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Lesson Info

Assess Your Marketing and Engagement

Now we are gonna get into our marketing assessment. This is us. Now we know who we're marketing to, right? We're doing the big work. This is heavy lifting. I decided I'm gonna start us maxing out at 350 pounds right now, and you guys are like, whoa! Don't worry, it's getting easier, okay? I go to that hard stuff, because without doing the hard stuff, you'll never get to ultimately where you're gonna go. You can't have that without a foundation. So, we now know who we're targeting to, who we're marketing to. We now know the content that we want to create for them. Now, how do we measure our engagement, right? How do we know we're doing a good job? Well, we measure engagement by the following equation. The number of likes you have on a post, plus the number of comments, the comments that are left, not your responses, divided by how many followers you have, times 100. Now we're gonna get to the exact specifics. We're gonna dive into engagement on day three, but generally speaking, as a ru...

le of thumb, average engagement on Instagram is around 4 and a half percent, and on Facebook it's ranging around 2%. So if you run this math on your posts, what I encourage people to do, go back two weeks, pull out your posts, do a quick number crunch. Now here's the thing. If people thought that they were gonna come and like watch this, like class, and like, "Here's 10 hacks on how to get 1,000 followers." Like, no, we're doing work. Like, we want to use social media, well we gotta learn how to use social media. So, numbers, this is how we measure our engagement. So, if you are not getting good engagement, it's likely for three big reasons. Number one, you don't know who you're selling to, but we already did the hard work. When you work through that dream customer cheat sheet, you're gonna know who you're selling to. Number two, followers are unsure if your account is for them, right, because they like what you do, but they really can't connect the dots, like, what really, are you here for the memes, are you here for the inspirational quotes, and what do those two things have to really do with your business? They're not sure if your account is for them, or your content is misaligned. I have seen photographers who just dream about being a wedding photographer, and what they're posting are pictures of sports and horses, and cars, and family, and maternity. And they're like, "Why aren't brides hiring me?" They don't know what you shoot. Content becomes misaligned. So, we now know who Highway 3 is selling to. We now know who went to go tide market. We know Chrissy, we know Lacey, we know how old they are. Now, we're gonna see, does their social media content attract Lacey and attract Chrissy? So what I'm about to show you right now, is a social media review for Highway 3. Now, remember, these businesses put their necks out on the line, opening themselves up, and I loved it, because everybody in the room was uncomfortable. I want you to do the same dang thing. So, we want to approach people with their vulnerability, with the highest respect, saying, "Because of you, we charge forward." We're gonna get into that video right now. So what we're gonna do now is we're gonna do business and social media reviews. This is fun, this is really fun. This is my favorite thing. (laughs) You're like, hm, yeah. Sure, we have-- Simply lovely. Yeah, this is where we struggle with this. Okay, let's dive in. So, we are starting with Highway 3. So, as CreativeLive and I were collaborating on figuring out who we were gonna be able to bring in as businesses, the good news is, I didn't know any of the businesses applying, and so, I went to them as if I was customer, as if I came to your website, and this is what I saw on the website. It was very clear to understand, and what I'm going to do, is every slide that we go through, is going to be how I scrolled through the page. So you start in the homepage, then they scroll down, and I saw your product offerings, so we had blankets, pets, towels, pillows. Then we had your story, I watch the video, I thought it was really well done, I was like, "Okay, I got them." Scroll down, we've seen where you guys have been featured, which is social collateral validation, which is great, and then what we did, is from there, we scroll down and saw Shop on Instagram, which I liked, right. So people will be able to see and click and all that other stuff, and then, got to the bottom of the page. (laughing) That's where we struggle-- So-- right there. it got straight to the point. I don't know if I got to know you deep enough, but that's okay, 'cause you guys are a product. And I'm like, "Okay, let me see if I can get to know them "a little bit better based on their social platforms." So, I went to Highway 3. (giggling) That's not like Twitter. We're night twisted, Right, right, so I noticed, oh, wow-- There's Les's video. There it is. Did you watch the video? Yes, it was go Kansas City Chiefs, lots of fire. I was like, what is the fire. (laughs) So, this is back, and now let's see, December 2018. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably, we were-- Right. Yeah, that's-- And that's okay because-- That's so funny. We went back and saw it in November. That's my son that looks like Patrick Mahomes, so. Okay. And so that's the whole reason behind that. (laughing) We do not use Twitter. Okay, so. My initial thoughts. Either you create a Twitter specific content account, or you close your Twitter account. Honestly, it was my personal Twitter account. I've never been on her Twitter account, how terrible is that? And then somebodies like, "You need a Twitter account." So we just changed mine to our business. So, question number one. Are you going to use Twitter for Highway 3? I don't know. Do you think I don't. Your dream customer is on Twitter? No. No. Then we need to remove from the website. Okay. So-- I'll just change it back to me. Yeah, just there you go. Okay, so then I went to another link Oh, never used it. on Highway 3. I never used that in my life. Well, boy don't you know, because that's exactly what I saw. (laughing) Okay, so remember, what is on your website, people will look and think if you're not paying attention to these details, That we are serious in, will you pay attention to our details? and are we Right. So all these people, are we taken serious? we can't control the stories that people make up in their minds, but we can control what we're putting out online. So, initial thoughts from Tumblr, is remove that link from your website. We can do that. We can do that. Real easy. Yeah. Okay, now let's dive into Highway 3 Instagram. We already-- This is like, I feel like this is like yeah, very interesting. (laughing) Well, Goo Kiam! (laughing) It's Goo Kiam, y'all! I feel it's like if I were to go to a, yeah, like a diet class-- (laughing) I might just be eating like doughnuts, drinkin' coke this morning, and this is not good. That's okay, and I actually have to take a second, and I didn't start with where I should have, thank you. Thank you for allowing yourselves to be open and vulnerable and let other businesses I mean, yeah. see themselves, because people are watching me like, oh my God, I have an old link, or oh my God, it's like we don't even use Twitter, like, so, you guys are empowering others, so thank you for going ahead and allowing yourself to be open. So, we are going to fix that IO. Yes, got that. Great. We're ready to fix that. So, now we're gonna look is when I went to shop Highway 3. I went to Instagram, and you scroll up. I saw the first nine photos, scrolled again, I saw the second nine photos. So this is what I saw as I scrolled. What we see on the left-side, those nine photos are first, and the right-side, the second nine photos. So I'm looking at this, and I'm like, okay, okay, well I know what they sell. I don't know if I get the vision, right. Like I don't know, I got it, but I was like, hm. If I was shopping for a personalized blanket, making it myself, I think of my dog, my nieces, my nephews, my sisters. Yeah. Like, did I see an identity here to say, oh I get what they're about? Kinda, sorta. You definitely pump that up. So then I decided to go well, let me click, and let me see if I can get to know Highway 3, #saturday, #weekend, #smiles, #mommy, #kids, #babyfever, and other hashtags. Second post, right next to it. Cuddle time with his favorite blanket, repost, this kid and his blanket, such a cuddle monster, hashtags. Sister, sister, happy National Sibling Day! We are pretty lucky to get to work every day with the person that finishes each other's sentences, and even dresses the same without planning it. I would like to point out, you guys had 213 likes on that, and you had comments, whereas the others, that was like-- The phrase. Summer fun. Yeah, I noticed that. Cuddle monster. I know. So what happens with the captions, and we're gonna get into this, and we're gonna understand why some captions work and why they don't work. We're gonna talk about the anatomy of a caption, and so that now, all of a sudden, your eyes are gonna be open as to what is working and why. Here's a quote. Remember that woman you were before you had kids. She's still in there. Take care of her. I would like to point out that that had 1,519 likes. All of that stuff does. All of the funny-- Those funny quotes and mom relatable quotes get more likes than anything. Great, so we're gonna talk about that. Yes. Okay, we're gonna talk about that too. Last one. I didn't include the caption, because I want to include something here. Oh, we don't have replies? We don't have replies. Hm, we should, but yeah. We have to be very clear that we're responding to comments as soon as possible on that post, because, we don't know the algorithm, and Instagram probably won't ever say, but there is a designated point in time where engagement matters most. Like it needs to be within the first day or two? Yeah, sometimes, it's like we don't know. It could be the first 10 minutes. It could be the first 30 minutes. It could be in the first three hours, or the first 24, we don't know what it is, but we definitely know like, the closer to when you post and you are getting that engagement and responding to that engagement. So, I want to make sure, that when I post, I am, for the next 30 minutes, I'm responding as quickly as possible, because what happens, is we teach our followers how to engage with our account. The quicker we respond, the quicker they're likely to be like, oh, if she's responding quickly, I want to get in. I want to talk to them, I want my questions answered. Because what I see here is like, when did the pillow cases start? I'm dying. Like that's a great, you guys were like, she sets us nice comment. This is a great comment. Yes. But this is also somebody else who's asking, I want to give you money. I want to buy. And nobody's responding. Yeah. Next, cousin sleepover. This is a great way for you guys to be like, let us know how we can help. Can't wait to get the project started. And people are like, oh, like, they want this, like they're out there for us, their connecting. Are the pillows made of the same material as the blankets? I want to give you money. I need to know how or why, and nobody responds. So, business, now, I will take a step back. This is not an inference, 'cause I don't know who your social media manager is, but where there is a lack of vision, our teams don't know how to apply. 'Cause I hear every conversation we've had you guys are speeding up, speeding up, speeding up. But when you speed up without having a foundation-- A base, yes. A base, yeah. So it's okay to slow down to speed up. So slowing down with your social team, slowing down with the customer success team, slowing down. And once they go, let them go, and you guys are like, (claps) I'm doing the stuff that we know we're gonna implement on. So, let's breakdown from my perspective, I just went quickly through. Which are the best performing posts> This is something you guys already alluded to. That quote, was the best performing post in, like by far, 1500 likes and 29 comments. Another great performing post was a quote. 539 and seven comments. So, I would encourage you to start creating your own quote graphics that people can share. We do have some. Great. So, other posts that do really well. Photos of you guys. Yeah. That's cute. I mean like, these photos are doing really well. So my initial thoughts from Instagram is that you guys have great products. Like people clearly see it. You need to post more quotes, good things, and we kind of talked about that strategy, 'cause that's what your audience really likes. You need to show up more. You two need to show up visually in the feed. Well I think we got plenty of content yesterday, Oh yeah, oh yeah. (laughing) We didn't have 30 days, but. You need clear product shots. Oh yeah. And what I see a lot is that you guys are depending on user generated content. And we have a lot of good content. We do, I just don't know how to put it all to use. Like we have good, like from our better shoots, we do have a lot, but-- Well when you say you don't know how to put 'em to use, what do you mean by that? I just don't know how to use, like, so there's 10 pictures that are similar to that one, Yes. and I feel like it becomes monotonous and like boring for people. How long ago was that photo shoot? It was in August of 2018. So, let's break down some math. I'm terrible at math, okay, so I'm gonna make this real, real, real simple. On average, about four to 6% of your Instagram followers will see a post. I know. Okay, so if you'd had 1,000 followers, 4%, let's say 5%, is 50 people. So, and if they don't like it, oh well I guess, right? But, right, the chances are, they're not gonna see it. I read an article of a gentleman who had the same Facebook post with the same photo, and posted it on Sunday night, and it got such great reach. I was like, oh, that's interesting. The Sunday night, same copy, same photo, got the same amount. He did it for six months straight and got the same amount of engagement on this same content. What is this showing, is that people have either saw it and forgot about it, saw it and liked it again, or never saw it. You need to start conversations. So in your captions, it was beach time, snuggle time. I know that's my, I'm hurrying and needs to post something. Exactly, but we're gonna change that. And I'm gonna give you the exact pathway to get there, so don't even stress about it, And you need to respond to comments. So, this is all stuff we talked about. This is all gonna be implemented in the next 30 days. And that responding can go into the whole customer service email system, 'cause it can all intertwine. Yes, 1000%. Okay. Another link that was on your website was your Facebook page. So we're gonna get into your Facebook page now. So on your Facebook page, there are 23, about 23,000 likes at the time that I saw this, and first things that I do when I want to get to know a company and decide if I want to follow their Facebook page is go to their About section. So, Sisters, Erin and Trisha, who grew up on the blacktop of Highway in a small Kansas town and are now raising a group of kids, seven total, and running our business together So, one thing grammatically, you went from third person, Erin and Trisha, to first person. Oh, yeah, The first struggle with that that gets very confusing. Just pick one and stick with it. Okay, we need to do that, 'cause sometimes I feel that way. Now I don't know if you guys are doubting, but what I strongly feel is you guys have like the homegirl effect. We wanna drink bahama mamas together. First person works best. So we? You say sisters. You would say, hi, our names are Erin and Trisha, and we're sisters, and this is our business. Okay. Unless, you guys are like, we want to really build this into a sellable business, then it would be third person. Shop Highway 3 is curated by sisters in the blacktop of Kansas, (laughing) and their business is this. But let me tell you. 90 plus percent of small businesses are done by, like single owners. You're writing your own bio, so just something to consider, the kind of brand that you guys want to build, experientially. We love bringing modern, personalized products for everyone in your life. Check out our website. Not bad. It's not bad. What I would love to do is go back to that bio (snaps), you know. Like we personalize blankets and towels for busy moms who are thoughtful gift givers. Yes. Cool. Okay. And say you list your-- And the link that you guys listed was frickin' broken. Add the ww to that, so that people can clink, clink, clink on Facebook (laughing) so they can click from Facebook. And then, for the other 74% of the population who's like, go to a website, I like personal attentions, like if you have any questions, shoot us an email. Okay. Now, what I noticed, friends, is does this photo and caption look familiar? Yeah Yeah. And hashtags, while they function on Facebook, they don't function on Facebook. Facebook wasn't built for hashtags the way that Twitter and Instagram was. So what happens is, as a Facebook viewer, and I strongly feel that a lot of your moms are on Facebook, a lot of them. Yes, they are. Okay. They are. So what happens is that these moms as their scrolling, feel like you cool girls are having cool conversations on Instagram and then just pushing this content over here for, you know, the older, less cool moms. Yeah, you're right. (giggles) That's a story that some moms could feel. So what we have to do, is we have to create, I'm not saying create different content. Yes, just the diff--, yeah. Just different. Keep it respecting the platform. Is when you're on Twitter, speak like you're on Twitter. When you're on Instagram, you speak like you're on Instagram. When you're on Facebook, you speak like you're on Facebook. Again, we did the same thing here on summer vibes and a bunch of hashtags. Okay, great, so then I kind of figured we got there, so I'm gonna move past it. Again, is popular right, but we have a repost, #Repost, from @mention that's broken on Facebook, and then look at this. This is, ya'll, this power, this girl, Jenae, tags one, two, three people. This is my goal to get one for all of the kids. Then, her friend, Chelsea, says, I don't know, something like, I don't know. Maybe that's specific, like slang for their friend talk or whatever, but they want to sell. She says, I want to get one for all the kids. What does this say? All the kids, they wanna buy more than two. I know how expensive your blankets are. This right here is a five to $800 transaction. Cultivate it. This is how we get sales on social. Cool. Oh, again, we have those reposts. We have the repost, when am I gonna get there. But let's take a look at this post. (laughing) In case you're on the fence about having kids, let this sink in for a few minutes. The caption says, "Never let your kids get ahold of a sharpie." Ha. Great. We didn't get a conversation. We didn't ask a question, right? People are engaging- Like what if your kids ruined with a sharpie? Or better yet, if your kids gets ahold of a sharpie, have them clean it with one of our customized towels. Point it back to a product. We can, yeah. Wink face. 'Cause you're not saying, buy our towel. You're not saying. It's just being-- You're just saying, have 'em clean it off with one of our towels. You know they're not gonna, you know that mom is not gonna let them clean it. They're so even clean. People is not gonna want to clean. Exactly. But it's like a joke. You do a little wink face or whatever. So we have a culturally funny meme that's in context to what you provide. Okay. We know these work. We know they're powerful. Now they drive engagement, how we can kind of like create a parallel between your business. Okay. So, recently on Facebook, not so recently, they have what they call page transparency. You can click on this, and you could see every ad that a company is running. Perhaps, next level stuff, would be when you're running ads, and I know it's a little bit difficult, but well worth the time, is that you're paying for your ads to be seen, but what you aren't paying for is organic traffic that people can see when they tag their friends. That's all gravy, right? So you pay to get the ad, So I'm running an ad, and I'm paying, and then I pay to get it shown to Erin, and then if Erin clicks on it, oh okay, that was the effective thing. What if Erin clicks on it but then comes back and tags Trisha? Hey, you got to check that out. I'm not paying for Trisha to see it. I paid for you. So, when you can respond to comments by people tagging their friends or asking questions, I'm now looking at ads, as like, ugh, a division of customer support, because people are asking questions in there, and when they feel like they don't have time. And also, I feel like, a lot of our customers, they sometimes go in and answer the questions for these people. That's amazing. So, it is really nice, and we see it a lot Like someone will say, on the ads. is this really worth the money? And I've seen Or if people will chime in. then we have customers that'll chime in and say, absolutely, and that's really nice. I mean we do get that a lot. And all of this conversations are like Facebook juice, right, so it's gonna be seen by people, so this is gonna be super important. So, when it comes back down to copy, hiring a copywriter could be, it's worth its weight in gold. It's in the emails, actually. I've got like three emails with some copywriting. Great. Got them in right now. Great, great, great, great. So hey, looky here. Okay, so then there's that. So then there's that. That is absolutely fantastic. And one thing that I want to take into consideration, is I saw a few of the other ads, and I saw that the copy for the ads was all the same, Yeah. regardless of the photo. I know. And to me, and it's not bad, 'cause if they're performing, that's an indication, but anytime you can have copy that really pertains to the thing in the photo itself, it makes the ad perform really well. So, one thing I want to encourage you to do, is it's called split testing or AB testing. So what I want to do is, like some of these photos that she's using are strong photos, even if they are amateur, and some of 'em are not so strong. So what I want her to do is, from the collateral that you guys get from this, can you have her run an AB test? Because if she's saying that the casual photos that your friend took like perform better, I agree. However, if we have photos that look super candid and fun that look like a nicer version of that, instead of like a kid holding a blanket like this, and like, that's a clear product shot, and no one's gonna stop her. I agree. But can you find that middle ground? And let's just test it. And it's a hypothesis. We can go back, and maybe those terrible photos are the ones that perform, and it has done in the past. I'm not saying they won't, Well, I don't think so. but the way that we speak to it is only by AB testing. So, encourage her to do that. Yeah, yeah, she will. Encourage, also, for her to create layered ads in Facebook, because what I love, would love, love, love to see, is if you guys are running ads that are too specific areas at different times of the year. Because in California, we start our summer three months before people in Minnesota do. So having copy that says like, and then you run it to a geographic area, are you headed to Newport Beach this week? Are you headed to Malibu this weekend? And you're running ads within a certain zipcode. And then it's easier geographically. Absolutely. Because you guys go to those like higher end markets. Like in Minnesota, there's a lake called like Yeah, it's-- I don't know. Detroit Lakes. No, no, no. It's like this weird, funky name in Minnesota. It's where all like, the Minnesota Viking football players have waterfront property. If you ran ads to a higher demographic area and used the lake reference, do you have your towels ready for Lake Chappeluga or whatever it was, right? And then, people, moms seeing that, be like, that ad is just for them, and be like oh, well, I wonder if the Jones's have personalized towels, right? And you're going to a certain demo. You know that, 'cause you have higher price points. So run to the higher end lakes, higher-end beaches, start ads on the coast earlier. Then double-down on those ads in like that three-month time frame. Yeah, I have never Never thought of that. thought of that. Yeah, it's very good. Cool. Good, okay. So initial thoughts. To respect the Facebook platform, make sure that those posts feel like your Facebook mommas are there, feeling like it's written for them. To post relevant mom content, like people love that. Like I was looking through your post. When it's about being a mom, it's great. And ask for engagement and not like comment on this post or tag a friend. It's asking a question. Like do you wanna see like fluffy pillowcases? Vote yes or no. Like polls do great on Facebook! To test different mediums, I see a lot of photos. Like I wonder if you guys just did like a quick handheld video, be like, hey guys, we're in the stock room, we're going to product. Or we're putting together our board. You guys, look, behind us, you print out like a few Pinterest ideas. So this is what we'd love to see, Like let us know. Like what do you guys think? Like when people feel like they're part of the process, there's a higher likelihood to conversion at a later point in time. And, oh, like we just said, geographic-specific ads. I know of feel like I can't wait to test that. That looks cool. I feel like it's gonna kill. Me too, yeah. Yeah, that's really good idea. I feel like it's gonna kill. Okay, so one question, before we move on to Caitlyn. Like, one thing you want to focus on is like, what does Highway 3 want their followers to say about their accounts? You asking us that right now? Well, we can marinate. Let's marinate. If that's what you guys want, like to be like, well, I wish-- To me, knowing what you want your people to say about your account, empowers you to reverse engineer, empowers you to work backwards. If they say, they're like my friend, if they say, they're moms that inspire me to build my business, if they, whatever they say, right, this, what do you want them to say? You're strong, you're powerful, you're smart, you're fun, you're quirky, whatever. Go back to, what do we need to start saying again and again and again. We're a bunch of hard-working quirky mommas. We don't have it together. Greasy hair don't care, church on Sunday, football, like late night, whatever it is, again, and again (snaps) and again (snaps) and again (snaps). And we're working those categories in a second. But this is the question I just want you to keep in the back of your mind, and when we get to the end of the day, I'm gonna ask you this question. What do you want people to say about your account? We broke it down, heavily. And this is the work that it's going to take for you to break it down just as heavily. It's for you to take a step back and say, what does my Facebook account look like? What are people saying about me? And one thing I really want to highlight, that we didn't get into enough, is that when you say something as many times as possible on social media, that is how people begin to describe you. I have said this before, and we have it on tape, on CreativeLive, where I would stand in front of people, and I have never, in my entire life, ever thought, that I would ever be described as the word fabulous. 2019, 2020, the words that people aren't using to, the word that people are using to describe me is not the word fabulous. In 2015 and 2016, that was the word that people described me every time I stepped on the stage. Why? It is what I used in my copy, again and again and again. My brides are fabulous, the day was fabulous, the vows were fabulous. I became a photographer associated with fabulosity, because I wanted the very thing to be, I wanted that to be the thing that brides were attracted to because they wanted to feel fabulous. I could care less if somebody describes me as fabulous or not. I'm okay in my own skin. I don't use that in my copy anymore, because I don't need to identify that anymore with Elle. What does Elle want to be? Empowered, inspirational, aspirational, confident. Look through the copy and what I say again and again and again. We put out what we want to get back on social.