Back in November 2015, Angela told me she wanted to go to a US conference and so she booked her ticket to Digital Marketer’s Traffic & Conversion Summit in San Diego. It wasn’t long before I started to think that I would be missing out if I didn’t go too. And not long after that I booked my ticket and together we made our way across the pond to the “biggest marketing conference that you’ve never heard of”.
With some of the top online marketers speaking, including Pat Flynn, Ezra Firestone, Mari Smith, Ryan Deiss, Molly Pittman, Jason Swenk and Perry Belcher with others such as Amy Porterfield, Marie Forleo & Tai Lopez just hanging out – this was an incredible opportunity to hear the absolute latest in online marketing and Facebook Ads.
For everyone who didn’t fit into our suitcase, here’s our biggest takeaways from Traffic & Conversion 2017…
1. 67% of people start shopping on one device and moving to another to complete
This means that people may start their online shopping or browsing on their mobile and then move to a tablet or computer to make the purchase. What does this mean for you, particularly if you’re an e-commerce business? You definitely want to take advantage of retargeting your website visitors on Facebook cos there’s a high possibility they could forget about you if you don’t!
2. Offer more than one and you will increase your sales
Depending on what you sell, can you offer people the option to buy more than one for a discounted price? Think about it… you’ve enticed them to your website and they’ve made it all the way to your shopping cart. They’re about to press purchase… at this point it’s not hard to get people to spend more (think express shipping for a moment!) so why not offer two or more items for a discount.
3. It’s far cheaper to make sales from your existing customers
This is the step beyond point 2 – if someone has decided to make a purchase from you / book a consultation / hire your services, how are you re-engaging them? It’s so much easier to work with people who already know you rather than continually chasing your tail to find new customers. Same goes for your Facebook Page & Instagram Profile. By serving the people who have already found and follow your business, you’ll have a winning strategy every time.
4. Video is (still) where it’s at
Whether you’re posting on Facebook or running ads, Mari Smith shared the stat that ‘people gaze at video 5x longer than static images.’ If you want your brand to be remembered, start using video. You can then create ads from any videos you post on your page, whether they are pre-recorded or a Facebook Live. And then you can retarget people who watch any more than 3 seconds of that video. Talk about powerful!
5. Facebook Messenger is the new Email
Facebook Messenger Ads are the next BIG thing and everyone was talking about them. This is where you can create an ad that uses Messenger as a destination . So instead of taking people off Facebook to your website, it opens up a Messenger Chat Box to message directly with you. You can also run ads to people who have messaged your page in the past (this seems a bit spammy to some people so if you’ve received one – comment below and let us know what you thought!). If you run a business where people have A LOT of questions – you might want to test this out. Mari Smith explains the benefits of Messenger Ads using emojis below.
6. Engagement is a Metric which should be measured (and rewarded!)
If you post on social media, run Facebook Ads or oversee a robust Facebook Group then you should be worried about the quality of what you’re putting out over quantity any day.
Within Facebook you should often check your insights to work out which types of posts people engage with the most, and do more of them. With Facebook Ads it’s all about split-testing different copy and images so that you can see which ads are the most engaging for your audience so that you can put your budget where it will *hopefully* see the best return. If you run a large Facebook community whether it’s free or paid, check out Grytics for member engagement data. It will let you know who is your most engaged users so you can reward them. Check it out at grytics.com.
7. FOMO is real
There’s nothing worse than attending a conference session that you found a little ‘ho hum’ only to find out that you totally should have been in another session. Apparently I missed out on Donald Miller’s presentation on how to make your website a winning one. Luckily for me (and you) we can all check out his 5 Minute Marketing Makeover online: www.5minutemarketingmakeover.com
So there you have it. Our top takeaways from Traffic & Conversion Summit 2017. If these have helped you make a decision in how you approach your next online marketing strategy we’d love to hear from you below!
