Final yr was a giant yr for my handmade ornaments firm, Solid Flare. We went into 2022 decided to nail our internet advertising technique. We spent the early a part of the yr experimenting with completely different platforms, creatives, and approaches in order that when the vacation season—our greatest time of yr—got here, we may crank up the funds and reap the rewards. And it paid off: In This autumn of 2022, we quadrupled our revenue from the earlier yr.
We had been driving excessive going into 2023, pondering we had all of it discovered. After which, the tides began shifting. Early within the yr, 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 %, 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 season is traditionally a gradual season for us, so we determined to save lots of our advert funds for This autumn and as a substitute spend the summer season 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 yr.
We’re constructing deeper relationships with clients
There are various methods to measure a conversion from an advert. Whereas a sale has all the time been the final word purpose, we’ve additionally labored over time to seize e mail addresses from clients and potential clients. Bringing them into our orbit so we may drive a sale afterward was a sensible concept, however we had by no means made probably the most of those relationships.
Prior to now, we’d ship an occasional e mail after we had time, however this yr, we devoted ourselves to sending two emails per week, yet another sales-oriented and yet another content-oriented. For the latter, I believed strategically about what clients would wish to hear from me to make them excited to purchase, resulting in content material round the whole lot 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 bought extra aware of our model in order that, when the vacations rolled round, we’re high of thoughts. Present clients realized 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 e mail advertising and marketing are up 130 % over final yr.
We now have a powerful help base of shoppers who love our merchandise and, going into subsequent yr, I wish to proceed searching for methods to faucet into their loyalty to assist us drive development, resembling 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 clients who already sing our praises. It could be an superior strategy to reward them for one thing they already do whereas furthering our enterprise development.
We’re searching for help from different enterprise homeowners
I’m not going to beat across the bush—even with cautious strategizing, we’re presently down 50 % from the place we had been at the moment final yr. As a substitute of freaking out about this (okay, I’m a bit of freaked out), I went searching for insights from others.
I’m a member of a number of communities of small enterprise homeowners, together with Artistic Hive and Multi-Stream Machine by The Product Boss podcast. When issues had been wanting down this yr, I polled these teams to see what different individuals 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, however it undoubtedly makes me really feel much less lonely as a enterprise proprietor. Plus, this susceptible put up helped land me a collaboration that gave Solid Flare a pleasant increase. 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 customers give their e mail addresses for entry to unique offers on everybody’s web site. We gained a major variety of new e mail addresses consequently, the majority of that are nonetheless in our e mail circulate, which means they’re slowly attending to know us and the whole lot we now have to supply.
Going into subsequent yr, I wish 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 wish 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 recreation completely. 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 illustration, we’ve observed extra constant success promoting on Amazon and Etsy, which is sensible, 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 deal with what’s performing effectively on every platform. As an illustration, after operating a couple of weeks of assessments, 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, alternatively, has a barely older viewers that’s extra according to our goal buyer and has been working for us once more, although not in addition to final yr. A few of that is, for sure, due to the financial system. I additionally assume pulling our advert spend completely over the summer season is hurting us now. The extra data these platforms have about which adverts are succeeding with which clients, the extra they will efficiently tailor them. After we stopped operating adverts, we stopped that circulate 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 feel subsequent yr I’ll maintain a $5-a-day advert spend going all summer season 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 yr. As an illustration, 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 recreation of trial and error. What labored for us final yr isn’t working this yr, 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 attempt one thing new.
I’ve been in enterprise for 4 years, and I swear each single day is a brand new expertise. This yr has been an particularly wild journey, 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 return.
