Tag: Business

Finding the Right Price

by adventureadagency, posted in Blog

One of the hardest challenges that businesses face is determining the right price for a product or service. It is not as simple as determining your costs and adding a percentage markup. Actually in total, there are at least five other factors than costs that affect price, and all of them are important to consider when determining your price.

First of course, you do need to cover your costs. This means that you need to be able to pay for the materials, labor, and overhead that go into your product or service. The problem is that overhead is a grey area. Many factors of pricing affect this dramatically.

One of these is your overall organizational and marketing objectives. The overarching goals of your organization can end up having a great effect on your costs. The more you want to do, the more your overhead will grow. Before determining price, thinking about where you are and where you are going. A major challenge of pricing you want to consider is that once you set a price it is often hard to change it, especially to raise it.

Plus, you need to think about how much you plan to spend on marketing and advertising. Advertising is an important tool that can bring in new customers and bring back existing customers. It is crucial to any business, but it also has a cost that should be put into the price. If you plan ahead and set a budget that is included in your price, spending on advertising will not be something that you feel like you are spending your profits on. Instead, it will be planned and accounted for in your price.

Next, there are legal and regulatory issues to consider depending on your product or service. These must also be included in the price. While this does not affect everything, it has a big effect on those it does reach.

After looking internally though, it is time to look externally to set the price. What is the competition priced at? Are you going to enter the market as a high, medium, or low priced competitor? In addition to this, ask yourself, what value do you provide to your customer in that price and how will you customer respond to your product and service? All of these external factors can influence price.

Finally, the last factor to consider is your personal pricing objectives. This is wear markup and profit comes into price. This is when you get to determine what additional profit you want to make after considering all the other facts. Be warned though, the markup must match the external factors previously mentioned. If the product is highly priced, but has no value to consumers, no one will buy it.

For better help understanding how to plan for advertising and marketing expenditures, Adventure Ad Agency is here to help. Please email us or give us a call anytime!

What you need to know about Facebook Reactions

by adventureadagency, posted in Blog, Social Media

Facebook has extended the Like button to include a multitude of reactions people can use to respond to a post on Facebook. Now, users can express six different emotions, including love, sadness, and anger to any Facebook post, including your ads. What does this mean for your business’ Facebook page?

Luckily for marketers, Facebook did not create a Dislike button. However, the new Reactions feature allows users to express feelings of like, love, laugh, wowed, saddened, or angered elicited by your post. Remember, just the same as a Like, as an admin you cannot remove a Reaction either.

How do users use the Reactions?

Many people have been confused on how to use the new Reactions feature. To use them on a desktop computer, users will need to click on the Like button to make the emojis appear. Hovering over each one will allow it’s meaning to show up. If users are on Facebook mobile, they will need to hold down the Like button to make the emojis appear. Moving their finger along the dots under the emojis will allow them to select whichever one they wish. Mobile users need to be sure to update their Facebook app in order to get the latest version of Facebook mobile installed. Another thing to note is that users can only select one emotion for each post. For example, you can’t “Like” and “Love” the same post.

How will you see what Reactions users posted?

You can go to your Page insights to see a breakdown of the Reactions that have been used on your posts. Simply hover over the Reaction for an individual post to see how many people gave the post that type of Reaction.

What will Reactions mean for your business’ Facebook page?

Marketers have always been trying to figure out Facebook’s top-secret algorithm, but how will the new Reactions feature play into that? Facebook has said that any Reaction is treated no differently than a Like in terms of which posts are pushed to the News Feed. Facebook has reported that post reach has less to do with what Reactions are used, but more with how fast the engagements happen. Therefore, a post with more engagements immediately after posting, regardless of what those engagements are, will get more exposure than one with fewer engagements.

Need help determining how to utilize Facebook reactions? Consult Adventure Ad Agency for marketing strategies today!

Facebook Ads Manager 101

by adventureadagency, posted in Advertising, Blog, Social Media

A majority of the population is on Facebook, or is at least familiar with how the Facebook interface works. If you’re reading this blog, you may have even posted an advertisement for your business on Facebook.

Facebook Ads Manager is part of Facebook for Business, and it allows you to easily view, change, and manage your Facebook ads. Ads Manager gives you many valuable tools you can’t access through a regular Facebook account. It allows you to create custom audiences, view audience insights, gather information about your pages, and access more support for your advertising campaigns. Ads Manager gives you faster editing, powerful insights, and customized reporting. It allows you to quickly and efficiently edit every aspect of your ads in one place. You can change the target audience, budget, duration, etc. of each ad in the same place without having to scroll through your feed to find each individual ad. You can also view your page and ad insights with Ad Managers custom graphs and data. This will allow you to measure the success of your ad and gauge predicted performance of future ads. Facebook Ad Manager’s reporting tool will break down the data and give you all the details you need about every ad you’ve created.

So why do you need Facebook Ads Manager? Our advice is that if you rarely plan to post a Facebook ad, you don’t. It would be more time consuming to learn the interface of Ads Manager than it would be to create and manage each ad manually. However, if you plan to post Facebook ads frequently Ads Manager can be life changing. It will ensure you respond to every like, comment, and message on your page by notifying you through your ads manager account so the notifications don’t get lost in your personal account. It will let you quickly change your promoted posts out so you don’t have to worry about promoting outdated content.

Another great reason to utilize Facebook Ads Manager is because it helps you optimize your budget. Ads Manager allows you to set your budget to distribute in the best way for your ad campaign. You could evenly distribute it for the duration of the ad or vary the budget over time to reach more people on strategic days or at strategic times. Ads Manager allows you to customize your budget to get the most bang for your buck.

Other customizable options in Facebook Ads Manager are editing audience, ad placements, schedule, and bids. Ads Manager gives you the most customization for your Facebook ads and allows you to have the most control over various aspects within each ad and over every campaign. Although Ads Manager can be overwhelming at first, we think it is a very useful tool if you are going to be managing multiple ads. If you need help setting up a Facebook Ads campaign or starting your Ads Manager account, please contact us today.

How To Design A Killer Business Card

by adventureadagency, posted in Blog, Marketing

Having a small business means you must learn how to function in many roles. You are the owner, the manager, the accountant, and the marketer all in one. When people meet you for the first time, how will they remember you? Making a great first impression is important, but having a killer business card is key. You might think a business card is meaningless in today’s technology-savvy society. However, business cards are a timeless piece of marketing material that actually work. Your business card is not the end-all be-all, but if done effectively it will create a lasting impression on customers that will make them remember you when they need your services. Take a look at our tips for designing a killer business card.

1. There’s two sides for a reason

Nothing looks more unprofessional than a one-sided business card. Sure a two-sided full-color card may cost a bit extra, but it’s worth it to make customers know you didn’t forget to finish the other side of your design. Plus, when you are only working with a 3.5” x 2” space, wouldn’t you want to double that by using both sides of the card? We think YES!

2. Design

Of course the design is important, but did you know your aesthetic choices have actually been proven to make a difference based on human psychology? Spacing, font choice, white space, and colors are all perceived differently in the mind. For example, red displays power, while blue represents peacefulness. Be cautious what customers will interpret about your business based on the design.

3. Content

Just as important as the design of your card is the information on it. Your business card must contain a tagline that quickly explains who you are and what you do. Regardless of your profession or how complicated your job may be, your tagline needs to be a quick, simple explanation of what you do. Your card needs to explain what you do when you first hand it to someone, remind someone who has had the card awhile what you do, or show people who are passed along what you do. All of these functions require a tagline explaining what you do! In addition, you should add basic information about your business. Feel free to include social media icons or links, but be sure to have a nice balance between imagery and text. If you are unsure of what information to put, just stick with the basics: name, website, email address, physical address, and phone number.

These are the basic elements to a great business card. If you need help designing your customized business card, contact us today!

Adding Current Events To Your Marketing Tool Belt

by adventureadagency, posted in Blog, Marketing, Social Media

As a business owner you should always try to stay on top of industry events, but you should be sure to keep up with current events as well. Marketing with current events can be a great way to engage customers and help them get to know your brand. Social media offers the perfect fun, informal platform to create ad campaigns for your business using current events. We’re going to use this blog post to tell you why and how you should add current events to your marketing tool belt.

So the first thing you may be asking is why current events; they have nothing to do with my business. The reason you should add current events to your marketing tool belt is because they get people talking. Remember the white and gold dress that went viral (or black and blue dress if you’re crazy!)? People couldn’t stop sharing it on Facebook and talking about it on Twitter. Why not use this viral trend to gain more exposure for your business? Dunkin’ Donuts had a great example of incorporating the dress into their social media campaign. You too can incorporate the event into your ad to show customers you are fun and want to engage them.

Untitled1

Have we convinced you to use current events in your marketing campaign yet? If so, let’s look at some ways you should (and shouldn’t) incorporate them. You can use fun viral trends like the Dunkin’ Donuts example above or you can use real-world events. Take a look at what Gaf Roofing did to get their Instagram followers ready for The Kentucky Derby. This example demonstrates how to tie in unrelated events to your brand.

Untitled2

Another way to use current events marketing is to incorporate “real-time” events. Remember when the lights went out during the 2013 Super Bowl? Oreo was on Twitter incorporating this right away. The difficult part of using this strategy is that you cannot plan in advance. You must think on your feet and work fast to make “real-time” marketing effective.

Untitled3

If you choose to use current events in your marketing campaign, be sure to do your research. There have been too many real-time marketing examples gone wrong that caused public uproar. One of the most notable examples is a DiGiorno Pizza tweet from 2014. The brand decided to hop on a #WhyIStayed bandwagon without realizing the context of the hashtag. The hashtag was referencing women in abusive relationships so clearly DiGiorno’s tweet was not taken well.

Untitled4

The main takeaway when using current events in your marketing campaign is to be current, relevant, and fresh. Make sure you do your research and only advertise tastefully. Be selective in which current events you use and how you use them, but don’t be afraid to get creative. Most of all, have fun with it!

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Website

by adventureadagency, posted in Blog

Most business owners know that in today’s age a website is a must in order to drive traffic to your business. But do you know if you are using your website to its full potential? In today’s blog, we will help you learn how to get the most out of your website.

There are several important aspects to having a successful website. We strongly recommend having a call to action prominently displayed at the top of your home page. A good example of this would be to display your company’s phone number so customers can easily contact you. You should also include any social media links to your company’s Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube page.

Another recommendation is to have a quick contact form where customers can digitally get in touch directly from the home page. Depending on your type of business, a live chat that pops up when customers enter the site may be helpful. We recommend this for any business that customers may have a lot of questions about (attorneys, designers, etc.). Professional photography and a modern, clean design will make your website look professional and credible. We suggest adding candid photography to show the real aspects of your business. A few other things to keep in mind are to ensure that your site is mobile-friendly, has a quick load time, includes your contact information in the footer, and always lead visitors toward conversation.

In addition to the design aspects of your website, the content is also important. You want to have very detailed content on each page. The more keywords, the better! We recommend having about 1,500 words per page. Having a blog will also help you add more content. One blog post per week should suffice in adding more content and creating credibility. In addition to a blog, adding testimonials to the home page and throughout the website can help with the credibility of your business. Your reviews on various review sites (Yelp, Facebook, Google+) are important, and you should feature the best ones on your website.

Now that you know what elements your website needs to contain, we need to go over how people can find your site. Unfortunately, there’s no secret formula to ensure Google will put your site at the top of people’s searches, but there are various factors that you can control to help. The first important aspect of a searchable website is keywords, which are the search terms people use to find your website. After all, what good is a killer website if no one can find it?

Keywords can range from very general to very specific. General terms get a large volume of searches, but may not be exactly who you are trying to target. Specific keywords get less traffic, but it is more likely that these people will find your website helpful. External links will also help your website make it to the top of Google. This is where a blog comes in handy. Linking your blog posts each week to your Facebook will immensely increase your number of external links. You may also want to consider increasing the number of pages on your website. This gives Google more content to sift through. Having a separate page for each service you offer is a quick way to boost your page count, but make sure each page is filled with quality information.

Last but not least, work on getting more reviews! We know this can be daunting for fear of negative reviews, but try to have exceptional customer service to outweigh the negative reviews with the positive ones. Sites with higher and more reviews typically end up at the top of Google’s list.

Utilize these tips to get the most out of your website. If you would like us to analyze your existing website and give you specific suggestions, please contact us today!

How To Optimize Your Facebook Ads

by adventureadagency, posted in Advertising, Blog, Social Media

Advertising on Facebook may seem simple. But are you optimizing your Facebook ads or blindly posting them? In this blog we will help you optimize your ads by teaching you how to define your objective, create an action plan, properly execute that plan, and track your results.

1. Defining your objective

The first step in optimizing your Facebook ads is to define your objective. Your business goals will drive your marketing objectives. Some examples of goals include generating sales, brand awareness, or more engagement. More specifically, if you are looking to get new clients, your goal may be to increase the number of visitors to your website. If your goal is to strengthen brand loyalty, your may want to boost the interactions on your page.

2. Create an action plan

Now that you know what your goal is, you can make a plan. You need to decide how many posts you will do each week, what your message will be, who is your target audience, etc. Unfortunately, there is no cookie-cutter answer to what your plan should be. Each company will have a different action plan depending on your brand and goals. You need to evaluate what your audience will like, if you’re advertising on desktop or mobile, and what mood you want your ad to be.

3. Execute your plan

Once you have your idea developed, you can start creating the ads. However, be weary of Facebook rules when creating your ads. Because images with minimal text are more engaging, Facebook recommends limiting your graphic content to 20% text (including logos). You can check to see if your image meets these requirements using the grid tool. We recommend creating several versions of an ad using various images and layouts. You can test these ads to see which performs best. A great app for ad testing is AdEspresso.

4. Track your results

Facebook will show you how many people your ad reaches. You can also use Facbook Ads Manager to see in more detail how your ads are performing.

Although we can’t write one blanket plan that works for all businesses, we hope these tips help you create a successful ad campaign. Always remember to define your objective, create an action plan, properly execute that plan, and then track your results. If you need help optimizing your Facebook posts, contact us today!