SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook and Snapchat just told you what’s most popular on their platform
- Facebook has released the first in a “series of reports” that will show you the most viewed content in the News Feed starting with links, domains, posts, and pages in the U.S.
- Snapchat has launched “Snapchat Trends”. Think of it like Google Trends, but for Gen Z. This tool will show you the most popular keywords shared via public Stories. Some of last week’s keywords included “Friday the 13th” and “Meteor Shower”.
What this means for you: If you look at Facebook’s report, you’ll notice some interesting content angles under “Widely viewed posts.” Almost every post poses a question, but in an intriguing way. Can you do this for your niche?
Snapchat’s trending tool, on the other hand, allows you to determine what’s popular at any given time. It’s like a dashboard of (mostly) positive and interesting news that could definitely spark some content calendar ideas.
E-COMMERCE
People now spend more money on Amazon than Walmart
Online is crushing offline.
Walmart appears to be losing ground to its online rival for the first time since 1990.
According to Wall Street data compiled by FactSet, people spent more than $610 billion on Amazon in the past 12 months. In comparison, Walmart made “only” $566 billion in sales last year.
That puts Amazon as the #1 retailer outside of China.
Alibaba still takes the first spot, with $1.2 trillion in sales over the last year. That is more than Amazon and Walmart sales combined.
The Crew’s take: E-commerce is huge, and it will probably get even bigger in 2022.
SPONSORED BY SAILTHRU
How fashion retailers are keeping up and competing with Amazon
Stay-at-home orders combined with growing competition have made life quite hard for fashion retailers this year. While some have been crushed under the weight of increased pressure, other companies flourished.
And after analyzing thousands of different strategies, Sailthru identified six of the industry’s most impressive brands.
Retailers like Adidas, Nordstrom, MATCHESFASHION, American Eagle Outfitters, TechStyle Fashion Group, and Rent the Runway are using personalized marketing strategies to outshine the competition and win new business.
Simply put, Sailthru studied what these brands did to stay on top of the retail game in 2021. And then they put all of the juicy details, secrets, and insider strategies in this guide. Things like:
- Personalization tactics that generate $20 or more in ROI for every dollar invested in personalization.
- How Rent the Runway uses Facebook Lookalike Audiences to build predictive purchase models and reduce subscriber acquisition cost by 20%.
- The omnichannel mentality more and more stores are adopting to compete against any brand in retail.
- Adidas’s customer lifecycle messaging used to recover abandoned carts.
- How to instantly increase the number of clicks, conversions, and revenue generated by your emails.
Get ahead of the competition by downloading your guide now.
MARKETING
How to increase your prices without losing customers
Raising your prices is the easiest and quickest way to make more profits. Yet, many businesses don’t do that because they’re afraid to lose sales.
However, if done right, you can have your cake (increase your prices) and eat it, too (keep customers).
It’s all in the delivery.
Mary Lister from WordStream shows us how to communicate a price increase to your audience the right way.
- Notify your team members first. Your customer service, sales, and marketing department will be impacted by this decision. Hence, they should be the first to know about it.
- Reach out to your customers, and make it crystal clear what’s happening.
- Use different channels. While you should prioritize the channel of communication your customers are used to, you can also notify via mail or phone. It comes down to the relationship you have with them.
- Give plenty of notice. Notifitying your customers two months in advance is the sweet spot for a price increase, especially if it’s a subscription charge.
- Segment. If the price increase has different implications for different customers, segment your message. Also, you can personalize the message according to how long your customers have been with you. And provide something special to loyal customers.
- Be informative but brief. Convey the exact increase, why you’re increasing it, when it will take effect, and if there is any action needed on their part. But don’t overdo it. Too much explanation can sound defensive and apologetic. However, don’t be too brief either, or it will look like you do not care.
- Create a FAQ page to address the most common questions the price increase might raise.
- Add a clear way to reach out to you. The information in the announcement and the FAQ page might not be enough for some customers (especially if it’s a high-end product). Tell them how they can get support.
- Don’t do it more than once a year. Before announcing the price increase, make sure the price will stay the same for as long as possible. At least one year.
Nobody wants to send or receive price increase announcements. But these tips will make the process smooth and help you retain your customers.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
E-COMMERCE: The Black Friday Summit is a 100% virtual, 100% live and 100% free event. Savannah Sanchez, Chase Dimond, and Val Geisler are just 3 of the 50+ speakers. Expect 10+ Black Friday Cyber Monday topics across 3 days, between October 2-4. Grab your free spot.*
GOOGLE: Let’s say you have an e-commerce site ranking for “bar stool”. Should you also create an article on “how to pick the right bar stool?” Yes, according to Google, you should cover all of your bases.
TIKTOK: TikTok = B2C, according to most marketers. But what about B2B? Some brands got creative and successfully used the platform for B2B as well.
PPC: Are Google Ads getting out of reach for small businesses? Tony Wright says “yes.”
LOCAL: You have power. If you received a negative Google Maps review, you can do a lot more than you think.
SEO: Why is site:query not showing all your pages? Because it’s not supposed to, according to John Mueller.
PINTEREST: If you’re in the hairstyle niche, your pins might soon get more discoverability thanks to this update.
*This is a sponsored post.
BRAIN TEASER
Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Robots are better than you in parkour
If things continue at this rate, we may soon see the Robot Olympics.
Boston Dynamics has released a video of Atlas, its human-like robot, performing some impressive parkour moves.
Robots can not only move over heights, but they can also climb them. This warehouse robot is capable of climbing heights as well as retrieving and placing packages.
Are robot maids coming next? We could use the help.