MARKETING MINUTE: HOW TO GET FREE PRESS IN WOOD FLOOR BUSINESS

Are you taking advantage of our free opportunities to connect with highly-engaged wood flooring pros? As the No. 1 resource for industry news and product info, Wood Floor Business offers many ways to connect you with our engaged audience of wood floor pros at all levels of the industry. Check out the video and infographic below for detailed information. Feel free to reach out to me anytime to discuss via email or at my direct phone line: (608) 467-1084.

Contact Kendra to hear how WFB can help provide solutions to help your brand succeed:

​National Account Director | kendra@woodfloorbusiness.com | (608) 467-1084

WHY CONTENT IS THE KEY TO YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY

In my last blog I talked about some of the essential stats any marketing pro needs to consider before making decisions about a media buy. We discussed making sure a publication’s circulation is audited by an independent organization, evaluating list integrity, checking digital metrics like open rates and page views, and making sure you have access to the relevant results for your own campaigns. Today I want to talk about something equally important but less tangible: content. We hear a lot about content these days; it’s become a bit of a buzzword. I’m sure you’ve heard “Content is King.” Companies large and small are told they need to have great content online for SEO purposes; employees are now “content creators.” Of course, in our business at AB Media and here at Wood Floor Business, content isn’t just an SEO necessity, it’s the core of what we do. With more than 24 years of combined industry experience, our editors understand the type of content that has a direct impact on the daily lives of wood flooring professionals. Since the inception of the magazine, we have generated thousands of articles, and more than 7,700 of them can be found on our website. Not only is this high-quality, relevant content good for SEO purposes, it drives ongoing engagement and brand loyalty. Why is this important to you? Your prospects engage with content that is meaningful to their daily lives. In an era of 24/7 connectivity, brands need to ensure their marketing initiatives are being seen where their audience is and when they are consuming content. When looking at your options for advertising, there are simple questions to ask:

• ​Which brand will your audience relate to most?

• Which one has detailed information they will spend more than a few minutes with?

• Which one has information that might make a difference in their business?

​ Content that provides a real value to readers creates a relationship and brand loyalty. This drives online traffic and social media engagement. But a website with very little content or connection to its visitors will receive limited pageviews, higher bounce rates, less engagement and few return visitors, limiting the exposure of any advertising on that site or publication. When evaluating your marketing spend, make sure audience engagement is at the top of your list. Without it, you might be advertising—in print or online—to an empty room.

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Interested in learning more about marketing opportunities with Wood Floor Business? Let's Chat!

Kendra Griffin ​National Account Manager (608) 467-1084

Kendra has been dedicated to Wood Floor Business since August of 2010 and worked for our sister publication, Athletic Business, prior to joining the WFB team. A graduate of the University of Minnesota with a B.S. in marketing and a double minor in retail merchandising and business management, she now helps companies recognize opportunities to exceed their sales and marketing objectives. Her passion is helping companies determine a strategic marketing plan to drive sales and help grow their business. In her free time Kendra enjoys being active, traveling, cooking and spending time outdoors with her husband and Harper, their Golden Retriever.

THE 4 MOST IMPORTANT DIGITAL MARKETING METRICS (AND WHY YOU NEED TO PAY ATTENTION TO THEM)

Ever wonder how or why some companies––maybe even your competitors––are rapidly growing their digital presence and doing well for themselves, while at times it seems your business might be hitting a plateau? As the emphasis on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and email marketing continues to grow, it’s important to focus on the details, tracking the metrics you may not have realized were important for your company. If you want to keep up with or outpace your competitors, these are the digital marketing metrics your company needs to pay attention to: web traffic, open rate, impressions and click-through rate (CTR).

1. WEB TRAFFIC: Who visits your site and how are they getting there? We start by checking our new vs. returning visitors to our website, woodfloorbusiness.com. Honestly, we like to see a healthy amount of both sets of users. Once we know our break out of new vs. returning visitors, we break it down from there, looking at the traffic from these four channels:

1. Direct: Users who type your URL into their search bar. Why they’re important: These users are your loyal audience who know they can find just what they need directly on your website, or have specific pages bookmarked as ready references. Suggestion: Keep up the good work and keep your loyal customers happy by continuing to give them what they are seeking for on your site.
   

2. Referral: Users who clicked on a link from a different website. Why they’re important: It can signify that the digital ad space you’ve purchased is paying off or that another source has promoted your product or service on their website. Suggestion: to gain additional insight, we’d suggest adding tracking codes to your banner ads so you can track exactly which one(s) are performing the best and where they’re coming from. We are happy to help you get these set up, just ask us how!
   

3. Organic: Users who found your website through a search engine. Why they’re important: They typed in some keywords into their search engine that matched well with what’s listed on your website, showing that your content is relevant and likely appearing on the first page of a search engine. Suggestion: If you’re already using a tool like Google AdWords, we’d suggest doing a keyword audit to make sure you’re targeting the best keywords possible for your business.
   

4. Social: Users who visit your site through a social platform. Why they’re important: They follow you on social media and were engaged enough to click through to your website to learn more, make a purchase, etc. Suggestion: Consider trying out ads to a targeted audience outside your current follower base or through a trusted industry source like us to gain even more qualified traffic through social media.

You can find this data in Google Analytics by clicking on “Acquisition,” then “Overview.” Each of these subcategories have their purpose, and, when you pay attention to them, you can gain a better understanding of what your audience wants and improve your connection with them online. For example, because we’ve been consistently dedicated to being the No. 1 industry resource for all things wood flooring, we’ve been able to increase our web traffic by 41% in 2017.

2. OPEN RATE: What percentage of the target list opened your email? You can craft the perfect email with a subject line you think is catchy and intriguing, but there will still be people who do not open it (and that’s okay). In fact, the average open rate falls right around 20 percent, according to MailChimp’s research on email marketing benchmarks. ​

1. Subject line and preview text Why it’s important: This is your prospect’s first impression of your email––if they aren’t intrigued, it’s unlikely they’ll open the email. Suggestion: Try A/B testing your subject lines and preview text to see what works well for your audience and performing "champion blasts," which means doing A/B testing to a portion of the audience, then sending the winning version to the rest of the list. Have some fun and get creative with these––you never know what’s going to strike the right chord with your audience. Also, when you are thinking about subject lines, check out this handy website, subjectline.com. This free tool scores your subject line and gives you advice/pointers.
   

2. Target list: The list of people who you select to send your email to. Why it’s important: Quality always trumps quantity when it comes to your target list. If you keep sending targeted messages to an untargeted group, you’re training portions of your audience to skip over emails because they’ll assume future emails are also irrelevant to them. Suggestion: Consider hyper-targeting your email blasts based on demographic information such as geographic location, business type, job title, etc. to ensure it is relevant to everyone who receives the email.
   

By taking the time to set up A/B tests and analyze our data, we’re able to boast a 37% open rate for our twice-weekly E-Newsletter and 26% open rate for our Custom E-Mails (emails sent out by WFB on behalf of our industry partners).

3. IMPRESSIONS: How many people were actually exposed to your brand message? Impressions are the number of times your advertisement is actually seen (1 view = 1 impression). Arguably, this is the most important stat when measuring the effectiveness of your campaign––the more times your ad is seen, the better! The number of impressions you have is relative to your total web traffic and open rate, but it isn’t always the same thing. For example, we have an average of 45,000+ monthly website visitors, but with rotating ad space along the top and sides of our site, not everyone who comes to our site will see a given advertisement. However, specific ad space such as our Premium Partner logos along the top of our website would be the same as our total web traffic since everyone who visits our site will see the logos:

Suggestion: The more places your brand message can be found, the higher your impressions will be because you’re creating more opportunities for your prospects to see your message. This is why cross-channel advertising is so important for brands that want to grow.

4. CLICK-THROUGH RATE: How many clicks did your campaign receive? Getting prospects to visit your website or open an email is only part of the marketing puzzle. People actually performing a desired action such as clicking on your banner ads, pop-up ads, email links, etc. is the next step in the process. That’s where your click-through rate (CTR) comes in. The CTR shows the number of people who click on those ads compared to the total number of impressions (the number of times your ad was seen). Regardless of our results, we use this data as we develop any customer-facing advertisements we produce. If something performed well, we determine what about it might have struck a chord with our audience and on the flip side, if it didn’t perform well, we try to determine where it fell flat.

Another channel in which you could track your CTR is through pop-ups. For example, our pop-up promoting subscription renewals has a CTR of 2.7%, which might sound low, but is actually a good metric when it comes to pop-ups (where the industry average CTR is 2%). We track our ads and are constantly adjusting messaging and imagery based on the number of clicks and conversions we receive, which is a best practice we suggest all of our media partners implement across all platforms. Suggestion: Test out different calls-to-action, link styles (button vs. hyperlink) and link placement to determine the strategy that yields the highest CTR.

As a result of dedicating the time and resources to look through and analyze our digital stats, we’ve been able to increase our website traffic by 41% in the past year, see a click-through rate of 2.7% on our pop-up ads and maintain an email click-through rate of 37%. We want to share our success with you, so we’re here to be a resource––if you have any questions or want to discuss ways to improve your digital marketing strategy, contact Kendra at kendra@woodfloorbusiness.com.