Advertising Archives - American Quilt Retailer

Posted on July 15, 2022July 15, 2022 by AQR Piece by Piece — Leave a comment

Online Advertising with Digital Agencies

Here at AQR we believe in providing you with all of your options. If you’re looking for help with digital advertising consider looking into a digital agency. Read on for what digital agencies are and how they can help you.

What is a digital agency?

Digital agencies help you advertise digitally. There are three primary ways to advertise online:

Social Media: Social platforms allow paid advertising to help you get your message in front of new audiences, generate new leads, gain page likes, or increase website traffic. This is the easiest option of the three.
Search: Search engines (like Google or Bing) allow advertisers to pay to show ads above or below organic search results. Bids are placed on keywords so when searched, you show up on the results page. Advertisers are only charged if the user clicks the ad.
Website Remarketing: Website remarketing is a great trick to reengage past website visitors. This tactic places ads in front of a targeted audience and is a great cost-effective tool for small businesses.

Why do I need one?

In a sentence, digital agencies outsource online marketing for you. This means you can continuously advertise, even when you’re on vacation.

Additionally, the process can be time consuming. Setting advertising goals can be outside of your scope of knowledge. Search advertisements use detailed data and analytics. A digital agency will do all of this for you as well as use the data to optimize campaign results and keep track of status updates.

In conclusion, if this sounds like something you can benefit from, make an appointment with a trusted digital agency to receive advice on what would be best for your business.

Inspiration for this post came from “Get Vacation Ready” by Lillie Huhndorf in the June 2022 issue of American Quilt Retailer.

If you’re looking for more information to guide you in owning a retail business, subscribe to American Quilt Retailer today. Already a subscriber? No worries—join our Facebook group for insights and dialogue from industry specialists like you. And don’t forget, you can always purchase single issues if you prefer that instead.

Posted on September 10, 2021September 10, 2021 by AQR Piece by Piece — Leave a comment

Podcast Basics: What You Need To Know

Everybody has a podcast these days. Should your business be one of them? Find out everything you need to know before you jump in.

Podcast Basics

As business owners we already have one thing many people who start podcasts don’t: a following. Before you decide to push a podcast to your audience, make sure you can provide enough information. Without the content, you don’t have a podcast.

The next thing to think about is your podcast format. Will you be the host? Will you cohost? What about special guests? Once you figure out your style you can determine how long you want the episodes to be (any where from 4 minutes to 2 hours) and how frequently you release episodes. This could be every week, every month, or seasonally to fill in your slow months.

Equipment

There’s a lot of information available as to what recording software is the best. The good news is starting a podcast is cheap; it shouldn’t set you back more than $100.

Another thing to consider is editing software. Again, you’ve got a couple of options so if you have any editing experience think about what’s important to you (ease of use? amazing features?). Do your research and tailor your decision based off that.

After you get the equipment, practice before you go live. (Talking in a microphone is more difficult than you’d think!) Plus you’ll get a better idea of how to script your episodes.

Once you start the opportunities are limitless! Eventually you can get advertisers and bigger-name guests.

Posted on January 23, 2018January 10, 2019 by AQR Piece by Piece — Leave a comment

Small Business Advertising

Each day we are inundated with advertisements, for things we need (and maybe things we don’t need), on more platforms than I’m sure any advertising professional ever thought possible. With all the options it’s hard to decide which to chose. Use these tips below to help you with the process.

Advertising is a much more complex process than people outside the industry would think. The first step to making sure your dollars spent are worthwhile is by knowing your audience. Chances are, you fit into your audience! Think about where you like to shop, what social media you enjoy, or something you saw and you immediately thought, “I want that!” Make a list of these outlets and start there.

The next step is narrowing your list; chose a couple options in your list and focus on advertising within them well. Once you have your outlets chosen, determine how you’re going to measure analytics. Today, with online advertising, sites like Facebook make it easy. There are other effective ways to advertise however (like billboards, trade show advertisements, and radio) that are harder to measure. Include promo codes or “Tell the clerk you heard it on fill-in-the-blank” to help measure this efficiency. And of course, ask friends and trade club members for their input on your advertisement as well.

Knowing when to advertise is the biggest move you can make to get the furthest reach. Things like sales, new products, employees, or partnerships, are wonderful reasons to advertise. If your business is at capacity, then wait until you have some breathing room to start an advertising campaign.

Making your advertisement look good is not as fun as creatives would like to think. Chances are your business has a “look” also known as a brand. When it comes to advertising you don’t want to stray too far from that look; the more your customers associate the copy, font choice, and colors in the advertisement with your business, the better your sales will be (this just means you’re advertising well!)

Advertising isn’t on the forefront of every small business’s budget, but once you start you realize it should have been. Using these tips can help you get the most bang for your buck — and to know how to prepare for that next advertising move.