Final 12 months was an enormous 12 months for my handmade ornaments firm, Cast Flare. We went into 2022 decided to nail our internet marketing technique. We spent the early a part of the 12 months experimenting with totally different platforms, creatives, and approaches in order that when the vacation season—our greatest time of 12 months—got here, we might crank up the finances and reap the rewards. And it paid off: In This fall of 2022, we quadrupled our earnings from the earlier 12 months.
We had been driving excessive going into 2023, pondering we had all of it discovered. After which, the tides began shifting. Early within the 12 months, we observed our advert spend percentages growing (in different phrases, we had been paying extra for fewer conversions). By April, our advert spend was up 20 p.c, however our gross sales had slowed. Taking a look at these outcomes, we determined to chop again on Meta advert spend in Might and pause all social media adverts in June.
Summer time is traditionally a gradual season for us, so we determined to save lots of our advert finances for This fall and as a substitute spend the summer time experimenting with different advertising and marketing approaches. Since I can’t be the one founder affected by the ups and downs of social media adverts, I’d like to share the brand new techniques we’ve tried and the way the outcomes of those experiments are influencing how we strategy advertising and marketing as we transfer into the brand new 12 months.
We’re constructing deeper relationships with prospects
There are numerous methods to measure a conversion from an advert. Whereas a sale has at all times been the final word aim, we’ve additionally labored through the years to seize electronic mail addresses from prospects and potential prospects. Bringing them into our orbit so we might drive a sale in a while was a wise concept, however we had by no means made essentially the most of those relationships.
Up to now, we’d ship an occasional electronic mail after we had time, however this 12 months, we devoted ourselves to sending two emails per week, yet one more sales-oriented and yet one more content-oriented. For the latter, I believed strategically about what prospects would need to hear from me to make them excited to purchase, resulting in content material round all the pieces from why our merchandise price what they price to the behind-the-scenes of operating a small enterprise.
This strategy has actually helped us main as much as the vacation season. Subscribers who’ve by no means purchased from us received extra aware of our model in order that, when the vacations rolled round, we’re high of thoughts. Current prospects realized extra in regards to the small enterprise they’re supporting and really feel like they’re a part of one thing particular. All of that helps drive gross sales—our conversions attributed to electronic mail advertising and marketing are up 130 p.c over final 12 months.
Now we have a powerful assist base of shoppers who love our merchandise and, going into subsequent 12 months, I need to proceed on the lookout for methods to faucet into their loyalty to assist us drive development, equivalent to by launching an associates program. We’re testing this with one micro-influencer who reached out to us over the vacation season, and I’m excited to see the outcomes of that. As soon as the vacations wind down, I hope to roll this out to a few of our greatest prospects who already sing our praises. It could be an superior approach to reward them for one thing they already do whereas furthering our enterprise development.
We’re on the lookout for assist from different enterprise homeowners
I’m not going to beat across the bush—even with cautious strategizing, we’re at present down 50 p.c from the place we had been at the moment final 12 months. As a substitute of freaking out about this (okay, I’m a bit of freaked out), I went on the lookout for insights from others.
I’m a member of a number of communities of small enterprise homeowners, together with Inventive Hive and Multi-Stream Machine by The Product Boss podcast. When issues had been wanting down this 12 months, I polled these teams to see what different folks had been experiencing, and rapidly heard that I wasn’t the one one seeing a downturn regardless of our greatest efforts.
It’s not good to listen to that different firms are in the identical state of affairs that we’re, but it surely positively makes me really feel much less lonely as a enterprise proprietor. Plus, this susceptible put up helped land me a collaboration that gave Cast Flare a pleasant enhance. We had been invited to take part in a web based procuring occasion referred to as “25 on the twenty fifth,” the place 25 artists and small makers co-market the occasion, and consumers give their electronic mail addresses for entry to unique offers on everybody’s web site. We gained a major variety of new electronic mail addresses consequently, the majority of that are nonetheless in our electronic mail circulation, that means they’re slowly attending to know us and all the pieces we’ve got to supply.
Going into subsequent 12 months, I need to proceed to recollect we don’t should be on this alone. In addition to persevering with to lean on the enterprise communities for morale and strategic assist, I need to search for extra collaborative alternatives to raise one another up and share our audiences.
We’re getting extra strategic with our adverts (and at all times watching the numbers)
We’re not out of the internet marketing sport fully. As a substitute, we’re seeking to get extra focused and strategic with how we spend our finances, and we’re at all times monitoring efficiency traits rigorously so we are able to change our technique on the drop of a hat.
As an example, we’ve observed extra constant success promoting on Amazon and Etsy, which is smart, given customers of these platforms are literally going there to buy.
Going into the vacation season, we began dipping our toes again into operating social media adverts with a extra granular concentrate on what’s performing nicely on every platform. As an example, after operating a couple of weeks of exams, we’ve determined Instagram adverts simply aren’t proper for us proper now: The viewers there loves wanting however by no means appears to purchase.
Fb, however, has a barely older viewers that’s extra consistent with our goal buyer and has been working for us once more, although not in addition to final 12 months. A few of that is, for sure, due to the economic system. I additionally assume pulling our advert spend fully over the summer time is hurting us now. The extra data these platforms have about which adverts are succeeding with which prospects, the extra they’ll efficiently tailor them. Once we stopped operating adverts, we stopped that circulation of data, that means the platforms should relearn as we ramp up for the vacation season. Although I hate spending cash and never seeing a right away return, I feel subsequent 12 months I’ll hold a $5-a-day advert spend going all summer time to assist keep away from this dip.
Lastly, as a substitute of utilizing the identical artistic throughout platforms, I plan to create extra focused content material subsequent 12 months. As an example, on X and TikTok, the youthful viewers doesn’t appear to resonate with the frilly, fairly adverts that achieve this nicely on Fb. I’ve concepts for creating barely snarkier, extra genuine adverts for these platforms, and am excited to see the outcomes.
If it’s not already apparent, succeeding with internet marketing is an ongoing sport of trial and error. What labored for us final 12 months isn’t working this 12 months, and I can’t emphasize sufficient how a lot fixed testing is required. We at all times begin small (assume $10 a day), observe each marketing campaign and each platform rigorously, after which scale up what’s working. When issues change, and an advert marketing campaign stops performing, I’m by no means afraid to attempt one thing new.
I’ve been in enterprise for 4 years, and I swear each single day is a brand new expertise. This 12 months has been an particularly wild trip, and whereas I can’t predict what 2024 will deliver, I really feel assured that these approaches, mixed with our willingness to adapt rapidly, will assist us proceed to succeed for a few years to come back.