Your Year-End Marketing Campaign Setup - Webinar Recap

With pumpkin spice, cooler temps, and talks of Christmas shopping filling the air, it's time to start your year-end marketing campaign. A webinar from John Haydon - the writer of Facebook Marketing for Dummies, a contributor to the Huffington Post, as well as recipient of many other accolades in the marketing realm - provides a checklist of steps for businesses to take as we all approach the holiday season.

1. Start out your plan with P.O.S.T.

- People: Who are the people you need to reach?

- Objectives: What do you hope that they would do on your site or social platforms? Should they simply like your Facebook page or do you want them to actually call up your business for service?

- Strategy: How will you create value for these people? What online content will you provide that solves a problem for them?

- Tactics: Which tools will allow you to produce and promote this content most effectively? We will show you a few options below.

2. Plan out an editorial calendar

- Gives you a bird's-eye view of the next couple months

- Provides a place for communication between multiple team members

- Here's Haydon's example template for planning out your calendar Template or you can copy his Trello template

3. Set up Goals on Google Analytics

- Tie engagement to ROI

- Set this up in your analytics account - see how to in the post Google Analytics Setup and Best Practices

- Haydon's favorite thing to track within Google Analytics? Conversions: they give you the most insightful look on what channels are actually driving people to your site that result 

4. Research what people are talking about 

- Engage in conversations in which your ideal customer is interested

- Use a tool like Facebook Search to understand what groups / pages / posts they follow, and then write about those subjects or follow them yourself

- Research trending content topics with a site like BuzzSumo and use that as material for your year-end blogs

- Incorporate relevant hashtags in your posts by plugging in your keywords to hastagify.me to see with which tags Twitter searcher's might find you 

5. Tell stories through your content

- Keep in mind that most people came to social media in order to connect with people. When producing content, don't just talk about yourself, but rather establish ways for people to connect with you 

- Focus on what Haydon says storytelling is all about: "visual / emotional / relatable / actionable / shareable." It is not about "stats / news / milestones / bragging"

- With each story try to "hook" your audience, "hold" their attention, provide a "resolution" for them and include a call to action that they should take after the story 

6. Gather a surplus of content

- By studying your content through an app like Buffer, you can take advantage of the work you've already done and republish / promote your most popular posts. Especially focus on popular searches by clicks, allowing you to see what content incentivized people to click through to your site.

- When an image has received a lot of attention, upload it to a site like Canva and repurpose it for future posts or events

7. Monitory closely - download and use mobile apps

- With so much going on around the clock during the holidays, stay "in the know" when you're away from your desk. A few of Haydon's fav mobile apps include Feedly, Flipboard and Reeder. 

- You'll also want to closely monitor your content. He recommends using Hootsuite or Pages Monitor so you don't miss anything on your social media accounts. 

8. Reply and respond promptly and authentically

- Haydon emphasizes how important staying "human" is through all of your activity. Reply and show you care. React as a person and not just a big busy organization.

- He recommends getting notifications to your phone so your replies are frequent 

9. Automate what you can

- To be as efficient as possible, use an app like IFTTT which allows you to click and drag content across social channels.

- He also points out how you can connect your other apps under one roof through a tool like Zapier so you don't feel like you're spread too thin. 

For the full webinar and access to slides, visit his site. These are just a few ways to develop your year-end marketing strategy, but for a more individualized process, contact ArcStone today.