COMING AT YOU WEEK OF 8.24.21

What you should know for this week

NUMBER ONE
​Facebook analyzed over 100 ad campaigns that saw “above-average performance” last year. Social Media Today says the key findings from that report are:

• Build inclusively
• Create edutainment (education entertainment)
• Sell with ideas
• Speak platform language
• Reward self-discovery
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NUMBER TWO
​Social media companies are deciding how to approach content about the Taliban since the Islamic militant group took over Afghanistan on August 15. According to this article, “Some have said they will not lift the ban on posts that promote the Taliban after the fall of Afghanistan. Others, such as Twitter, are reviewing posts for violations. Facebook said it will ban the Taliban from operating Afghan government accounts. ”
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NUMBER THREE
​If you haven’t heard, the Tokyo Olympics had the lowest viewership in decades on NBC. However, YouTube’s coverage of this year’s olympics was watched 7x as many hours as the last summer olympics. It probably helped that they included videos made by athletes sharing a more intimate look into the competitions.

General Marketing

The marketing channel that won’t be ignored

While many of us are chill with leaving our inbox with 572 unread emails, and while we don’t even think when we swipe quickly past social ads, most of us open every text we receive. If you want the real numbers, SMS (text) marketing has a 98% open rate. Not too shabby.

Now we don’t really believe in magic outside of Disneyland, so we won’t pretend that sending marketing texts is full-proof. However, it can almost guarantee that your audience will at least skim the content you send them, which isn’t the case for most marketing channels.

So, here are some good ways to use SMS texting and get engagement (as in, get people to visit your site or use the offer you send them).

JUST BE HELPFUL, DAMNIT
​There are plenty of ways to actually help your customers through texts: send appointment reminders, offer birthday perks, give shipping updates, etc. If your messages are actually helpful, they’ll trust your company (shocking, huh). Then the more they trust your company, the more they’ll give your company money (exciting, huh).

MAKE IT ABOUT THEM, NOT YOU
​When you send a promotional message, make it feel about them. Using personalization can help with this. Adding their name is a simple and decent strategy. You can also mention a recent action they took (a purchase they made, a page they visited, or the good ol’ abandoned cart reminder).

TRY TO SOUND LIKE A FRIEND, A HUMAN ONE
​Don’t send texts like this:

Do send texts like this:

TIME IT RIGHT
​According to this article, it is best to send marketing messages out between 12:00 – 3:00pm weekdays and weekends.

All of that good advice should be used to text people who actually want to hear from you. So don’t forget to have your customer’s permission to send them texts and remember to make it easy for them to opt out.

Now have at it!

Which one are you after?