Apart from the most obvious way- paid advertisements, there are also other ways that can help you grow your business through Instagram. Of course, firstly you need to create an Instagram profile for your business. Once you’ve done that, you are ready to start the journey.

1. Work on your aesthetics

Instagram is all about aesthetics. Make sure that you put a lot of thought on how are you going to present your business. There are a lot of options you can do.

For example, you can choose a color scheme that you would like.

Once you do that, all of your Instagram posts should align with the colors that you’ve chosen. Make your visuals distinctive, they should represent you and your business. This is how successful branding works. If people can recognize your business just from your pictures, it means you’ve done a good job.

Of course, it should be done in a visually appealing way. Instagram pages that tend to eyes of the audience always have better success than those that ignore this note.

2. Be relatable

To market your business the right way, don’t focus only on your products/services. Rather than that, offer solutions to your customers. That will make them feel like you understand them and their needs, which will make you more relatable.

You can share ‘behind-the-scenes’ footage to share some candid moments with your audience. Sharing such moments creates a bond which is something you want to do. It shows your audience that you are more than just a company and that there is the human factor behind all these posts.

3. Be smart with hashtags

How to work with hashtags? Well, there is a winning recipe. Expand your reach by using the right hashtags. Always have a hashtag with your company’s name, so users can filter content that is linked to your business. It’s best practice to use between three to five hashtags, despite the fact that the maximum you can add is 30 per Instagram post.

Combine hashtags that are about your business along with hashtags that are trending and can be incorporated into your post. This is a great way to make yourself visible to others that don’t know about your business yet. This allows them to discover your company. With the right combination of hashtags, you can gain new followers, and therefore, new customers. For example, try adding hashtags like #instagood (used is 300 million posts), or #tbt (Throwback Thursday), and don’t forget about industry-specific ones. If you are in IT, the hashtag #IT or #tech will do just fine.

4. Collaborations

Collaborating with others is a great way to make yourself known to a wider audience. Sharing your customer’s stories is also a great way to expand your audience engagement. Acknowledging your customers will make them feel appreciated, which is a winning recipe for a loyal customer.

You can make a collaboration with someone who will promote you on their page, and you do it on yours. The old “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” can be applied in this situation. Of course, if you do decide to do it-be wise about it. Never partner up with someone who stands against the values and policies that your business represents.

5. Offer your Instagram followers exclusivity

Instagram is a great way of promoting your products/services. You can tease and announce a novelty on your business page. Let your followers be the first ones to find out about new things, reward them for their loyalty. Think of fun ways to let them know that you have something new and interesting for them. That will help in building anticipation around the novelty that you’re about to introduce.

The fact that you offered them exclusive content on your Instagram page will increase its importance. Your page can be a strong marketing tool if used appropriately, so make sure you utilize it in a smart way.

6. Take a step back

Of course, it is wise to do your research beforehand. Work on your posting strategy, your aesthetics, and gaining followers, etc. But your work doesn’t stop there. Make time to take a step back and analyze everything that you’ve done. There are a lot of assumptions about e.g. best time to post, or something third. However, it won’t necessarily work for you. That’s why it’s crucial to go over everything you’ve done and what are the results.

You will see it through likes, comments, conversions and other engagements parameters (depending on your business). Make use of social media management tools. You can schedule your posts, or use social media analytics to measure their success. It’s never too late to improve your strategy and adjust it to your audience/customers.

Instagram is a great way to promote your business because it is so fun and carefree. People won’t be feeling like you are actively trying to sell them something because you are showing them that there are more sides to you and your business, which makes you likable and relatable. Of course, it is not smart to just wing it. Make a detailed strategy that will guide you along the way. Analyze your success and make the necessary changes. Use hashtags to your advantage, as they can help a new audience to find you. Collaborating with others will also give you a platform on their profiles, and it also gives you credibility.

Keep in mind that Instagram is filled with countless profiles, so you need to find your own style that will make you stand out. Your audience will recognize that and reward you for it. It goes without saying, growing your page will take some time before you see the fruits of your hard work. Be consistent and be patient, because Rome wasn’t built in a day.

The post How to Use Instagram to Grow Your Business appeared first on Iseto.

What’s the difference between a customer-centric and customer-focused approach?

So let’s dig deeper to understand the differences better. The easiest explanation would be that customer-centric is focused on customer’s needs, while customer-focused is about the customer’s wants.

Being customer-centric requires more knowledge about the customer. You are required to get into the customer’s perspective and know what is it that they need. The customer-focused approach consists of surveys that depend on customer’s feedback and service agent’s when things go wrong. Their starting point is the product, and what’s the best way to make it desirable for the customer.

Customer-focused companies offer a pleasant experience for their customers. They are listening to their desires and fulfilling them the best of their ability. Their customers are mostly satisfied and they would probably consider doing business with them again.

Customer-centric companies create loyal customers

They are always one step ahead. Their in-depth knowledge of the customer gives them an insight into their needs. The focal point is the solution to the customer’s problem, rather than explaining why is it that their product/service could be useful.

Rather than thinking “How much product can I sell to one customer?”, the main question is “What can I do to help the customer’s needs”? A customer will always opt for something they need, rather than something they want. It is the principle of priority. But if they feel like their needs are being understood and met, that’s what will make them loyal to you.

To achieve that, you need to give in order to receive. Make each customer feel like it is all about them, that you care about them and you understand them. You will be receiving a customer that is going to stay loyal to your brand.

Of course, as this process is somewhat intricate, it requires more time and dedication. 

You won’t be able to guess what are your customer’s needs right off the bat. You will need to do your research to find that out because, at the end of the day, you are trying the see the world from a customer’s point of view.

Let’s study that on some examples.

Best Buy- recognizing their customers’ needs

Best Buy is a perfect example of changing their approach from being customer-focused to customer-centric. They noticed that a lot of women (busy moms) were leaving their stores without making a purchase.

Instead of focusing on how many of them left the store without buying anything, they wondered WHY did they leave the store empty-handed?

They found out that the moms “wanted to look at complete solutions such as wanting to buy a digital camera that would allow them to share photos with family members. But the sales team were immediately diving into questions about the number of pixels the shopper wanted.”

Busy moms weren’t interested in the technical specifications of the products. That will interest someone who already has some knowledge of these products in general. But busy moms just wanted, for example, just a camera that will take nice pictures. The discovery sparked the change in stores’ layouts, aesthetics, and their employees changed their approach based on their customers’ needs.

Today, Best Buy even introduced the Geek Squad that helps customers dealing with installation or similar processes they found confusing.

By recognizing their customers’ needs, they managed to stay on top of their game. Many competitors had to close their stores, but Best Buy is still super successful.

Ryanair- needs rather than wants

Ryanair is an Irish airline company that is famous for its cheap flights. In the 2017 survey by the Which, they have not been ranked very generously.

And why is that?

They don’t have premium service, great food, free additions and so on. So how are they still making so much profit? They are still one of the busiest airline companies. Well, what they do offer are really inexpensive and frequent flights, with a large number of destinations.

Would it be nice to have premium food and service? Yes, of course. However, that costs more. And Ryanair knows what its customers need: cheap and frequent flights. Needs over wants. They know their customers well, and this is the key to a successful business.

In conclusion, what should you do to be customer-centric?

What you want to achieve is thinking like a customer. To do that, you need to do your research. Once you know your customers, deal with their needs, not wants. Rather than focusing on the products, focus on solutions. People react differently if you shove your product in their face and if you target a certain problem and offer them a solution (with the product/service being the solution). To have faithful customers, you need to treat them as your lifelong partners. That means being there for the long run. Focus on their lifetime values and they will be loyal to you. If you make it meaningful, your customers will be the first ones to recognize it. Instead of being reactive, you should be proactive. Know your customers and continuously work on new solutions, don’t wait for them to ask you for it.

As Peter Fader, author of Customer Centricity said:

“Customer centricity is a strategy to fundamentally align a company’s products and services with the wants and needs of its most valuable customers.”

The post How Can Customer-Centric Approach Help Your Business More Than Being Customer-Focused? appeared first on Iseto.

How to do it properly and avoid branding mistakes?

Even some of the big names in the industry with established brands have made some big mistakes along the way. So what are the branding mistakes that could hurt your business?

1. Unclear identity

Brand identity is one of the most crucial parts of the equation. To be able to launch yourself on the market, you need to figure out what your company’s about. What are the core values that your company represents, what are your visuals going to be like, what is going to be your tagline?

Think about everything that makes your company unique. Think about how you want to present that to the world. Once you do that, be consistent. You can’t claim to stand for one thing, then for something completely else the following month. Sending an unclear message to your audience always ends up poorly. If you plan on redesigning, always bear in mind that the core of your visual identity needs to stay unchanged. For example, Gap had a big flop with its attempt to redesign its logo in 2010.

They tried to change it into something entirely else, and the public hated it. Unfortunately, Gap’s efforts to try something new and fresh fell through. They changed their logo back to the original in a matter of days.

2. Being too similar to your competition

They say to keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Even though your competition isn’t necessarily your enemy, you should always study what they are doing. It’s a great way to learn from their mistakes, but also to get some new ideas inspired by something they are doing. However, studying your competition doesn’t mean copying what they are doing.

For example, Starbucks is a giant that is famous for its coffee. When they opened their first  South Korean store back in 1999, the competition was ready. That same year, South Korean company Elpreya started selling its coffee named Starpreya. However, the similarity in the name is not the only similarity that these two brands share. Elpreya was under a lawsuit by Starbucks because their logo was too similar to Starbuck’s.

The similarity is unquestionable. Even though Starbucks didn’t win the lawsuit, the public was not fooled. They recognized the lack of originality in Elpreya’s branding. Regardless if you’re copying the visuals, campaigns, name, or something else, you can’t fool the public. They will always notice your lack of efforts to create something original. Not to mention that copying your competition deducts your credibility while looking lazy and sloppy.

3. Trying too hard to stay ‘trendy’

Of course, you need to keep up with trends to stay relevant. For example, not many businesses had a Facebook page back in 2006. But ten years after, every company has its page on Facebook. After Facebook, we got Instagram. It is important to stay updated. However, you should not follow every trend that comes along.

There will always be something that is trending, but does it go well with your brand image? This is one of the branding mistakes that are the easiest to fall into. The tempo of our lives has gotten pretty fast, and we are consuming news and trends even quicker. It’s important to differentiate between temporary pop-culture whims and staying up-to-date. Be mindful of what you spend on your time, money, and efforts. Think of your long term goals and if this trend is really something that is going to help you achieve it? If not, is it possible that it will be forgotten the next day?

Mind the image that goes with your brand. Never go with something trendy that doesn’t compliment your brand’s image. Your customers will recognize that as ‘trying too hard,’ and that will undermine your brand.

4. Not doing the research

It goes without saying that you would research the market before launching any brand. You need to know who your audience is and plan your strategy accordingly. Of course, you can’t just wing it. You have to do actual research on who are the people that would use your product, what are their interests, etc.

However, your research never ends. Listen to the public and what they have to say about your product. This is a great way to obtain some new ideas and fix potential mistakes. Rejecting to hear what your customers have to say is a terrible mistake. Always make sure to research what you’re doing right, what could be improved, etc.

5. Not being prepared for a foreign market

Even if your brand is locally oriented, you can never know its scale potential. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with starting small. Sometimes it is the safest option, but never underestimate the potential of your growth. That means don’t overuse local vocabulary or symbols. If your hopes for the future include going global, think of going with a language that is widely spoken.

If you are taking on a foreign market, hiring a qualified translator is a must. There are countless examples of campaigns gone wrong because of a bad translation (or a complete lack of it).

One of the most famous examples is Schweppes with its campaign that fell through. While trying to run a campaign in Italy that was about tonic water, it translated into the toilet water. There is much more to launching your campaign in a different country than just finding the equivalent word in a foreign language. Some things are appropriate in one culture, while completely inappropriate in another. So, if you are thinking about spreading your business into a foreign market-make sure you are well prepared.

In conclusion

Everything we talked about seems pretty sensible, right? To avoid making cardinal branding mistakes you should work out the idea of your brand’s identity, don’t copy the competition, don’t jump on every bandwagon, mind your customers’ opinion and do your homework if you’re spreading beyond borders. However, it isn’t that obvious when you’re in deep. If it was, giants like Gap and Schweppes probably wouldn’t be guilty of their faux passes. But that’s a good thing because you can always learn from their mistakes, right?

However, if you make some of these mistakes, don’t beat yourself up. If you think you’re guilty of some of these branding mistakes, don’t worry. You can always recover from it, just own up your mistakes and work on a strategy to fix them.

The post 5 Branding Mistakes That Hurt Your Business appeared first on Iseto.

If you don’t know how to present yourself to the world, it doesn’t matter how good your product is.

You probably picked up what I’m trying to say. Marketing is important. Some companies figured out how to do it on their own, and they do it successfully. However, sometimes you need help. Money is often a big concern when making a decision to hire a marketing agency. Nonetheless, the aspect of saving money is often overlooked.

Hiring a sole graphic designer for your company, and that could cost you around $53,000 a year, and a marketing manager that would average around $73,000 a year (before benefits). Hiring a marketing agency where you would get an entire team of experts can be around $50,000 a year. So what seems more sensible?

Agency’s job is to help you scale your business growth.

You are getting a specialized team that’s working on different ideas on how to help you grow your business. Their team will help you get an outside perspective and an insight into new aspects you may have not been aware of.

Are you following the latest trends?

Do you know the latest trends when it comes to social media management? Technology and internet trends? They do because that’s their job, and they know how to use it in your advance. For example, 84% of people expect brands to create content. Many marketing agencies offer a service of writing blog posts and managing your social media accounts and creating enticing content for your audience.

Covering a whole variety of tasks

Let’s say you own a company that makes wooden tables. How do you reach the audience that is interested in buying wooden tables? And how to spark an in interest in other people that are not yet even thinking about buying a wooden table? From the attractive visual all the way to funnels that will filter the potential customers, agencies cover it all.

Creativity

Most agencies are successful because they can think outside of the box. To stand out, you need to be creative and think of innovative ways of making an audience notice you. In today’s world where we are constantly bombarded with so much information, it’s an agency’s job to grab people’s attention with something different.

Communication is the key

However, if you are thinking about hiring a marketing agency, know that communication is the most important part of your business relationship. You need to clearly state what is your mission and what you’re comfortable with. You want your business to be represented in the best way possible, which is why you need to communicate what this means for you. Once they have a clear vision of what is it that you’re about, it will be much easier for them to help you achieve your goals.

The post What Does Hiring a Marketing Agency Mean For Your Business? appeared first on Iseto.

But what does that even mean?

Here’s a quick explanation on what emotional marketing actually is. The term is used for a specific type of advertising where the main goal is triggering an emotional response in audience/consumers. In exchange, they will notice, remember, and ultimately buy the product. You are making an emotional connection which makes the consumer loyal to your product. Emotional marketing is frequently not about the brand itself, but how it makes the audience feel.

In most cases, the advertisers aim for one emotion. It can be happiness, sadness, anger, or fear that will cause a reaction. Even though it may seem pretty easy, it isn’t always the case. However, there are 5 principles you should follow when it comes to emotional marketing.

1. Inspire

The first goal in emotional advertising is inspiring your audience. Inspire them to make a change. They should see it as you are offering a feeling they aspire to feel, and your product is the gateway to that feeling. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a direct link. The subconscious connection goes a long way.

Even the most adventurous types of people are not too crazy about changes. Familiar things offer security, and your goal is to get a new customer. That is why it is important that they feel inspired to make that change. When people feel inspired, they are much more open to new things.

2. Trigger the right emotion

The first step toward triggering the right emotion is knowing your audience. Who is it that you are targeting? Once you know who you are talking to, it is easier to develop the strategy of invoking the desired emotion. People that are not part of the same culture, age group, or gender may react differently to the same thing.

For example, this is a humorous depiction of what middle-aged women referred to as ‘moms-on-facebook’ find funny. Millenials do not find ‘minion memes’ funny at all, while the middle-aged women find it hilarious. If you want to make your audience laugh, first you need to know who your audience is.

Furthermore, you need to decide which emotion works best for your marketing strategies. It’s not the same if your emotional connection with your audience comes through happiness, sadness, fear, or something else. For instance, positive emotions will get you more likes and shares, while sadness will generate more clicks. Android launched a megapopular campaign with animals back in 2015. Their cute campaign made the customers smile and went viral.

As you can see, it all depends on what you want to achieve with your campaign. Once you figure that out, it is much easier to pick an emotion you’re going to go with. By targeting one emotion, you will often trigger some of the emotions that are linked to the primary one, making an even bigger impression.

3. Create a community

Making a strong emotional connection with your audience creates loyalty. People love feeling like they belong somewhere. That’s why there are countless organizations, groups, etc. You can give your audience the same feeling by creating a community around your product. Being a part of an important milestone is an excellent opportunity for that. When Starbucks turned 40, they launched a celebratory campaign and changed-up their logo.

Anniversary campaigns are a great opportunity to make the customers feel like they are a part of something.

Local campaigns will also give people a sense of togetherness. Promoting local values and making them feel special that they are part of that. Going local can imply a town, city, or even a country. It all depends on the brand and how big you want to go.

Campaigns that promote the values of some country are a big hit.

4. Tell a story

To make people feel invested, your brand should always tell a story. More often it’s about what your brand stands for than it is about the product itself. If your audience feels like you are about more than just selling yourself, that’s a big plus.

5. Mind the visuals

Of course, the visual aspect is critical. It’s one of the first things we notice, especially when creating the first impression. For example, colors play a significant role in this. Many brands have mastered color psychology in marketing. Even though we’re often not aware of it, colors have a substantial impact on how we perceive things. Each color makes people feel a certain way.

For example, red is linked to excitement, passion, encourages appetite, and so on. McDonald’s is a perfect example of a company that recognized the power of color and incorporated that into their image. Blue is associated with tranquility and reliability. It gives you a sense of security and stability. Oral-B is one of the companies that recognized blue as an ideal color for their brand.

When choosing a color, you want to go with, do thorough research. It’s more than just ‘what looks pretty.’ Even if your product is the premium quality, it will not matter if the aesthetic doesn’t match.

Yes, it can be very complex.

There are so many elements that make up successful emotional marketing. This is why it is important to do thorough research and strategize from the very beginning. And of course, always look into competition’s strategy. You can get inspiration, learn on their mistakes or simply see what worked for them. The road to success is always combining something new with something familiar.

The post 5 Steps to Successful Emotional Marketing (With Examples) appeared first on Iseto.

The whole story started in 2016 when a page named Employment Hub was founded. Employment Hub provides free job postings and recruiting services for regional businesses. It was a project we embarked on, with the primary goal of gathering potential job applicants. What started as a project with 4 people, developed into a business profitable enough to hire 26 people.

What did we do?

Our goal was increasing the number of people who landed on our website and convert them into job applicants for jobs listed on our site. This was before dynamic ads were a thing. Our process consisted of creating around 10 ad sets, and each contained one ad. We took our best-performing ads and paired them with attractive photos of people and workplaces, which gave us great results. We concentrated on creating our potential audience. The goal was reaching the right audience and creating a lookalike audience similar to people that already converted on our page.

We had opted for custom conversion objective and tied it to the registration event in Facebook’s Ads Manager, so we were able to use the Facebook pixel installed on its website to track completed registrations on the website.

Our results

In 6 month period since June 2017-January 2018, we achieved outstanding results:

• 30% conversion rate (event registrations) for all website visitors from Facebook and Instagram

• 43% decrease in cost per lead, compared to previous campaigns

• 9X increase in revenue per day during the first 6 months

Our success is reflected through the fact that Employment Hub counts approximately 2 million visits every month from Facebook, noting that our conversion rate is 30%. Due to our successful Facebook ad campaigns, we grew Employment Hub’s business from $1000 a day to about $9000 a day-in 6 months. We achieved that with photo and video ads, ads in Stories, selecting the right core audiences, creating lookalike audiences, and measuring the success of our ads with Facebook Pixel.

This story is concrete evidence that with the right approach and tools, a lot can be achieved.

The post From $1000 to $9000 in 6 Months appeared first on Iseto.

The fee depends on how many people you want the post to reach, the payment depends on the number of impressions the post gets with time; according to Hootsuite. Although, there are some things that you should consider before boosting your posts:
Never Boost a Post if You Are Unsure What is Your Goal!

There are several reasons to boost your post, you just have to define what is yours. For example, your goal can be to get more ‘likes’, to get more blog traffic, to give away free product, increase brand awareness etc. Everything is easier when you are absolutely certain what your goal is. It all starts from an idea.
Know Who To Target
You can choose to boost the post to the News Feeds of people who liked your Page, and also their friends, or select a particular audience through targeting. There are various targeting options ( Location, Gender, Interest, Age). Ask yourself again: „What is my goal?“ Targeting ALWAYS must be based on your goal. Boosting your post is going to be effective only if you have found the right audience. Don’t mess this up. Think about it over and over again until you get it right.
Test The Timing
When boosting a post you should keep in mind what time of the day to do it. Right timing depends on your audience, content and your overall goal, but mostly of your audience. The audience is the main factor. It’s not a bad idea to test it so you can see what time of day works the best for you. Once you know when is the perfect time you should focus only on that period. That way you can be more effective.

The post What To Do Before Boosting Your Post appeared first on Iseto.

Always Be Original – Surprise, surprise… It’s obvious, you have to be original. As a matter of fact, you simply MUST be original. We live in a world that is full of copycats and phony people. Don’t be one of them. Your product/service is unique. Even if it’s similar to someone else’s, it’s unique in its own way. Highlight the uniqueness of your product/service. Why is it so special? Let them know. You have so many opportunities and possibilities to express the quality of your product/service. Provide them with great content. Don’t take an easy road, be original. People will recognize it.

Add Images – Include images on your posts and you will see great benefits from it. People will be more likely to click on your post or even just look at it if you add a catchy image. Fortunately, as time goes by there are new studies that show you what attracts people the most. 90% of all the snap judgments that we make about products can be traced back to color, according to a study in Management Decision :

Younger people prefer orange, red and yellow
Older people prefer green, purple and blue
Orange is the most disliked color
It comes down to appropriateness and fit, not a silver bullet. The truth is that if you have a bad product, you’re not going to turn things around by throwing a blue logo on it.
This is a great study, but it’s not just the colors on an image that attracts your potential customers. People also react on people images. Happy women tend to attract most of people.

Timing – You really need to get this right. Right timing depends on your audience, content and your overall goal, but mostly of your audience. You should know your audience inside out so that you can know at what time to post. For example, if your targeted audience are single people, the best time to reach them will be different from working parents. Trust me, it can work wonders for you. You wouldn’t believe what you can do by putting some effort into it.

The post Facebook Marketing Tricks for Enhancing Engagement appeared first on Iseto.

Lead ads can be used to collect sign-ups for newsletters, price estimates, follow-up calls and business information.

How To Create Lead Ads?

You can create and edit Lead Ads in Power Editor. It’s a tool for creating and managing Facebook ads. Click on ‘Create Campaign’. Furthermore, click on ‘Lead Generation’ as your objective. Proceed with ad creation like you usually would until you get to the ‘Lead Form’ section. Click on ‘Create New Form’ to create your Lead Generation campaign. Next up are some standard questions that are ideal for all kinds of industries, and every question can be asked with either free text fields or with a preset list of options.

Tricks For Maximizing The Potential Of Conversion Rate

It doesn’t make sense to have a campaign that sucks. But, with just a few tricks your Lead Generation Campaign can and will be successful:

Send a direct message – By putting a direct message in your text you attract people. An example of a direct message is: “Click Here”, “Don’t Miss This Amazing Offer”, “Free Merchandise” etc. You can get really creative with this as long as you lead people to get to the end of this process.
Convert your customers at once – This means that you should have a path that leads your customers and sends from the first part to the last. Let me clarify that for you:
Your Post – „Get your …. here“
Lead Ad – Where they leave their name and email
„Visit Website“ – After they left their name and email
Send them to your landing page – „Click here to get your …“
Customers get your offer
Test your Call to Action – This one is pretty easy, but also important if you want to get the best of your Lead Generation Campaign. Test your Call to Action (Download, Learn More, Sign Up etc.) to see which one works best for you and stick to it.

The post Facebook Lead Ads appeared first on Iseto.