The SnapRetail Podcast

Image Best Practices

Hosted by Justin Shoup and Vince Ventura

Goals: In this podcast, we will talk a little about how to take good photos, what file types to use, and how to size for your website, email, and your individual social media networks.

Taking Photos:

• Take lots of photos! Always take a landscape and a portrait
• Use a consistent background as you'll want images that are on the same webpage or in the same email to have the same look & feel
• Don't crop!

Image Orientation:

• When placing images side by side always use the same orientation. For example,  always put landscape style images next to landscape or portrait next to portrait

• Typically, you'll use landscape-style images most often. Since they take up less space top to bottom they will work better for images near the top of an email or webpage, because this will minimize scrolling.

• Square images on product pages will look best.

File Type:

• If the image has text overlay it needs to be a PNG. Otherwise, the text will appear fuzzy.
• JPG is preferred for photographs with no text overlay.

Size & Dimensions:

• Website: At least 1200 pixels wide. Height does not matter, but keep "above the fold" principle in mind.
• Email: At least 600 pixels wide. Height does not matter, but keep "above the fold" principle in mind.
• Facebook: Size will depend on what type of post it is - link share, square image, landscape image, etc.
• • Link share: At least 476 wide x 249 tall: Recommended: 1200 x 628
  • Portrait-style photo on timeline: At Least:  476 wide x 714 tall (3:2 ratio)
  • Landscape-style photo on timeline: At Least: 476 wide x 316 tall
  • Square photo on timeline: 476 wide x 476 tall

• Twitter: Minimum 440 wide x 220 tall

• Pinterest: For Pinterest it will be 228 pixels wide on a board and expanded to 735 pixels. There is no limit on the height. Aim for a 2:3 ratio or 1:3.5

• Instagram: 1080 x 1080 on timeline/feed. Photo thumbnail will scale down to 161 x 161

Takeaways:

• Typically, the bigger the better, but keep the ratios in mind
• If an image pixelates it's too small
• If an image has a text overlay and it's fuzzy it's probably not a PNG

Fourth of July Marketing Ideas

Hosted by Shelby Klick and Justin Shoup

Top 10 Marketing Ideas for 4th of July

Last year, 48 million consumers shopped- for red white and blue products, decorations, apparel, party supplies and more. The average household spent $71.23 for the holiday and the number is expected to grow this year.

1. Social Media Makeover
2. 1. Take or create images that showcase your enthusiasm for Independence Day. You'll want to makeover cover photos and profile pictures as well as have themed social posts for the holiday weekend for all your social platforms.
   2. Free sites like Canva.com are a very easy way to create graphics and have templates for Facebook cover photos, social posts, email headers and much more.  
   3. Facebook sometimes create holiday filters that you can place over your current profile pic. Be on the lookout for that, or use your own filter to make it themed.
   1. On the topic of Social Media, Pinterest should not be ignored. Create 4th of July themed boards that compliment your industry. Some ideas can be 4th of July Recipes, Star-Spangled Fashion that features everything red, white, blue, striped, started and more. Family games and activities for the holiday weekend, Themed DIY Projects, Patriotic Home Decor and gifts, and so much more.
   2. If you are looking for more inspiration, Pinterest itself is a great place to see what other people are creating and posting.
3. Pinterest
   1. Allow this holiday to take over your store. Make your window displays or the main display as you walk in your store themed with everything Red, White, and Blue and perfect for the holiday weekend. Get creative and display products in the shape of a flag.
4. In Store Displays
   1. This one is more of a soft sale approach. Soft sales mean that you are using a more subtle, casual, or friendly sales approach. In comparison, Hard sale are typically more forceful like giving price, deadline, or telling someone they have to have it.
   2. This email campaign can be used for 5 ways to style your outfit for the 4th, Safety tips for families, Drink and food recipes. Something that gets your name in front of the customer, gives them a valuable message, strengthens your relationship, and positions your business as an expert.
5. Email Campaign for 5 BLANK 4th of July
   1. Don't forget the kids when it comes to celebrating Independence Day. If you are in the toy, craft, or gift industry, targeting families with kids may be perfect for you! Plan themed games, face painting, crafts, giveaway balloons, or even have a competition to see who can guess the number of Red, White, and Blue, Jelly Beans (or whatever it may be) and give away the jar of goodies to the winner.
6. Family Oriented Activities
   1. If you carry products that are made in the USA, this would be the perfect time to showcase them. Most Made in America products usually have a story behind them. Use social media to give a product spotlight to not only show the value of the product, but the story of those who make it as well.
7. Made in USA
   1. If you are bringing together all your red, white, and blue products for displays, another easy idea would to make all those products your holiday special. Give them a special price or discount if they are bought over the holiday weekend.
   2. If you are online, you can make a special page on your website for all the 4th of July special items!
8. In Store and Online Specials
   1. If you are online and sell through Ecommerce, you can easily create a special discount code for specific products, the entire order, free shipping and more.
   2. Theme the discount code as well! Use words like Firework, Freedom, Eagle, July, USA, 1776,  Stars, Stripes, or any other creative discount codes you can think of!
9. Special Discounts
   1. Some businesses have freebies or swag items that promote your logo. Sometimes this is a t-shirt, frisbee, can koozie, or another item that fits your brand. 4th of July week is a perfect time to giveaway these items in store or even online.
   2. If it is a bigger, more valuable item, have people sign up for your mailing list in order to be entered into a drawing for the giveaway.
10. Giveaways
    1. Don't forget to be active on social media. This can be a busy time so it's important to schedule content ahead of time.
    2. Recipes, tips, where to watch the local fireworks, Is there a local parade in town? Holiday themed pics of your store and employees, have a pet wearing a red, white, and blue bandana? Share their picture too!
11. Schedule content ready to be shared

Instagram Basics

Hosted by Justin Druga and Vince Ventura

Goals

-Making a strong and engaging Instagram business page that will drive customers to your store and/or website.

-Best practices for setting up a business page and posting consistently

• Create your business page
  •  Follow businesses that inspire you or that are in your industry
  •  Figure out your strategy, demographic, geographic, psychographics
  • What are your goals?
    • Get customers to your website
    • Use hashtags to brand
    • Brand awareness

2.   Build your page

• Content and posting strategy
  • How often to post
  • What times?
• Be consistent with posts
  • Filters, styles, themes of your page
  •  Know what types of posts work best
  • Look at your followers and post content that will appeal to them
  •   Hashtags and how to brand your page
• "Use #(enterhere)

3. Build your bio

• Bio and profile pic
• Use a short, sweet, and to-the-point bio with any branded hashtags you'd like in there as well
• Profile picture – store logo and/or matching other social accounts
•  Set up settings you'd like

• Push notifications
• Notifications when certain businesses/people post
• Follow people

4.   Posting to Instagram       

• Let customers know about your page and engage with them
• Keep in mind image quality and size
• Post images that connect and draw customers in

Key Points:

• Know what type of page you want to be
• Best ways to get customers to your page and/or store
• What to post and best types of posts for your audience

Working with the Facebook Algorithm

Hosted by Justin Shoup and Vince Ventura

• What is the Facebook algorithm?

1. 1. Facebook has developed an ever-changing algorithm that determines what posts take priority in a user's newsfeed.
   2. According to Facebook "the goal with the news feed is to show people the stories that are most relevant to them".
   3. Facebook attributes each post a relevancy score: When was it posted (recency), who posted it, what type of post is it, interactions with the post. Then, they order your newsfeed based on this relevancy score.
   4. What does this mean? Basically, a user is more likely to see a post that is newer, is posted by a brand or person that they engage with (react, comment, share, click) often, has a lot of engagement, and is a type of post (text-only, article, video, photo)  that user engages with more often than others
   5. Unfortunately, this means that not all of your Facebook fans are going to see all of your posts on their newsfeed.
   1. Post authentic, engaging content
      1. Images of customers, staff, products
      2. Ask your audience questions
      3. Post content relevant to your community like tips and articles. You are the expert - share your knowledge!
      4. Tell stories
      5. Share posts from other local non-competing businesses
   2. Post a mix of different types of content
      1. FB seems to be prioritizing these posts types recently.
   3. Incorporate video and Facebook Live
      1. Don't ask people to comment, like and share directly. This used to be ok and encouraged, but Facebook no longer likes this.
   4. Don't try to game the system
2. So what should you do? Let's start with the basics on how you can work with the algorithm to increase your reach

• Look at your Facebook insights on a regular basis

1. What types of posts are getting the most organic engagement? Text, images, videos. Increase the amount of these types of posts that perform well.
2. Let's go a level further: What types of images are getting the most organic engagement? Are they pictures of people, pictures of new products, etc. What text gets the most engagement? Is it fun, spur of the moment comments about something going on in the store? Is it questions to your audience? Is it a fun fact about an employee?. Increase the amount of these types that get more engagement.
3. Look at when your audience is online and see if you can find a trend on what time of day/day of the week you get more engagement.

• Takeaways

1. Post a mix of engaging content
2. Look at your insights to determine your strategy
3. Use email, website, other social networks, and in-store signage and conversation to drive traffic directly to your Facebook fan page. All of your posts will show directly on your page, so you don't need to worry about the algorithm if you can't get people directly to your page.
4. Occasionally use Facebook ads/boosted posts to get your posts in front of your fans.
5. Newsroom.fb.com is where FB announces algorithm updates
6. Remember, Facebook should not be your only marketing outlet. Diversify. Email should be first and foremost. Then, where are your customers spending time? Be sure to post there too (Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, SnapChat in addition to Facebook)

Getting Online Reviews

Hosted by Shelby Klick and Justin Shoup

Why you need online customer reviews?

Customers

• I'm sure a majority of our listeners refer to reviews themselves before checking out a new store or restaurant. Possibly, they are the ones who leave the reviews. They are very visible to customers new and old and have a lot of power.

• 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business
• Customers are likely to spend 31% more on a business with "excellent" reviews
• 72% say that positive reviews make them trust a local business .  - this is super important because with small businesses, you do not have the familiar big box store name that some people trust as a default. Positive reviews will put allow you to be competitive to a familiar name, even show why you are better.
• Top Qualities rated most important for local business is reliability(27%), expertise(21%), and professionalism(18%).

Search Engine Optimization

• Google values positive reviews as much as customers do. They updated their algorithm in 2014 to take into account popular review sites when ranking local businesses in search results.

• Customer review sites are ranked near the top of the highest internet traffic. Customers are definitely looking for reviews or recommendations and they are influencing their purchase decisions.

How to get customer reviews

• ASK!
• It's really that simple. People refer to a minimum of 10 reviews before they start to believe positive reviews. So the more you can get the better!
• SnapRetail created review templates to easily reach your entire customer list
• • This not only gives you, the retailer, the tools to reach your customers but also your customer the tools to easily leave a review.
• Asking for reviews can be as simple as after someone seems to have a pleasant experience in store ask "Are you on facebook? We would really appreciate if you could leave us a Facebook review on your experience with us!"
• Some people will include a link at the bottom of their regular email correspondence with a link to their google review page asking a simple "Do you love Modern Finery? Leave a Review and tell us!"  
• Some business will even provide an incentive for those who complete reviews online.

Where to get customer reviews

• Facebook
• Google My Business
• Yelp
• Amazon & eBay if you sell on those platforms
• TripAdvisor if you're in a tourist location
• Better Business Bureau

Think hard about where someone could find your business and if it's possible to have reviews there. You can even post your most raving reviews on your website for more visibility.

How to respond to negative reviews

• Many people are afraid or hesitant to ask for customer reviews becuase they are afraid of negative reviews. Or they hide the reviews on their public pages like facebook, because of a negative review they didn't know what to do with.
• Don't be afraid of what people have to say! If you do get negative reviews, it may give you insight into your business faults that you never knew about.
• Tips
• • Respond quickly, you don't want a negative review to sit on your page for a long time without a response.
  • Respond like a person, not like a business. Say who you are, what your role is at your business or store and even sign it with your name.
  • Be real and admit any mistakes you made with that customer that lead to their negative review. Talk about how you will remedy the issue.
  • If possible, ask if you can private message, email, or call the customer to move the negative feedback offline, and the fix the issue privately.
  • Ask loyal customers to share their experiences with your business - this will push the negative comment lower into the shuffle of reviews as well as balance out any negative star-rating.

Takeaways:

• Make getting reviews a serious part of your marketing strategy.
• Don't get reviews and forget about it - seeing old reviews can be a turnoff as well.
• Send out an email for reviews maybe twice a year in order to reach new customers and refresh your reviews.
• Don't be afraid to ask!
• Don't be afraid to respond to negative reviews and remedy the situation as well as walk away with how you can better your business.

Linked Resources for Stats

https://www.invespcro.com/blog/the-importance-of-online-customer-reviews-infographic/

http://customerthink.com/how-important-are-your-online-customer-reviews/

Memorial Day Marketing Ideas

Hosted by Shelby Klick and Vince Ventura

Memorial day is the unofficial start of summer and is often a weekend full of remembrance, traveling, food, and retail therapy!

Memorial Day Weekend 2016 Sales Stats:

• 14% Americans likely to take advantage of memorial day sales and promotions (about 45 million people)
• Shoppers expect to see discounts from 20-90% off, especially when looking for home goods and spring clothing.
• 95% of military personnel say they are more likely to shop from a retailer who offers a military discount.
• Fun Fact: 7 Billion hot dogs are consumed between memorial day to labor day. That's 818 every second.

7 Marketing Ideas

• Military discounts
• • Take the time to honor this holiday by giving a special thanks to those who serve our country.  This may be a great way to get new business as well as a way to start a promotion that you keep year-round.
• Have employees wear Red White and Blue and post it on social media
• • Perfect opportunity for Instagram!
  • You can also use social media to promote red white & blue products, displays, customers wearing red white & blue. Get creative!
• Social Giveaways
• • Start a social giveaway that is related to Memorial Day or the Summer Season. Have customers like your page, comment, or use a specific hashtag and choose a winner at random!
• BBQ/Picnic Event with other stores
• • There's nothing that screams Memorial Day Weekend like some great food. Team up with other local businesses, community organization or non-profits to serve food during a store event. This maybe a great way for these organization to have a fundraiser while you get foot-traffic in your store.
• Sidewalk Sale
• • Using the same concept, team up with your neighboring businesses to have a weekend sidewalk sale. Promote the beautiful weather and all the businesses that will be participating. You can even offer your own customers a special coupon and a different incentive for new customers!
• "Start of Summer" Bundles
• • Gather products together that perfectly fit summer needs.  This could be things for the perfect cookout, staples for the perfect summer outfit, gifts for the hostess of summer parties, Must-Haves for the beach and more.
  • You can even offer a discount when all the products are bought together.
• Take part in Community Events
• • Memorial Day Weekend is usually a great time for communities to come together and celebrate. Like parades, festivals, Picnics and more.
  • Consider sponsorships to get brand recognition - Especially if you are new or rebranding. Use this opportunity for networking with other businesses or getting Word of Mouth Marketing out for your own business.
  • Or, take note of these community events just so you can coincide your marketing with what is going in town. Just in Pittsburgh, we have Art Walks, concerts, and Open Street Festivals all over the city. You can easily use these for your marketing by promoting outfits perfect for the upcoming concert, or Channel your inner artist with classes after the Art Walk event.

Key Points:

• Take into consideration where you are located. Are you a tourist town and need to welcome new customers to your store? Do a lot of people travel away and you can encourage the locals to celebrate with you at a store event? Let this kind of information guide your marketing.
• Don't forget the reason for the holiday. Honor those who died for our country with flags. Offer discounts for veterans and active service members. Remember to thank them for their service.
• Lots of things are happening during this holiday weekend. Participate in community events, get your business name out and get word of mouth marketing, or just use the events to drive creative copy for your own marketing.

Get Consistent On Social Media

Hosted by Vince Ventura and Justin Druga

Goals

When building a brand online, engagement counts, but it is wasted without staying top of mind.  You want to develop a healthy balance of push and pull, having a dialogue with your customers online.  The fundamental principles are: to work with the social media networks to make sure the most people see your post organically, as well as making sure you give your customers a reason to return to your page on their own.

Why should I be posting consistently?

• Definition of Engaging Post:  A post that offers something new or unexpected.  A post that is relevant to the reader at that moment, or a post that makes a reader want to linger and learn more.  
• Some social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter will show your posts to readers that have recently engaged.
• The best way to capitalize on the structure of social media is to post consistently.
• It can even give you a boost in your website's SEO
• It will help you build authority and credibility
• It will help build customer loyalty

Where should I start?

• Develop a Brand Voice - Know who you are talking to and how they like to interact.  
• Plan your content in advance
• Find content to share
• Focus on your Target Audience or Avatar

What Should I Post?

• Facebook gives priority to video
• Try a Facebook Live event
• Post behind the scenes images
• Share articles written about your business
• Share content from other local businesses
• Share articles from industry experts
• Post about Holidays
• Post about local and store events
• Make sure to thank your loyal customers
• Try to engage customers in conversation.  Don't just push out sales content or push out products, you must pull the customers in as well.
• Use the Pre-written SnapRetail posts
• NEVER POST JUST TEXT

How Consistent Should I Be?

• Check out How Much Posting is Too Much
• 2x on Facebook, 3x on Twitter

Key points:

Always talk to your Target Audience

Keep the content varied - Use SnapRetail Content/Share/Video

Always have an image

Don't under-post

Don't over-post

Mother's Day Marketing

Hosted by Shelby Klick and Vince Ventura

Mother's Day is a major Holiday for Retailers in all industries.

• In 2016, 21.4 Billion dollars spent for this holiday.
• 2017 - Expected record high of $23.6 Billion spent for mother's day.
• 84% of Americans celebrated this holiday.
• • 24% of shoppers plan on going to local small businesses
  • Increasing to 30% will shop online
  • 31% in specialty stores like jewelry, florists, gift, electronics.
• $172 Dollars spent per person in 2016 -    $186.39 per person in 2017
• Ages 25-34 spent the most, followed by 35-55.

The Key to marketing for Mother's Day this year is to stand out from the Crowd.

• Many places rely on the holiday to do the marketing for them. "It's Mother's Day, Shop with Us".
• One sales tactic will be to market to the emotional side of your customers.
• Attempt to create a memory, just not sell a product.
• • What do you get for the most important woman in your life?
  • You can never thank her enough for all she does, but a gift is a good place to start.
  • Years from now, you'll always remember what her perfume smelled like.

• Be a resource
• • Most people are lost when it comes to thinking of a gift for someone else. Be a resource with gift guides, helpful displays, specific products and services for mom, or creative events.
  • • Events can be focused as a way for customers to spend time with mom, or an event to give dad and kids a chance to pick a gift.
    • Offer gift wrapping or a free Mother's Day card with purchase
    • Offering services? Still give them something tangible that they can still wrap for Mom.

• Who are you targeting?
• • There can be unexpected target audiences for a holiday like this.
  • • Anyone shopping for their Mom
    • Spouses shopping for their wife
    • Spouses shopping with their kids for their wife
    • Grandchildren buying for Grandmothers
    • Moms who can take your gift guide and tell their family exactly what they want.
  • You'll want to start marketing as soon as possible.
  • • For events or pricey items, people may need some time to commit. Send initial email to get customers to start thinking about your store or your products.  Send a reminder email or an incentive closer to an event or to Mother's Day to get them to commit.

Key Points:

• Pick a target audience and commit an email to it. If you can segment your audience for this, your email will perform better.
• Don't be afraid to send a follow up email reminding people about the event or the sale you have going on, especially when time is running out.
• Don't skip out on being creative because the holiday "Sells Itself". Be creative, stand out from the crowd, and work towards creative a memory, just not selling a product.

Copywriting Tips

Hosted by Justin Shoup and Vince Ventura

Goals:

How to lay the groundwork for good copywriting.  Find tools to help you write compelling copy. Where do we use copy? Final steps in writing good copy.

SnapRetail's 15 Copywriting Tips

1. Determine your voice. Who is your target audience? Write in a style that will relate to your audience.
   1. Write to that person rather than at them - in other words - replace We, Us, Our with You (or You'll or You're). Instead of: We're having a 50% off sale. You're invited to save 50% off. Instead of: We have the perfect prom dress. You'll find the perfect prom dress.
2. Write like you are talking to ONE person - this is why it is so important to determine your target audience. Also, this is why it is important to segment your emails (and targeted landing pages) if you have many different target audiences.
3. What is your ONE end goal - write to lead to that ONE conversion action you want.
4. For email and social have ONE simple Call-to-Action that will lead to that conversion. Consider testing your CTAs - Buy Now vs. Get Mine. Register Now vs. Join the Event or I'm In.
   1. How will this product or service or attending this event solve a problem or make their life better? What's the promise you are making in the copy and how are you going to deliver on that promise? Your neighbors will be envious of your garden with this decor. You'll look stunning in this prom dress.
5. Focus on Benefits of your product or service or benefit of taking action on the CTA rather than Features.
6. For email or web start with a headline then have body copy below. Think about a newspaper headline. Consider using bullet points, bolding, or numbered lists to guide the reader below the main body copy
7. Avoid large blocks of text. If necessary, separate into smaller paragraphs.
8. For creative writing review a word list or something else like a Pinterest board to give you inspiration before you write.
9. Start a draft, take a break and come back to it
10. When you come back to it look for words or phrases that can be eliminated to make the copy shorter and easy to digest. Examples : Very, really, just, simply
11. Are there any words that are repeated or could be stronger? Use a thesaurus to find alternatives for those repeated or weak words. "Great" is a good example of a word to replace.
    1. There may be others - what terms are your customers using when they are talking to you, filling out surveys, answering on social, replying to emails. In your Google Analytics what are the search terms they are using to find your website. This will help you write your copy in THEIR language.
12. Are there words that are used in your industry, but customers might not understand or recognize? Replace them! Ones I hear all the time: Vendors - use brands instead, most customers probably think of you as the vendor and will be confused. Going to market or a buying trip - customers won't know what this means - simplify things -you are going to find new products for the store.
13. PROOFREAD! Consider having a second set of eyes on your writing.
14. Find your best time and atmosphere to write. Is it in the morning as you drink that cup of coffee, in the evening as you are relaxed, or in the afternoon after you've had an energizing lunch? Do you write better in silence, listening to music, or maybe the hustle and bustle of a busy area gives you inspiration.
15. SnapRetail makes it easy by giving you a starting point for both email and social.

Keep in Mind:

• Write to one "ideal" customer
• Use word lists for inspiration
• Remove unnecessary words
• Find the words your customers are using
• Always use a Call to Action
• PROOFREAD!

Facebook Ads

Hosted by Vince Ventura and Shelby Klick

Goals:

What are the different types of Facebook Ads?  What are boosted posts?  Why should I advertise on Facebook?  What should I advertise on Facebook?

What are the different types of Facebook Ads?

• Awareness
• • Brand Awareness
  • Reach
• Considerations
• • Traffic
  • Engagement
  • App Installs
  • Video Video Views
  • Lead Generation
  • Steps after building website

• Conversion
• • Conversion
  • Product Catalog Sales
  • Store Visits

What are boosted posts?

• Boosted Posts serves that post to a larger audience]
• Generates Reactions, Shares, Comments
• • These people are more likely to see your future posts
  • Generate momentum
• Audience you choose / Custom Audience
• People Who Like Your Page
• People Who Like Your Page and Their Friends

Why should I advertise on Facebook?

• Facebook is like a self updating Address Book
• Clickable ads are an advantage to radio and tv
• More engagement with ads leads to more conversions, but also more exposure to future posts.

What should I advertise on Facebook?

• Advertise Sales Posts
• Advertise Store News
• Advertise New Product Lines
• Advertise New Inventory
• Advertise Earned Media
• • Articles
  • Interviews
  • News Features

Keep in Mind:

• Only boost what is going to give you a return
• Be sure to pick the type of ad that is right for you
• Test, Test, Test - Don't spend a ton of money on an untested ad