Do you feel like your digital advertising campaigns need a boost but you don’t know where to start? Are your social media campaigns struggling to bring in the results and reach your local small to medium sized business’s needs? Before your ads miss any more valuable views, clicks, and conversions, consider reading through this digital campaign targeting guide provided by your local media agency. This guide, written by the digital marketing experts at LNP Media Group, will help you to get a better understanding of how to efficiently reach, engage, and inform your target market.

Digital Campaign Targeting Basics

Before choosing an online campaign strategy and running your campaign, it is essential to know which people, and how many of them, you need to reach in order to drive revenue for your business. Targeting the right audience demographics will help ensure that you’re choosing to spend your money in the right places. One factor to consider is how long it may take someone to decide to buy your product. For example, if you’re selling an impulse buy like discount priced clothing or shoes, your target audience will probably be larger and broader than if your product is a more expensive item like a dishwasher. This is because a household appliance is a “considered purchase”, meaning potential buyers will take the time to research which dishwasher brand is known to last the longest, and which brand is best for their price range. Campaigns for considered purchases should target an audience that is more tightly defined because you want to reach people who are actively researching dishwashers.

To get an idea of the right location targeting for your ads, think about how far your customers are willing to travel to obtain your product or service. If you provide a specialty service that specific people would seek out, like physical therapy for severe scoliosis, you may want to set your location targeting to a 50-mile radius of your address, if that is a reasonable drive time to your practice. If you own a local pharmacy downtown, you may want to keep your location targeting to a 15-20-mile radius around your pharmacy, since people normally don’t want to travel too far to pick up their prescriptions. This type of thought process will help you avoid wasting money on mis-targeted impressions and will present your ads to people in the right geographic areas.

Google Ads Overview

One of the most utilized online advertising platforms at LNP Media Group is Google Ads. Advertising on Google is one of the most cost effective and viable online marketing strategies that a business owner can choose. Google Ads is also fully transparent with regard to results because it uses a UTM tracking string within the URL of each ad that you create. When you create a campaign with Google Ads, your campaign’s report will show you exactly how many clicks, impressions, and phone calls your ad generated. You can also clearly see the effectiveness of your ad by looking at the click through rate percentage (CTR) and your cost per click (CPC). Once you decide how much you’re willing to spend for each possible lead, you can set a more refined budget for Google Ads and start seeing a better conversion rate.

Within Google Ads, you can target your ads to your preferred audience by choosing which audience segment you think your business attracts the most. An audience segment is a group of people with similar interests and demographics. Google will allow you to select the gender, age, household income, and parental status of your audience. You can also restrict your ads from serving to certain audience demographics as well. After your ads have been serving, Google Ads will show you the demographic data obtained from the ad’s actual clicks and views. Now that you can clearly see the success rate of the ads within your chosen demographics, you have a better idea of exactly who in your targeted audience is seeking out your product or service. With this valuable information in hand, you can narrow your targeting to that same type of audience that is already responding and thus improve your campaign’s performance. Remember that different campaign types within Google Ads will have different success rates based on the types of audience targeting that best fits each campaign.

Google Ads – Paid Search

Google Ads offers an array of different campaign options and one of their most popular choices is the pay per click search campaign (PPC or paid search). The targeting options that work best for a paid search campaign are location, keywords, in-market audiences, and remarketing list targeting. It is important to target your paid search ads to locations where it makes sense to sell or deliver your product. It is also essential to include only relevant keywords in your paid search ad’s heading, since this is what Google uses to serve your ads based on the search terms entered by a user. Many advertisers are focused exclusively on finding new customers, but using a remarketing list is an effective way to reach people who have already visited your site or app and interacted with your ads. You can also use the same demographic profile as your remarketing list to target people actively searching for your product or service, otherwise known as an in-market audience.

Google Ads – Display

If you would like to take a more creative approach, and provide a visual of your product or service, Google Ads offers the ability to upload image ads and GIFs. Unlike the paid search ads mentioned above, display ad campaigns allow your image ads to be presented across the Google Display Network, which is “a collection of over two million websites that reach over 90% of Internet users across the globe”, according to Google. Of course if there are Google-owned sites that you would rather not have your ad shown on, you can restrict your ads from showing on those sites by excluding them in the Placements tab in your Google Ads menu.

The best targeting methods to use for display campaigns are location, demographics, topic placement, keywords, affinity audiences, and custom audience segmentation. Before defining these types of targeting strategies, we first recommend that you categorize your ads into ad groups based on which goal you’re setting for each group. Maybe you want to run a group of display ads to target Lancaster, Lititz, Ephrata, New Holland, Elizabethtown, Quarryville and Strasburg, but also want to try an ad group targeted to Philadelphia to gain brand awareness and reach. Within your ad groups, you can also assign location, audience segments, demographics, and keywords to each group.

Google Ads – Topic Placement, Affinity, and Custom Audiences

A targeting strategy that is unique to display campaigns is Topic Placement targeting. With Topic Placement, Google Ads will serve your display ad on any Google Display Network site that relates to the topic of your advertised product. As mentioned before, Affinity audiences are pre-made audience segments provided by Google that match your ideal target audience based off your previous ad demographics. The difference between Affinity and Custom audience segmentation is that Affinity audiences are pre-made segments of people created by Google based on their demographics, while Custom audiences are audience segments created by you. To create Custom audiences, you can enter websites, keywords, and different topics of interest, which Google will use to generate an audience of people that match those attributes.

Google Ads – Shopping

Like display ad campaigns, Google Ads also offers users the ability to create a shopping ad campaign that shows ads with product images. This best utilized to target people who are searching for a specific product to buy. For example, if your business sells skis and you want to increase your ski pole sales during the winter months, your business could benefit from creating a shopping campaign. Just upload a picture of the product you want to sell, enter the price, and then the display link. This helps the viewer know exactly where the shopping ad will take them if they click it. Because this is a campaign that will have a very specific audience, the targeting methods that we suggest for this type of campaign are remarketing list, location targeting, and remarketing audiences. Shopping campaign ads can appear anywhere in the shopping tab in Google, YouTube, Gmail, and the Google Display Network.

Social Media

One of the most popular strategies for online advertising is social media platforms. Depending on their campaign goals, many companies will advertise on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, or YouTube. The trick to advertising on social media is first setting a goal for your online ads. Are you trying to raise awareness of your brand? Do you offer specialty services that are difficult to find? Do you need to increase sales for specific products? It is helpful to work with social media experts, like LNP Media Group, to ensure that your social media ad spend is targeted correctly to ensure best possible results.

Social Media – Facebook and Instagram

If your business’s goal is to gain brand awareness, Facebook and Instagram are known to have huge success rates for branding campaigns. Facebook and Instagram are a package deal when it comes to social media advertising. You can structure the exact same look and targeting method for each campaign and it will post on both Instagram and Facebook. According to Facebook, there is an “80% greater discovery for new brands or products on Facebook than on brand or retailer websites”. Facebook and Instagram are great choices not only for large businesses to expand their reach, but also for small to medium-sized businesses that want to target a local area. Another statistic from Facebook informs us “Over 10 million businesses have used Facebook advertising, the majority of which are small to medium-sized businesses”.

Facebook and Instagram give advertisers the ability to reach what they call “Core Audiences” which are audiences based on interests, age, and geography. You also have the option to use their Custom Audience targeting method, which is similar to the remarketing lists in Google Ads. This method allows you to reconnect with people who have visited your site or engaged with your business on or offline. You can also target what Facebook calls a “Lookalike” audience. This method targets people who have similar demographics as your current best and most engaged customers. From this selection of audience targeting, it is clear that if you’re looking to give your business more reach, Facebook is a great platform to explore.

Social Media – LinkedIn

If your business is advertising to fill open positions, consider LinkedIn’s targeting abilities and transparent reach. LinkedIn has stated that their platform has the ability to “combine targeting criteria to build your ideal persona: IT decision makers, C-level executives, prospective students, small business owners, and more.” With LinkedIn you can post an ad for open positions and review potential candidate’s profiles. LinkedIn is so transparent that you can see proof of people’s qualifications in their profile and make an informed decision on whether you should reach out to them.

Social Media – YouTube

For businesses that are trying to expand their reach, we suggest leveraging video ads on YouTube. Businesses advertise on YouTube to connect with their audience on a more personal level. When you can convey the story of your business and show your product, you can build a better connection with your audience by captivating their attention. The targeting methods used by YouTube are demographic grouping, interests, placements, and remarketing. You can even choose specific audiences based on what content they are currently viewing on YouTube. YouTube provides an array of different video ad formats, such as skippable ads, non-skippable ads, in-feed video ads, and bumper ads. You can manage your YouTube video campaign through the Google Ads platform. Within Google Ads, you can upload the desired video ad and monitor how it is performing.

SOCIAL MEDIA – TikTok

The most recent social media platform that advertisers have started utilizing is TikTok. TikTok is an app where users upload 15-60 second videos, and which allows for the placement of video ads. With an audience that spans across 150 countries, TikTok is a great tool to use for gaining reach and engagement from your target audience. Similar to the previously mentioned Google Ads platform, TikTok allows businesses to create ad groups with specific target audiences for each. Like Facebook, you can also create Custom and Lookalike audiences within TikTok. TikTok includes a wide variety of targeting options such as gender, age, location, interests, internet connection type, device model, phone carriers, and even the price of the user’s device.

One unique aspect of TikTok’s targeting is its ability to track user behaviors. Behaviors are user interactions with TikTok creators and videos such as liking, commenting, watching, following creators, and viewing creator’s profiles. TikTok even focuses on the interest categories that each user interacts with the most within the app to drive ads and additional videos of the like to the viewer’s device. The user behavior tracking and interest category algorithms are so precise, that you shouldn’t be surprised that if you like a TikTok with cute and fluffy kittens, your TikTok feed becomes populated with kittens of all kinds.

One important factor to keep in mind is that TikTok’s audience consists of 47% of users between the ages of 10-29 and 42% of users between the ages of 30-49. Statista.com states that this leaves only 11% of TikTok’s audience in the 50+ age category. Based on these statistics, advertising on TikTok is not for every business’s target market, so if your product or service would not be of interest to the Gen Z and Millennial audience, you may want to consider advertising on a different social platform.

Although there are other social media platforms to advertise on, these five are the most popular. No matter which platform you pick, remember that you can save time and money by working with a Lancaster digital agency that is experienced in all the nuance and detail of social media marketing.

LancasterOnline.com and LancasterFarming.com

If you are interested in advertising your small to medium sized business to a strictly local audience, we suggest advertising on LancasterOnline or LancasterFarming. We have a wide variety of targeting options provided by Google Ad Manager 360. These options include targeting by IP address, by device type, by zip code, radius, browser language, or browser type. You have the option of choosing display ads, which only show on browsers, or on the LancasterOnline or LancasterFarming mobile app.

Targeting people by their IP address is similar to targeting people by location because an IP address identifies a device on the internet. If you want to target by zip code, Google Ads 360 will give you an estimated radius of how far your ads will reach based on that location. If you would rather save money on ads and only serve them on certain devices, you can restrict your ads from serving on certain device types. For example, if you are trying to run a campaign for your business’s new app, you may want to only target your ads to phones and tablets because these devices can download apps. If you find that most of your customers prefer Google Chrome to Microsoft Edge, or if you prefer how your ads render on Google Chrome rather than Safari, you can restrict your ads to serve on only on specific browsers.

In addition to targeting by audience attributes, LancasterOnline and LancasterFarming also offer the option of targeting by content type. LancasterOnline is the largest news website in Lancaster County, reaching over 1 million unique users per month. LancasterFarming is the largest agricultural news site in the mid-Atlantic region with over 100,000 unique users per month. For both of these sites you can target users based on the type of content they read. For LancasterOnline, key topics are sports, entertainment, breaking news, crime, food, business, home & garden, and health. For LancasterFarming, key topics are dairy, equine, crops, beef, recipes, antiques, history, livestock, and farm life. On both of these sites you can also target based on ad position. For example, the large ad at the top of the page is a premium position called the reveal ad, while the small ad at the bottom of each page is called the sticky anchor.

Because of our digital campaign targeting expertise, Lancaster’s local recruitment company known as PA Career Link chose to advertise their upcoming job fair with LNP Media Group. Our digital marketing team created and sent out email blasts, posted and maintained PA Career Link’s online advertisements on Facebook, and featured ads on LancasterOnline to raise local awareness about their job fair. Because of our integrated, multi-channel marketing campaign, our team attracted 350 local job seekers to the job fair, while other job fairs in the same year had struggled to bring in even 50. Click here to learn more about PA Career Link’s success with LNP Media Group.

OTT, CTV and Video

Digital advertising media that are often overlooked are OTT, CTV, and video ads. OTT stands for Over the Top because this type of ad placement only shows on top of streaming networks such as Hulu, Netflix, and Disney Plus, served via the internet. The targeting options available with OTT advertising are home demographics, state, designated market area (a broad metro area designation) and zip code. CTV advertising is a type of OTT that serves video ads on TVs connected to the internet, like smart TVs. These ads will serve on networks such as Roku, Amazon Fire Stick, and PlayStation. However, CTV does not allow specific household targeting options. Video ads are 15-30 second videos that serve on websites and apps, like ads on YouTube as discussed previously. These can be viewed on a desktop, tablet, or mobile device. With video ads, you can target a wide variety of users. You can target people by their behaviors and interests, zip code, age range, gender, education, parenting status, household income, and annual income.

Conclusion

Are you ready for your small to medium sized local business to try digital advertising? Or are you already using digital ad campaigns but have been disappointed with the results? Whether your business is focused strictly on Lancaster County or anywhere in the U.S., the digital marketing experts at LNP Media Group will help you achieve your digital campaign goals. We work closely with your team and we are fully transparent every step of the way. Whether your goal is to raise your brand awareness or generate more leads and more product sales, you’ll find that our deep experience will drive campaign results that are better than any other digital agency in the area. Contact us to today for an absolutely free, no commitment marketing strategy session.

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As a local business, you may not have time to pay close attention to the goings-on at Google. However, changes in Google’s search engine algorithms can affect businesses across the globe, including mom and pop businesses right here in Lancaster County. If any portion of your new customers find your business via an internet search, then your business can be impacted whenever Google makes a change. In this article we’ll summarize what Google’s algorithm changes are and what they mean for your business.

First – the basics

Why do Google updates matter? They matter because Google’s algorithms control what appears in search results. So, if a local consumer types “hardware store near me” into Google, Google decides whether or not your hardware store’s website appears in the list of results and, if it does appear, how high on the list. Google’s algorithms change frequently, many times per year. So, while your hardware store might have appeared at the top of the list last time you checked, it might not appear that high on the list after a Google update. Appearing high on the list of search results is important because most consumers don’t scroll past the first page of search results.

There are two types of Google updates, regular updates and core updates. Regular updates are generally unheralded in the mainstream press and have smaller impacts on specific types of searches. Regular updates happen frequently. An example of a regular update was an April 2021 update for search results for product reviews. That type of update would only affect sites that have product reviews, like e-commerce sites. Google also regularly does spam updates to attempt to keep junk websites from appearing in searches.

The other type of update is a core update. Core updates only happen a few times a year. Core updates are broad in scope and affect most types of searches. An important Google blog post about core updates can be found here and it is definitely worth a read. As Google explains in that blog post, their focus is on high quality, original, trustworthy content when determining which sites will outrank other sites in search. Google is continually assessing the content of every website to determine if it is relevant, valuable, and useful to searchers. In Google’s perfect world, every time a user searches for something, Google would provide the perfect website as the first result.

Google uses the acronym E-A-T to summarize how it identifies quality websites: E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness.

• Expertise – Google has different expertise requirements for different types of content. For example, a site that has product reviews from ordinary users can rank highly for expertise since these users, even though they don’t have expert credentials, can be considered experts because they have used the product. However, for YMYL sites (Your Money or Your Life) the standards are higher. YMYL sites are focused on content such as health, news, safety, law, finance, and shopping. Google has higher expectations for YMYL sites and will look for site authors to have relevant credentials.

• Authority – Google assesses your site’s authority by looking for links to your site from other sites, as well as mentions of your site on other sites. If your site’s content is widely cited and shared by other sites that’s an indication to Google that your site has authority.

• Trust – Google assesses trust by noting several attributes on your site, such as: privacy policy, terms of service including refunds and exchanges, clear contact information, product specifications (if applicable), product reviews (if applicable), and positive reviews on other sites.

Overall, if you think about the content on your own site from an E-A-T perspective, you’ll have a clear lens through which to assess whether your site’s content meets Google’s definition of quality.

Because Google is always trying to make search results more relevant for users, it needs to do regular updates to its algorithms. So if your store’s website dropped down in search results after a Google update, it’s because something in your website’s content or metadata is no longer considered by Google to be as relevant to that particular search as it used to be. This is actually a good thing in the long run because the more relevant Google’s search results are to users, the more users will trust Google to provide the right information. This means that when your business’s website appears in a Google search results page, consumers will trust that your business will satisfy the need they searched for. However, as you’ll read in the paragraphs ahead, Google’s updates don’t always work perfectly or predictably.

The best way to increase the likelihood that your business’s site appears in relevant searches is to pay continual attention to your site’s search performance. This is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You can read more about SEO here and here. Most small to medium sized businesses do not have the resources for an in-house SEO expert. If this is the case for your business, then you should invest in a shared SEO expert through contracting with a Lancaster County digital agency such as LNP Media Group. While an SEO expert cannot 100% “future proof” your site against Google algorithm changes, an SEO expert will stay on top of Google algorithm changes and will help your site respond appropriately. This will make your site “future responsive” and help your site achieve and maintain good organic search placement over the years.

What changes after updates?

Google does not directly state the detail of changes in their core updates, but resources like Search Engine Journal and SEM Rush publish articles with observations and information from SEO experts. Reviewing multiple such sources revealed the following list of significant changes and impacts from updates.

1. Volatility – Many experts report that there has been significant volatility in search rankings (and thus in traffic generated by searches) after core updates. Experts have indicated that some sites may have gained traffic after a core update, only to lose it after the another core update, or vice versa. This is because every update may have unintended consequences in search results which, as they become apparent, may require a correction in a succeeding update. If your site’s organic traffic has experienced a sharp dip or boost, it may be because of this post-update volatility. Consult your local SEO expert to understand the specific factors that may be in play on your site.

2. Certain types of sites were more affected than others – According to SEM Rush, Google core updates affect almost all industries. However, some industries are uusually slightly more affected than others. If your business is in an YMYL category, your website is more likely to experience search/traffic volatility than other types of sites. Generally speaking, Google is especially cautious about content on health, medical and financial sites because searches that produce links to spammy health, medical or financial sites can have a significant negative impact on users. When just looking at the mobile web, sites that are in other industries like real estate, people/society, and beauty/fitness may also experience increased volatility in search rankings after core updates. The specific reason behind this mobile web volatility for certain industries that are not YMYL is not clear. If your site has been affected, consult a local digital agency for an SEO consultation.

3. Certain sized sites may be more affected than others – In 2021, also according to SEM Rush, sites with small to medium sized traffic (500k or fewer views per month) were more affected by the core updates than large sites in some core updates. That was relevant to Lancaster PA businesses because most businesses in our area will have sites with small to medium amounts of traffic. However, other core updates in 2023, for example, did not seem to affect sites by size. Again, check with your local SEO expert to understand the impact of core updates each year.

4. Sites with common content – Sites that publish content that is readily available on other sites (think song lyrics, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and business directories) may experience more volatility than other types of sites as a result of Google core updates. This is because the identical nature of the content makes it hard for Google to determine which sites should rank higher. Although this should not be an issue for local Pennsylvania business sites, a solution to this issue is to always add unique, relevant, value-added content to any pages that have commonly available content.

5. Reviews – Google releases updates focusing on sites with reviews. and as-of 2023 “reviews” includes not just product reviews, but any type of review. In essence, these types of updates are intended to reward sites that have high-quality, relevant reviews, and penalize sites with thin or negative reviews. However, the concept of a “thin” review does not relate to word count, it relates to quality. Reviews, ideally, should be written by named authors who have expertise in the products or services they are reviewing. The reviews should be original, helpful, personal, and insightful. Google’s review updates may penalize sites that over-use affiliate links and that have a lot of ads on their review pages. This is because Google has accurately determined that users don’t like being overwhelmed by monetization strategies while they are in an information-gathering phase of their shopping journey. You can read more about review updates here.

6. People Also Ask – Have you ever done a search and found, just below the first few results, a box that says “People Also Ask” with several questions underneath, all related to your search? That is Google’s People Also Ask (PAA) feature, which was introduced in 2015 and has expanded into over half of search results pages, according to SEM Rush. PAA is Google’s way of refining searches, by letting you see related terms/questions other searchers are using. If you click on a PAA box, it will expand and you’ll see a short answer. Google’s core updates continue the expansion of PAA into more searches. Worth noting is that Google has stated that requests from businesses to update/remove information in PAA boxes will take longer than other types of update/removal requests. This is because the PAA results are more “indirectly” sourced. The details on this seem scant, but you (or your SEO expert) should pay attention to PAA results as they relate to your business’s website.

7. Less country code top level domain crowding – Country code domain crowding is when several search results have the same domain name listed multiple times but with different international country code extensions. This can happen when an international company has multiple sites with the same top level domain name, but different country codes extensions such as .ca, .uk, .rs, etc. For local businesses in Lancaster PA, this is not an area of concern, but it’s worth noting that Google’s core updates have made this less of an issue for users overall. Conceivably, this could result in a Lancaster County business’s site moving up on the page because there should be fewer repeated international domains taking multiple positions on the page.

8. The impact of page experience – While Google pays some attention to user experience when determining rankings, content is more important. If your site is mobile-friendly, loads quickly, is secured (using HTTPS instead of HTTP), and doesn’t have disruptive interstitial ads, then your site most likely qualifies as having a good user experience. Google will use page experience as a tiebreaker when determining how to rank several sites with equivalent content. As always, your local Lancaster SEO expert can help you make changes in these areas if needed.

Closing thoughts

With Google frequently changing how it evaluates and ranks sites, what is a Lancaster County business owner to do about keeping up with and responding to these changes? The best approach is to keep a consistent focus on providing a great user experience. As a site owner, you need to understand what your users want and then deliver it to them. For example, most users now visit websites via their phones, so making sure that your website offers a great mobile experience is critical. You also need to ensure that your site navigation is clear and that there are no deadend pages (404 errors) to frustrate users. Put the time and effort into populating your site’s pages with useful, honest, clear content that provides value to your users.

And, finally, if this all seems too much to worry about while also running your business, consider contacting LNP Media Group for SEO services. SEO is a long-horizon project and requires expertise with Google’s ever changing rules. SEO does not have a payout within a week, it pays out over the course of six months and longer. This is a long term investment that pays off when new customers find your business again and again at the top of a crowded Google search results page.

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When it comes to boosting sales, few times of the year offer more revenue sales opportunities than the fourth quarter. Whether customers are thinking about Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, or New Year’s Day, Lancaster County residents are looking to create special ways to celebrate their traditions. With a little planning and marketing, businesses can find ways to end the year with a bang.

The fourth quarter is a critical time to boost profits and end the year on a high note in any year. It is also when many consumers open up their wallets and start spending more on festive food, luxury goods, and gifts for their loved ones (and themselves!) For some types of businesses, the fourth quarter can account for up to 75% of their annual sales. In challenging years, not only does the fourth-quarter shopping period hold more importance, but it also offers companies a chance to recoup some of the losses of the past months.

Indicators show that many consumers are ready to buy more in the fourth quarter. Many experts predict that a variety of retailers and service businesses may be well-positioned to benefit from demand during the holiday season.

According to Kimberly Amadeo in The Balance,

“The most recent U.S. Retail Sales Report shows that retail sales continued to rebound in September, rising 1.9% since August, and 5.4% since this time last year. Total sales for July through September 2020 were up 3.6% year over year. Sales have been increasing since June after record lows were seen in the spring during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.^1″

Using the pandemic year of 2020 as an example, this showed us how business could change dramatically in just a few months. Consumers became more dependent on digital communications and more open to all kinds of digital commerce, including food delivery, online medicine, and curbside pickup. This meant that almost any type of business or retailer could grow in cost-effective ways by embracing a wide range of digital marketing tools and tactics. During the shelter-in-place order of 2020, online shopping skyrocketed, with 50% of U.S. adults saying they purchased more online than before. The pandemic restrictions motivated many reluctant shoppers to try (and keep using) online shopping tools.

This shift to digital can be good news for small businesses. The wide adoption of digital technologies makes it possible for large and small businesses to get immediate results from tools like email marketing and online advertising, even for companies that lack a sophisticated website.

Now that we are past the peak of the Covid pandemic, now is the perfect time for Lancaster County businesses to create (or improve) digital marketing strategies to help their companies get the most out of fourth quarter marketing. Moreover, the holiday buying cycle continues to deliver the promise of a robust fourth quarter. From mid-October through early January, each year an extended holiday season motivates consumers to buy holiday gifts. This time of year also encourages people to bake more, cook more, buy more cookware, entertain, improve the look of their home with décor and furnishing, spend more time on personal care, or dress up their wardrobe. In fact, the holiday season provides a limited-time incentive to buy all kinds of goods and services.

The holidays are also an excellent opportunity to foster feelings of positivity and optimism. Shoppers are showing us that they are ready to celebrate local economies and start shopping locally.

Local is more important than ever. Even though it sometimes seems like big online retailers get all the business, it is not always true. Barron’s reported that shipping resources are stressed because of the surge in online orders, and major retailers like Walmart and Amazon have not yet been able to staff up to meet the demand. Because of longstanding driver shortages, this challenge will continue long after the pandemic is over. Barron’s reports;

“The nation’s transportation network is already strained, given the major disruption from Covid and other longstanding factors like driver shortages. That could lead to higher costs for shipping companies, retailers, and—possibly—consumers.”

Importantly, during the holiday season, quick delivery is everything. That means this is a perfect time for local retailers to highlight their inventory and the immediate availability of goods. Slow or delayed shipments from big online retailers may give local consumers the incentive they need to lean more heavily on local retailers. This holiday season, shopping may bring different types of opportunities to Lancaster County businesses.

As more and more consumers become frustrated with shipping delays, the fourth quarter is often the perfect time to focus on acquiring new local customers and set your business up for continuing success in the next year.

While getting customers to switch has been a challenge in previous years, customers are now more willing than ever to try something new. According to a McKinsey & Company October 2020 survey,

“With continued pressure on household income, consumers are trying new brands and channels, seeking both better value and convenience. Compared to last year, consumers are more than three times as likely to trade down to lower-cost brands or retailers when shopping a standard basket of goods.”

What can small businesses do to reach their local customers? ‘Tis the season to send out e-newsletters, email updates, promote updated hours or offerings, offer “thank you” deals, give loyalty discounts, preview sales, talk about new products, or offer special hours for loyal customers.

No matter which messages an organization chooses, holiday cheer is an effective way to humanize the business, allowing companies to spread goodwill and joy.

Start Marketing for the Holidays now

Whether a business reading this in November or July, the time to start your holiday marketing is now. That is because the best holiday marketing includes both long-term and last-minute components. Companies that take the time build digital marketing into their plans all year round are better prepared to take advantage of digital holiday strategies. However, effective strategies can also be applied to firms who are just starting out with digital marketing efforts.

The first step is for the organization to think about how their consumers buy their type of product or service. For example, restaurants or hair salons with limited capacity can focus on selling gift certificates for future visits. Of course, gift certificates make sense all year long, but they can also be promoted as last-minute gifts. Emails, digital ads, or videos are all effective ways to encourage this type of gift-giving.

Additionally, with some quick planning, businesses can have tremendous sales on Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. Using LNP Media Group’s suite of digital marketing tools, companies can create curbside pickup deals, online offers, extended hours for less crowded shopping, online-only deals, pay-per-click ads, and unique landing pages. This enables organizations to create promotions and offers that can run for a day, an afternoon, or even an hour.

While a survey by Service Management Group reported that 42% of respondents said that they plan to start their holiday shopping early in the season, Lancaster County businesses still have time to leverage holiday sales. This survey reports:

“Holiday shopping will start early and be dominated by digital – When you consider the double-digit growth of digital holiday sales in 2019 and how the pandemic is impacting the in-store experience, it’s not surprising that 3 in 4 respondents plan to do most of their holiday shopping online this year. When asked to compare the timing of their holiday shopping to last year, 42 percent of respondents said they’ll start shopping earlier. With 61 percent of respondents planning to do most of their shopping before Thanksgiving, we found just 15 percent of respondents plan to stock up on Black Friday and only seven percent plan to take advantage of Cyber Monday. When we compare the timing of the two groups of shoppers, 62 percent of online shoppers plan to start shopping earlier whereas 44 percent of in-store shoppers indicate they’ll take advantage of Black Friday sales or do most of their shopping in December.”

Thinking beyond Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and even Cyber Monday can help businesses drive sales through the end of the year and beyond. After all, holiday shopping no longer stops on Christmas Eve. Consumers are now showing a growing interest in post-holiday sales when they look to use their gift money and savings on purchases for themselves and their homes.

Ready to start making digital a part of your holiday marketing? If you are looking for specific ideas to help your business boost sales this month and beyond, take a look at our list of holiday marketing strategies developed with Lancaster County businesses in mind.

Thanksgiving Digital Marketing Ideas for Lancaster County Businesses

Every year, Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday of November. This gives businesses plenty of time to ramp up for holiday marketing. Consumers preparing for Thanksgiving are looking for food and cooking supplies, but they also shop for clothes, personal care, linens, furniture, home décor, even carpets, and rugs. Any home furnishing store can tell you that many shoppers request delivery before Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving also kicks off a string of annual sales that have become part of the holiday tradition for many shoppers. Black Friday used to kick off the morning after Thanksgiving. But today, many stores open at midnight, the evening of Thanksgiving, or run “early Black Friday” sales in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. Pre-Thanksgiving shoppers look online before they buy. In fact, Google reports that 49% of these early-bird shoppers research before they buy.

What can Lancaster County businesses do to get their share of pre-Thanksgiving shoppers?

1. Serve up Search Engine Marketing or SEM

Not too long ago, SEM was a term used to describe pay-per-click text ads that appeared in search results. Today the definition has become broader and refers to a set of advertising opportunities offered by search engines and most often covers ad platforms provided by Google, the search engine used by almost 90% of all searches. In addition to paid search listings designed to drive website traffic, SEM now includes various ads or sponsored listings that appear on search engines and affiliated sites. Using search engine databases, marketers can place display ads on other sites. Retargeted ads, which send follow up ads to people who have visited a specific page on a website, is often considered a part of search engine marketing.

Businesses who want to use SEM to promote Thanksgiving sales or items can use pay-per-click ads, display ads targeted to people who have searched for related terms, and even show retargeted ads to site visitors, offering them exclusive offers on the products they previously viewed on the website.

SEM also offers marketer the opportunity to include in-ad countdown clocks that highlight the limited time offers or sales or count down the time until your next deal, event, or Black Friday offers.

2. Gobble up Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing includes organic (unpaid) posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and more. It also offers paid ads or boosted posts. Social media is a popular way to share ideas and communicate with friends and family, so it is a natural place to run ads to reach people as they’re planning for the holiday. Most social media platforms allow companies to upload your customer lists and market to them (and people like them), but businesses can also choose their audience based on geography and interests such as Thanksgiving, How to Cook a Turkey, Home Décor, Best Sports TV and more.

Most social media platforms (and especially TikTok) are also video-friendly. They can be a great place to post videos of a store, videos showing pre-sale walkthrough, or show employees explaining some of the deals and specials they are offering during the holidays.

Some ad platforms of some social media platforms also allow companies to promote multiple items in a scrolling catalog format, so advertisers do not have to stick to just one item per ad.

3. Video Brings Your Business to Life

When it comes to the holidays, customers want information and inspiration, and nothing does that better than a video. Videos can go on corporate websites or be used in ads or promoted posts. They can even be included in email marketing campaigns!

Working with a local Lancaster professional video team has become an easy way to show customers how to cook a turkey, develop a menu, or find the best new cooking gadgets for this Thanksgiving. Videos are also a great place to share table-setting ideas, explain how to create a better game-viewing environment, share ideas on what to wear on Thanksgiving, give makeup and hair tips, post tutorials for kids’ crafts, explain how to get the family motivated for a pre-feast game of tag football, and more.

This is also a great time of year to produce a video that features team members giving thanks to customers for their support during these difficult times. After all, Thanksgiving is all about gratitude.

4. Send a Cornucopia of Emails

When it comes to emails, one size does not fit all. The good news is that sending highly targeted messages does not have to be complicated. Companies who work with an experienced email marketing provider like LNP Media Group can launch and analyze email marketing campaigns quickly and efficiently.

Selecting either the firm’s customer email list or by choosing to send to other databases, Lancaster County businesses can send targeted emails to a variety of audiences. Loyal customers may receive thank-you emails that invite them to take advantage of early access for sales and offers. Lapsed customers may get a “we miss you” email that includes a coupon or offer. A potential customer could receive messages promoting pre-thanksgiving sales, promotions, or even offer limited-time offers.

Additionally, today’s emails are more responsive than ever, so they can display beautifully on mobile devices or laptops. It is also easy to include videos, QR codes, or bar codes that enable businesses to track the source of your sales down to the email. Read our blog post on email marketing for more information. 

5. We are Grateful for Geo-Targeted Ads

Geofencing is a super-targeted way to reach Lancaster County consumers based on where they are. Marketers can send an ad or marketing message to consumers’ mobile devices after they enter a predefined geographic area. These spots can be as small and well-defined as a parking lot, inside a store, or a competitor’s location. Using geo-location, companies can deliver promotions, ads, coupons, and more to mobile phones.

Want some examples of how this works? Using geo-targeted ads, local grocery stores can deliver holiday specials to shoppers, even as they are shopping in a competitor’s store. Retailers who want to attract people shopping down the street can send one-day sale offers to customers when they are in the area. Restaurants can send coupons to people while they attend a nearby event. Auto dealers can send limited-time deals to shoppers while they look at vehicles in a competitor’s lot.

6. Digital Makes Holiday Curbside Pickups Easy

Curbside pickup options have become standard for many types of services. Do your customers know that your business offers this type of service? It is important to get the word out if you have created online options for curbside pickup orders.

Whether promoting takeout food, fashion, or medical services, curbside service can make a business more accessible, convenient, and safe.

7. Don’t Forget About Print this Thanksgiving!

LNP Media Group offers a range of holiday options and special editions in print. The Thanksgiving edition of LNP is the largest and most anticipated newspaper of the year, stuffed full of holiday deals, coupons, and sales. Lancaster County businesses know that this annual tradition is a favorite with local customers, and print can work in tandem with digital for an even bigger impact.

Black Friday: Retail’s Biggest Day of the Year

When it comes to bargain shopping, Lancaster County consumers have come to expect the biggest and best deals on Black Friday. As retail traditions continue to change, more Black Friday sales are happening in-store AND on digital media. While crowded sales have been part of the holiday tradition in previous years, businesses are increasingly developing creative ways to allow customers and clients to access the best deals without facing crowds. Online sales may also bring in more shoppers who were unable (or unwilling) to brave the crowds in years past.

Here are some ways businesses in Lancaster County can make the most of Black Friday using digital media.

1. Combine Search Engine Marketing with F.O.M.O.!

When joining the crowds is not an option, more and more consumers suffer from F.O.M.O. (Fear of Missing Out.) Smart search engine marketing (SEM) ideas can tap into consumers’ need to be a part of the action by posting scarcity counts such as “Only Four Left” or “Only Two Hours Left!

Don’t want to mess with shipping? Not only can digital marketers program their ads by analyzing search patterns and purchase intent, but they can also limit ad delivery geographically so it’s easy for customers to drive to your location to pick up their purchase.

2. Email Marketing is a Black Friday Staple

Email marketing has been used to promote Black Friday deals for years. Today, new technologies and integrations allow companies to automate countdown emails (“Only 24 hours until the sale starts…”), reminder emails (“Don’t forget, sale ends in two hours”), and abandoned cart emails (“Did you forget something?”).

Best of all, LNP Media Group offers access to a database of opted-in email address lists that helps businesses reach qualified prospects based on demographics and purchase intent. That means that companies can send their targeted offers directly to the inboxes of potential new customers.

3. Promote Your Deals on Social Media

Social media users expect to be notified of upcoming deals and promotions, especially when it comes to Black Friday. This is a great time for local businesses to invest in Facebook and Instagram ads.

4. Create In-store Excitement With a Walkthrough Video

Want to show your customers your best products? Want to create excitement and anticipation for a visit or online sales? Consider a professionally shot walkthrough video explaining Black Friday deals and showing customers all the great stuff they can access. If health concerns are an issue, it is smart for businesses to use videos to explain what they are doing to keep shoppers safe. Show your video on platforms like TikTok.

5. Curbside Pickup

For all those customers who do not want to brave the crowds, curbside pickup is a great way to marry online purchases with retail locations. Curbside pickups make it easy to fulfill orders without investing in complicated shipping programs.

Small Business Saturday: Local Business’s Biggest Day of the Year

In past years, local shopping venues have been swamped with Lancaster County shoppers coming out to support their local retailers, restaurants, and businesses. However, the “new normal” requires companies to think beyond in-store sales to keep customers engaged and coming back.

1. Search Engine Marketing for Local Businesses

Many local businesses think search engine marketing is too “big” for their companies, but search engines are the new phone book. It’s where people go to find shops, services, and food that are “near me.” That is why SEM is such an effective way to promote Small Business Saturday efforts. A good SEM campaign will not only drive people to a business listing, but it can also focus on the uniqueness of a company’s products or services, feature photos of their staff, and even allow organizations to donate a percent of the take to a favorite charity.

2. Local Loves LancasterOnline

When it comes to local advertising in Lancaster County, LancasterOnline is one of the most “local” digital tools you can use. LancasterOnline offers high-impact display ads surrounded by local news, which means the ad message is delivered to the people Lancaster County businesses care about most – local shoppers. Marketers can ask an LNP Media Group rep to demo the reveal ad, a large format ad that appears above the digital masthead.  Sticky anchors stay on the screen even as the user scrolls down. Other high impact formats include skyscraper ads and HTML5 animated ads.

3. Find Your Community on Facebook

When it comes to small communities and groups with shared interests, Facebook is king. Although geographic targeting is available on most social media platforms, Facebook is a favorite place for friends and families to stay in touch. Promoting your local company on Facebook, along with Small Business Saturday offers, special hours, online options, and sales make perfect business sense.

4. Highlight Your Local Presence with Video

Smart local businesses use video to introduce local customers to their business and their neighborhoods! Using LNP Media Group’s professional video production services, companies can show customers their store, their deals, introduce sales people, and even feature customer testimonials.

Best of all, videos can be used on corporate websites, in digital ads, or in promoted posts on social media. They can even be included in email marketing campaigns.

5. Lancaster Loves Print

Lancaster County loves print media. LNP helps customers look for information, offers, and ads from local businesses. LNP usually offers special Small Business Saturday sections or magazines, often part of a holiday marketing package. Ask your LNP Media Group representative for details.

6. Email Marketing Allows Business to Target Local Shoppers

Want to reach people who are most likely to buy local? Need to limit your message by geography or interests?  As a targeted email provider, LNP Media Group can offer clients the option to add or exclude a smaller list of emails from a targeted eblast. These tools may be helpful for organizations that want to target subsets of new users, existing customers, or lapsed customers.

Is Your Business Ready to Participate in Cyber Monday?

In 2019 Cyber Monday sales exceeded online sales for Black Friday, according to a report by Adobe. Many of 2019’s sales offered the option to purchase items online and pick up in-store. Although this day seems to be dominated by big players, local businesses can prosper as well.

Any business that is interested in getting more Millennial customers in Lancaster County should consider investing in e-commerce capabilities. After all, Millennials make 60% of their purchases online, according to a recent survey.

Wondering what you can do to make Cyber Monday another big sales day for your organization?

1. Cyber Monday and SEM

Black Friday isn’t the only day that triggers consumers’ F.O.M.O. (Fear of Missing Out.) Search engine marketing (SEM) is a great way to keep consumers updated on inventory counts such as “Only Two Days Remaining” or “Only One Hour Left!” It is also a great way to create online urgency by promoting one-day offers.

And remember that if businesses limit their offers to defined geographic areas, they can ask customers to drive to a local location to pick up their purchases.

2. Combine Cyber and Local with LancasterOnline Campaigns!

There are so many ways to promote Cyber Monday deals on LancasterOnline. And any ad that is placed on this local news and entertainment site is clickable so that potential customers can click through to the purchase page.

3. Cyber Monday Gets Even More Clickable with Email Marketing

Whether a company chooses to create a unique email campaign or sponsor one of LNP Media Group’s e-newsletters, these businesses can reach thousands of online shoppers on Cyber Monday. Sponsoring an e-newsletter ad is an easy way to broadcast Cyber Monday deals, and the email ad will be clickable so that Lancaster County shoppers can click through right to the sponsor’s website and offers.

Attract Last-Minute Christmas Shoppers

The days leading up to Christmas are the perfect time to get in front of last-minute shoppers.  Google reports that the average American does about 53% of shopping the week before Christmas.  There are many great ways to take advantage of the rush.

1. Deck the Halls with Social Media Marketing

Social media is a great way to grab consumers’ attention and share information about the latest deals and specials.  Businesses that want to ensure they reach the right people at the right time should create social media ads. Facebook, Instagram, and others have sophisticated targeted tools that allow companies to find their best customers based on geography, interests, and behaviors that are often very detailed, including some purchase history. Social media platforms also allow advertisers to run promotions quickly, even for just one day.

2. Email Marketing Ideas

LNP Media Group offers sponsorships on a variety of daily e-newsletters that are delivered to local shoppers. We are also a targeted email provider, which means Lancaster County businesses can add or exclude a smaller list of emails from a targeted eblast. This may be helpful for organizations that want to target subsets of new users, existing customers, or lapsed customers.

3. Geo-Targeting Offers Precise Delivery Opportunities

When a business needs to reach customers in a very small, defined area, geofencing can help. This ad tool allows companies to send promotions, ads, coupons, and more to mobile phones when the consumer enters a predefined geofenced site. Organizations can get the attention of last-minute shoppers by sending geo-targeted ads to consumers when they are at the mall or in a competitor’s store. Some retailers send offers to people nearby to drive foot traffic to their location.

4. Curbside Pickup Makes Last-Minute Shopping Easy

Having a curbside pickup in place makes digital shopping faster and easier for customers. Make sure your customers know that they can place an order online, for convenient pickup later.

And remember, when shoppers begin running out of shopping time in the week leading up to Christmas, curbside pickup can offer a valuable shortcut that consumers appreciate.

Ring in New Year’s Eve!

New Year’s Eve is a big party night. Whether a business sells food, party supplies, event spaces, or rental limos, digital marketing can help Lancaster County companies be a part of the festivities.

When it comes to New Year’s Eve, Millennials are the biggest spenders. According to Anna Hecht for CNBC.com,

“Millennials love to splurge on experiences. They’re often more willing to spend their hard-earned dollars on making memories than on buying tangible things. New Year’s Eve is no exception. For a fun night out to celebrate the start of 2020, millennials (defined here as those 23 to 38) are willing to spend an average of $228.10, according to a recent survey from ticketing site Eventbrite. The poll was conducted online from Dec. 5 to Dec. 9, 2019, with 2,086 U.S. adults 18 or older. Even though millennials are known to spend less than previous generations, the amount they’re willing to put toward a New Year’s outing is about $42 more than the average amount Americans as a whole say they’re willing to spend, $185.60.”

Millennials are also the group that is most likely to start their shopping process online. So if a business wants to reach Millennials getting ready for New Year’s Eve, this is a great time to invest in digital marketing.

1. Start the Celebration with SEM Ideas

Use search engine marketing to promote end-of-year sales. It is an excellent time to run promotions urging Lancaster County Millennials to spend their newly acquired gift cards or exchange unwanted gifts. Create a special landing page for deals shoppers can get when they use gift card sales or do returns.

2. Social Media Marketing Ideas

Social media offers the chance to use photos, videos, or slideshows to showcase a business. Whether the company is offering special New Year’s Eve dinners, snack ideas, the latest fashions, bags, or games for kids, social media can help. Create ads, place posts in feeds, utilize Facebook Marketplace, or create live events like Facebook Live to notify their customers of sales, limited-supply, or special deals.

3. Email Marketing Ideas

Want to fill up a venue? Need to collect RSVPs for your upcoming event? Email marketing offers dozens of ways to communicate event details, share event pages, and even collect RSVPs. Emails also provide easy ways to upsell existing customers by reminding them of add-ons or accessories to complement their initial purchases.

4. Curbside Pickup Ideas

More and more people are celebrating New Year’s Eve at home, so this is the perfect time to offer curbside pickup of meals, catering, party supplies, or even clean up services. Make sure to promote the fact that your business makes it easy and safe to shop via curbside pickup.

Are You Ready to Get Digital This Holiday Season?

The world is changing fast, and digital is becoming a more critical part of the shopping journey. From researching future purchases to buying something in-store, apps, websites, emails, and social media all play a role in most shoppers’ consideration process.

More and more, even old-fashioned holiday shopping includes digital components. Consumers look online to see when the tree farm is open, where Santa is appearing, where to get cookie decorating supplies, how to get tickets for the Polar Express, and even to find hand-knitted stockings for the hearth. The fact is, whether customers are looking for old-fashioned nostalgia or the latest electronics, they start their search online.

Whether a company has a digital marketing program in place or if they need to build it from scratch, LNP Media Group has the digital marketing expertise needed to build and maintain robust digital marketing programs designed to increase our clients’ sales without killing their margins.

Make an appointment to talk with our experienced digital marketing team.  We have a wide range of programs that make it easy for your business to build a website, improve your SEO, market on search engines, create professional videos and photography, begin email marketing, and more.

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