MONTHLYMAgNIFIER Honeyour digital marketing strategy!
THE DARING WOMAN’S DIGITAL BUSINESS COMPANION
She’s arrived.
Magnifier Monthly is now officially The Daring Woman’s Digital Business Companion. Allow me to explain...
I was hit by the realization at some point earlier this year that while it already had a lot of the right ingredients, there was still room left for it to grow into a more curated publication. It needed just one more tweak until it was the inspiring (and fun) DIY kit I always intended it to be.
Much brainstorming led to this ‘companion’ concept which turns the vintage women’s magazines of the 20th century on their heads (think Ladies’ Home Journal) and offers a modernized version for women in business. All while retaining my original ‘Nancy Drew’ concept, of course. Indeed I thought, WKOMPWNDP? (What Kind of Monthly Periodical Would Nancy Drew Publish?)
Starting a business is an act of courage and keeping the lights on takes even more grit, especially as one
butts up against the unyielding pillars of conventional institutions. I wanted to create something that takes women business owners seriously, and I didn’t want a lack of digital nativeness to be something that stops people from making the most of their opportunities.
Here are the features I created to get the job done:
Letter from the Editor This is pretty much whatever is most on my mind... Sometimes I share agency updates, sometimes I rant, sometimes I philosophize. But, I always keep it real about what life is like as a business owner and what I’m going through. Contrary to social media, which would have you believe that entrepreneurship is a glamorous lifestyle that will make you rich beyond imagination, I want to give you an unfiltered version in case you’re going through it, too.
Strategy Secrets A play on fashion magazine “beauty secrets,” these are more than just basic marketing tips. These are intuitive dissertations
derived from institutional knowledge that seek to navigate the gray areas of marketing, the who’s, what’s, when’s, where’s, and why’s.
Business Gadgets A reimagining of the household items women were told were “domestic essentials”, gadgets are instruction manuals for the more quantitative tools one might use in their business endeavors. (Often paired with a Strategy Secret.)
The Founder Files The 21st century version of “women doing interesting things,” featuring interviews with a business founder/owner/operator about their trials, tribulations, and lessons learned.
Monthly Puzzle AKA the crossword section. A monthly brain game to put your marketing knowledge to the test or learn something new
Digital Trends Just like the latest and greatest of the fashion world, this feature includes updates of which you should be aware in order to keep your digital presence relevant across channels.
A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Madelyn Veith
Project Portfolio Like the society pages of years past, this section is Marove Agency’s current happenings and your opportunity to peek behind the curtain at what I’m working on.
Event Calendar This social calendar includes a unique agenda of client events and Marove Agency happenings.
Meme of the Month A digital native’s spin on the comic section, which means memes memes memes.
Now for the issue at hand… What better way to kick off a new brand than by getting to the heart of a marketing strategy?
I’ve curated this issue to help you understand what to consider in your marketing strategy as much as what to leave out. Reading this from cover to cover will help you organize your ideas and figure out the most efficient way to follow through on your goals.
STRATEGYSECRETS
There’s a common phrase in marketing: Marketing to everyone is marketing to no one
It means that advertising your product or service to the broadest possible audience will have the opposite effect than the one intended the wider the audience, the less likely they are to convert to a sale.
It’s tempting to appeal to a broad audience, especially because logic would suggest that the more people who see your product, the bigger your customer pool becomes. But, humans are complicated creatures, and simply seeing a product is only a small part of their decision. People want connection and they want to feel seen. If they don’t identify with the messaging they’re receiving, they probably won’t feel compelled to purchase. That’s the first secret.
Businesses will spend a lot of time and money finding their target audience so that they don’t waste even more time and money on marketing tactics that don’t stick. They conduct research on things like demographics, behaviors, trends, key words, and pain points in order to craft a message that speaks exactly to their consumer.
Digital marketing has made this process even more nuanced because of the sheer number of channels (aka ways of reaching people) that are out there email, social media, text, paid ads, influencer marketing, SEO… the list goes on!
The second secret is this: You don’t need to be on every channel. You just need to be consistent on the right channels. In fact, you probably shouldn’t be on every channel. Being a small business owner means that you have limited time and resources to dedicate to your marketing efforts, and spreading your efforts too thin across too many places can ultimately weaken your brand. Marketing everywhere is marketing nowhere.
And yes, this includes social media! You heard that right, folks. Social media is not always the right place for a brand, especially depending on your business model. For example, if you are a service provider and your primary method of booking clients is through referrals, your time is probably better spent curating a kickass website and making sure your onboarding process goes off without a hitch. You can always add a social media strategy later when you have the resources to grow.
4 5
So how do you figure out where to set up shop? First, you’ll need to do some target audience research to figure out a) who your ideal customer is, and b) where they spend most of their technology time. If they are on social media, which platforms do they primarily use?
Second, think about your brand as well as the products/services and what kind of digital packaging makes sense. Videos? Static images? Written text? Getting clearer on how you want to showcase your product/service can help you narrow down your options of where to display it. A video platform? An email message? A web page? Once you have an initial plan, set a timeline to try out your strategy. Collect data as you go and use the feedback to adjust your strategy
The final secret is this: Despite what the internet may tell you, there’s no “ultimate” marketing strategy because no business, product, or service is the same, and the digital landscape is constantly changing. What works well at one point may not work later on. Marketing is an endless process of trial and error, testing and calibrating. The best strategy is the one that is wellresearched, adaptable, and consistent.
ABOUT
No business endeavor is complete without a metric of success. Otherwise, how will you know if what you’re doing is working?
Meet KPIs, which stands for Key Performance Indicators (trigger warning: corporate lingo). KPIs come in all varieties financial, operative, technical, etc. and in the context of marketing, they’re a way for you to quantify your qualitative marketing activities and gauge how effective your strategy is.
A KPI may be composed of a single metric, but more often it is a combination of several metrics. A marketing KPI is more of a formula with 3 points of measurement:
The marketing activity, the connecting pathway and the outcome. The connecting pathway is crucial; that tells you how much of your outcome can be attributed to your activity.
“She counts like a pro!”
NESS GADgETS
INDICATORS (KPIs)
...INACTION!
Let’s say your goal is to sell out a local concert you’re planning, and you want to see if social media is an effective way of driving sales.
What can you measure? The immediate answer is the number of tickets sold (the outcome), as well as engagement rates and click-thru rates on your social media posts (the marketing activity). Independently, those numbers tell you a lot, but how will you know if the person who purchased the ticket found you through social media, or something else? You still need a way of measuring the pathway between social media and ticket sales, i.e., what percentage of the tickets sold are people who clicked over from the social media channel.
In this case, you could use a checkout survey to quickly ask people how they heard about you. Then you can see the number of people who saw your post AND clicked on the link AND purchased a ticket. You can also get the number of people who found you through non-social media outlets, as well as people who saw you on social media but didn’t click. Wow, data is COOL!
EVALUATION
# tickets sold/tickets available Social media will be considered effective if there is an increase in ticket sales AND that increase can be attributed to social media clicks.
Sold out concert
In the digital world there’s more than one way
To showcase a brand for all to survey
As the brand guardian it’s your job to render A seamless encounter for every new member
The default is landscape for easy designs
But that doesn’t equate to the sign of the times
So take heed of the layout and vertical graphic
For this digital view is most of the traffic
MOBILE VIEW/EXPERIENCE
Did you know that about 60% of web traffic comes from mobile devices? That’s a lot!
Your user experience is a crucial component of your digital brand. If people can’t easily move throughout your web site (or any digital content you publish), they may give up altogether.
For every design you build on your desktop computer, be sure to test it on mobile view (and tablet and iPad). Some UX designers even recommend designing mobile view first, or even making a completely different mobile page.
It’s a lot of work but the benefit of providing a seamless experience to all your users will be immeasurable.
1. Websites add AIO optimization functionality. You can now optimize your website for AI web searches in addition to traditional SEO. AI SEO crawls sites in order to generate answers, summaries and recommendations, while traditional SEO indexes key words and hyperlinks
2. Instagram hashtags are passé. Hashtags on Instagram no longer increase reach. If you do use them, limit it to 5 hashtags and keep them hyper-relevant to your post.
TRENDS
3. YouTube and TikTok have new safety features that will impact your content. Both platforms have rolled out new rules mainly aimed at protecting young people from harmful content and limiting unregulated AI. Read the full lists on YouTube and TikTok.
Digital
Project Project
You can find all of Marove Agency’s current client collaborations on these pages.
Viewable work is linked via the icon.
MARKETING OPERATIONS
Monthly services to help grow the national brand and provide a seamless member experience with efficient digital operations.
WEBSITE
SOCIAL MEDIA
OPERATIONS
WEBSITE
Monthly services to build a foundational brand through website design and build out business tiers with digital store design WEBSITE
Temporary project to create and publish content for a pre-recorded podcast
MARKETING COMMITTEE
Volunteer work with WIFS PDX as a co-chair on the marketing committee.
Hyperlinked events are open for attendance/registration.
S E P T E M B E R
O C T O B E R N O V E M B E R
5 Quarterly Pitch Day Oregon Sports Angels
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WIFS PDX
Roses & Rosé
CALENDAR
V E M B E R
MEME OF THEMONTH
When you launch yet another iteration of a big initiative that’s taken many months, some might even say years, to produce and you’re certain it will be the final version but it’s marketing so who knows
THIS ISA
Gettowork, sleuths!