How I’m Shifting My 2024 Marketing Approach

Final 12 months was an enormous 12 months for my handmade ornaments firm, Cast Flare. We went into 2022 decided to nail our internet advertising technique. We spent the early a part of the 12 months experimenting with completely different platforms, creatives, and approaches in order that when the vacation season—our largest time of 12 months—got here, we might crank up the funds and reap the rewards. And it paid off: In This fall of 2022, we quadrupled our revenue from the earlier 12 months.

We have been driving excessive going into 2023, considering we had all of it found out. After which, the tides began shifting. Early within the 12 months, we observed our advert spend percentages rising (in different phrases, we have been paying extra for fewer conversions). By April, our advert spend was up 20 %, however our gross sales had slowed. Taking a look at these outcomes, we determined to chop again on Meta advert spend in Could and pause all social media adverts in June. 

Summer season is traditionally a gradual season for us, so we determined to save lots of our advert funds for This fall and as a substitute spend the summer time experimenting with different advertising 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 ways we’ve tried and the way the outcomes of those experiments are influencing how we method advertising as we transfer into the brand new 12 months.

We’re constructing deeper relationships with prospects

There are various methods to measure a conversion from an advert. Whereas a sale has all the time been the last word objective, 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 afterward was a wise thought, however we had by no means made essentially the most of those relationships. 

Prior 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 assumed 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 value what they value to the behind-the-scenes of working a small enterprise.

This method has actually helped us main as much as the vacation season. Subscribers who’ve by no means purchased from us obtained extra conversant in our model in order that, when the vacations rolled round, we’re prime of thoughts. Current prospects discovered extra concerning 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 are up 130 % over final 12 months.

We now have a robust help base of consumers who love our merchandise and, going into subsequent 12 months, I need to proceed in search of methods to faucet into their loyalty to assist us drive development, reminiscent of 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 will be an superior approach to reward them for one thing they already do whereas furthering our enterprise development.

We’re in search of help from different enterprise house owners

I’m not going to beat across the bush—even with cautious strategizing, we’re at present down 50 % from the place we have been presently final 12 months. As a substitute of freaking out about this (okay, I’m slightly freaked out), I went in search of insights from others.

I’m a member of a number of communities of small enterprise house owners, together with Inventive Hive and Multi-Stream Machine by The Product Boss podcast. When issues have been trying down this 12 months, I polled these teams to see what different individuals have been experiencing, and shortly 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, nevertheless it positively makes me really feel much less lonely as a enterprise proprietor. Plus, this susceptible publish helped land me a collaboration that gave Cast Flare a pleasant increase. We have been invited to take part in an internet buying occasion known 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 big variety of new electronic mail addresses because of this, the majority of that are nonetheless in our electronic mail stream, which means they’re slowly attending to know us and all the pieces we have now to supply.

Going into subsequent 12 months, I need to proceed to recollect we don’t must be on this alone. Apart from persevering with to lean on the enterprise communities for morale and strategic help, I need to search for extra collaborative alternatives to elevate one another up and share our audiences.

We’re getting extra strategic with our adverts (and all the time watching the numbers)

We’re not out of the internet advertising sport fully. As a substitute, we’re seeking to get extra focused and strategic with how we spend our funds, and we’re all the time monitoring efficiency developments fastidiously so we will 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 working social media adverts with a extra granular give attention to what’s performing effectively on every platform. As an example, after working just a few weeks of exams, we’ve determined Instagram adverts simply aren’t proper for us proper now: The viewers there loves trying however by no means appears to purchase. 

Fb, alternatively, has a barely older viewers that’s extra in keeping 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, indubitably, due to the economic system. I additionally assume pulling our advert spend fully over the summer time is hurting us now. The extra info these platforms have about which adverts are succeeding with which prospects, the extra they’ll efficiently tailor them. After we stopped working adverts, we stopped that stream of knowledge, which means the platforms must relearn as we ramp up for the vacation season. Although I hate spending cash and never seeing a right away return, I believe 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 accomplish that effectively 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 advertising 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 all the time begin small (assume $10 a day), monitor each marketing campaign and each platform fastidiously, after which scale up what’s working. When issues change, and an advert marketing campaign stops performing, I’m by no means afraid to strive 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 experience, and whereas I can’t predict what 2024 will deliver, I really feel assured that these approaches, mixed with our willingness to adapt shortly, will assist us proceed to succeed for a few years to come back.