Marketing to Back-to-School Shoppers: 

5 Considerations

Students are still on summer vacation, but retailers are already planning for the back-to-school shopping season.

It’s the second largest consumer-spending period for retailers behind the winter holidays, and a huge opportunity for marketers to increase brand awareness and expand their customer base. Average back-to-school spending has continued to increase every year. The average American with kids in grades K-12 shelled out approximately $688 during the last back-to-school season, up from $603 in 2011.

Here are 5 facts you need to know about the typical back-to-school shopper so you can make your school-themed marketing campaigns better than ever.

Timing Is Everything

 1.Timing is everything: Did you know the timing of back-to-school spending varies by product type? Shoppers often buy office supplies at the beginning of the spending holiday and then clothing in late August and September during the start of the school year. Also, back-to-school purchasing started in July last year,earlier than usual. Marketers should keep this purchase timing in mind in 2013, offering relevant products when their target market is buying.

Tech Has Changed Shopping Habits

2. Tech has changed shopping habits: More than ever, families – especially moms – are browsing and buying online. Online searches including back-to-school-related words increased significantly from 2011 to 2012.

Expect your customers to browse and purchase online. 

Make your campaigns mobile-friendly, and lead your fans to mobile-optimized websites so their shopping experiences are as seamless as possible. Last year, 40-50% of moms purchased apparel, books and electronics from a tablet.

Everyone’s Searching For Good Deals

3. Everyone’s searching for good deals: When shoppers make big purchases, they want big discounts. Nobody wants to break the bank before the school year begins!

Give your customers what they want. Run contests with compelling rewards, and create look books of affordable back-to-school products. 

Offer coupons, discounts, free shipping, and other exclusives to get your fans to buy more. They 

are sure to tell 

their   friends  about their savings.

Kids Influence Purchase Decisions

4. Kids influence purchase decisions

It’s not only adult shoppers who are getting savvier. Moms with kids between the ages of 6 and 17 are highly influenced by their offspring.

Marketers need to not only appeal to parents, but also to their kiddos. Run campaigns geared towards students so they ask for your products by name.

 A Good Review Goes A Long Way

5. A good review goes a long way:
During back-to-school season, shoppers are likely to see products and special offers on social networks and then talk about them with their friends. 

      

Reward moms for reviewing your products and sharing their reviews with friends. Moms trust other moms; encourage those moms to trust your brand.  

So, it’s time to get started. Get in the back-to-school 

 groove and create campaigns that matter 

                                                 

                                                                        

Does Content Marketing Measure Up?

In the same sense that you don’t want to host the majority of

 your ads on your own site (usually), you don’t want to focus your

 content marketing efforts on your own site.

The truth is you can’t really replace outbound efforts (i.e. paid ads)

 with inbound-only campaigns such as social and email. 

Relying on inbound efforts only is like never leaving your circle of friends.  

Yes, brands should be publishers….but not exclusively.

Many content marketers have bought into an incorrect view that brands should be their own publishers. Why exactly does this make sense? Brands don’t usually try to be their own ad platforms…that’s what TV stations and magazines and websites are for.

Instead, one of the most effective ways to get drive traffic to your website and create brand awareness is to have content published on other sites. 

Like paid ads, content published on top sites draws consumers not likely or at least not always be captured by inbound efforts.

In a Venture Beat story last week CMO’s confessed their uneasiness with the actual effectiveness of content marketing. 

That’s easy to understand – what exactly is the ROI of an effort to attract 10,000 Facebook fans?

What’s easier to measure is a strategic campaign that produces several million impressions from content created by brand advocates on their own sites. 

Measurable like advertising – more engaging because it is content created by bloggers and website owners who already love the brand.

More on this in a future post  – because simply reaching out to brand fans without a specific message and target objectives wastes precious resources and while measurable…might not measure up!

                                                                                                           Authored by:

                                                                              

Is Facebook Graph Search Successful Thus Far?

Facebook Graph Search has now been available to users for nearly seven months and we’ve seen some positive feedback and some not-so-great comments from social media experts, small businesses, and average users. Where the Graph Search is working and where the Graph Search is not working is particularly important for small businesses because it can change the strategy needed to succeed. Even though one tactic should have worked in theory, it’s always a good idea to go back and re-asses whether or not you’re on the right track—whether it was your fail or Facebook’s.

A brief overview: You can read all about Facebook Graph Search and how it works in depth here. In short, the Graph Search is a search function now available on Google that allows users to type in queries and get answers based on their friends and connections engagement on Facebook. 

This new initiative is essentially Facebook’s way of using the data they have available and making it useful to users. Those on the social network are there to connect and engage with friends, and this takes that idea to the next level. Sounds great, right? 

Yes, but as with all trials in a business, there have ups and downs.

Facebook Graph Search Successes:

1. “Likes” earn more meaning. In the past, it was really tough for businesses to put a value on a Facebook “like.” It was great because it means you were getting onto the homepage of more people, which could mean more clicks, but it seemed to stop there. With the Graph Search, the engagement on your site is helping you show up at the top of this new search engine. Suddenly, those “likes” seem to have more value than ever before.
2. Easier Navigation. In the past, lots of information on Facebook could get lost in the shuffle (specific pictures, that one restaurant you liked last year, etc.). Facebook Graph has made it easier to dig up this information.
3. Business Successes. Businesses are now more prevalent on Facebook than ever in the past. Users are typing in business-related searches more often; therefore businesses are getting more exposure. Although it might not be much and many agree that it isn't perfect, it’s better than nothing and better than it was I the past.

How the Facebook Graph Search Needs to Improve : Unfortunately, there are a few things that the Graph Search feature still needs ironed out. Consider a few of the places where it didn't deliver:

• Privacy. Some people are not fans of their personal information showing up in search results. Although Facebook promises that only the information you have allowed others to see will be included in Graph results, many aren't even sure what that information is. Suddenly it’s putting more pressure on users to check their privacy settings of every little thing they do, and most aren't too happy about it.
• Exact Matches. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said himself at the product launch that the new search feature is about “precise queries and exact matches.” This isn't exactly what people want out of a search engine. Google will pull up related searches based on keywords, etc., but Facebook hasn't gone that far. It’s annoying, and therefore isn't always the first choice for searchers.

The Graph search is certainly not trying to compete with Google, which you can read more about here. It is trying to do something different and become a different kind of search engine (probably a good idea to not try and compete with Google). Whether or not there is a need for this type of search engine is still up in the air.

Predictions for the Future of the  Facebook Graph: 

Facebook is a social network that is constantly changing and working to improve, and although a few of their changes have had many up in arms (many of my own friends refused to switch to the timeline layout until they were finally forced), people always seem to come back. It’s tough to say how long it will take for Facebook to perfect the Graph Search, but in my opinion, they will help make it happen.

Can Voice Search Really Change the SEO Industry?

Anything that changes the way someone searches on a search engine is going to affect your business strategy, so it’s always best to stay on top of the latest trends right as they happen. Although voice search hasn't gained much publicity since its launch nearly two years ago, it’s starting to grab users attention and earn a little bit more visibility on some of the most authoritative blogs. This sudden surge of attention, therefore, brings up the question that is always asked when something new emerges: How does my company need to adapt to this new feature in order to remain successful in SEO?

What Is Voice Search?

For those who are unfamiliar, voice search means exactly what you would expect it to mean—people can now say what they want to search for instead of having to type it. Sure it might not seem necessary at first (and in fact, it really isn't necessary), but it can be beneficial for more reasons than you might realize:

• It’s great if you don’t know how to spell your search term.
• It’s great if you hate typing on small IPhone buttons or reading the tiny screen.
• Maybe you’re just lazy that day?
• It’s great if you don’t speak the language and need something translated. In a foreign language, it typically helps to hear how something is said.

If you’re using the latest version of Chrome and have a working microphone, you can use voice search for any search query. You can visit this page to learn how to setup voice search (just a minute or two) as well as the differences between Windows and Mac.

Voice Search and SEO Considerations:

When it comes to voice search, there are several things that will change about search and therefore things that companies should consider when it comes to SEO strategy.

1. Natural Language: As you might assume, people are going to speak naturally and not think about what they need to do in order to get better Google results. It’s a habit to speak the way you would if you were asking someone a question. This is considered natural language (obviously).
2. Longer Queries: Natural language is typically longer than what search engines are used to, so Google is going to need to start accounting for longer queries. How they will make this happen and how it will affect companies is unknown, but change is surely coming.
3. Less Use of Keywords: This goes right along with point #1. Because people are using more natural language, they will be using less keywords. Companies need to take this into consideration and start preparing for more natural-type queries (in fact, Google will probably have to do the same when it comes to altering their algorithms).