Clover Media Blog

A customer journey is key to building a solid lead generation strategy. A customer journey map is a visual representation of a customer’s experience with your brand, from awareness, consideration to purchasing decision and beyond.  The customer journey is a long and often unpredictable road for your potential and returning customers. Understanding it can be even more complicated. That’s why customer journey maps came into being, to understand the roadmap of a customer, from the very first touchpoint throughout the lasting life of their relationship with your business.  Customer journey maps can be an invaluable resource for companies, from marketing to sales to user interface, and have been known to help businesses increase their ROI by 13–22% when done correctly. Customer journeys allow you to create personalized experiences across all touchpoints—for every individual—across all channels. Companies can use this shared understanding to identify opportunities for innovation and improvem

As with any business, it’s important to generate leads for future customers and revenue streams. After all, the bottom line of business is just that. The bottom line. If you want to be successful in business, then lead generation is going to be one of, if not THE most important task you’re going to do. Adding to that, it really doesn’t need to be as complicated as you might think it could be. First, lead generation is how businesses bring leads into their sales pipeline, funnel, silos, or whatever industry jargon you use to call your lead capturing process. Second, these leads should be people that have shown some interest in purchasing something from you in your industry.  And third, if someone is asking for more information about your product or service, that’s great! That means they could potentially become a paying customer in the future! Basically, what I’m saying here is you need to pay attention to them. When done right, it provides new customers who will purchase your product o

Setting social media goals is a key step toward proving (and improving) the value of your social media work. Writing your goals down and regularly reporting on your progress also significantly increases the likelihood that you will achieve what you set out to do. Goals help you chart a course for improvement and success. They allow you to see how effective your efforts are. They give you purpose and direction, in a documented way that you can share with others. Anyone can pull a lofty goal out of thin air, but that won’t help you improve your business results or even measure progress. For your social media marketing goals to be useful, they need to be realistic and trackable. They also need to be tied to clear objectives that will help you make progress. Established goal-setting frameworks help you put in the work upfront to create meaningful social media goals that will support your business in the long run. Let's look at the S.M.A.R.T. Framework of setting goals. The S.M.A.R.T go

If you want to build an audience, grow your brand awareness, and bring in more sales, then you need to wrap your mind around three specific video types we're going to lay out. And then MAKE THEM! Regardless of what industry you're in, your potential customers all go through (basically) the same process every time they are in the market to make a purchase. That process is referred to a the Buyer's Journey. When you fully understand what that journey entails, you'll understand why these three video types are so imperative to your brand's success when it comes to video marketing. The first step of the buyer decision process is the awareness stage. Here the consumer recognizes a need or problem and feels a difference between the actual state and some desired state. They try to find goods to satisfy such needs. This leads to the second stage of searching for information about the product in the consideration stage. The consumer tries the find out as much as possible abou

If you’re looking for the latest social media demographics for 2021, you’ve hit the jackpot. We often talk about the importance of building a social strategy that’s driven by data. Demographics are no different. Because the social space is constantly evolving with more networks available to marketers than ever before, you need to spend your time and budget wisely. And while you may think you know which networks matter most based on your target audience, 2021’s numbers might surprise you. From putting together personas to conducting market research, demographic data is an essential starting point for figuring out which networks and campaigns deserve your attention. Facebook Demographics and Usage Number of monthly active users: 2.7 billion Largest age group: 25-34 (26.3%) Gender: 44% female, 56% male Time spent per day: 38 minutes Instagram Demographics and Usage Number of monthly active users: 1 billion Largest age group: 25-34 (33.1%) Gender: 57% female, 43% male Average time spent pe

The latest evolution in online shopping comes with new limitations and opportunities. What worked on your ecommerce site may not make an impact in a crowded newsfeed. As consumers continue to embrace this distinctive checkout experience, understanding their motivations will be crucial to building a lucrative strategy. Sprout Social  surveyed 1,000 US consumers to better understand what’s driving perceptions and behaviors around social commerce (i.e., did TikTok really make me buy it?) According to their data, 65% of participants have already made purchases directly through social media. US retail social commerce sales are projected to exceed $56 billion by 2023, marking an opportunity businesses can’t afford to miss out on. This report unpacks what brands can learn from these early adopters and how they can become even more competitive in this uncharted market. Brand Awareness is the Key to Unlocking more Purchases on Social People are spending more time on social media and consequentl

When it comes to Facebook and the content that’s shown to you as a user, many people believe that the algorithm just hates showing them anything their friends post, the actual Pages they follow or the Groups they’re members of. Most people believe all that they are shown are Ads after Ads after Ads. When honestly and objectively–That’s just not the case at all. Taking into account you are the person that set up your account. Followed those Pages and became members of those Groups, it wouldn’t be in Facebook’s best interest to only show you Ads from brands that have paid them to place their Ads on their platform, regardless of how much money they make off of those.  If you the user/viewer is not on their platform for the reasons you want to be. Then there is no one on Facebook to see the Ads those brands paid to place on their platform.  And the reason you’re on Facebook is to see what your friends and family are up to, catching up with the latest gossip from your school years, or even

 Are you shouting at the wrong people? Graphic Design can help to sell your products by creating awareness, interest and action – to the right people! Having the best product or the best service but shouting at the wrong people in the wrong place will not achieve the results you need. Even the best design will not get a return if it doesn’t create the right emotion or even get to interact with the right prospect. Knowing what your best customer looks like helps! What are they interested in, what is their pain or problem? Without knowing this information you can’t begin to educate them let alone convince them that it is your product they can’t live without. Great Graphic Design can only, truly, be effective with the right message for the right people. Therefore discovering your perfect customer is the first step to creating an effective and successful campaign. Answer the questions above to begin to find out your target market and best customer. Then your objectives will be to create in

In 2009, Erich Joachimsthaler coined a term — Social Currency. He defined it as the extent to which people share brands or information about brands as a part of their everyday social lives. In today’s “definition” of the term according to Wikipedia, it’s the actual and potential resource from presence in social networks and communities, including both digital and offline. It is in essence, an action made by a company or stance of being, to which consumers feel a sense of value when associating with your brand, while the humanization of your brand generates loyalty and “word-of-mouth” vitality for the organization. So now that we’ve covered the origins and the modern definition of Social Currency, what does it actually mean to you and for your brand? In its simplest of terms, Social Currency can be described as giving your audience “one upmanship” over their friends, relatives or social media followers. Think about that for a minute. When you have something better, more expensive or inc

Online communities can be defined as a gathering of like-minded individuals that has an outlet on the Internet to discuss their interests on-line. As with any physical or “real life” community, members get together to share common interests. These communities are terrific places to connect one-on-one while building relationships with a larger audience and industry influencers. With the meteoric rise of social media, online communities have seen a boom in popularity. You can find online communities ranging anywhere from cooking, theme parks, marketing, sports to politics. Not unlike their real life communities. Online communities look to serve a specific target audience to help one another better themselves. To teach, to learn and to connect. Whether you can recall your local Y.M.C.A. from when you were a child, or the Boy and Girl Scouts. These very niche communities have been intertwined in our cultures for a lot longer than you may think. Even as far back as ancient Greece, communiti

What is it about some email marketing campaigns that make them successful while others flop, causing businesses to lose revenue? Some email marketers know the secrets that drive holiday purchases and we want to help you take advantage of that knowledge. Make the most of your email marketing campaigns by reviewing these tips. 1. Make it easy for customers to buy No one will spend the time to jump through the hoops of a complicated purchasing process. Include prominent links in your holiday marketing emails that enable customers to get to the purchasing page with one click. 2. Send an automated email out whenever someone abandons their online shopping cart Don't make the mistake of assuming people are done shopping just because they left their cart. Many customers abandon carts because they get interrupted, are having trouble with the site, plan to return to it later, have a question or for other good reasons. Set up your automated email campaigns so that they send out a quick email

One of the biggest marketing boosts your brand can receive is from word-of-mouth marketing. This type of marketing is basically when people talk to other people about your brand, product or services. It can be in-person, inside an email or on social media. Person-to-person marketing has ALWAYS been the best way for your brand to drive new business. The personal recommendations for our friends, family or coworkers goes further than anything your marketing department or social media team can produce. The reason for that is simple — TRUST! We trust our family. We trust our friends and coworkers. We trust them to give us the best advice on where to eat. Where to get our oil changed or even where to go on our next vacation. It’s THAT level of trust your brand has to be able to tap into and create when it comes to minting your Social Currency on social media. And I’m not just talking about creating trust for your product or service. I mean you HAVE to be able to create a level of trust with

Selling products on your blog is one of the absolute best ways to turn your loyal audience into a consistent revenue stream. In fact, many of my readers set out to start their blogs specifically for the purpose of marketing and selling a product or service. Whether you have a brand new blog or have already been blogging for years, you might be surprised at the revenue potential of selling products on your blog. Stop overlooking the money making potential of using your blog to sell products, and read on to learn about how simple it can be. The Keys to Selling Products On Your Blog: Audience and Conversion Rate The two biggest factors in how successful you can be with offering products on your blog are the size of your audience and the number of your readers that you are able to convert into paying customers (also referred to as your conversion rate). First, we will discuss how easy growing your audience can be. Building Your Audience Means More Potential Customers Building a bigger audi

Video is a visually rich communication tool that can be tailored to suit any audience and share any message. Whether your goal is to drive more traffic, increase leads, educate a buyer into making a purchase decision, or improve conversion rates, video is one of the fastest and easiest ways to communicate with your audience. No matter the industry, video’s benefits for business owners make a compelling case for implementing video marketing for your business. Cisco has predicted that by 2022 online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic. Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text. 83% of marketers would increase their reliance on video as a marketing strategy if there were no obstacles like time, resources, and budget. Read on to explore five powerful benefits of using video marketing in your business.  Engage Customers on Social Media  Whether you’re on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Snapch

User-generated content (UGC) is any content—text, videos, images, reviews, etc.—created by people, rather than brands. And brands will often share UGC on their own social media accounts, website, and other marketing channels. For many brands, Instagram is the primary platform for UGC. Users create and share posts featuring your brand, exposing your products and services to their audience. Better yet, you can share that content with your own audience, boosting your credibility in the process. In this post, we’ll explain why you should create a user generated content strategy. We’ll also explain how to incorporate UGC into your social marketing efforts. Why User-Generated Content? What’s the big deal about user-generated content, and why should your brand care? Here are three key reasons UGC is a key marketing strategy you can’t ignore. Promote Authenticity Consumers are 2.4 times more likely to view user-generated content as authentic compared to content created by brands. That offers b

People aren’t on social media to follow your brand. At least, not initially. They’re there to connect with friends and family, kill time, and be inspired. When consumers follow brands, it’s generally as a response to things like feed discovery tools, recommendations from people in their network, because they already like a brand and because someone they admire (e.g., an influencer) mentions the brand. For most brands it’s difficult (and inadvisable) to time an ad around a natural disaster, but understanding that people go online during pivotal events like holidays and political campaigns can help you plan your posts and content appropriately. Another thing to consider—different age groups use social media differently. For example, Gen Z tends to find new accounts via the influencers they follow, while Gen X discovers new accounts from family and friend recommendations. One major way to avoid losing followers is to understand why people are following your brand in the first place. The n

Having a successful Social Media presence for your brand is about more than just creating engaging and creative content to post to your Social Media platforms. These days, companies need to utilize the power of Social Media as a customer service vessel for their brand. Customers love having the ability to interact with brands on sites like Facebook and twitter. On the flip side, companies that are using Social Media as a part of their customer service experience typically have a higher rating than a company that doesn't. Now. How does your brand do this correctly? THINK BEFORE YOU RESPOND For the most part, customers contact a brand's customer support department do to either a complaint or something is not functioning properly on a product or service they purchased. When a customer contacts your brand for customer support, make sure to fully read through their initial issue. RESPECT THEIR EMOTIONS It’s inevitable on social media, you will come across comments that are negative

In the digital age of Likes, Shares, Tweets, Retweet and SEO, we all know that overlooking the easy to avoid mistakes may cause your blog to not reach it's full potential. From our How Adding a Blog Can Drive Traffic to Your Website we also know how important a blog can be to your brand's website traffic as well as your SEO ranking among the top search engines. So what we are going to look at today is a few common mistakes you need to avoid or keep in mind when you are posting your next blog post. NO SALES PITCHES I can't tell you how many times we have come across blogs or blog links on [insert social media platform here] where all it was in the end was lengthy sales pitch on what they are offering/selling. Writing a post about a specific service or new product you have is great! However, let's not turn blogs into 1,000 word advertisements that people will stop reading three sentences into it. Rather, concentrate on informing your audience on what is happening in the m

Social Media Marketing is more than posts, likes, retweets, blogging and videos. In the big picture, it is about reaching your target audience where they are. Keeping that in mind, let's talk about just how important your target audience actually is to your brand's message being reached by even more and how they can be your brand's best marketer. Let's take Instagram for an example. When you post to your Instagram account, it is viewed by all of your followers who either like, share and tag others on their account. You now know how that is important to marketing your brand. If a follower posts a response to your Instagram post tagging one of their followers in that post, you now how have a personal conversation between two people attached to your brand. Meaning now your brand's post will be seen by your followers, your followers followers and now the account they tagged followers. This effectively just tripled the amount of people or "accounts" that will s

We are often asked by customers and non customers alike, how they can drive more traffic to their websites. My first response is typically recommending adding a blog to their websites. There next question more often than not is, "How can adding a blog accomplish these goals?" Of course, if a customer does not like to write at all, then perhaps adding a blog isn’t the best suggestion. But even for those that don’t write, they can sometimes outsource a writer for their blogs. So it’s still something to consider if you have a website and would like to have a way to improve your traffic and rankings. To understand how adding a blog can help, you need to understand how search engines view the posts/articles in a blog. Each blog post is viewed as a separate page of your website. More pages with relevant content is always a good thing. If you have a 10 page website, and you write a post each week (which is a reasonable goal) in a year, your website, in a search engine’s eyes, will b

A few years ago, words were enough to attract new audience members and keep existing customers engaged. But today, ensuring that your content is fresh and that people find it captivating and worthy of their time is a serious challenge. Of course, text is still important, but content is evolving and visuals are gaining more power. Visuals are faster and easier for the brain to process, and can help drive better business results and more eyeballs to your page. As the social web has allowed us all to become publishers and marketers the importance of content for search and social media marketing has exploded. This is driving another trend within that sector called visual content marketing. This visual web growth has happened for a few reasons. The rapid acceptance of smart phones and tablets The widespread availability of high speed wireless networks The decreased cost of data that makes high definition uploads cost effective The emergence of focused visual media social networks such as Pi

There is more to Social Media Marketing than just posting all the time to your various Social Media accounts. A LOT more! People don't check Social Media to see what brands, your brand included, are posting. They check their Social Media feeds to see what their long distance relatives are doing. What their old school mates are up to and of course to watch funny animal videos. However. Social Media Marketing is an effective medium to get your brand's message seen by your target audience. Having said that -- Here are a few common mistakes we see happen on Social Media all the time from brands trying to have a good overall Social Media Presence. SALE, SALE, SALE ALL THE TIME Many brands try to bombard their audience with sales pitches all the time. This is a HUGE mistake in the Social Media World. It's too easy for your audience to simply ignore them or even worse, block your brand all together. NOT RESPONDING IN A TIMELY MANNER People turn to Social Media to have easy and dir

One of the biggest questions, schools of thought and debate in the Social Media World is 'When should my brand post on social media'? And for good reason. There are MANY different schools of thought on this subject. None of which are incorrect or correct. There is no one globally perfect time to post to Social Media. In fact -- You need to dive into a lot of different factors when determining the best times for your brand to post to your Social Media accounts. Here are a few key factors to get you started. WHEN IS YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE ONLINE The basis of all Social Media is to better engage your target audience on a more personal level. Having said that. The first rule of thumb; if you will, when determining when your brand should post to Social Media is, when is your target audience on [insert Social Media outlet here]. Why should you post at 10 o'clock in the morning to your Facebook feed if your target audience is mostly on-line at noon? The answer is, you shouldn't.

In the digital age we live in, there are literally dozens, and we mean dozens of Social Media platforms and accounts out there for you to choose from. Does that mean your brand needs to have a presence on all of them? No. When your brand makes the determination of either beginning to have a presence on Social Media or looking to revamp and/or step up your Social Media presence. Of course, Facebook is nearly a no-brainer for brands to be on right now. With over 2-Billion users, chances are your brand needs to have a presence on Facebook. However, when it comes to the other dozens of Social Media platforms, that can be a little more tricky.  Here are two key factors you need to keep in mind when determining what Social Media platforms your brand needs to be creating content on. PERFORM A SOCIAL MEDIA REVIEW Do you currently have Social Media profiles? If so, where are they at and how are you utilizing that particular platform? As we stated before, there is no need for your brand to be on

In the digital World we are now living, in order for any business to grow quickly you need to be able to reach a wide target audience as soon as possible. Without an active social media presence, your business is on the fast track for failure. There are now over 4-Billion users across the World that have a Social Media account. By not tapping into the power of that reach, marketing your brand to potential leads and customers becomes a lot more difficult. 78% of small businesses now get at least one quarter of their new customers via Social Media 61% of young people refer to Social Media as a part of their purchasing process 27% of Americans check their Social Media networks at least three times per day 35% of Americans check branded pages regularly as part of their Social Media activity 27% of online time is dedicated to checking Social Media activity 58% of Facebook users have liked a brand's Business Page 42% of Facebook users have mentioned a brand in their status update Here