you could force their CPCs higher, steal some of their lead volumes, and potentially force them to stop bidding on your brand name, which is a good thing.”

TL;DR: Turn to LNP Media Group to Get Your Small Business Noticed 

Our passion at LNP Media Group is serving small businesses in the Lancaster County area. Our digital marketing team has the tools, experience, and knowledge to reach exactly the audience your company wants at the right time. We’re proud to say that we have earned Google Partner status with thorough training and stellar results for our clients.

We provide a number of services to drive customers to your business and guarantee that your digital advertising campaigns are optimized for the best performance. Our digital marketing services include display, SEO, email marketing, paid search (PPC), social media marketing, and more.

LNP Media Group’s digital agency has a proven history of success. Contact us today to get started.

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Have you done a Google search for your product lately and noticed a curious change in search results?

Lately, no matter your search query, Reddit posts have been coming up excessively in Google product review search results. As of February 2024, Search Engine Land says, “Reddit shows up 97.5% of the time in Google Search product review queries and accounts for nearly two-thirds of the slots reserved for Google’s Discussions and forums SERP feature.” The article goes on to dive into this new wrinkle in the Google search algorithm:

“An analysis of 10,000 key phrases found that discussions and forums appear 77% (7,702) of the time. Overall, 766 individual forums appeared, but just Reddit and Quora had 3X greater visibility than every other forum:

• Reddit appeared in 7,509 results and was featured 14,263 times.
• Quora appeared in 3,513 results and was featured 3,832 times.
• Every other domain (766 of them), combined, appeared 4,989 times, with most sites never getting a second listing like Reddit. Some were inactive but there were no new forums or any forums with a low number of posts.”

The results speak for themselves. While a Reddit spokesperson has denied it to Search Engine Land, Google is clearly pushing Reddit. Unfortunately, that visibility leads to Reddit spam. While not all of Reddit is spam, Search Engine Land found that much of the content within these Reddit links were affiliate URLs and AI-generated comments.

What Does this Mean for Small Business Owners?

Other industry insiders have offered insight into why Reddit has begun to dominate Google search results. For one, Reddit can sometimes be helpful to people. In 2022, Google published a blog post explaining it decided to add an extra “E” to its E-A-T Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. That new “E” stood for “experience,” as Google determined an online forum where people discuss their experiences with different services is sometimes helpful. Reddit also helps Google’s AI systems by better demonstrating how people talk.

Those reasons have their merit. However, they don’t provide any comfort to small business owners who are watching this algorithm change take away traffic from their websites. It can be hard to keep up with Google’s latest changes, so you need to be proactive. You should regularly take the following steps to protect your website traffic:

• Use paid search ads, as they are now appearing more and more strongly at the top of search engine results pages.
• Regularly post engaging content to your social media sites to drive traffic to your website.
• Build your YouTube channel with high-quality video content that drives viewers to your website.

In this article, we’ll walk you through how to achieve each of these goals so you’ll feel more confident in keeping your site’s Google’s organic search traffic strong.

An Overview of Paid Search Ads

As SEMrush says, “Paid search advertising is a digital marketing strategy where brands pay to display their ads on major search engines.” On Google, these are known as pay-per-click (PPC) ads. PPC ads can be text, display, or video. The goal of these advertisements are to appear at the top of Google search engine results pages.

This is important because when people search on Google, only up to four ads are eligible to show above the search results. Google’s Quality Score factors determine when an ad is successful and thus appears at the top of search results. The factors they consider to determine your ad placement include bid amount, ad quality, and landing page quality. It should go without saying that well-crafted ads with relevant content will score higher than others.

What are the Benefits of Paid Search Ads?

Well-executed paid search ads can greatly improve your digital marketing strategy results. Here are some benefits that you can expect:

• You’ll be able to efficiently reach your target audience: You can target your audience through paid search ads based on relevant keywords. You can also segment further based on location, language, search behaviors, and more. With this level of precision, you’ll have a better chance of reaching people who are the most likely to engage with your brand.
• Paid search ads are a cost-effective tactic — Paid search ads only have to be paid for when someone clicks on your ad. This tactic gives you better advertising budget control. You’ll be able to decide ahead of time how much you’re going to pay for each keyword. You’ll also be able to set a maximum daily spend limit to keep your ad budget where it needs to be.
• You’ll see effective and immediate results — Paid search ads provide results faster than other marketing strategies like SEO-optimized content. That’s because your ads will appear in search results and start driving traffic as soon as your new campaign goes live. These campaigns are also measurable, as you’ll be able to track the number of ad clicks and impressions to conversions and return on investment (ROI).
• The market dictates the price of keywords — Market demand and the resulting competition for specific keywords determine the cost of paid search ads. So if your preferred keyword is a bit expensive, you can bid on a similar word or phrase with lower competition. That will keep your ad costs down while still bringing your target audience to your website.

How to Use Your Social Media Platforms to Drive Traffic To Your Website

One of the easiest and most effective ways to drive high-quality traffic to your website is by staying engaged across your social media channels. If you start by engaging with your followers, that will help to get more eyes on your posts and various platforms. That, in turn, will help to grow brand familiarity. Once you have that expanded social presence, you can leverage it to drive traffic back to your website.

Keep in mind that this won’t be a one-size-fits-all strategy. It changes depending on which social network you are on. Here’s a look at how you can leverage YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram to drive more traffic to your business’s website.

How to Promote Your Business Effectively On YouTube

You can create a YouTube channel for free for your business through YouTube Advertising. This provides you one spot to post product tutorials, walk-throughs, and event footage to your most engaged followers. YouTube boasts the following stats on the effectiveness of YouTube Advertising:

• 72 percent of small businesses think getting started on YouTube is easy.
• 65 percent of small-business owners with a YouTube channel say they use it to showcase their products and services.
• 85 percent of viewers turn to YouTube for fresh content.

To begin leveraging your YouTube channel for business, you should start by customizing your channel. Add a channel icon and banner to represent your brand. Then, fill out your business information. Provide a concise mission statement in the channel description and insert your business website and other social media networks in the links section.

Once you’re all set up, you can begin to find your brand’s biggest fans by using the channel to your advantage. Start creating videos and leverage the following tricks:

• Encourage viewers to subscribe – Create an engaging video that shows off your product or service. End the video by encouraging viewers to subscribe to your channel. It’s the best way to let your audience know when you’ve uploaded a video or created a new playlist.
• Leverage cross-promotion across social media — Did you create a video you’re really proud of? Share it on Facebook and Instagram too! When you have a great piece of content, the more eyes on it the better.
• Use the right keywords in a video’s title, tags and description — Be strategic with the keywords you use in titles, tags, and descriptions. But don’t go after broad keywords, aim for more local, specific keywords. That will help to optimize your videos for SEO.
• Work with influencers — Partner with a relevant influencer to create a video that showcases your product and service. The right influencer’s audience will be directly interested in what you sell, which can help drive more traffic to your website.

How to Promote Your Business on Facebook

Facebook boasts more than 3 billion monthly active users, making it a great place to promote your business. With a Facebook Business page, you can direct a portion of those users to your website. When you leverage Facebook for business, you’ll reap the following benefits:

• Engage with new and loyal existing customers
• Gain a better understanding of your audience through precise analytics
• Drive traffic to your website or landing page
• Promote your products and services in one place
• Reach more potential customers

In order to get the most out of your Facebook Business page, you need to complete your business page profile. Provide appropriate contact information and, if you have a physical storefront, add that location. Include hours of operation along with a profile picture and cover image that accurately represent your business. Finally, add a call-to-action (CTA) button that encourages people to engage further with your business by visiting your website.

After that, it’s time to create some high-quality ads. One way to make those ads as effective as possible is to make really good content. As Wordstream says, “to get the lowest possible cost per click on your Facebook ads, priority number one is making your content so good that it encourages positive engagement.” Facebook’s algorithm will take notice when people share your content. When that happens, Facebook will show your ads to even more people.

How to Drive Website Traffic from Instagram

A common complaint about Instagram is that it doesn’t allow users to add clickable links to their posts. While links like that are the simplest way to bring your audience back to your website, there are other ways to drive traffic back to your site. Here are some ways to do that:

• Leverage your Instagram bio — When you initially set up your business’s Instagram profile, put your business website as the link in your Instagram bio, then you can update that link as much as you want. Swap it out when you have a new campaign page, featured news story, or anything else relevant. Draw attention to a new link in the captions of your posts.
• Curate relevant Instagram stories highlights — If you want your Instagram stories to last beyond 24 hours, leverage the highlights feature. Come up with some relevant, evergreen themes. Create high-quality stories that belong under those umbrellas. Make sure each highlight includes a relevant call-to-action that urges users to go to your business’s website.
• Partner with Instagram influencers — If you need to work on building your Instagram presence, partner with an influencer in your industry. Work with them on creating high-quality content that promotes your products or services. Make sure those videos include links to your website. That can bring a brand-new batch of potential customers to your website.
• Add Instagram action buttons to your profile — Are you creating good and engaging content on your Instagram profile and still not seeing a boost in traffic to your website? Consider adding an action button to your profile to see if that helps. That button can lead to whatever page or action you want, which could drive more conversions.

TL;DR Boost Your Social Media Marketing with LNP Media Group

Getting a steady stream of traffic to your business’s website can be tough, especially as Google’s algorithms are constantly changing. However, much of your audience spends a lot of time on Instagram, Youtube, and Facebook, so it’s time to meet them there. Our team can help develop and execute highly effective paid search and social media campaigns that align with your brand and offer consistent messaging that will drive customers to your website.

LNP Media Group’s digital marketing experts are a Google Partner and are Meta Certified to provide your business with paid search ads and social media ads that work.

Contact us to get started today

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These days, you can buy nearly anything you want online — from clothes to furniture, even cars. Online shopping is a booming, multi-billion dollar industry. Thanks to new technology, consumers can view high-quality videos, images, and descriptions of products with a few clicks. With all that level of convenience, it’s no surprise that online shopping continues to thrive.

But as technology continues to evolve, it’s changed how consumers approach online shopping. Since social media has become a mainstay within society, it’s become intrinsically tied to online shopping.

In this article, we’ll discuss social media shopping, also known as social commerce or social e-commerce. We’ll offer best practices for businesses in the retail space to put into practice. You’ll walk away with a better understanding of social commerce and how to incorporate it into your social media strategy.

What is Social Commerce?

As Sprout Social says, social commerce is all about the buying and selling of products or services right within a social media channel. That means consumers can complete the entire buyer journey within a social media platform. For example, someone can be scrolling through social media and find a post promoting a pair of shoes.

Thanks to social commerce, a consumer can click a button that says “buy now,” and complete the transaction without leaving the app. Social commerce provides a huge opportunity by meeting your audience where they are.

What are the Benefits of Social Commerce? 

There’s a reason social commerce has become so popular. It provides many benefits to businesses that know how to use it well. Here are some that you can expect:

• You’ll have the opportunity to reach a wide audience — As Sprout Social says, more than 5 billion people use social media worldwide. It’s estimated that there will be 110.4 million US social media buyers by the end of 2024 — that’s half of all social media users. The size of this audience can open the door for your business to connect with a huge number of potential new customers. As more people join social media platforms every day, you’ll have an opportunity to see your own customer base grow, too.
• Convert customers where they are — It’s ideal to make the customer journey as frictionless as possible. So if your audience is already on social media, why not convert them there? If your customers can buy an item they’re interested in on the spot, they’ll be more likely to follow through with the purchase. Also, by converting customers in channels that they frequent, you may even see your customer retention rate grow.
• Establish social proof — When your audience can’t test out or try on your product, reviews and recommendations are key. Social media is a great channel to get as many recommendations as possible. If you create engaging social content, you’ll attract new followers. If you interact with new and existing followers, they’ll be more likely to leave you positive reviews. As Sprout Social says, “As your engagement grows with new reviews coming in, it sends a positive signal to social media algorithms. These algorithms will deem your content relevant to even more potential customers.”
• Learn about your customers’ social media habits — When you execute a social commerce strategy, you’ll have access to your customers’ social profiles. If you tie these insights into social media listening, you’ll have a direct line into your customers’ habits and interests.

What is the Difference Between Social Commerce and E-Commerce? 

E-commerce is traditional internet shopping. As Vidjet says, it centers around customers buying your products through your website or mobile application. In a traditional e-commerce set up, consumers can browse and purchase your products through your business’s site.

Social commerce refers to the implementation of product sales through social media channels. That means that customers can buy something directly through one of your social media profiles. They can browse, purchase, make a payment, and leave a review all in one place.

Different Kinds of Social Commerce

Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok are among the most popular social commerce platforms. Here’s how each channel applies social commerce tactics:

• Facebook and Instagram — Meta offers Shops on Facebook and Instagram. Meta calls Shops an online shop for people to browse, explore and purchase your products directly on Facebook and Instagram. The platform offers customizable collections and design tools. That lets you show off your business’s featured products, thus bringing your brand to life and make shopping frictionless on social media.
• Pinterest — On Pinterest, business owners can create Product Pins. Pinterest calls these, “shoppable Pins, formatted to display accurate and relevant product information.” You can create Product Pins in one of two ways:
• Upload your product catalog to Pinterest and create Pins for each of your products
• Add meta tags to your website so people can save Product Pins directly from your site.
• TikTok —  TikTok Shop “enables brands and sellers to showcase and sell products on TikTok, through a suite of in-app shopping touch points.” TikTok goes on to say that Shop is a one-stop-shop for driving brand growth and sales right on TikTok. Anyone tuned into social media knows that TikTok’s popularity continues to rise. As 70% of TikTok users find new brands and products they like right on TikTok, it’s a great channel for businesses to take advantage of.

Social Commerce Best Practices

If you want to weave social commerce into your business strategy, you need to have a confident grasp on best practices. Here are some to consider:

• Implement omni-channel experiences — Connect your social media platforms to the rest of your business. This creates an omni-channel buyer journey. Make sure your support and service offerings are consistent across all channels. As Salesforce says, customers will be more loyal to companies that provide consistency. Engage often and provide a through line for branding and messaging across all channels. Customers want the same experience across every branch of your business. Your social media networks should be an extension of that.
• Experiment with augmented reality (AR) experiences — Studies show that AR is on the rise among consumers. Social media is already a big driver of AR usage. As Shopify says, Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok are already leveraging AR filters. Retailers can jump on this trend by using these filters to demonstrate their products or allow customers to virtually try them on. This will help to give consumers more confidence in their purchase.
• Produce more video content — It’s a general rule of thumb across the board that video content performs well on social media. TikTok’s massive popularity is proof of that. According to Wyzowl, 89% of people state they have been convinced to purchase a product or service by viewing that brand’s video. Videos can be leveraged as a way to show off products, create behind-the-scenes livestreams, conduct video consultations, and offer personalized product recommendations.
• Work with micro-influencers — Marketing Dive states that 81% of consumers will trust a social media influencer’s recommendation over a brand’s own marketing message. While you may not have the budget to work with a big-name influencer, you can always work with a micro-influencer. They’ll have a specific audience type, usually local, that will make it easier on you to target different demographics. Their followers will trust their recommendations.
• Leverage user-generated content — Some of your most influential social media content won’t come from your own brand. It’ll be posting or resharing user-generated content (UGC) from real customers. Images from happy consumers will help to generate the social proof that users want to see before making a purchase. In fact, Hootsuite states that nearly 80% of people say that UGC highly impacts their purchasing decisions. You can encourage your followers to submit UGC by creating hashtag challenges or by jumping on current content trends on social and using those in your campaigns.
• Use AI-trained chatbots — Shopify says that 41% of consumers want live chat while they’re shopping online. Social media platforms are now part of the online shopping experience. That means that you should make your live chat accessible through those networks. Customers want to interact with brands the same way they talk with friends. Live chat through social commerce is what will help your brand become more sociable and interactive.
• Use targeted ads — Targeted advertising is a great way to ensure that you reach the right audience at the right time. When you use targeted ads on social media, you can ensure that your message is reaching the right potential customers. Influencer Marketing Hub says that 49% of consumers decide what to buy based on targeted advertising. Consumers may not click on a specific ad right away. But the more that consumers see your ad present on their timeline, the more likely they will be to eventually make a purchase. But make sure that your ad content has the right tone for your desired audience. Sellers Fi says that “Millennial and Gen Z shoppers are often looking for a laugh, while Gen X and Boomers crave a more traditional ad experience.”
• Create a frictionless experience — Even though you might be able to entice consumers to make a purchase, your audience doesn’t want to feel like they’re shopping while they’re scrolling social media. They’re looking at videos and checking out their friends’ profiles. Stumbling upon your brand and product should just naturally fall somewhere in that process. Lean into that experience by offering features like one-tap payments and stored contact information to make the sale. The fewer steps in your purchasing process on social media, the better. Eliminate every unnecessary step that you can.
• Interact with your audience — Don’t be an invisible presence on social media. Interact with your audience. Social media is full of opinions — the good, the bad, and everything in between. But you can only gain access to those insights if you engage with your followers. Build relationships with your audience. Take the time to really listen and learn. Those efforts can help to produce your next product idea or customer win. When customers see those positive results, they’ll become advocates for your brand.

TL;DR — Master Social Media Shopping with LNP Media Group

We don’t need to sell you on the importance of social media, it’s found its way into nearly every aspect of daily life and shopping is no exception. If your business is in the retail space, it’s important that you learn how to tie the two together. Engaging in social commerce offers a myriad of benefits to businesses like yours. Jump on best practices such as implementing omni-channel experiences, producing video content, working with micro-influencers and more to reap those benefits and watch the social side of your business take off.

But in order to get there, you need a social media marketing strategy. Social media has become one of the most effective tools for targeted digital marketing. Our team is Meta Certified meaning that you’ll be working with people who have deep knowledge of how to make social media work for your online shopping sales.

At LNP Media Group, your results matter to us. Contact us today to learn how we can work together.

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