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NAMTA

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namta.org

VOLUME 2: Advertising and Marketing

RETAIL OPERATIONS FOR ART MATERIALS RETAILERS

Advertisingand Marketing

RETAIL OPERATIONS MANUAL

NAMTA: Advertising and Marketing2

©2014 International Art Materials Association.All Rights Reserved

This manual is intended to provide general information of use to the Art Materials Retailer. While every effort has been made to provide up-to-date information, this manual is not intended to be used without consultation with accountants, legal counsel and other qualified professionals who may make specific recommendations for individual stores.

The International Art Materials Association does not certify, approve or license art materials retailers or recommend that any general or specific business strategy, policy or procedure described in this manual or elsewhere be employed by them in operating their business.

This book or portions thereof may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the International Art Materials Association.

All inquiries should be addressed to:International Art Materials Association20200 Zion Ave.Cornelius, NC 28031

Forward NAMTA has created its Retail Operations Training Series specifically for Art Materials Retailers. In 2013, we introduced the first manual—Managing People.

In this text on Advertising and Marketing you’re going to learn:

• How to create a marketing plan and shape your brand.

• How to determine the amount of money you should be investing in advertising and marketing.

• How to set up an annual advertising and marketing calendar to maximize your return on that investment.

• How to determine strengths and weaknesses of a variety of traditional media like radio, tv, newspapers etc.

• How to approach and effectively manage the wide array of digital advertising/marketing channels available to you.

In addition to many tips from experienced Art Material retailers, this manual also contains work-sheets to help you ask the right questions and make smart decisions.

Along the way, if you have any questions please feel free to contact NAMTA.

Thank you to Tina Stevens of Stevens 470 Marketing & Creative and Tom Shay of Profits Plus Solutions for their contributions to this manual.

International Art Materials Association20200 Zion AvenueCornelius, NC [email protected].

Please visit NAMTA’s website, and click on the Resources link at the top of the page to learn more about the array of products available to art material retailer members and the value of being a NAMTA member.

Thank you.

3Table of Contents

Chapters

Chapter 1: Creating a Marketing Plan that Achieves Your Business Goals .................................. 4

Chapter 2: 12 Rules of a Great Brand ................................................................................... 6

WORKSHEET: Brand Checklist ............................................................................ 8

Chapter 3: The Marketing Plan ............................................................................................. 9

WORKSHEET: The Marketing Plan ..................................................................... 11

Chapter 4: Marketing Channels: Creating the Right Marketing Mix ......................................... 12

Chapter 5: Use Your Website to Make the Right Impression ................................................... 14

Chapter 6: Design Matters ................................................................................................. 15

Chapter 7: Website Management ........................................................................................ 16

WORKSHEET: Website Goals and Objectives ....................................................... 18

Chapter 8: Use Your Website to Bring Visitors to Your Store ................................................... 19

Chapter 9: Website Landing Pages ...................................................................................... 20

Chapter 10: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)...................................................................... 22

Chapter 11: SEO Best Practices ........................................................................................... 23

Chapter 12: Google’s New Search Algorithm .......................................................................... 25

Chapter 13: Time to Evaluate Your SEO Plan ......................................................................... 26

WORKSHEET: SEO Worksheet ........................................................................... 27

Chapter 14: Paid Search ..................................................................................................... 28

Chapter 15: The email Marketing Channel ............................................................................. 29

WORKSHEET: email Worksheet ......................................................................... 31

Chapter 16: Social Media: Communicating with Your Customers .............................................. 32

Chapter 17: Social Media Sites for Business .......................................................................... 35

WORKSHEET: Social Media Worksheet ............................................................... 37

Chapter 18: Your Customers Have Gone Mobile ...................................................................... 38

WORKSHEET: Optimize for Mobile .................................................................... 40

Chapter 19: Online Video for Motion and Emotion .................................................................. 41

Chapter 20: The Advertising Budget ..................................................................................... 42

Chapter 21: The Traditional Marketing Channels .................................................................... 44

WORKSHEET: Marketing Calendar ..................................................................... 47

Table of Contents


Marketing is Like Dieting...We all talk about it, but few of us actually follow through. It seems to be difficult for businesses to commit to a long-term plan, and many are looking for a quick way to reach their business goals. We all wish there was a magic pill, but achieving lasting and tangible results means ongoing work. Most business owners have great ideas for marketing their business, and most have good intentions at the outset of implementation. The problem arises when we don’t follow through. It takes time for a plan to yield results. The best way to meet your goals is by using a marketing plan that includes both long-term objectives and a working calendar for short-term action.

Define Your Business ObjectivesOne of the great responsibilities of managing a business is creating priorities for the year ahead. So much happens each day, week and month, that we might spend all of your time addressing the needs of the moment and miss out on driving your business in the direction you have chosen. So start with the big picture and think about your goals for the coming year. Some of your goals may be based upon areas of your business that need improvement and others based upon new opportunities you see in the marketplace.

As you fine-tune your intentions, begin to get realistic and specific. We all have limits on time and resources. Money spent on incomplete projects can be money lost. It is bet-ter to effectively execute fewer projects and see the results, than to spread everything too thin and not make an impact.

Analyze Your Current SituationRight at this moment, your business sits at a point along its own unique timeline. You have a specific number of years in business, a certain level of business maturity, and your own history of accomplishments and challenges. With that information as a reference, you can review the following questions to gain clarity on where you are at this moment. The more information you can bring together, the better your ability to evaluate your business and generate new ideas.

• How is my brand doing in today’s economy?

• What changes in the marketplace are affecting my product/service?

• Does my current audience have the same needs?

• Are there new audiences for my product/service?

• How does my retail space look today?

• Am I really connecting with my customers?

Review Your Marketing ChannelsIn today’s marketplace, you need to use every available marketing channel to reach your current clients and target audience. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each channel and have a presence in all the channels that your customers use. You will need a mix of online and offline channels for an effective marketing campaign. While the more traditional offline channels may seem unfashionable, some remain highly effective. Also, offline and online chan-nels are converging in interesting ways. People listen to digital radio on their PCs, watch television on their laptops, research products online and then purchase them at a retail store.

Television can no longer reach the large segments of the population it once could (years ago one ad spot on the only three TV networks could reach 80 percent of the US popu-lation), but it still provides an excellent return on invest-ment compared with other channels. Radio has the ability to target very specific audiences locally and nationally. It can greatly increase the effectiveness of other advertising. Print still plays a role for most businesses. There are publi-cations that appeal to, and reach, most every niche you can think of. Traditional and free newspapers provide an avenue to reach the mass market. Print that is coordinated with an online campaign can be highly effective.

Integrate Online and Offline ChannelsAs you create your marketing plan and identify the best channels for your audience, be sure to integrate all your efforts. You can use your website to house information and then drive people there from other channels. Your print ad can be designed to present your offer in a compelling way and send people to your website to make the purchase; your TV spot can send people to your website for more information; your radio ad can send people to your retail store. In all channels, speak appropriately to your cus-tomers in a tone they recognize as your brand, keep your graphics consistent, and coordinate your offers. You want to be sure you are recognized in every channel for maxi-mum impact.

Greater success can be achieved if you create a compre-hensive multichannel strategy rather than just a multiple channel plan. If you are multiple channel user, you are simply using a variety of channels to communicate. For an effective multichannel strategy, you will utilize every possible channel and incorporate cross-channel customer benefits (buy online, pick up at retail location, etc.), which integrates your brand with every customer experience.

CHAPTER 1

Creating a Marketing Plan that Achieves Your Business Goals

Marketing 5

Maximize Your Marketing BudgetEach marketing decision should be made within the frame-work of “does this marketing activity bring us closer to our business goal?” As you develop your marketing plan, you have the opportunity to pre-plan your messaging, advertis-ing, and events. You should plan to cross-promote when-ever you can, have info on your next event at the current event, and cross-sell based on customer likes and prefer-ences. Plan around the seasons, the holidays, and the events your customers find interesting. You can begin to allocate your resources to the projects of greatest priority.

Build from one marketing event to the next, and see if you can create a theme or concept for the entire year. The more focused your messaging, the more impact it will have on the consumer. Don’t think each message has to be unique; it takes a great deal of repetition to create aware-ness. So while you may grow tired of some things, do not change them just for that reason; be sure it is time for your audience to see something new. Variety based on a single message can be very powerful.

Set Measurable GoalsNow get your plan and schedule in writing. You need to be ahead of the curve when it comes to scheduling. You know that by the time you recognize the need to do something, or notice an opportunity, it is often too late to execute an event or an advertising campaign. Have some specific goals for every marketing activity; some may be to grow your customer base, others to sell product, and others to bring more people into your retail space.

When developing print and electronic messaging, be sure to keep it simple (people are busy) and clearly ask for a specific response (direct your audience). Make offers that are interesting and compelling. The most successful marketing efforts, in print and online, utilize all the direct marketing tools available today —offers, guarantees, time-specific sales, etc. Test various offers to see what generates the most response.

Track and Analyze ResultsAt regular intervals, you should review the results of your marketing efforts. You can track coupons, visits to your store, dollars spent, names in your database, or any specif-ics of your promotions. Your website should be running

some type of analytics program (Google Analytics is free) so you can track visits to your website, pages visited, where the visitors came from, how long they stayed, etc. If you sell your products online you can, of course, track online sales.

Then decide what was successful based upon your spe-cific marketing criteria. If you are looking to increase your customer base this year, you may be willing to bring in customers at a loss on their first purchase. If your goal is to increase profits, then you may need to eliminate some of your less profitable products or categories. Success can only be evaluated based upon the objectives you originally set out in your marketing plan.

RepeatYour long-term success will come from a sustained effort of planning, executing, and evaluating. Your marketing plans do not need to be complex, but they will require your seri-ous thought and evaluation. Take the time to gain clarity and purpose for the future of your business.

businessobjectives

what are thebig picture goalsfor your company

marketingcampaignhow will we use

marketing toachieve goals

evaluationand continuity

what have welearned and how will

we proceed

planexecution

consistently executethe plan componentsover a period of time

multichannelplan

what media willreach people andmake an impact

creativesolutions

decide on the messageand creative that willmove the audience

themarketing

cycle

The Marketing Cycle © stevens 470


CHAPTER 2

12 Rules of a Great Brand

It is hard to discuss marketing without touching on the topic of brand. Brand is a big concept but it doesn’t have to be complex. The American Graphics Institute describes brand as “a person’s perception of a product, service or company.” The operative word in that description is “perception”—your brand is what consumers perceive, not what you have told them or wish they would think about your company. What does your company offer to the consumer and why should they choose you over the com-petition? Those benefits need to be clear and consistent throughout every touch point with your company.

1. Your brand reflects your values.Your brand image will start with your product and prod-uct category. It will also come from your business values and company personality. Products and services in the same category may have very different brand images, even though the products are similar.

2. Differentiate yourself from the competition.You must be able to define how your product or service is different from your competitors. Are you competing on quality, price, or service? Do you have a unique offering, or perhaps a standard product delivered in a unique way?

3. Maintain a brand promise.This will require an understanding of your customer and your competition, based upon market research and evalu-ation. Your promise must be both compelling and believ-able. Your company needs to be able to deliver on the brand message. Take time to honestly assess your com-pany’s competencies and weaknesses.

4. Know and love your customers.You need to know how your customers think and what they value, because this is what their buying decisions are based upon. Are they looking for safety, prestige, conve-nience, or some other need to be filled when making a purchasing decision in your product/service category? Hav-ing a true concern for your customers will keep you in tune with their needs and will also help you continually provide them with great products and services.

5. Consistently provide real value and benefit.In today’s economy, consumers are looking for both mone-tary value and tangible benefits. You must present your of-

fer based upon the consumer. They have the opportunity to compare your pricing and read reviews of your service by going online, so everything you offer must be better than the competition. Your brand is created by the customer’s experience, each and every time they come in contact with your brand. Each experience must be the same high qual-ity and it must be consistent over time.

6. Your customers love you.Customer loyalty is not what it used to be. With big box stores, online shopping, and a mobile society, it is harder than ever to have and to hold long-term customers. But you can still develop loyal customers by delivering excep-tional quality (in products and services) at every touch point.

7. Have a marketing plan.You must be in control of presenting your brand to pros-pects and customers. Your marketing plan will provide the road map for where your marketing messages will be seen and heard. A marketing plan will help you maximize the effectiveness of each channel and get the most from your marketing dollars.

8. Maintain brand standards in your marketing materials.Your brand will be translated into visual marketing materi-als that are used to introduce your products and services. These include your logo, tagline, packaging, website, ad-vertising, etc. These are all important media channels and must accurately reflect your brand to the consumer. Your brand messaging must be developed for every touch point and your employees must be trained, and empowered, to consistently deliver.

9. Have a great website that accurately reflects your brand.Your website is often the first introduction to your compa-ny. Ask yourself if your current website is up to the impor-tant task of introducing your company to prospects. People are coming to your website every day to see who you are. They may be leaving your website and never coming back if it is not up to the task. The world has moved online so take your website seriously.

Marketing 7

10. Know that your brand image is influenced by your customer.As our choices and purchases become more online driven, social networking and online communities are giving consumers the power to shape your brand. By sharing their experiences with your products and services they may have more influence over your brand than you do. Consumers are turning to each other for information they can trust. It is important that your brand is authentic and encourages consumer engagement.

11. Embrace new technology.Technology will continue to move forward at a rapid pace, while at the same time, it will become more affordable to more of the population. Today it is about serving fragment-ed communities with cable TV, the internet, and mobile devices. Your company needs to know how and why your customers are using technology, which often begins with saving time and personal convenience.

12. Your brand evolves with changes in culture and community.Making a shift to accommodate new values and chang-ing consumer demands may be a big challenge for some companies, from both a structural and a cultural perspec-tive. Demographics are changing, consumer expectations are higher, communication channels are evolving. Have you made the changes necessary to align your brand with today’s consumer needs?

RETAIL TIP Brand your store. Have a great logo. Have stick-ers made with your logo on them to give out to your customers. Sell T-shirts with your logo on them. Give away free items with purchases, like candy, sketching pencils, magnets, or erasers that have your logo on them. Put Available At labels on vendor-supplied prod-uct brochures and samples to make sure the marketing materials you give out are also marketing you.

From NAMTA’s “101 Tips for Art Materials Retailers”


WORKSHEET

Brand Checklist

n Is your brand unique in the marketplace?

n Does your brand provide a tangible benefit?

n Does your brand present a clear promise?

n Does your brand deliver a positive experience?

n Is your brand experience memorable?

n Do you have a clearly defined audience for your brand message?

n Do you understand your customers and prospects?

n Do you know what they care about?

n Do you understand what motivates your customers?

n Is your brand carefully managed?

n Do you have a graphics standards program?

n Does your brand have a relevant tagline?

n Is your brand message a part of your physical environment?

n Is your brand consistent at all customer touch points?

n Does everyone at your company understand your brand?

n Do you teach your employees about your brand?

n Can you describe your unique brand in one sentence?

Marketing 9

CHAPTER 3

The Marketing Plan

You can use the following steps to clarify your marketing objectives and help define your goals.

Establish a Communication ObjectiveBased upon your business goals, you will want to define, as specifically as possible, what your marketing objectives will be. Your messaging will be most powerful if your objectives are clear and narrowly defined.

Possible objectives include:

• Creating awareness

• Imparting knowledge and educating

• Projecting a brand image

• Sharing attitudes and opinions

• Stimulating desire for the product or service

• Generating a sale

It is an easier task to create awareness, provide knowledge, or promote your brand, than it is to stimulate desire or generate a direct sale from your advertising. It is also more difficult if you need to first educate your audience on what you offer and then explain why they need it. When devel-oping your objectives, have a clear understanding of the response you are soliciting.

Define Your Target AudienceYou will want to clearly identify your target audience. A target market is a group of individuals that have some distinguishable characteristics, for example “mothers with children ages 5-12” or shared interest, “people that have a membership at the local museum.”

Here are some of the specifics you are looking to identify:

• Age

• Gender

• Education

• Household income

• Personality

• Lifestyle

• Attitudes and values

• Interests and hobbies

If you already have a customer base, you can analyze your current customers to find the group(s) that perform best: the people that make the largest purchases, or purchase most often, or attend the most workshops, etc. Then see if you can find similar characteristics among those people to help you find more people like them. You want to under-

stand your audience so that you can craft meaningful mes-sages for them.

Analyze the MarketplaceYou need to look outside of your business and take note of what is happening in the community and the larger market-place that will affect your business and your sales opportu-nities. Economic events, new technologies, competition in the marketplace, and changes in employment levels are all events that can have an impact on our business.

Here are the core topics that you should cover when doing a marketplace analysis: who are your competitors: this includes businesses aiming for your target audience that may be in another industry; competitors strengths and weaknesses—who poses the greatest challenge; current strategies used by your competitors—check their websites, advertising, sales offers, etc.; the market outlook in your industry—is your market growing, shrinking, consolidating?

You want to fully understand the outside forces that will be affecting your business. That will allow you to plan for chal-lenges, as well as take full advantage of opportunities.

Develop a Unique Selling PropositionThis may be the hardest part. What can you say about your product or service that will convince your target audience that it is superior to the competition? Your proposition needs to be one that your competitors cannot, or do not, provide. A variation of the unique selling proposition is the positioning statement. Here, your intent is to determine what place your brand (goods or services) should occupy in your customer’s mind. What is the meaningful difference between your product and the competition? For example, yours may be made locally, be the best value for the cost, safer than all the others, etc.

It can be difficult to identify a service or feature that your direct competitors don’t also offer. This task challenges you to look critically at what you offer, and find or develop a product or service that sets you apart.

Craft Your Support Points and Find the BenefitsDeveloping your support points is a little easier, since they are the facts that support your selling proposition. When creating copy about your product or service, it is usually easier to develop a list of features. This list is very im-portant, but we also want to translate those features into the benefits they provide. Features are facts. Benefits are


more intangible but will affect your customers life in some positive way. The benefits are generally more personally compelling than the facts. In essence, what problem will your product or service solve for your target audience? It may be a problem they didn’t even realize they had, until you pointed it out and also provided a solution.

Here is a simple way to approach finding both features and benefits. Create a two-column list and start by listing all the features down the left side. Then try and match each feature with a benefit. Not every feature will have an excit-ing benefit, but as you go through each one, there should emerge one or two key benefits that are most compelling.

You may need to test the top benefits to see which ones convert more prospects into sales.

Create a Themeline to Keep on TrackYou can define your entire marketing objective by distilling the information into its essence and developing a theme-line. This will keep your campaign consistent from one element to another. Your themeline can be for your internal use or your public campaign slogan.

Now that you have defined your goals and objectives, you can move on to reviewing and selecting the best channels to reach your target audience.

then move on to

developcreative solutions

what will elevate your brand above the competition

developselling

proposition

analyze market supposition

what is happening that could affect the success

of your product/service/store?

create athemeline

define the essence of the entire marketing objective

establishcommunication

objectiveas specific as possible specify

media tacticsthe best choices

to reach your targetaudience

each item is a fact in a brochure or a point on

your website

define supportpoints

identify targetaudience

age

income range

educational level, etc.

Marketing Planning Chart

© stevens 470

Marketing 11

WORKSHEET

The Marketing Plan

1. Communication objective: what is your objective, be specific

2. Target audience: clearly describe them

3. Your market history: what has been happening?

4. Competitive advertising analysis: what are your competitors doing?

5. Relevant case studies: stories of similar issues and their results

6. Selling proposition: what will convince your target audience to take the actions you desire?

7. Support points: list every fact that supports your selling proposition

8. Themeline: distill your information to its essence, and use your themeline internally

or as your campaign slogan

9. Marketing channels: what are the best media choices for reaching your target audience

and broadcasting your message?

10. Develop creative solutions: only after all of the above has been determined!

12 NAMTA: Advertising and Marketing

CHAPTER 4

Marketing Channels: Creating the Right Marketing Mix

In today’s marketplace you will need to use multichannel marketing to reach all of your audience. We know that the customer is in charge of the sales process, researching, browsing, and shopping when they want, how they want, and where they want. Your challenge is to break through the clutter of media and messages and get noticed. Research shows that it can take up to eight impressions before your message makes an impact on the receiver.

A marketing channel is any one of the methods your busi-ness can use to market, sell, and communicate with your customers and prospects. There are online channels, which include your website, email, and social media. And there are offline channels, which include print ads, direct mail, radio, and television. And many offline channels can now be accessed online, for example radio and television. These very broad categories are essentially the channel highways. Leading to those highways are additional roads and paths for communication including trade shows, sales calls, blogs, mobile messaging, and much more.

Your Customers are Using Every Marketing ChannelThe channels for communication continue to grow as tech-nology expands. We are currently experiencing the growth of the internet, the explosion of cable television networks, increased competition both locally and globally, the rapid rise of mobile media, along with more options and products for staying connected via the internet (tablets, smart-phones, etc).

This gives your customers more choices, more information, and easier methods for researching and purchasing most every type of product and service. Your customer is in full control of the sales process and will shop when and where they choose, looking for the most compelling offers and convenient service. Because of this, finding a way to reach large segments of your potential audience is probably more difficult. You now have to divide up your resources in order to be in the many channels that your customers use.

Make it Easy for Your CustomerIn developing your marketing mix, you want to understand how your customers and prospects consume media. That allows you to send out information and messaging using the right mix of new and traditional channels. The next step is to create effective content across all your chosen channels and cross-promote, maximizing the strength of your message. Always utilize recognizable design at all touch points to ensure that your brand is immediately recognized.

Use Push and Pull Marketing ActivitiesWhen developing your strategy, include both push and pull marketing activities. Push marketing refers to pushing your message out to your target audience. You take an action that puts your message in front of them, for example you send a postcard, run a radio ad, or send out a broadcast email. Pull marketing activities are used to draw your target audience into your major marketing channels so you can have a larger dialogue with them. Social media is a power-ful pull marketing activity that continues to grow.

Create Leads that Convert to CustomersAs you are deciding on your channels and making plans, be sure to think about the relationship between leads and conversions. When traffic from a particular source (chan-nel) completes a particular goal (call, email, fill out a form, download a report) you have a lead. When a lead generated from your efforts then makes a purchase, you have con-verted them to a customer.

What generates the most responses (leads) may not gener-ate the most sales (conversions). You want to find the channels with the lowest cost per conversion. I have seen people be impressed by all the click-throughs they get from an online ad, but if that activity does not generate mean-ingful results, then it’s time to review the plan.

More Channels Give You More OptionsThis proliferation of media channels may appear to be a marketing headache, but it also presents the opportunity to expose more people to your message. Studies show that you need to touch someone at least eight times to make an impressions, you now have more options for doing that. The goal is to orchestrate all of your marketing activities so that each channel works independently while they also comple-ment and reinforce each other.

Your customers are actively using many channels and are comfortable purchasing from them all: retail stores, online shopping websites, over the phone, etc. At one time we feared that sales would simply migrate from one channel to another, but we now know that your multichannel shoppers will buy more items and spend more money.

The Online Marketing ChannelsOnline marketing channels include the many ways you can reach out over the internet to interact with your customers. Here is an overview of the main online channels with a few examples of each.

13Marketing

WebsiteA collection of content pages accessed through the internet.

• company websites

• ecommerce websites

• blogs

EmailCollecting emails addresses and then marketing via email messages.

• enewsletters

• brand building emails

• product selling emails

Social MediaLeveraging social media platforms to engage with consumers.

• Facebook

• Twitter

• LinkedIn

Online AdsAds on third party websites to brand or generate web traffic.

• banner ads

• video ads

• interactive ads

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Earning higher rankings in organic search on the major search engines.

• managing and optimizing website content

• link building to your website

• generating website traffic

Paid SearchBidding for placement on search engines based on queries.

• Google Adwords

Online Public RelationsGenerating media from online outlets to get branding or traffic, and your own PR efforts.

• PRNewswire

• PRWeb

• sending or posting press releases to your own audience

Mobile MarketingThere are two ways to define mobile marketing.

1. Using mobile technologies to promote and provide infor-mation on goods, services, and to share ideas.

• websites and emails made mobile compatible for smartphones, tablets, etc.

2. Using mobile technologies to market in real time.

• providing customers with real time, location sensitive, and personalized information to promote goods and services.

RETAIL TIP Don’t expect business to just come to you. Have a marketing plan, and follow it. Review and revise it often. Follow your plan.



CHAPTER 5

Use Your Website to Make the Right Impression

People are Visiting Your Website 24/7In less than a second an online visitor will make a decision about your business based upon your website. Customers, prospects and business associates are visiting your website every day and making an immediate assessment of your business. Based on that evaluation they may decide to interact with your business in some way – a phone call, an email, signing up for your enewsletter, visiting your store, or making an online purchase. On the other hand, they may simply move on because your website is out of date, poorly designed, or lacking the information they are looking for.

The Finest presentation of Your BusinessIn today’s competitive online marketplace, your website may need an upgrade. The pressure to have a web pres-ence can lead a business to quickly create a website, oftentimes with a limited investment of time and expertise. Website standards are sophisticated and the website you created five years ago may be doing more harm than good. Studies show that a majority of people conduct product and information research on the internet before contacting a business. So your website needs to be the finest presen-tation of your business. It needs to embody the personal touch you would provide in a face-to-face meeting and be as impressive as walking into your store.

Make the Commitment to Provide ValueToday’s prospective customer is in full control of the sales process, both online and offline. This puts your website in competition with all the other websites in your industry, and all the millions of websites available on the World Wide Web. By talking to your customers, utilizing research data, and working with industry professionals, you can under-stand how your customers and prospects want to interact with your business via your website. Once you have that information, you can create a website that is interesting, meaningful and compelling to your audience.

Make Your Website Work for YouYou can ensure greater online success by using the latest technologies to your advantage. A growing number of your prospects use their mobile devices for access to data, so be sure your website is viewable on these devices. Your web-site should be built using the latest technical standards so it is easily searchable and ranks well on the major search

engines. Take the time to review your website weekly to be sure the information is up to date, and every six months re-view the technical “backend” features of your website. The internet is a rapidly changing environment and standards are evolving. Having a comprehensive website requires a commitment of time and resources – make it a powerful component of your business success.

Your Website is Your Online HubYour website is extremely important because it is the epicenter of your online communications. All of your busi-ness content should be available on your website, nicely organized so that visitors can move through it in a seamless way. Your many other online channels should send people to your website for more information. For example, your email can highlight a product or promotion and then send the recipient to your website for all the details. The same can be done with social media. Your offline channels can also send people to your website for more info, including print, TV, and radio ads. Using multichannel marketing to integrate all of your channels allows you to make your web-site the hub for information, product data, sales, reviews, photos, etc. Create a website that leads people through your sales cycle no matter what stage of the buying cycle they are in. Include calls to action and more in depth data as they navigate further into your website.

website

ecommerce

email

search

mobile

social

blog

online video

online adsWebsite is Your Online Hub © stevens 470

15Website

CHAPTER 6

Design Matters

We look at websites all day long, whether we are doing re-search for our company, shopping online, checking out the best place to buy art supplies, or looking for an art class. What makes a website grab you and keep your attention? The design of your website is critical to your website visi-tor’s experience.

Design Sets the ToneFirst, the look and feel (brand design) of your website immediately sets the tone for your company and product. We are visual beings, so as soon as we hit your home page, we make an assessment of your company based upon this first impression. It is either good or bad, right or wrong, depending on our personal taste and current needs. The visitor will make their decision, and begin to interact with your website (reading text, clicking on a video, etc) or they will move on.

Design Controls the MessageSecond, the web page layout (design hierarchy) allows you to control what your website visitor looks at first. Through the design you can highlight the most important informa-tion that you want visitors to see. If you sell products, you can highlight one item, a sale, or free shipping. The design elements of size, color, typeface, and imagery can all be used to draw attention.

Design Displays the NavigationThird, the design elements (navigational design) will guide visitors in navigating through your website. The design presents visual clues for what to click on, where you can travel to, and things you will find on the website. There are evolving standards for navigation, and other website elements, that have come to be expected and help visitors navigate based on their online experiences. Your design needs to provide a visual map of where to go and what to do. You should guide people through your information in a logical and comfortable way.

Design Holds Your AttentionFourth, the visuals (graphic design) of your website are in-tegral to holding a site visitor’s attention. Today’s standards for graphics, photos, and video are very high so use the best graphic elements you can afford. The design of your website must take into account the tastes and preferences of your clients and prospects. Be sure to use visual imagery that will excite their interest.

Design Allows for GrowthAnd fifth, a well-structured website (content design) will allow you to add new content and images without altering the quality and structure of your website. You should use a Content Management System (CMS) when developing your website for a strong design structure that is flexible enough to add images, content updates, and new pages. With a CMS you can easily make edits and changes to your website using a simple backend editing system that will help you maintain design standards.

Design for Current TechnologyUnderstand the role of the web browser in how your website looks to the world. It is the web browser that can access, interpret and graphically display the content of the World Wide Web, including your website. The web browser enables us to view web pages that contain text, images, videos, or other multimedia. The web browser also allows us to navigate between web pages by using hyperlinks. Sa-fari, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox are all examples of web browsers and they are continually being upgraded; be sure your website code is being updated to accommo-date their latest standards.

Design for ResponseReview your website design to see that it clearly shows your website visitor how they can interact with your company. Clarify the goals and objectives you have for your website to determine the response you are looking for. Your website can educate, generate leads, create a sale, interact with your visitor, and much more.

Design for SuccessA compelling and successful website will be based upon intelligent market research and customer data. Armed with this information you can create relevant content that inspires meaningful interaction. Present that content with great design and you will make a powerful first impression that keeps your website visitors returning for more.


CHAPTER 7

Website Management

Some businesses may believe that simply having a website is sufficient for online success. But we know the “build it and they will come” philosophy does not apply to the inter-net. Your website, like any other aspect of marketing, takes time, effort and patience to be a success. A catalog needs to be distributed, a store needs a sign out front, and your website needs to be seen by potential and existing custom-ers in order to be effective. If your company’s strength has traditionally been excellent customer service, a fabulous retail environment, a great product selection, or other busi-ness features – those assets need to be made tangible on your website.

Success on the internet requires the same level of commit-ment as any other integral part of your business. Here are several ongoing tasks that your website requires.

Ensure that Your Website Accurately Reflects Your Business

In today’s marketplace, your website is often the first intro-duction to your business. Current and potential customers are visiting your website and making a decision about do-ing business with you. Take a good look at your website and see if it is up to the task. Don’t ignore such an important marketing channel!

Allocate Resources to Your WebsiteYour website is never done. It should be continuously reviewed, updated and managed. Changes can be large or small, but treat your website as a live presentation. You will need to allocate some time and money to it as part of your ongoing marketing plan.

Have a Written Plan for Updating Your WebsiteYour website visitors expect fresh content and new reasons to keep visiting. Given how busy most businesses are, the one way to ensure that content is updated, is to have a plan for the next six months to a year. That way you can gather information ahead of time, know what current events you need to publish, and keep on track.

Review Your Website Design and ContentWebsite standards continue to evolve and website styles change rapidly. Your website should be visually current. When is the last time that you reviewed and updated the content on your website? Nothing will turn a visitor away faster than seeing dated information. Returning site visitors expect to see fresh information, new products, and chang-ing images/photography. Remember that online, we are competing with big brands and best practices.

Create Content DensityThe content on your website provides information for your site visitors. You can bring people into your website by highlighting important topics on your homepage with links to further information. This lets your website visitor choose how much data they would like to read, based on their cur-rent interests and needs.

The amount and relevancy of the content on your website is also a determining factor in how your website is valued by the search engines. You can increase the content on your website by building additional pages that focus on important topics appropriate for your business. Rather than listing all your services on a single web page, develop a specific page for each service. The more current and specific your website content is, the better you will do with the search engines—and you will give people a reason to return.

Keep Content Fresh with a News or Blog SectionA good way to add content, without having to continually revise the core information on your website, is to put out new information through a blog or news section. This will give you a place to easily post new information and you can also archive all of the posts for easy reference by your website visitors. This additional content also contributes to creating content density.

Convert to a Content Management System (CMS)Using a content management system allows you to update your content as often as you want while reducing your operating expenses. There is no need to understand the html language because every update can be made through a back-end administration section. This web-based func-tion has an interface similar to a standard word processing program. If you can’t convert right now, be sure your next website build uses a CMS.

Understand the Latest Search StandardsSearch engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of analyzing and updating the content on your website so it ranks higher in a search engine listing. SEO has grown into a science that evolves and changes as rapidly as the search engines themselves. You need to be sure your website is utilizing current search engine standards. With more web-sites being created all the time, a good SEO plan is needed to keep up with your competition.

Website 17

Use Web Analytics to Evaluate Your WebsiteIf you don’t currently run an analytics program on your website, now is the time to set one up. Your analytics will help to track website visits, page views, and exit pages. You will find that certain campaigns, products and website promotions will be more successful than others. Over time, understanding these trends will help you build out powerful content and become a resource for your customers. Your analytics report is also a great tool to find out what key-words people are using when searching and then coming to your website. Google Analytics is free and provides plenty of data about your website.

Use Social Networking for Your BusinessThe rapid growth of social media has been fueled by people’s personal interests and their desire to share their enthusiasm with other like-minded individuals. We have seen social media go from purely social content to being influenced by the forces of marketing. Businesses are find-ing that their customers are online and willing to partici-pate in social media communities. Be sure you are in the game.

Gather Email Addresses on Your WebsiteThis may seem like an obvious marketing tool, but many websites are not requesting email sign-ups. People who have chosen to visit your website are excellent prospects to be communicating with. You need to offer them some-thing in return—special offers, industry news, technical information, etc. Determine who visits your website, and decide what you can offer them in exchange for their email address.

Build Inbound LinksInbound links are links from external websites to yours. Search engines value the amount and quality of your in-bound links. Linking to your website from larger and more trafficked websites increases your standing with the search engines. Start by making sure your URL is added to the directories of the various organizations you belong to. This does not have to be limited to professional organizations. If you sponsor a local charity, group, or team, make sure you are listed on their website as well. Then look for ways to increase your inbound links by creating partnerships with websites in related fields.

Add Interactive Elements to Your WebsitePeople like the ability to interact with the companies they do business with. You can place a survey on your website, a test to be taken, a blog that people can respond to, etc. Find a simple way to let people talk back.

Create Video for Your WebsiteWhat do millions of people do every day online? They watch video! Video has endless possibilities and is an excel-lent way to introduce yourself, present information, show products or give a tour. Creating video for your website can be quick and simple or you can develop a more formal presentation.

RETAIL TIP Keep your website fresh. Update the front page on a regular basis with information about the current sales and events taking place in your store. Make sure you have an artsy look to front page that will attract artists.



WORKSHEET

Website Goals and Objectives

1. The main function of your website is:

2. Who visits your website:

3. How do they find your website:

4. What information can visitors find on your website:

5. Who are your major business competitors:

6. How does your website compare to your competition:

7. How would you like people to interact with your website:

8. What content is missing from your website:

9. How often do you plan to update your website:

10. What other marketing channels do you use to drive people to your website:

11. Do you monitor the traffic on your website:

12. What needs to be happening for you to consider your website successful:

Additional Thoughts and Comments:

19Website

CHAPTER 8

Use Your Website to Bring Visitors to Your Store

For many businesses, their retail store remains their major channel, even if they also sell online. If retail is where your sales are made, plan to use your online channels (website, email/enews, social media) to bring people to your store. Let’s look at some ways that you can generate in-store traf-fic from your online presence.

Website Content and IncentivesKeep your website updated throughout the year, especially during the holidays and busy shopping seasons. Aim to make your website have the same feel of activity, discovery, and celebration as retail shopping in your store.

• post coupons that can be printed and redeemed in-store

• offer a giveaway at the store

• promote gift certificates all season, with a push close to the holidays

• post weekly, or even daily, a photo highlighting a product grouping or category

• make recommendations on new products, good deals, great gifts

• post best sellers and products that go together

• use video to tell stories

Email CampaignsEmail is one of the most cost-effective ways to reach your audience. All your customers, prospects, and associates should be on your email list. If your list is lacking, work on gathering and inputting email addresses. Create a schedule for your email campaign and stick to it. If possible, develop your emails ahead of time so that you can simply send them on the scheduled day. Don’t cram everything into every email, change up the content with a variety of topics and focus on one major message each time. Your emails should include links to your website for more information. Here are some ideas for content.

• pictures of your store showing off all your inventory

• sales and offers with deadlines

• gift ideas for all ages

• invitations to workshops to make crafts, gifts, and decorations

• expert advice for people buying for artists

• gift certificate promotions

Social MediaAll of these ideas can be applied to your social media. A simple way to generate fresh content for social media is to post lots of photos of the things happening in your store: the people coming in, the products people are buying, new items that are arriving, events that are taking place, etc. Focus your social media on sharing the fun of your retail environment while also delivering your promotional mes-sages in a casual way. Social media can also link to your website, but often it can send people right to your store.

In-Store SpecialtiesFor a majority of shoppers, nothing compares to the retail experience. Your store gives shoppers the ultimate brand experience: your special environment, full product selec-tion that can be seen and touched, and the opportunity to personally interact with your sales staff. Use these advan-tages to their fullest, and vigorously promote them online.

• have lots of inventory, especially as you get closer to the holidays

• have a holiday open house with food and drink

• offer items that are hard to find or exclusive to your store

• have guest artists visit and provide a connection to your products

• create great in-store displays

Register for Local SearchMake it easy for people to find your store and provide the directions for getting there. You can register your location for local search by going to the following URLs and filling out the information.

• www.google.com/places

• www.bing.com/businessportal

• listings.local.yahoo.com (you can start with a free basic account)

• listings.mapquest.com/apps/listing


CHAPTER 9

Website Landing Pages

If you are taking the time and spending the money to send broadcast emails, place online ads, use social media for promoting products, or sell products online, landing pages are a required element in your marketing mix. Landing pages are becoming more important as you work to convert people to qualified prospects or customers using online channels. Today’s customer is impatient and overwhelmed with online options, so you must lead them to the point of interaction quickly, simply, and without distractions. This is where landing pages come in.

Using Landing PagesThey are called landing pages because these are pages that a web visitor will arrive at, or land on, from a link in your online promotions. Landing pages are designed to match the intent of the ad or promotion that they are linked from. They have the single objective of moving the web visitor to take your desired action. These website pages are gener-ally stand-alone pages that are not visible as a link within your website. For example, if you send an email promoting a new line of oil paints, the link in the email should send the reader to a landing page that is only about these oils paints with a call to action about purchasing this product, or attending a demo to see them, or whatever action you want the reader to take. Landing pages fall into two general categories, click-through and lead generation.

Click-through Landing PagesClick-through landing pages are designed to persuade the visitor to click through to another page. The page’s job is to provide product information, images, and details that will make the visitor more interested in the product and move them closer to making a purchase. When doing ecommerce promotions, you may be sending your audience directly from the promotion, for example a banner ad featuring a product, directly to the item’s shopping cart page. This may be too quick a transition if you are going to provide all the information needed to make an informed purchasing deci-sion. The process may be more successful if the banner ad links to a landing page and that links to the shopping cart page.

Lead Generation Landing PagesLead generation landing pages are used to capture the con-tact data on people clicking to this page, including their name, email, etc. The job for this type of page is to collect

information so you can connect to the people in the future. The page should contain a form for easily providing their info. Ask only for as much info as you will need to market to these prospects, the shorter the form, the more likely it will be filled in. Also include an explanation of what they will receive in exchange for sharing their info with you.

Here are some examples of what you might offer in ex-change for their contact info:

• sale coupons

• free samples

• contest information

• how-to booklets

• event invites

When to Use a Landing PageWhen you have prepared and broadcast specific promo-tions, you do not want to take those interested to your website’s home page. Your home page is designed for a dif-ferent purpose. Its job is to provide a quick, intuitive and compelling road map to the most important information on your website. If you take someone that has clicked on your online promotion to your home page, you are distracting them from your promotional message, as well as frustrat-ing them as they try to find the product you are promoting. Visitors will quickly leave your website and may be left with a negative experience.

Instead, you should consider using a landing page to sup-port each of your online promotions. The goal is to take your audience through a funnel of information to lead them to the final action or purchase. By providing a unique land-ing page for each online ad, email, search term, and social media message you can control the flow of information and calls to action. Separate landing pages also let you mea-sure traffic to each page using your web analytics package. You can accurately assess how each promotion is perform-ing by looking at the data for each page.

You can get started by building a few landing pages to sup-port some of your online advertising, then track the results to see how they are performing.

21Website

Landing Page Structure

SUBHEADLINE that provides additional information and supports messaging

REINFORCING STATEMENT geared to maintain interest

CLOSING ARGUMENT STATEMENT

benefit 1 headlinedescribes a benefit of product and

supports the info above

image for benefit 1



image for benefit 3



image for benefit 2

feature 1 headlinedescribes a product feature to support

the benefit statements

image for feature 1



image for feature 3



image for feature 2

HEADLINE matches messaging from what was clicked(email, social media message, paid online ad, etc.)

image for benefit 3beauty shot for product/serviceor online video

OFFER DETAILS will explain what you receive1. benefit statement

2. benefit statement

3. benefit statement

FORM headerexplain what they will receive in exchange for giving their info

CALL TO ACTION!

name

email address

what are you interested in?

we will never share your email

customer testimonial to add support to messageplease choose...

PHONE #make it easy to contact you

Landing Page Structure © stevens 470 thank you to unbounce.com for chart information


CHAPTER 10

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of analyzing and updating the content on your website so it ranks higher in a search engine listing. The search engines are evaluating your website content based on relevancy to the search terms entered into a search engine. SEO is a science and best practices evolve to keep up with the con-stantly updating search algorithms developed by the search engines. Add to that the number of new websites created every day, and you can see that the online marketplace has become increasingly competitive. Keep in mind that having an SEO plan is the best way to be successful, given that quality web content and consistent web activity will require your time and attention.

Search MattersThe goal of good SEO is to provide such great content for your audience that many people will visit your website to access the pertinent and timely information you have included. You want to provide an intuitive and seamless experience that will keep your website visitors engaged. Search engines evaluate your website based on relevancy, activity, engagement, and links coming into your website. There is no point in trying to trick or cheat the search engines, they are constantly changing and will lower your website ranking if it appears to be cheating.

Searchers Have a NeedSearch is important to your online marketing for two important reasons. First, people searching have a need for a product or service to solve a problem or fill a desire. Research confirms that they will meet that need as soon as possible and act quickly on the information they find during their search. Second, when your business comes up in search results to someone that does not know your business, you now have the opportunity to acquire a new customer.

Organic SearchOrganic search results appear based on relevance to the search term that was entered. Robots and spiders launched by the search engines are continuously crawling the inter-net looking at the content of your website and all the other websites, and then ranking them using a search algorithm. A search algorithm is a set of programmed instructions used to evaluate the content of a website. They are created by the search engines, like Google and Bing, and are kept private and constantly updated to ensure honest search results.

Organic Search Features

• higher visibility—people click top ranked organic search the most

• higher ranking generates trust

• trust generates more traffic

• provides longer lasting traffic

• lower cost for organic than paid

Local SearchLocal search provides geographically constrained results. Search engines can pinpoint your location by identifying your computer’s IP address, a unique number that every computer connected to the internet is assigned. Local search results will include additional information such as the street address, city name, postal code and an interac-tive map.

As art materials retailers, you should pay close attention to local search and ensure that your store is showing up in local search results. Local search has replaced the Yellow Pages for most of us. Over 65 percent of people now search online, and 70 percent of all online searches are done by people looking for local products or services.

Local Search Features • reaches your local audience

• provides a map to your location

• works well on mobile

• can boost search ranking

You can register your location for local search by going to the following URLs and filling out the information.

• www.google.com/places

• www.bing.com/businessportal

• https://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/local-listings/ basic-listing/ (you can start with a free basic account)

• listings.mapquest.com/apps/listing

23Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

CHAPTER 11

SEO Best Practices

Be Ready to Make a Powerful First ImpressionYour website must make a great first impression. If you are putting effort into bringing more people to your website, make sure your website is ready to do its job. People are visiting your website every day and they make an immedi-ate assessment of your business. Based on that evalua-tion, they may decide to interact with your business in some way—come to your store, make a phone call, send an email, or make an online purchase. On the other hand, they may simply move on because your website is out of date, poorly designed, or lacking the information they are looking for.

Have Fresh and Relevant ContentOn the internet, relevant content is king. Because the search engines are going to try and match a search based upon your content, the more relevant and specific your con-tent is to your target audience, the closer the match. The search engines are continually crawling the internet and updating search rankings based upon what they find. Fresh content shows them you have a website with new informa-tion which improves your ranking.

Content density is also important, so your homepage should easily lead your website visitor off to different areas of your website, based on their interests and needs. The content on your website that will appear “above the fold” matters as well, so make a conscious decision about what appears on the upper area of your website that fits the average screen size, and consider how your website looks and works on a mobile device.

An effective way to add new content to your website, with-out constantly recreating your website pages, is to include a news section or blog. Using news posts or blog articles, you can continuously add fresh content by writing about specific topics and populating your website with relevant keywords. Over time, this news section or blog will build valuable content into your website.

Content Ideas • write short articles on current topics in your industry, on store events, about new products, etc.

• post special offers and upcoming events on your home page

• keep your product information up to date

• review your website regularly to be sure all information is accurate and timely

• pull your social media content onto your home page

• put all content on your website as text so it is searchable (not a link to a pdf file)

Understand the Importance of KeywordsKeywords are simply the words or phrases that people use when searching online. “Long-tail keywords” refers to several words that create a very specific phrase. When writ-ing content for your website, incorporate relevant keywords into your headings and paragraph text. Your goal is to use terms that people would use in a search for your type of product or service. You can use a website analytics tool, for example Google Analytics, to find out what keywords people are using when searching and then coming to your web-site (although Google is beginning to restrict some of this data). You can also use Google Adwords to explore keyword statistics to help analyze the best keywords for your website content.

When you use general terms, like “art supply” you are competing with all art supply stores including the biggest online players. Any content you include that is more spe-cific, for example “watercolor painting classes” or “plein-air easels” will help your website come up in search when people are looking for those items within your category. Many people searching will be looking for a local art supply store so include your location on every page.

Keyword Recommendations • use keywords in your URL—your company name if possible

• use keywords in your page title—this text shows up in the search results

• use keywords in H1 text (defines headline text on your web pages)—marks the heading for the search engines

• manage keyword use and frequency in body text on page copy

• use keywords toward the beginning of the page

• avoid keyword stuffing (loading your web page with keywords to manipulate its ranking)


Build Inbound Links to Your WebsiteOne of the important signals to the search engines, in regards to the relevance and credibility of your website content, is how many inbound links are pointing to your website. It is the inbound links (links from other websites to yours) that matter for your search ranking. Your website’s outbound links (links from your website to others) have minimal impact on your ranking.

Building Inbound Links

• get links from business organizations and industry groups

• ask for links from websites with related content

• write and create content for other websites and include links to your website

• comment and participate in blogs and forums

• use social media to promote your website’s content

Here are links to the Google resources mentioned.

Google Analytics (free to add to your website and can track how people search for you)

www.google.com/analytics

Google Adwords (find keywords)

www.google.com/adwords

RETAIL TIP Have your business cards at your checkout counter and encourage your customers to take a few. Make sure your website address and email address are on the cards.


Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 25

CHAPTER 12

Google’s New Search Algorithm

In February 2014 , Google controlled 67.5 percent of US search query volume, Bing had 18.4 percent and Yahoo, 10.3 percent according to comScore. This makes Google the most important search engine for you to understand and focus your SEO efforts towards. Google launched its latest search algorithm named Hummingbird in September 2013.

New Search HabitsPeople have learned to approach search by typing a word, several words, or a question into the search engine. Then, the search engine will find and serve them links that con-tain the specific words they typed. People have also found that search can be a matter of trial and error. If the search results don’t offer answers to their question, they can im-prove the results by fine-tuning their search words.

Up until recently, the search has seen the words within a query as separate things and has not focused on the con-text of the words or the meaning of the questions. Google has now developed Hummingbird to look at the combina-tion of words in the search entry and provide results based on the meaning of the words or questions (not just match-ing the individual words).

Google’s Volume of DataGoogle is now 15 years old and has been gathering, analyz-ing, categorizing, and storing data all this time. Today, Google may have the largest database of information every gathered and recorded. This has enabled Google’s develop-ers to create a smarter search engine, one that can analyze and comprehend the meaning of search queries. It can do this because of the volume of data it has for reference, as well as its data showing the relationship between topics.

Just as your grocery store has been tracking all your pur-chases through your membership card, Google has been tracking all your search activity. While your grocery store is unable to track what you do with your groceries once you leave the store, Google is able to track your behavior after receiving the search results. That is a powerful amount of information on how we use internet search. Google is ac-cessing the collective intelligence of the web and creating a search system that is designed to think like people do.

The Knowledge GraphGoogle’s Knowledge Graph was the precursor to Hum-mingbird. The Knowledge Graph is that block of informa-tion that appears on the right of the search results and shows an organized block of information that relates to

your search query. The Knowledge Graph was developed to enhance Google’s search in several ways.

First, to help you find what you’re looking for, the search engine needs to understand the difference between things that share the same name or term. For example, the differ-ence between the ancient pyramids of Egypt and a pyramid in geometry. This understanding makes the results more relevant to your search.

Second, The Knowledge Graph aims to provide a summary of information related to your search topic. And it custom-izes that information based on what people have previously wanted to know in relation to that item. For example, when you search for Walt Whitman you get pertinent details on his life but also links to his major writings, as well as other authors that people have searched for along with Walt Whitman.

A third element that enhances your search results in the Knowledge Graph is that the information is broader than what you searched for. As in the Walt Whitman example, you may see books you were not aware he wrote, and re-lated authors you have not heard of.

Thinking Like YouThe Knowledge Graph debuted May 2012 and was the start of Google’s quest to understand your questions and provide an intelligent answer. In September of 2013 Hum-mingbird was launched, another advancement in their approach to the search engine. Quoting from Google’s blog “We (Google) have always believed that the perfect search engine should understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want. And we can now sometimes help answer your next question before you’ve asked it, be-cause the facts we show are informed by what other people have searched for.”

Will Google Provide All the Answers?Google’s job as a search engine has been to efficiently and accurately find answers for people when they do a search. Up until recently, that happened by serving up search results that offered the user links to websites that hopefully had the answers. As a business, you compete to enter the upper rankings of search results so a searcher will choose your website. Now you are competing with Google as well. So, the big question is...if Google is answering our search queries in the search results, why would people need to click on the link to your website for information?


CHAPTER 13

Time to Evaluate Your SEO Plan

There are two important points to keep in mind about the new search algorithm. First, Google’s search is now looking at the meaning of your search words and is not as focused on finding a match for the individual words. Second, Google has now become your competitor in the world of search engine optimization (SEO) as it now displays infor-mation on the search page. Given these two points, every business needs to evaluate its SEO plans and take stock of the content on their website and other online media.

Long Tail Keywords The term “long tail keyword” refers to an internet search that is composed of several words that create a very specif-ic phrase. They are often formed as questions, for example “where can I rent and outdoor tent in Columbus, Ohio” or “can I mix acrylic paints with watercolors.” Because they are so specific, long tail keyword searches have a lower volume than more general keywords like “outdoor tent” or “acrylic paint.” But, it is easier for you to rank higher with a long tail keyword than with the more widely used and competitive general term. Also, when someone is searching using long tail keywords, they probably have an immediate need to solve a problem or find a product. That makes it is very likely they are going to take action when they find the product or solution they are looking for.

Tools to HelpIt is important to use long tail keywords within your website content in a way that search engines and your website visi-tors can easily find them. The goal is to know what people are searching for so your website can provide them with useful content. There are many online tools available to help you.

Google’s Keyword Planner Tool is free and can help you with your content and keyword research. There are also paid keyword tools like Wordtracker and WordStream that will help by providing information on what terms people are actually using in their searches. They both offer a free trial period option and several levels of paid subscriptions.

www.adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home

www.wordtracker.com

www.wordstream.com

Once you are publishing quality content to your website you can track your results using a website analytics tool. Google Analytics is another free tool from Google.

www.google.com/analytics

Content Remains KingGoogle’s new algorithm can provide you with more oppor-tunities to be competitive in the world of search. Google’s new approach focuses on well written and informative con-tent, which your website can provide if you choose to invest in that effort. This will require creating more pages of con-tent that are geared toward answering your web audience’s questions and publishing new and original content. You’ll want to have as wide a variety of topics as makes sense for your business. Knowing your audience and understanding what they need will help you fine tune your focus. A larger volume of content on your website creates more pages that can be entry points for bringing people into your website. Quality content that is relevant and timely continues to be an effective approach to search engine optimization. Here are several website content items that can be useful.

• online video

• how-to pages with informative content

• question and answer section

• interviews

• product reviews

• industry research

Fresh Content is a ChallengeObviously, all of this new and relevant content poses a challenge for your business. Who in your company will provide this content on an ongoing basis? Perhaps you have a staff member that is a good writer, if so, you will need to give them the time to add this responsibility to their work day. You might share this task among several people, perhaps each one being the expert in a specific area. You can also consider hiring a writer for your website content, although it can be a challenge to find someone that under-stands your industry. While providing a steady stream of interesting content seems daunting, I encourage you to find a method that allows you to publish fresh content regularly. Start small and be consistent.

Website ConversionIn addition to monitoring how well your website is doing in search and managing the terms that bring people to your website, you should also be tracking the results of your ef-forts. If you are doing a good job with your website content and your search words are ranking well, the next step is to be sure they are converting traffic in the way that you in-tended. Lots of website traffic is great, but you want some of those visitors converting into customers.

27Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

WORKSHEET

SEO Worksheet

SEO is a valuable component of your marketing mix. Many factors that affect search results are technical aspects in regards to how your website is built and the quality of the code used to create it. It is important to work with a good web developer to keep your website up to date. Here are additional elements of SEO that you can focus your attention on.

Relevance: provide relevant and useful information for your website audience

• what is the main focus of your website

• is your website content accurate and up to date

• is your website linked to as a useful resource

Visitor experience: provide a positive experience for your visitor

• does your home page quickly and easily convey what you do/offer

• is your website navigation logical with no broken links or dead ends

• do your visitors spend time on your website or do you have a high bounce rate

Website goals: focus on your objectives when planning for SEO

• what is your website’s job, and does it do it well

• what actions do you want visitors to take

• how will you move website visitors to prospects and customers

Multichannel plans: traffic coming to your website from other channels helps increase your ranking

• what other media are you using to drive people to your website

• are you creating a seamless online experience

• are you using landing pages to provide visitors coming via other media relevant information

Optimize for mobile: mobile usage continues to grow, evaluate what you offer for the mobile visitor

• is your website mobile compatible for visitors linking in from a mobile search

• is your contact info, location, and hours at the top of your mobile website

• is the most relevant information easily available on mobile

Fresh content: new information added on a regular basis helps with your search ranking

• are you adding new content on a regular basis

• do you have a blog or news section

• are you using video for additional engagement

Track: know if your SEO plans are working is by evaluating your website analytics

• are you regularly checking your website analytics for traffic and activity

• can you identify the website content that generates the most interest

• can you identify what activities in other channels bring people to your website


CHAPTER 14

Paid Search

Paid search results come up based on payments to the search engines for specific words or phrases. These results generally show up at the top or on the right side of the results pages. Paid search is sometimes referred to as cost-per-click (CPC) or pay-per-click (PPC) because this is how the terms are sold. Research has shown that web users tend to distrust paid results and more often choose to click on organic search listings. But there are certainly successful pay-per-click marketing campaigns. You just need to be careful and understand what you are paying for. Remember, you are paying for a web visitor to click on your link, but it is what they do after they click that matters to your bottom line. Once someone reaches your website from a paid search result, will it result in a response or a sale?

When considering a paid search campaign, carefully con-sider the words/phrases that you choose to buy. The broad-er the term, the more competition and the higher cost. Usually, a more specific the term will be a better match for what the person is looking for, and potentially provide better campaign results. Given that it can be costly to run a paid search campaign, you should consider working with a professional SEO consultant to help plan and monitor your campaign. Here is an overview of the paid search process.

Research Your KeywordsThe first step in paid advertising is to choose the keywords you want to target. This requires doing research on the key-words you are considering. You want to find the keywords that people use when researching your specific product or service.

Create a BudgetAs a part of your research you will also need to explore the cost-per-click for your desired keywords. The CPC will will depend on the competition for that keyword. Google Keyword Planner is a free service to help.

Prepare Your Landing PagesLanding pages are the pages that a web visitor will arrive at, or land on, from a link in your online promotions. Land-ing pages are designed to match the intent of the ad or promotion that they are linked from. They are discussed further in the chapter on websites. You need to create landing pages for your keywords that are fully optimized for search (the chosen keyword is used in the header, text, photo tags, etc). This page should also be built to convert website visitors to customers with clear benefits and a call to action.

Decide Where to BuyYou also need to decide where to place your keyword ad-vertising. Google is an obvious option, as well as Bing and Yahoo! Social media should also be considered, Facebook has been expanding the paid ad options and Youtube is one of the most visited websites. There are also advertising op-portunities on other business websites. The Google Display Network lets your ad appear on various websites that have chosen to display Google ads on their pages (they receive a portion of the ad fee for this).

Track and MonitorAs your paid search ads run, you will want to keep close track of how they are performing in bringing visitors to your website, and how your landing pages are doing converting those visitors to customers.

email Marketing 29

CHAPTER 15

The email Marketing Channel

email Remains a Strong Marketing Channelemail remains a powerful communication channel. Most of us constantly check our email – on our computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones. 51 percent of email is now opened on a mobile device (Litmus Email Analytics Jan 2014). This means you can be sending emails at any time with a good chance that they will be opened by some of your recipients. Also consider that much of your online marketing will utilize pull marketing—the need to motivate people to seek out your brand and choose to engage. email offers you the opportunity to do some push marketing—let-ting you send an email and put your message in front of the recipient with the expectation they will take a look.

Use a Broadcast email ProviderYou should never send your marketing emails from your personal email account. You need to use a broadcast email provider that is built to handle the volume and the man-agement of the data. These services are designed to send hundreds or thousands of emails at once. They will help you build your email right within their program by provid-ing easy-to-use templates and you can generate a graphic email plus an alternate “text only” version for people that block graphic emails. The software will let you manage your email list, send emails to segments of the list, and will also track and manage opt-ins and opt-outs. Constant Contact is one of the most popular options, but there are many others including Campaign Monitor, Vertical Response, and MailChimp.

Manage Your email ListsYou should be keeping a good, up-to-date email list of your clients, contacts, associates, and friends. Include an email list sign-up on your website and in your store, and ask people that you meet for permission to add them to your list. Your list is a highly valuable marketing asset. When sending email, you are taking advantage of your relation-ship with the recipients to get your email opened, so make sure it is immediately obvious that your emails are coming from your company.

Build an Effective emailDesign your email to be opened, read, and responded to. Here are important points to consider when creating your email campaign.

Provide Useful Content

• latest news

• events

• share ideas

• new products/services

• reviews

• information/how-to

• special offers

• promote product/service for immediate purchase

Quality Writing and Graphics are Essential

• style and look that matches the tone of your business

• good punctuation and grammar

• address your audience needs

• develop a call to action

• design your email for visual impact and readability

• use high quality graphics and images

Craft a Compelling Subject Line

• you have 3 seconds or less

• keep it short and simple

• 30-40 characters including spacing (5-8 words)

• less than 40 characters = better chance of being opened

• the from address should be recognizable: [email protected]

Make it Easy to Respond

• link to a landing page

• link to your website

• link to the product on ecommerce site (buy now)

• provide phone number to call

• include directions/time

• offer a usable reply link (avoid “do not reply”)

Create a Good Landing Page

• strong headline

• benefit-focused content

• scannable content

• visually clear

• call to action


Track Your Email DataYour email broadcast software will give you the stats on how your emails are doing. Use this information to track and compare what type of content your recipients respond to. An open rate is calculated by dividing the number of email messages opened by the number of email mes-sages delivered. The following standard metrics should be reviewed to evaluate your email campaign.

• deliverability (#sent minus #bounced)

• open rate (% emails opened)

• click through (% clicked on link)

• conversion (acted on offer)

• unsubscribe (removed themselves from list)

A recent survey by Epsilon provides a look at average email list performance.

Super Stars: 24 percent opened or clicked emails within last 3 months

Nappers: 22 percent opened or clicked emails more than 3 months prior

Dormant: 43 percent inactive for the previous 12 months

Triggered EmailsIt can be well worth your time to develop and employ trig-gered emails for customers. Triggered emails are automated emails that are sent in response to an action taken by an online visitor. For example, it can be an email that auto-matically sends a thank-you message after someone signs up for your enewsletter from your website. Or an automated “happy birthday” email to your customers (if you have that info in your database). Triggered emails are a must if you have an ecommerce website. You’ll want to thank them for an order, let customers know their package has shipped, etc. Research has shown that triggered emails in response to abandoned carts, products reviewed, and other actions can be very successful at improving sales. Triggered emails have higher open and click rates.

Mobile Friendly EmailGiven the rise in mobile technology and the speedy adop-tion of mobile devices, the emails you send should be mobile friendly. Over half of your recipients will likely be viewing your email on their smartphone. Consider these tips when building a mobile friendly email.

• concise with important information at the top

• single-column layout no wider than 500 pixels

• font is at least 13 px for text and 25 px for headlines

• touch-friendly buttons: 29 x 44 pixels with padding

• hide extraneous content/graphics

• looks good on both IOS and Android

Create a Plan and Stay on TrackA good email plan will include a variety of messaging from your company, from industry news to current offers. Create a 6-12 month schedule and determine your email content over that time frame. You can build your emails ahead of time so they are ready to broadcast.

• decide how often to send: daily, weekly, monthly

• consider what day/time: test to see what gives you the best results

• review your email stats for future planning

RETAIL TIP Create an e-Newsletter to email to your customer database. It should include all current workshop and demo schedules and sales that you have going on at the time. Do a customer ‘highlight’ article. Ask your Reps to contribute product information articles for your customers to read about.


email Marketing 31

WORKSHEET

email Worksheet

1. Your email lists: What email lists do you have?

2. Other lists: Where can you acquire other email addresses that fit your target audience?

3. Content: What will you say in your email that is relevant and compelling?

4. Call to action: What do you want the recipients of your email to do?

5. Visual elements: What graphics/photos will you include?

6. Design: Who will design and build your email?

7. Landing page: What page on your website will the email link to?

8. Landing page call-to-action: What call-to-action will be on this page?

9. Mobile friendly: How will you make your email mobile friendly?

10. Subject line: Carefully craft an effective subject line.

11. From: use a recognizable person in your from address ([email protected]).

12. Broadcasting your email: What email service provider will you use?

13. Track results: Understand your email results using data from your service provider.

14. Evaluate: Review how well this email worked and note any improvements for the next.


CHAPTER 16

Social Media: Communicating with Your Customers

While social media is also a part of your online marketing, it plays a different role in your marketing mix. The internet has proven to be the perfect place to reach out and find new friends who have common interests. These friends are more likely looking to be entertained and informed versus looking for a particular product or service. We are now see-ing social media go from a purely social content to being in-fluenced by the forces of marketing as businesses find their customers are online participating in these communities.

The use of social media continues to grow and millions of users visit social media sites every day, often many times throughout the day. Some of the social media sites are the most visited websites in the world. Social media is hap-pening more often on mobile devices, approximately 80 percent of smart-phone owners use them to access their social networks and roughly 55 percent of them will go to their social network at least once a day. The ability to easily engage while on the go adds to the propagation of social media.

The size and scope of social media usage emphasizes the importance of a good social media plan for your retail store. While using social media sites is free, keeping an ongoing dialogue takes time and effort and will require an alloca-tion of human resources. You want to have an outline of your overall goals for social media and also parameters for measuring the results of your efforts.

A New Way to Communicate with ConsumersOur traditional marketing channels, such as brand market-ing and direct marketing, are one-way communications that we push out to the consumer with the intention of interrupting them so they will take notice of our message. Social media allows your business to send out messag-ing, but now the consumer can decide if and when they will take notice. The consumer can also talk back to your company and, even more importantly, consumers can talk to each other about your company. That puts a lot of power in the hands of the consumer.

How Do We Define the Value of Social Media?Some may question the value of using social media and how to account for its success or failure. Unless you are running specific promotions using social media, it can be hard to evaluate the responses to your posts and com-ments. The role of social media in your marketing mix may be more about relationships than responses. But the ques-

tion remains, how much time should you invest in social media and relationship building, when you are not sure about the results, and when you could be using that time on other marketing activities?

A Story from FacebookThe story of a newborn calf is an excellent example of the value of social media. There is a farm called the Gentle Barn in California. Its mission is to give sanctuary to severely abused animals and give them a safe place to live the rest of their lives. They have rescued many animals from a particularly bad situation and are healing them physically, posting pictures, and showing how well they are doing with all this love and care. And they ask for dona-tions in many of the posts, saying that in order to continue this work they need your support.

The New Calf

So one day the Gentle Barn posts this message along with a photo of a calf:

“She is 5 days old now and she needs a name. We are drowning in vet bills from this backyard butcher where she and the other 30 animals came from, so we are going to do a naming auction for her. The highest bidder by noon on Friday gets to name her, the funds will go to her care, and she will get a beautiful, strong name. The auction will go on right here on Facebook in the comments. Does anyone want to start with $10?”

Susie Q!

And on Friday, they posted this:

Her name is Susie Q!!!! The highest bid was made by Kathleen and Robin. They gave an amazing $10,000 in memory of Kathleen’s sister who has passed away. Today would have been her birthday, so this beautiful little calf will take on her name. Now her memory will live on with us for a long, long time. We are astounded by their generosity and are so very grateful. Thank You!!

I can’t think of another way the Gentle Barn could have raised that much money so quickly (for no cost). Perhaps a story on the TV news, but that is one message out, not the daily updates directly to people that have raised their hand and said they are interested by “liking” the Gentle Barn on Facebook.

Social Media Marketing 33

How Can You Be Relevant?So that is what social media can do for you. The question is, how do you connect that deeply to people when you do not have a topic or issue as compelling and emotional as the Gentle Barn? There is your challenge. What can you tell people about yourself, your company, your products, that makes you meaningful? The requirement to share some in-ner thoughts, personal values, community commitment, can be a lot to ask on top of all your other marketing activities.

Social Media EngagementLet’s look at how you can use social media to engage with your audience.

Provide the BasicsAlways include your basic business information in your social media profile including the type of store and prod-ucts offered, store location, directions, hours and phone number. If you are posting about upcoming events, make sure to include the specific details, or include a link to this information on your website.

Clarify Your GoalsBecause it can be hard to evaluate and document the results of your social media activities, you should start by having clarified your desired outcomes so you can monitor results based upon those expectations.

Positive social media results can include:

• increased website activity

• establishing your brand personality

• generation of more leads

• increased sales

• reaching new audiences

• better understanding of your customers and their needs

• greater customer loyalty

• improved products

• showing the human side of your business

• creating communities of like-minded people

As you see, there are many benefits to social media, but you need to keep your commitment to participate regularly. Consumers will only stay involved with your messaging if it is current and relevant.

Build a CommunitySocial media was made for creating a community of people that share similar interests. As a retail store in the arts and crafts category, you have the opportunity to build a commu-nity of creative individuals that share a strong, self-driven interest in art, design, and making things. You can connect with them by sharing ideas and images from your store, your people, classes and demos. Social media also lets you share a more inside view of your company and your people. Use this platform to show who you are and what you value. Highlight your role in your community and the organiza-tions that your business supports, including volunteer work that you and your employees do.

Share What You Know and LoveYou have an incredible amount of knowledge about the materials artists are using. Talk to them about old and new ways to use materials, the latest products available, the demos you offer, examples of art created with your products, and of course so much more. You also have the advantage of sharing something personal and meaningful with your customers. People are buying art supplies to be creative and express themselves, from the hobbyist who creates now and then, to the artist who “has to make art.” Go ahead and share your passion for creativity and the arts, it seems that many art material retailers got started because of that connection.

Offer Your Point of ViewYou have an emotional connection to your customers and conversations can be built around that. Social media is the perfect place to share your thoughts and opinions. It is not a place to be neutral and hope to appeal to everyone. Use social media to let people know you better and become a part of your circle. Tell stories about your day, your custom-ers, an event, something you learned. Don’t over think it.

Share Your PromotionsYour fans on social media are the perfect audience for sharing your sales and promotions. They are most likely interested in your products and can also share your posts with their friends, spreading your offers out to new audi-ences.


Expand the Reach of Your Social MediaMany art material retailers generate posts with great photos highlighting recent events including classes, demos and art openings. These images really bring the business to life and give their audience a feel for their store and the people that are a part of their community.

To enhance that effort, find a way to include some of this information on your website to add new content (which search engines like) and showcase your active and vibrant retail space. Using a news or blog section is an easy way to regularly add content to your website. Another way to maxi-mize your social media messaging is to create a feed to your website, so that your most recent social media posts show up on your home page.

Getting Involved with Social MediaIf you have not yet joined in on social media, or are still uncertain of what to do with your messaging, start by visiting social networking platforms so you can understand their different types of communities. You can then begin to participate in those communities by joining groups and responding to their posts. Once you have a feel for these conversations you can create a plan for your own sites.

Start your plan with whom you would like to reach and what they are interested in. Brainstorm the types of rel-evant information you could provide to them, remembering that social media is all about the consumer and not about your company. Determine what assets you have that can be used for social media, including staff with appropriate skill sets, existing content that can be repurposed, and time available each week for managing social media. Then define what your goals will be using these new channels. Work on the messages you plan to send out and be sure to make your communications two-way, always inviting the consumer to respond back to you.

Social media marketing may require some time to take hold and produce results. The challenge is to allocate enough time and resources to effectively test these channels and see how they are working in conjunction with your larger marketing plan. Online marketing will only continue to expand and your business needs to have a presence.

RETAIL TIP On your Facebook page, you can announce demo and workshop schedules, new products you’re carrying, and sales. Tell all your customers to like you on Facebook. Encourage them to write about products they’ve pur-chased from you —they can help you do your advertis-ing with their comments.



CHAPTER 17

Social Media Sites for Business

There are many social media sites and they continue to evolve in growth and popularity. You can choose which sites to invest time with and some may be more successful for you than others. Here are several of the currently popular social media websites.

FacebookFacebook is the most popular social network at this time. It is a very social environment where people share every-thing from what they had for dinner to pictures of their kids. People are not necessarily coming to Facebook to buy products or services, although there are ways to provide ecommerce functions directly from your Facebook pages, so this is changing. Facebook has altered how its algo-rithm functions so that fewer business posts are seen by fans. Facebook now offers businesses the option to buy ads or paying to promote their posts. This limits the reach of organic (nonpaid) content and Facebook appears to be shifting from a free social site to a paid advertising format. So if you have built a community of fans on Facebook you should revisit your plans and make adjustments.

Google+Google Plus is the second largest social network and part of the online empire of Google. This platform is good for con-necting with people based on shared interests and can help you find new people to interact with. Google Plus requires a little more involvement than some of the other social media sites because it does not allow auto-posts, you need to interact in real time. An advantage to Google Plus is that everything you do is indexed by the Google search engine and this can help in your search rankings.

TwitterTwitter allows you to network with everyone, from your friends to celebrities. There are many automated programs for tweeting and the volume of tweets each day is roughly five hundred million, according to the Twitter Engineering Blog. With that volume your tweets can be easily lost so you need to post often and keep your tweets short and in-teresting. You can also pay to proomote your tweets through Twitter’s “promoted tweets.”

LinkedinLinkedin is business oriented and provides a respected place to post your online resume and associated business activities. You should keep this information up to date and accurate for you and your business. People doing business with you are likely to check out your Linkedin profile to learn more about you. You can post messages on Linkedin and use the status update to drive traffic to your website.

InstagramInstagram is a social media platfrom designed for shar-ing pictures. It is a good way to share your company story including people, products and activities, through images. Instagram is a place where you can be creative in the im-ages that you share and show your behind-the-scenes busi-ness activity, community involvement, event attendance, travel and more.

PinterestPinterest is also a visual social media site. The concept lets you pin images into specific categories on your own “corkboard.” People can pin your pins to their corkboard and the pins are clickable to their original website. You can include the price of an item in your pin. Pinterest users buy more products and services than users of any other social media site. The Wall Street Journal reported in March 2014 that Pinterest plans to launch ad sales during the second quarter of 2014 with the intent of “reinventing” web advertising.

FoursquareFoursquare provides a location check-in service that lets your visitors post to all their friends when they are at your place of business. This check-in is, in essence, an en-dorsement or referral of your business to their community. Foursquare is about local business so your art materials store should be participating. You can promote deals and make offers to your followers and they can check-in and write reviews about your store.


A Note on Search and SocialSearch is for Customer Acquisition

When thinking about allocating resources to your online marketing, it is important to keep in mind the difference between search and social. Not that search and social are easily confused, but they are both online marketing chan-nels that compete for your time and attention.

The difference—and it is big—is that people engaged in search have a need, and most often it is an immediate one. There is a reason they are looking for something. Effec-tively coming in up in search results can put you in front of people that don’t already know your brand, but are in need of your products and services. And that can make them your customer.

Retail stores should take advantage of the fact that 70 per-cent of searchers are looking for a local product or service, and over 80 percent of people searching for local informa-tion will take action within a day. So be sure to register your website for local search. This will let you control the quality of your local search results, ensure the accuracy

shoppingproduct research

entertainment news/currentevents

job search contentdiscovery

generalinformation

discussion

97%

15%

91%

42%

89% 89% 88% 86%

43%

65%

22%

51%

18%

31%

SEARCH SOCIAL

Search versus Social

Research by Conductor at conductor.com

Respondents replied to “frequency you turn to search versus a social network”

Search vs Social © stevens 470

of the information, and help increase your search ranking. Also, take note that over half of all those searches will be done on a mobile device which indicates that your website should be mobile compatible.

Social is for Socializing

You should be using social media for your business and it certainly offers new communication possibilities for retail stores. In the realm of social media you can create com-munity, engage with your customers, let them talk back to you and each other, and promote products and sales. But your social media followers are not really looking to make a purchase each time they visit your social media posts. The results generated by your social media engagement will be different than the results generated by search. At this point in time (even with social media becoming much more busi-ness oriented), when it comes to acquiring new customers and making sales, search is likely to be more effective. When allocating marketing efforts in both search and so-cial, please keep your objectives clear and know what you can expect from each.


WORKSHEET

Social Media Worksheet

1. Identify your audience:

Be specific about the audience you want to reach.

2. Social media sites:

Identify the social media sites your selected audience visits.

3. Goals and objectives:

Define your goals for each social media site.

4. Listen:

Visit the social media sites and spend time getting to know how people converse.

5. Generate content:

Select and create the content you will share for each campaign.

6. Your profile:

Spend time creating quality graphics and text for your social media profiles.

7. Resources:

Select the members of your team that will manage your social media sites and

decide how much time will be allocated each day/week.

8. Measure:

Determine how you will measure the success of your social media campaigns

based on your goals and objectives.

9. Evaluate:

Once you have measured success, evaluate how you can improve or expand the results next time.


CHAPTER 18

Your Customers Have Gone Mobile

We Love our SmartphonesSmartphones let you make phone calls, but what makes them so smart is that they have an operating system and can run software. This enables them to have features similar to those found on your computer, for example web browsing, sending and receiving email, the ability to open and read documents, take photos, listen to music and watch videos. Smartphones are getting faster at accessing the internet and letting us view websites, engage in social media, download apps, and access driving directions via GPS. No wonder we love them.

The latest trends in mobile technology now require us to develop online marketing that is mobile compatible includ-ing websites, emails, search, and social media. Reaching customers while they are on the go is essential.

Time spent consuming media on mobile devices is growing 14 times faster than desktop viewing.

We have left our desks behind, both at work and at home, and now conduct business and personal communications while on the go. And even when we have access to our desktop computer, we often prefer to use a mobile device. This shift will continue as we head into a fully mobile lifestyle.

Mobile Websites55 percent of adult cell owners access the internet on their mobile phones.

Your website is often the first impression a prospect will have of your company. Your website visitor’s experience when viewing your website, whether on a desktop monitor, on a tablet, or a smartphone, needs to have a positive im-pact and engage that visitor. If your website is not mobile-compatible at this time, you should begin planning for that now. Using responsive web design is a cost-effective and practical way to make that happen.

61 percent of users are unlikely to return to a website that isn’t optimized for mobile browsing.

In today’s marketplace, the customer is in full control of the shopping experience. You need to meet them where they are and where they choose to engage. The time and patience of the average online user is very small, if a web-site visitor does not find what they want in milliseconds, they will move on to the next option.

Only 35 percent of businesses have a mobile-optimized website.

It is challenging for businesses to keep up with the chang-

ing online options. In the case of mobile functionality, it has come along quickly leaving many businesses in need of catching up. Developing a mobile-optimized website might put you ahead of the competition at this time.

Because mobile devices have become so convenient to use they are now an integral part of our “on-the-go” lifestyle. That means that many of your customers are trying to ac-cess your website on a mobile device. Most mobile devices will display your website correctly, it will just be incredibly tiny and users will have to enlarge it and scroll from side to side to read the content. Options for having a mobile-friendly website include a mobile redirect or using mobile CSS.

Separate Mobile WebsiteYou can create a mobile version of your website and then setup a mobile redirect. Mobile redirect is a feature that allows your website to determine the size of the visitor’s browser screen and then direct them to your main website or display your mobile website. In this case you have two separate websites.

Mobile Compatible WebsiteAnother option is to make your website mobile-friendly. Us-ing mobile CSS (a way of formatting web content) you can control how your main website is displayed on a monitor, a tablet, or a smartphone. This allows you to manage and update just one website.

Whatever way you choose, you should minimize the amount of information that will show on your mobile site by tailor-ing it to the needs of a mobile viewer. What information do I need when accessing your website while on the go? Some basics include store address, directions, an interac-tive map, hours of operation, and contact information. Your navigation may need to be simplified (I am probably not looking for your store history while on my smartphone). Sales or special offers should be easily visible to entice me to come by.

Mobile SearchAccording to Google, there has been a five-fold increase in mobile search over the last two years. This data empha-sizes the need for a mobile-friendly website. If someone searches for your store and finds you in search, you need to take them to a landing page designed for a mobile device. If you are investing money in paid search, and over half of

39Mobile Marketing

the searches are on mobile devices, you are wasting your money if those ads don’t lead to a mobile-friendly website.

Your customers are searching while they are out and about, looking for places, products, and special offers. They can comparison shop while they are in your store, accessing online retailers and checking for products and prices. Re-search also shows that over half of all consumers use their smartphones to search for products even when they are at home and could use a desktop or laptop computer. The features of mobile search encourage a shopper to become a customer very quickly.

67 percent of people search for products and services online rather than traditional yellow pages.

Search provides a powerful means for acquiring new customers. People searching have a need for something, and having a need is what drives the majority of sales. As a retailer, it is imperative that you show up in search. 70 percent of searchers are looking for local products and ser-vices and 88 percent of people searching for local informa-tion take action within a day. Your customers and prospects are out and about looking for products and services, you need to be available to them at that moment.

Mobile CommerceMobile commerce (M-Commerce) is defined as consumers shopping and conducting other financial and promotional activities on their wireless handheld devices. Browsing, shopping and purchasing are increasingly done on mobile devices and that trend continues to grow. As the apps for shopping are improved and simplified the shopping experi-ence becomes easier and more convenient. According to a recent Nielsen survey, 45 million American smartphone owners used an app from the shopping/commerce category in June 2012. In another Nielsen survey, research showed that mobile shoppers prefer to use a retailers’ mobile website over an app. It is clear that mobile shopping will continue to grow and your customers will be looking for this purchasing option.

It’s predicted that by 2015 mobile devices will generate 4x the sales of PCs and laptops.

It is surprising how quickly we have moved from the distrust of online shopping and the fear of using our credit card online, to full engagement with online shopping. That engagement has happily moved to mobile. Your customers shop and make purchases on mobile devices while on-the-go, as well as at home. If your business offers ecommerce as a way to buy your products take this trend seriously.

Mobile email42 percent of email is opened on a mobile device.

Email remains a strong marketing channel making it worth-while to ensure your emails look great on mobile devices. Many of the broadcast email providers (MailChimp, Cam-paign Monitor, Emma, etc) now provide mobile-compatible templates for building your email campaigns. Making your email mobile friendly can be as simple as a clean, one column design with contact info at the top and a clear call to action.

Mobile Social60 percent of social media users come in via a mobile phone.

Social media and mobile technology were made for each other. Social media is where we keep our friends updated on our activities, check-in to places to share where we are, and post photos of what we are doing. Social media apps for mobile devices make it simple and fun to share experi-ences online. You can use the same apps to share company information in real time, keeping your followers up to date on what is happening within your business, at your retail locations, and out in the community.

Mobile Customer Tracking Mobile devices also provide GPS and WiFi technology that can determine where a user is located. Foursquare was created in 2009 and became the first location-based social network to be widely adopted. In May 2012, Foursquare had 15 million users, 4 million check-ins each day and 3 million sites listed. Facebook Checkin works a lot like Foursquare with the ability for a business to add check-in incentives. Facebook is by far the largest social network so Facebook Checkin can give your businesses a big market-ing reach. Yelp is an online city guide that helps people find local places to eat, shop, drink, relax and more. Yelp employs user reviews to “rank” venues and uses geoloca-tion technology to help people find where you are. These location-based services let you meet your customers online, provide them with incentives, and engage with your com-pany.

Mobile Marketing PlansReviewing the trends and technologies that are making your customers mobile shows that we all need to provide a mobile experience to our customers. Now is the time to develop or strengthen your plan for mobile marketing. Mo-bile users are not the audience of the future, they are the audience of today, and they include people of all ages.

Data compiled from the following sources: Strongview, Pew Internet, Search Engine Watch, BriteSkies, eMarketer, and Litmus Email Analytics.


WORKSHEET

Optimize for Mobile

n Fonts are easy to read

n Contact info is prominent

n Easy-to-use navigation

n Most important information at top

n Links large enough to click with a finger

n Autofill form fields, only require minimum info

n Minimal use of background images

n Prominent search for websites

n Call to action

Use this worksheet to plan your mobile website pages and your mobile emails.

Notes and Comments:

Online Video 41

CHAPTER 19

Online Video for Motion and Emotion

Video is CompellingVideo is currently the most compelling media on the web. The majority of people would prefer to watch video than read text. Consider how much information can be conveyed with just one second of video compared with the amount of information that can be read. According to comScore, the average viewer watches 22 hours of online video in a single month, much of it in short videos of just a few minutes.

Video is EngagingThere are many reasons why video is so engaging. Video combines sight, sound, motion and emotion to grab our attention and keep us engaged. Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D. provides some specific reasons for being drawn to video.

1. Our brains are hard-wired to use the human face as a point for information and believability. It’s called the fusiform facial area and it makes us pay attention to faces.

2. The sound of a human voice speaking converts information into meaningful content.

3. We have survived by using our peripheral vision to notice what is moving around us. It is in our collective DNA to notice things in motion.

4. Our body language and tone of voice convey emotions that draw us in to share an experience.

Video Increases VisibilityVideo increases online visibility and drives more action than plain images and text. Online videos are 50x more likely to rank on page one of Google than similar text-based content, based on a study by Forrester Research. Your view-ers are also much more likely to share a good video with friends, than they are to share a link to text-based content. You can share videos through your website, social media, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. Pinterest has the ability to “pin” vid-eos, providing an additional avenue for sharing your video.

Create Video to Tell StoriesThere are many ways to get your online videos created. Start with ideas and stories that you want to share with your customers. From there you can think about what points you will want to talk about and what visual footage will go with those messages. Use your understanding of your customers to decide what stories will be entertaining and engaging when told online. There are many video pro-duction options, from the do-it-yourself approach to video freelancers to video production facilities. If you choose to

create your own video, judge it critically to be sure it meets the standards of your brand. Advances in equipment and technology have made video more affordable and available to even the smallest business.

Google’s Virtual TourThere is another type of video you can use to promote your retail space. Consider adding an interactive virtual tour us-ing Google maps to showcase your business online. It is a great concept that is affordable and easy to get done.

The virtual tour incorporates the same street map technol-ogy Google uses to show you locations all over the world. People that find you online can enter your store, walk around, and see the scope of your space and your products. This is an excellent way to further maximize your search results and entice people to visit your store.

To create an interactive virtual tour, you will need to use an approved Google photographer, and you can find them listed on the Google website. Your photographer will use fisheye lenses and rotating camera turrets (mounted on tri-pods) to photograph your retail environment. To create the panoramic walkthrough from the photographs of your store, the images are uploaded to Google and processed using their own sophisticated technology.

The images will appear in Google searches, on Google maps, and Google+ Local. You can also embed the pan-oramic photos on your website and in your social media. Here is a link to the information on virtual tours on the Google website.

http://www.google.com/help/maps/businessphotos/index.html


CHAPTER 20

The Advertising Budget

Advertising is a part of a store’s marketing plan. The mar-keting plan helps you to understand who is most likely to do business with you, be it for the first time or as a repeat customer. Once you know this information, you can direct your advertising to appropriate customers.

Advertising should not be viewed as an expense, but rather an investment. As a matter of fact, research shows that stores that advertise through a soft economy rebound faster than those who don’t.

The advertising budget for an established store should run between 2-5 percent of total gross sales. Depending on amount of competition in your market and where your busi-ness is in the retail store life cycle, it could run as high as 10 percent.

Obviously the percentage of sales that works for one orga-nization is not the same percentage that will serve another organization well. You will have to establish the percentage that is right for your business. Determining which guide-lines you develop for your organization should be based on several factors including:

1. Cost of the media

2. Other store expenses that might be excessively high or low

3. The amount of time you have to get the store at optimum performing level

4. How much cash you can dedicate to advertising.

How to Establish a Simple Advertising BudgetIf you’ve been using the same old advertising plan for years, it’s probably time to make a change. Make sure your ad dollars are working as hard as they can for you. Always remember that habit can be your worst enemy. Just be-cause you’ve been doing it one way for years, doesn’t mean you’re getting the most of your ad dollars today.

Money spent here and there with no formal plan is less like to be a successful advertising investment. To avoid that outcome, give your advertising budget the attention it deserves.

By and large, if 10 percent of your sales are made in any given month, you should budget at least 10 percent of your advertising for that month. Obviously there are exceptions. Back-to-School days in your market may warrant a huge seasonal sale that needs additional advertising dollars or maybe it’s a big gathering of your customers for an art fair or street festival. Treat these times differently but know

that if they are annual events their impact on your sales should be identifiable in your monthly or annual sales after a couple of years. This will allow you to factor them into your normal advertising or marketing plans.

Here’s a simple, but effective, plan to create an advertising or marketing budget that matches your monthly sales and ensures you have year around impact with your customers.

Four-Step ProgramYou strip down the advertising process with this easy four-step program using the information available to you from your actual sales or on the internet if, you are a new art materials retailer. A reasonable rule of thumb for deter-mining your annual advertising/marketing budget is 2-5 percent of annual sales.

1. Start with your stores annual sales and, for this example, multiply that number by 3 percent. So, let’s say you did $500,000 in sales last year—3 percent of that would be $15,000. That would make your annual advertising/mar-keting budget $15,000.

2. Next, look at last year’s sales month-by-month and determine what percentage of your annual sales happened each month. For example if your total sales in August were $75,000 then 15 percent of your annual sales happened that month ($75,000 divided by $500,000 = 15 percent). You determined in Step One that you have an annual adver-tising budget of $15,000 and now you know 15 percent of that amount—$2,250—should be invested in August.

3. When you have completed Step 2 you will know how much money you have for advertising/marketing each month. With a little additional work you can get even more specific in how you to allocate your advertising money each month. For example, using the step 2 example and the $2,250 you have to spend in August you could research exactly which products were your best sellers that month. If acrylic paint accounted for $10,000 that month then it generated just over 13 percent of your $75,000 in sales ($13,000 divided by $75,000 = 13 percent). When you plan that month’s budget you may want to allocate at least 13 percent of that month’s advertising budget to acrylic paint.

4. Finally, determining where you invest your advertising dollars in an ongoing challenge. When you advertise you need to track the sales results. Did you see a spike in sales for those brushes you advertised in your local shopper?

Advertising Budget 43

Did the promotion you did on your webpage produce extra sales? Did your broadcast email work? Why? Train your staff to ask customers if they saw your ad. Did they come to the store because of it? Did that 15 percent discount on canvas motivate them to visit your store? Follow these four steps, schedule your ads for the month, and make you sure you keep good records. It’s important to have someone—you or someone on your staff—responsible for collecting and analyzing these results so you can constantly adjust and grow your revenue. And no matter how you decide to manage this process—KEEP RECORDS. That’s how you’ll know if something is working and how effective it is.

Enough Advertising to be EffectiveEffective advertising gives you the right balance of reach, message and frequency. Running an advertising schedule that does not do that is a waste of money, because you’re not reaching your target prospect enough times to build store awareness. Running too heavy a schedule can waste money.

Another expensive error is running an advertising schedule that provides the right frequency, but not a large enough audience to help you grow your business. You may get a good response to such advertising, but may not sell enough goods to cover that ad expenditure.

Allocating Dollars when Promoting a SaleThere are various ways to promote and execute a sale. For example, if your goal is to invest a total of $6,000 in advertising and product discounts as part of your sale, you have a couple of options on how to get to that number.

The retailer can work hard to maximize the discounts he gets from his advertising providers, including newspapers, radio, television, etc., and he can deeply discount the price of the products he’s trying to sell. The advertising discounts are going to allow him to get more reach and frequency, but the question is: will he sell more product and create a stronger customer relation if he cuts back on some of his advertising and, instead, discounts the product more. The discounted product would probably have a more lasting impact on his customer’s relationship with his busi-ness because the customer will remember the “great price” he got on the product, but he won’t know or care about the discount you got on advertising.

Lifetime Value of a CustomerWhen evaluating your advertising response, remember to factor in the lifetime value of a customer. For example, if you run a promotion that brings in 100 new customers, and you sell something to 25 of them; and if the average unit of sale is $100, you’ve grossed $2,500. If you spend $1 on the product and sell it for $2, you’ve netted $1,250 before labor and fixed overhead costs. This scenario shows that if you spent $1,250 on advertising, you’ve broken even. But remember your customers’ lifetime values. If a customer buys $100 worth of product from you six times a year, they are worth $600 a year. If they shop at your store for the next 10 years, they’re worth $6000. If all 25 of your new customers do the same, you’re looking at $150,000 over the next decade. Give those customers impeccable service, and they may each bring a new customer to your business. That gives you an additional $300,000 in gross sales for that 10-year period.

RETAIL TIP Advertise your customer loyalty/discount programs as the more you buy, the more rewards you receive. This keeps them coming back to you.



CHAPTER 21

The Traditional Marketing Channels

Different types of media have different strengths, weak-nesses and costs. Your present and future customers will regularly utilize more than one of these traditional media types in addition to a variety of digital products. There is not a right or wrong choice as to which of these me-dia types you should use. More than likely you should be investing in several in order to sustain and grow your customer base. To help you better understand your options here are several types of established media along with some of the strengths and weaknesses of each.

NewspapersAll newspapers have lost circulation and market share over the past few years because of the internet, but with the ad-dition of their websites they remain a key news/information vehicle in most markets—especially medium and small markets that do not have other strong media. Newspa-pers are tangible, you can see your ad, and you know the paper’s circulation. Storeowners must evaluate circulation numbers, however, and determine how many papers go to residences, to businesses and in newspaper boxes. Also take into account how far away possible customers live and where your competitive stores are located. Also, remember that newspapers sometimes have sections that are specific to a certain geographic area. And newspapers sometimes talk of impressions rather than circulation. Impressions refer to how many people may look at one newspaper. Sometimes there are several newspapers in one market, some free, some paid—and often it’s the one traditional, large newspaper that’s producing those publications. Those publishers often offer rates based on your advertising in several of their publications.

Strengths

Newspapers are well known for their reach, and their read-ers are actively searching for not only news, but also sales, products and prices. Newspaper readers are a loyal group, highly educated, older and affluent. There’s room in a newspaper for lots of information. You can show a picture, explain details and, in general, offer information that helps the reader understand what you’re selling. Turn-around time for placing a newspaper ad is relatively short, and newspaper staff can help you design your ad for no addi-tional charge. Make sure you work with the newspaper staff carefully. Be sure the product or products your advertising look realistic, but remember to sell anything, you have to catch the readers’ eye.

Weaknesses

Newspaper advertising can be expensive. Different news-paper sections skew to different categories of readers and some newspapers charge advertisers a different price for different sections. A newspaper’s advertising environment can sometimes be cluttered. The Internet has drastically affected newspaper advertising. To keep up, most news-papers have their own web sites and publish an on-line version of their paper and offer their advertisers an on-line version of their print ad, usually for an additional cost. More and more newspapers are charging customers to access their websites but in markets where there is free access you’ll find that the website is often among the most visited website in your market. Newspaper advertising is priced per column inch and the addition of color will cost the advertiser.

MagazinesThere are often weekly, biweekly, monthly or quarterly local/regional magazines. Their page count, format size and dis-tribution vary drastically. Magazine format is almost always full color, but advertisers can publish in black and white.

Strengths

It’s easy to determine whether those in your target audi-ence read certain magazines. If a consumer is reading a magazine about art, he or she is your market. Better yet, advertisers can place an ad in a national magazine, but it can run in a local market. You may pick markets by ZIP codes. Consumers may or may now know it’s a local version of a national magazine, but they are probably impressed if they see your store next to a story about, for example, fashion sketching. Magazines can often sit around the home or office for several days/weeks so they have a longer advertising life.

Weaknesses

Magazine advertising can be expensive, require a long lead time between booking the space and actual publication, and your ad can have wasted reach. Like newspapers, the size of the publication is determined not by editorial page count, but by the number and size of advertisements that are scheduled for a particular issue. Your choices of where your ad will be placed in the magazine vary and different placements can mean different prices. Like newspapers, magazine circulation is audited, so advertisers know how many subscribers will receive their ad.

45Traditional Marketing Channels

Direct MailDirect-mail advertising can be addressed to occupant or to the actual person who lives at an address. If it is person-ally addressed, it’s because the addressee’s name is in a database that a business maintains or rents from a firm that specializes in compiling advertising databases. Using a rented database of names and addresses costs more than using one you maintain. Advertisers can also acquire databases that are made up of the type of consumer they’re interested in reaching. Your own mailing list of customers and prospects is a valuable business asset that you should manage and keep up to date.

Strengths

Direct mail lets advertisers deliver a customized, creative offer to a specific demographic. Depending on the contents of the mail, the advertiser may be able to measure its reach and effect. A direct mail piece can be any size (costs will vary) and could even contain a sample of your product—al-though that is an expensive marketing tool.

Weaknesses

Direct mail usually doesn’t hang around a consumer’s home like a newspaper or magazine. Direct mail can be expensive given you need to pay for printing and postage. It can require some lead time when working with the printers and mail houses that produce the material. Most impor-tant, it’s only good as the database the advertiser is using. And even if you have a potential customer and that person has moved, the piece won’t be forwarded because most direct mail uses bulk-mail rates.

Shopping GuideShopping guides appear in racks around a city or are mailed or delivered to residents. They are almost always free.

Strengths

Shopping guide readers are not looking for editorial content. They are searching for advertising. They often include classified advertising, making it easy for the reader to find something specific. When mailed shopping guides are often sent to every home in a community or designated delivery area.

Weaknesses

Advertising in a shopping guide is priced like advertising in a newspaper, but the shopping guides come in all sizes. They may include multiple sections. Some of those sec-tions are designed for the whole trade area; some a specific part of that area.

Telephone DirectoriesTelephone directory publishers often boast that they have 100 percent market penetration, but with the Internet and smart phones, they are fast becoming the dinosaurs of the advertising business. Think about how often in the past year you’ve used a telephone directory.

RadioRadio advertising is popular, especially in smaller markets where the community is served by just a couple of stations and local listenership can be high. Individuals are spend-ing more time in their car and sometimes listen to radio at work.

Strengths

Radio listeners are can be loyal to their favorite radio stations, making it easy for advertisers to hone in on the demographic group of their choice. Advertising on the radio can create a sense of immediacy and is relatively inexpen-sive. With radio, it’s easy to use background sounds to help the customer experience what you’re talking about. Radio is free and always available for the listener, and the advertiser can change the content of a radio ad by on short notice.

Weaknesses

In today’s world of internet radio and smart-phone music lists, more and more people are not listening to local radio. An individual station’s reach within a demographic area is often low. Advertisers must determine if they want to advertise on a station that plays a classical, country, Top 40, or talk format. Often, especially in medium and large markets, there are many of each and since people will fre-quently switch stations, making it necessary for advertisers to buy several stations. The listening window can be small for customers. Times when people are driving back and forth to work are popular because customers are in their cars listening. And although radio advertising is immedi-ate, customers have to remember the details of what they heard advertised and want to buy. Radio is priced accord-ing to the number of listeners a station has during certain programs. Stations keep track of these numbers and share them with advertisers. Advertisers can buy a 10-, 15-, 30-, or 60-second spot, depending on what message they want to deliver. Radio also offers run-of-schedule advertising that allows spots to be broadcast several times a day. You can also pay more to run a live ad where an on-air person-ality reads your ad.


Cable and Satellite TelevisionGone are the days of advertisers picking from a handful of local TV stations. Today’s cable and satellite companies offer hundreds of topic-specific stations. The decision is no longer which station, but how many stations can my cable or satellite providers offer my store and my customers.

Strengths

Because there are so many channels, advertiser can hone in on specific audiences. You may find a station that airs relevant shows and end up advertising directly to potential customers. Also, because there are so many channels on a typical cable system and so many advertising spots avail-able, advertising rates can be inexpensive.

Weaknesses

Homes usually don’t have both cable and satellite televi-sion, so you may have to advertise on both to reach your store’s customers. You may not always get your ideal customers because many cable systems require you to pur-chase a certain block of channels. Local advertisers some-times have to swim among numerous national advertisers. Television and radio advertising are priced similarly. Spots are sold in “second” increments—10-15-30-60 seconds. As you purchase a larger quantity of commercials and for longer time slots, you’ll receive discounts, but the total you spend will increase.

Local TelevisionSome consumers opt out of cable or satellite TV and, therefore, receive only the local channels that broadcast in the area.

Strengths

Local television has high impact, mass reach, and quick advertising turn-around time. Local television has no cost to the viewer, unlike cable and satellite. Local television viewers see advertising for businesses that are close to them. The advertising on local television that features nationally known stores is most likely going to be broadcast during evening or early morning hours.

Weaknesses

Television in general is expensive and also suffers from in-creasing advertising clutter plus the nearly universal use of remote controls means many viewers switch channels the moment any commercial appears. More and more custom-ers are using cable and broadcast TV. Cable and satellite television do broadcast local television stations, and in some areas regulations require them to do so. The risk you take is whether your customers are watching local program-

ming. In any format television takes time to produce an ad. The format for pricing local television is similar to that of radio. Advertisements that appear during times when the audience is larger are more expensive, and spots are in “second” intervals. The cost of advertising with a local TV station does not include the production of that commercial.

BillboardsWe’ve all seen billboard advertising along highways or on streets within a community. They are usually large message boards, but can be painted on the side of a building.

Strengths

Billboards never stop selling. Your message is out there 24/7. Billboard technology is changing. Some companies offer rotating boards that may contain three messages from one advertiser or one message from three advertisers.

Weaknesses

Billboards are not demographically selective and can be expensive to attain high reach, since you need to buy a lot of them to get your message across. There’s a relatively long lead time and you usually can’t change your mes-sage for 30 days. Messages have to be concise because drivers only see it for a few seconds. And like radio and television, consumers have to remember the message they saw. Research says consumers can remember only seven words, so the words you choose as an advertiser must offer crucial information. A billboard pricing schedule talks of impressions, which is hard to determine. If there are five people in a car driving by a billboard, is that one impres-sion or five. Pricing is calculated by the length of time the billboard is displayed.

RETAIL TIP Choose your advertising venues very carefully. Do a little research and ask other store owners in your area who have spent money on local advertising like radio and newspaper, to see if they thought it was worth it.


Marketing Calendar 47

WORKSHEET

Marketing Calendar

Grow Revenue with a Well-Planned Annual Promotional CalendarEvery art materials retailer has a marketing/promotion plan for the year. Some of these plans are more formal—and successful than others—because the managers and staff of those stores take the time to plan and strategize.

Special events and promotions draw attention to your store, create excitement and, when properly devel-oped, boost the bottom line. An orchestrated promotion can have a significant impact on product demand and sales.

What follows is a month-by-month list of potential promotion events NAMTA has compiled for you. Discuss these opportunities with your staff and don’t forget to add local events to this list. Think about demos and classes that could tie in. Speak with your reps and suppliers.

By planning several of these exciting events each year, you’re giving customers a reason to return to the store on a regular basis.

Here are a few things to keep in mind while growing your revenue this year.

• Choose a promotion that fits your target audience and goals.

• Maintain a calendar of all planned and actual promotional events.

• Don’t forget to add local community events

• Think about whether you need to purchase extra inventory for special events.

• Try to schedule events far enough in advance to create an effective promotion.

• Create a folder for each event to maintain records and review the final results.

RETAIL TIP Promote by the season. Having a sale on a seasonal item will draw in customers by what they’re looking for.



JANUARYNational Mentoring MonthNew Year’s DayMartin Luther King Jr. DayChinese New Year

FEBRUARYAfrican American History MonthGroundhog DayValentine’s DayPresidents DayBoy Scout DayLove Your Pet DayMardis Gras – Fat TuesdayAsh WednesdayLincoln’s BirthdayWashington’s BirthdaySuper Bowl XLVIIIWinter Olympics begin

MARCHNational Nutrition MonthAmerican Red Cross MonthYouth Art MonthSt. Patrick’s DayGirl Scout DayDr. Seuss Day

NIE Week (Newspaper In Education Week)First Day of SpringDaylight Savings Time Begins

APRILCelebrate Diversity MonthNational Decorating MonthApril Fool’s DayArt Advocacy DaysTax Day Earth DayNational Golfers DayNational High Five DayAdministrative Professional’s DayGood FridayFirst Day of PassoverEaster Sunday

MAYNational BBQ MonthNational Hamburger MonthCinco de MayoNational Teachers DayMother’s DayArmed Forces DayVictoria Day (Canada)Memorial DayNurses DayChocolate Chip Cookie Day

JUNENational Candy MonthNational Safety MonthFlag DayFather’s DayFirst Day of SummerNational Flip Flop DayWorld Environment Day

JULYNational Hot Dog MonthNational Ice Cream MonthCanada DayIndependence DayBastille DayParents DayFirst Day of Ramadan

AUGUSTAmerican Adventures MonthHappiness Happens MonthCivic Holiday (Canada)

Eid al-Fitr (a 3-day Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan)College Football Season Begins

SEPTEMBERNational Honey MonthNational Coupon MonthGrandparent’s DayNative American DayNational Coffee DayFirst Day of AutumnNFL Season BeginsLabor DayFirst Day of AutumnYom KippurRosh Hashanah

OCTOBERNational Breast Cancer Awareness MonthNational Seafood MonthNational Pizza MonthColumbus Day Boss’s DayWorld Teachers Days Canada’s Thanksgiving DayHalloweenBaseball World Series

NOVEMBERNational AIDS Awareness MonthPeanut Butter Lovers MonthAll Saints’ DayVeterans DayRemembrance Day – CanadaThanksgiving DaySmall Business SaturdayDaylight Savings Time Ends

DECEMBERNational Tie MonthSafe Toys and Gifts MonthFirst Day of HannukkahFirst Day of WinterChristmasBoxing Day – CanadaFirst Day of KwanzaaNew Year’s Eve

Art Materials Retailer Promotional Calendar

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