Tag Archives for " holidays "

Is Your Business Ready for Holiday Season Ratings and Reviews?

 

With the holidays right around the corner, you should be gearing up for customer traffic overload. In years past, business owners have viewed this period as naturally prosperous with built-in demand for goods and services.

This year – 2021 – may prove to deliver more of the same retail mojo as years past.

But there is an important difference that could make it a uniquely challenging year for customer experience: supply chain and shipping uncertainties mean consumers might be disappointed that their purchases arrive late or are altogether unavailable.

These disappointments and frustrations are likely to end up finding their way onto your online reviews. This is the time to gear up and think offensively for holiday season ratings and reviews – more than ever.

 

Be Prepared for LOTS of Holiday Season Ratings & Reviews

Studies show that people spend more money each subsequent holiday season, meaning that more services and products are being bought now than ever before. Shoppers are also writing more ratings and reviews than ever before.

Combine these growing numbers with surging emotions (both positive and negative) that come with the holiday season, and you have a perfect storm for ratings and reviews.

They’re going to come fast and furious, especially right after the Christmas holiday. And if you work to turn this into an opportunity, you can put yourself ahead of the competition.

 

What to Do When Reviews Start Coming

Product launches are risky, and launching during the holiday season can be a recipe for disaster if you rush it. You may very well be slammed with negative reviews.

If this happens, and you feel your blood boiling or a need to contradict this naysayer, don’t.

Taking a review personally or coming at it from a place of anger or frustration will yield you nothing. It might even hurt your reputation. The first step is to take a deep breath.

Then respond from an objective and understanding place. Based on my research in Manipurated, by responding to a complaint, you double your odds that a complainer becomes an advocate for your business.

You need to keep your fury in check, take the time to address the issue, and respond smartly.

Don’t forget to respond to good reviews, too. These customers can be your best clients, and a positive “Thank you” will not only make them happy, but it could also result in an additional sale.

 

Key Tips for Consistency

Let’s quickly review.

Staying on top of your holiday season ratings and reviews is a win-win proposition. When you get good reviews, you make reviewers happier.

And when you get bad reviews, you can either turn complainers into advocates, or you can show interested prospects that you care about your brand and your service.

Now that you understand the importance of responding to complaints, here’s how you can scale it.

 

1. Do It Yourself

Run Google Analytics and Incognito searches. See which rating-and-review sites people are using to discuss your brand. Or…

 

2. Pay For an App

Streamline the process using an app to manage rating-and-review sites, such as ReviewTrackers, BirdEye, and Yext. They typically include some form of an easy-to-use dashboard. Think of an RSS feed, but for rating-and-review sites instead.

These types of services are usually per location per month. The advantage is that they do nearly all of the heavy lifting for you.

 

Setting the Tone for the Next Quarter

So, you’ve managed the surplus of holiday season reviews and with a cool app and a clear head. If you’re not proud of yourself, you should be. That was a lot of hard work!

But it’s not time to relax yet.

Any negative reviews you received were most likely because a user was dissatisfied with your service. Whatever the case, cross-reference their complaints with those of other complainers.

If you start to see a consensus among your reviewers, perhaps it’s time to change something about your business.

Remember—there’s always next holiday season.

 

The post Is Your Business Ready for Holiday Season Ratings and Reviews? appeared first on Content Marketing Consulting and Social Media Strategy.

Source: convinceandconvert.com

3 Steps to Creating a Winning Instagram Marketing Strategy

Instagram remains a mystery to most business owners I know.

How are we supposed to keep creating great content that can be noticed and appreciated on a platform that is full of creativity and artistic ingenuity?

And should we even bother?

Those two are common questions business owners are asking when considering Instagram marketing.

While the answer to the first question is complicated (and I’ll elaborate on it below), the answer to the second question is “Instagram marketing is almost always a good idea.”

Disclosure: This content is reader-supported, which means if you click on some of our links that we may earn a commission.

Instagram is the sixth-most visited website, having reached 140 million U.S. users back in 2020.

With such a huge audience, Instagram is not a marketing platform that can be easily ignored.

 

But How to Create An Effective Instagram Marketing Strategy?

As always, it all starts with content.

1. Instagram Content Ideas for Businesses

Create a calendar of all upcoming (smaller) holidays and other notable days that can somehow relate to your business. It is also a good idea to publicize that calendar on your site. This will:

• Improve internal linking of the website (every seasonality-based post would link to related products)
• Allow you to feature products on the home page based on the upcoming holidays/days (even during slower seasons) which may fit the user intent better
• Let you schedule newsletters and time them based on the calendar
• Finally, allow you to publish timely social media updates (with relevant hashtags) even when there are no big holidays coming. These updates can be scheduled far ahead (and can be recurring from year to year).

You can also integrate your Instagram feed with your site with these plugins.

Planning your social media strategy around yearly holidays and observance days has lots of benefits, from making it easier to organize to achieve higher visibility and engagement.

Here are a few examples of days that can go into the calendar:

1. National Rose Day
2. Mother’s Day
3. Employee Appreciation Day

Try DaysoftheYear.com to find all kinds of holidays and awareness days to target in Instagram content.

For each holiday, try running Text Optimizer to come up with interesting concepts to target in your content:

Another idea for regular Instagram updates is using weekly hashtags to get your updates discovered organically. Here’s a good list to target those.

 

2. Use Solid Instagram Tools

Instagram is one of those marketing channels that cannot be used without tools. The Instagram audience is spoiled: They see great content every day. It is tough to surprise them these days.

Great tools can make all the difference to your Instagram strategy.

Videoleap is an iPhone app that will help you create outstanding Instagram content.

The app gives you access to professional video editing tools that can be mastered without training.

The app comes with powerful video editing and enhancing features like layer-based editing, color corrections, video effects, and overlays, etc.

The app is free with a premium upgrade available. I would recommend using the free version first and then upgrade when you feel confident that you can handle the multitude of additional features and options.

If you are looking for a desktop tool, Fastreel is a valid and affordable option.

 

3. Focus on Consistency

Consistency is key in any digital marketing strategy, especially when it comes to social media. You need to gradually build trust and a community of people who look forward to your updates.

And that can only be achieved with consistency.

Still, you can get some decent traffic from Instagram if you create interesting updates and invite your followers to click the link in the bio for more info.

Don’t forget to monitor that traffic to be able to adjust your updates and CTAs to get more clicks and higher conversions.

Finteza can help you with that: The tool lets you narrow your data down to a particular traffic source and then evaluate your sales funnel based on the selected data point:

 

You can also change your bio’s link as often as you want. Try using different URL parameters to track your traffic from different campaigns.

Finteza allows users to easily set URL parameters using their free WordPress plugin.

Quick FAQs

Here’s a quick FAQ to help you create a consistent presence on Instagram:

Conclusion

Instagram has become even more popular during the months of worldwide lockdowns.

According to Megaphone Marketing, people spent 70% more time on both Facebook and Instagram apps during the lockdown.

As we don’t really know how long the pandemic is still going to last, investing in your business’s social media presence is a smart marketing decision.

Instagram can be an effective marketing platform that will help you build brand trust and authenticity. It is also more doable than many business owners think it is. Good luck!

The post 3 Steps to Creating a Winning Instagram Marketing Strategy appeared first on Content Marketing Consulting and Social Media Strategy.

Source: convinceandconvert.com