The first session of the Finch and Flocksy Webinar series, Creativity Meets eCommerce Strategy, is complete! With over 90 registrants, we had attendees from across multiple industries and more than ten countries!
Expert panelists teamed up on August 22nd to tackle one of the most critical aspects of eCommerce growth: collaboration. Speakers like Flocksy CMO, George Ryan and Fireside Founder, Drew Himel discussed how a well-coordinated team effort can create a seamless, positive customer experience from start to finish.
“Understanding the emotional triggers at each touchpoint can significantly impact consumer behavior,” George said. “We focus on identifying these triggers and tailoring our messaging and design to connect with the customer on a deeper level, driving more meaningful engagement.”
Mike Mardis, a marketing consultant with Finch, moderated the webinar. Discussing various stops on the customer journey, he emphasized the importance of ensuring equal effort in every area.
“Any one of these touchpoints could be the one that’s kicking people out,” Mardis said. “All of these are very important. In order to make them work, you have to get input from all over your organization.”
Scott Brandley, founder and CEO of Shopper Approved, shared his insights into crafting your company’s customer journey. He said customer retention and loyalty can be the most cost-effective steps, especially compared to acquiring new customers.
Reviews and social proof, when properly levied by businesses, can be powerful tools to inspire this loyalty. He recommended ensuring that reviews and testimonials are consistent across a business’s web presence.
“Show your social proof on the website,” he said. “They say, ‘I saw it on their review pages, and I’m seeing it again on the website. I’m in the right place.’”
Himel said his company uses several apps to reward its loyal customers with incentives and bonuses, which leads to customers ultimately spending more money with them.
“It’s so expensive to get customers, so taking care of them is a ‘two birds, one stone’ type of thing.
Himel recommended eCommerce businesses’ first steps should be to lay a solid foundation across all aspects of their customer journey and in all departments, including sales. The next step, he said, was to find a couple of critical areas to focus on and look for improvements in those areas.
Sarah Fitzgerald, head of marketing at Flocksy, said customers no longer want a strictly transactional experience with brands. They prefer to know they’re spending their money with real people who care about them.
In response, she has crafted Flocksy’s social media to feature more personalized content, including how-to videos from creatives, free resources, and best practices for Flocksy clients, from Flocksy clients.
“We’re fostering more of a relationship among those we call our Flock,” she said. “It’s a community of creatives who want to grow together and learn from each other.”
Key Takeaways:
Collaboration is Key: When marketing, sales, and customer service work together, the customer journey can be dramatically enhanced. By aligning goals and communication, teams can ensure that every touchpoint with the customer adds value.
Optimizing Critical Touchpoints: Identifying and smoothing out friction points in the customer journey is essential for boosting satisfaction and reducing churn. A healthy journey is proactive, addressing potential issues before they become barriers.
Actionable Strategies: Attendees walked away with practical tips on improving customer acquisition and retention through better teamwork. From streamlining processes to focusing on retargeting, these strategies are designed to make every step of the journey count.
Ready to turn your customer journey into a winning strategy? Stay tuned for more insights in our upcoming webinars! To register for the next webinar on August 29, click here: https://flocksy.com/webinar/?blog1.
About Finch and Flocksy:
Finch specializes in crafting killer marketing strategies that remove friction from the customer journey, using the right people, processes, and technology. Since 2016, Flocksy has been the most affordable unlimited marketing materials platform, helping brands create high-quality, on-brand content that captivates audiences and drives real results. Together, we empower businesses and agencies to achieve growth by blending expertise, creativity, and seamless collaboration.
Content marketing is quickly proving to be one of the most effective ways to market your services and grow your business. In fact, studies show that customers are a whopping 131% more likely to purchase from a brand after reading their content.
But why should you hire a copywriter? What stops you from writing and publishing your own content? Nothing. However, there are some very good reasons why you should consider hiring a professional to provide you with unlimited copywriting rather than doing it on your own.
Quality Content
Not surprisingly, poorly written blog posts, peppered with typos and grammar mistakes is not going to do your business any favors. The key to effective content marketing is publishing informative, engaging blog posts, not the opposite.
So, although most people can string two sentences together, not all of us can create the engaging, professional content needed to set our businesses apart from the competition. Copywriters can. So don’t short yourself. Instead, hire a copywriter and see for yourself what unlimited copywriting can do for your business.
Time Management
Maybe you could find the time to write and publish exceptional content on your blog. But just because you’re able to do something doesn’t mean it’s the best use of your time. Want more time to pour into other aspects of your business? Consider hiring a professional to provide you with unlimited copywriting and free up your time.
Objectivity
Regardless of whether or not you are a decent writer, as a business owner, you have another problem. You see, great content marketing isn’t telling your audience what you need them to know; it is giving them content they want to read.
Because while you might know that your products and services are standing between your audience and a better life, they don’t. And chances are they are tired of being preached at.
What your audience wants, and what your business needs, is a reason to trust you above the competition. For this to happen your content needs to be educational and engaging, not just a thinly veiled advertisement in the form of a blog post.
A copywriter can help you with content that will engage with the right audience, build their trust, and increase your sales.
Branding
A good copywriter will get to know your brand. They will understand your motivation, your business goals, and your approach, and then channel all of that information into copy that will wow your audience.
You want to hire a copywriter that can offer unlimited copywriting and that is willing to get to know your brand as well as you do. The key difference between you and your copywriter will be that they can put your brand and purpose into words better than you can.
Hire a copywriter. There is no reason to be a one-man (or one-woman) show. Not when there are so many ways for your business to access unlimited copywriting.
Video content is the current hot topic in the digital marketing world. You may be wondering how you can access this opportunity. Your videos may not be as aesthetically pleasing or as professional as your competitors’ videos, and you need to stay ahead of the game. You’re not sure what step to take next, but you know that step involves elevating your videos’ quality.
Video editing may be the solution for your marketing needs. Here are reasons why you need unlimited video editing in your toolkit:
Looks More Cohesive
If your footage and audio are not aligned properly without video editing, your marketing campaign will not look as though you’ve invested effort into it. This can give the wrong impression to potentially warm leads and even current customers. Additionally, video editing will allow you to cut out any unnecessary content to ensure that it is concise and captures the viewers’ attention.
Builds Your Brand Reputation
Quality video editing should speak volumes of your business. It shows that you care about how your customers perceive your business and builds credibility. A poorly edited or unedited video will give off the impression that you are just seeking to sell a product or service quickly with no regard for the customer experience. Edited videos are clearly added value to the customers, making them more likely to interact and share.
Supports Better Marketing Outcomes
If you are trying to find quality leads and are specifically targeting viewers who have watched a significant portion of your video, you will find greater success in video editing. Edited videos are not only highly engaging for consumers, but they eliminate any unnecessary distractions in the footage or audio quality that may otherwise cause a user to abandon the video (and sales funnel) early. Higher quality videos may even convince a user to take action immediately without the need for lead nurturing.
Video editing has the capability of transforming your target audience’s experiences from the moment they first learn about your business to the moment when they make the executive decision to support you financially. By investing in higher quality videos through editing, you can ensure a greater return on investment for your marketing campaigns.
However, it is important to take advantage of unlimited video editing; you do not want to be restricted in the power capability of your campaigns. Unlimited video editing will allow you to put your best foot forward.
If you’ve read anything about copywriting, whether it was on why you should hire a copywriter or what copywriting is, then it probably goes without saying that you need a copywriting team for your business. And that is true. But more than just a team, you need an excellent team that can help your business with every bit of content your website or blog might need. You’ll even need one for social posts, brochures, etc.
That’s a lot for one team to handle. How do you find the right people to work on your content, and how can you be sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck?
In this post, I’d like to talk about what a copywriting team is, what you should expect from a great team, including four examples of good marketing material writing, and how to manage a successful team. I’m sure if you’re still on the fence, they’ll convince you that you need a great team for your business.
What is a Copywriting Team?
A copywriting team is a group of individuals who can all work together and with you to create content for your website, blog, social media, ads, banners, and more. They possess the skills and experience to create SEO content that not only attracts readers but also converts, engages, and keeps people browsing your site.
Importance of Copywriting in Digital Marketing
You know that copywriting is important, but why is it crucial for marketing, and why can’t you just do it yourself? Here’s why you should strongly consider one for your content.
Increase Your SEO
Long-form, original, and high-quality content is a standard among top-ranking websites. When you work with a good team of copywriters, they’ll meet SEO requirements and look at ranking trends to ensure your page reaches the top of the listings.
Help Visitors Recognize Your Brand
Professional-looking website design isn’t complete without the content to fill it up. When you look at a page that barely has any copy, it almost looks like spam, and it certainly doesn’t look like the company put much time and effort into it.
You want your site to teach visitors about your brand, give them a sense of your personality, and connect with you personally. Whether your visitors are shopping, looking for helpful information, or looking to establish trust with your brand, high-quality content is how you help them.
Make & Save Money
Evergreen content is a huge aid to your long-term marketing strategy. Potential customer traffic will still be directed to the page long after you’ve posted it, especially if you keep it up to date. What’s more, if that content is truly high-quality, it’ll compel action like sales. Quality content is great for your ROI and pays for itself, often double and triple.
So, what makes good marketing content? Let’s take a peek.
Four Examples of Good Marketing Material:
One: Newsletters and emails are a foundation of marketing for any business, but they can be a challenge to write. Do you make them fun and have plenty of calls to action? Or do you prefer to have them more business-like and allow them to speak for themselves? Well, copywriters can take the load off your shoulders because they can write it for you and communicate your message to your target audience.
Two: Writing a blog post can be even more difficult. You need to consider so many different aspects, such as how to format it or what tone to use. They’re time-consuming, and it’s more than likely that you don’t have the time to put together a blog post with all the necessary research and editing. That’s where a content team becomes your marketing BFF because they can take your links and what you want to say and create a well-written and engaging post. Then all you have to do is add some images and hit publish.
Three: Every business uses ads, but how do you write the perfect campaign? An advertisement should make people want to stop and read it, then follow through with the call-to-action. An excellent content team can help you do that! They have the experience and knowledge necessary to get those link clicks and convert text into a sale.
Four: Of all the things we talked about above, this is perhaps the most important because it’s where everything begins- web pages. Your marketing efforts won’t pay off if you have good copy everywhere but on your site. That’s why you need someone who can not only write good but fantastic copy, and a good copywriting team can do just that. They can build content for your site that communicates your message, educates customers about a product or service, and engage your visitors.
Outsourcing to a Copywriting Service
Copywriting, as you can likely now see, is a full-time, ongoing process that your business will need indefinitely. Hiring a professional copywriting service can help you create quality content without going through the long, stressful hiring process. Your copywriting team can handle your copywriting workflow without disrupting your business flow.
The copywriters at Flocksy have a great track record for delivering quality content that you can rely on to deliver your message and promote action. Your dedicated project manager oversees each project, and you’ll be able to chat directly with the writer assigned to your project if you have any questions or concerns.
Moreover, the brand buckets mean you can attach a style and brand guide once, and our writers will have access to it with every project. Our writers are professional, vetted, and have experience with SEO content marketing, emails, blogs, ads, and everything in between. They’ll send you the files once the project is finished, and if you want to change anything, you’ll have unlimited revisions to get it just right.
A quality, comprehensive copywriting service is the most effective way to boost your content output while you continue handling all the other important parts of running a business.
But what about hiring a freelance copywriter? There are several pros and cons to each. Let’s discuss those now.
Is Hiring a Freelance Copywriter Worth It?
You’ll have a lot to consider when you’re looking to delegate your content work. As the business owner of a smaller company, the content creation may have fallen on you, and taking up that task is commendable. However, it’s typically best to have a professional writer do the writing. But who do you choose?
Should you reach out to a freelancer or contact a copywriting service? There can be pros and cons to either approach. With freelancers, you’ll find them on platforms like Upwork, LinkedIn, and more. There will be writers for every type of content piece, and you’ll be able to see if a person has experience with the content you need.
In general, here are the pros and cons of working directly with a freelancer:
Pros
More affordable. Because you’re just paying for one service and one job, it’ll typically be cheaper to pay a freelancer for a single project. You won’t be paying for an ongoing service that may or may not include other services in addition to copywriting. That said, an experienced copywriter can be more costly. They may even charge upwards of $75 per 1000 words.
Fast results. Assuming you find a writer quickly, they’ll typically be able to produce your content in 24-72 hours. They’ll receive instructions from you, your approximate or firm deadline, and get to work.
Flexible adaptation to your requirements. You’ll be able to teach the freelancer what you need, and if you establish a connection with them, you’ll essentially have your own copywriter without the in-house hiring.
Cons
It’s hard to find a good writer. There are thousands of writers to choose from on those freelance platforms, so you’re bound to find a good one quickly. Right? Well, that may not always be the case. To be a good writer for your company, they’ll need to: a) understand your field, b) adhere to deadlines, c) often excellent communication, and d) submit objectively well-written articles. They do exist, but you’ll certainly pay for top talent because they know how valuable they are, which can translate into higher costs and a lot of time spent looking for someone.
The quality of articles without an editor is unreliable. Editors and proofreading are a must. No matter how talented the writer is, they’re bound to miss something in their writing because the writer will have an inherent blind spot since they know what they’re trying to say. Adding an editor to the process can cost more. Still, it’s necessary if your freelancer doesn’t already work with one, particularly if you’ll be delivering several projects to them with tight deadlines.
A lot of effort. Looking for the right author and communicating your needs can be almost as time-consuming as looking for an in-house employee. The whole reason you’re looking for a freelancer is to save time, not spend even more of it focused on only one task.
Freelancers can overlook technical tasks. In some cases, technical requirements such as reference sheets or formatting can be forgotten by the freelancer. What’s more, if you have a specific program or tool you use for your content, and they don’t have it, you might spend a lot of time translating their documents into the format you need.
Is a Copywriting Service Better Than Freelancers?
Working with a copywriting service or company can provide other benefits that working with an individual copywriter or freelancer can’t.
A copywriting service team will typically consist of writers, experts, a quality assurance manager, and a project manager. Because of the included checks and balances, many prefer working with a service for the following reasons.
5 Factors That May Make You Want to Work With a Copywriting Service
There’s a delegated process. The copywriting service will choose professionals to hire and control the ones who get to work on projects with them. They’ll vet their creatives and typically choose only those that show dedication to their work. As you can guess, subsequent content creation is of high quality. That’s what we stand by at Flocksy.
Consistent quality. By the end of every project you submit with Flocksy, you’ll have excellent content that meets SEO requirements as well as any specific needs you assign. You get this because the writers that come to work for us every day always put quality first. That’s why we hired them.
Ease of communication. Writers and clients think about and speak about content differently. You might not be able to explain what you’re looking for using their copywriting terms. Thanks to the regular communication between you and the project manager and writer, you’ll enjoy a stress-free project process. You’ll be able to use Loom video messaging to describe your project if that’s easier for you, and you can always go back and forth with the writer through chat. Our Zapier integration also makes it easy to get updates on the apps you use most.
You won’t need to explain technical requirements. Thanks to our writers’ experience, you won’t have to explain your formatting needs more than once. They’ll understand SEO requirements, what social posts need, how to create compelling landing page copy, etc.
There are guarantees. Flocksy strives to develop long-term relationships with our clients and values our clients greatly. Should any disputed situations arise, we’ll always work hard to resolve them. Moreover, we only work with qualified professionals, and if quality ever becomes an issue, you know we’ll deal with it internally.
An additional note about edits: Freelancers may not offer revisions as readily as a content team. While it may be doable, it’s not always clear how many revisions you can request. With a copywriting service, revisions will often be considered part of the process. Here at Flocksy, you’ll get unlimited revisions to ensure your content is just how you want it.
Conclusion
A copywriting team can make your words come to life. They understand how to write the best copy for any situation that will help make your company or brand look amazing while making it eye-catching for website visitors. Whether you have a big company or run a startup, a good content team can help you by writing engaging and informative content.
When you’re looking for a copywriting team to help your business, look to Flocksy for great content from highly-qualified professional copywriters. You’ll get unlimited projects and revisions. Allow us to help you get your content just “write.”
This past week Jane Manchun Wong, a reverse engineer known for finding new features and changes hidden in the code of popular social apps, made a shocking, and for some, somewhat unsettling announcement. Instagram is considering hiding post likes from viewers.
While the site will navigate as normal, the only thing missing will be the likes visible underneath the post.
Wong posted screenshots and said, “We want your followers to focus on what you share, not how many likes your posts get. During this test, only the person who shared a post will see the total number of likes it gets.”
And then, according to Instagram’s spokesperson, “Exploring ways to reduce pressure on Instagram is something we’re always thinking about,” and one of the main ways that stress is induced is by a feeling of competition that comments and likes raise when compared to other accounts.
Instagram has also hinted at possibly even making it more difficult for the account users to view and count their own likes, by showing them a list, that they would have to total up themselves.
What does this mean for the future?
For many, this presents a unique issue, the main one being that influencers and businesses rely on their engagement to allow potential sponsors and consumers to see how well they are doing, and they may now be at a loss. How will they prove their popularity to everyone? Since many accounts long ago began “buying” followers, the only way to actually know how large an account’s reach is through their engagement. Take that away and what do you have left?
When does this happen?
Instagram has said that as of this week they plan on testing this new method in Canada and see how it is received. I’m sure they are not half as eager to find out as the one billion users that use the app on a daily basis.
If you own a business than there is a good chance you’re advertising and an even better chance that you’re using social media as a way to promote your company and brand. However, sometimes it can be hard to build a good strong following for your business on social media, so how do you go about doing that? Well, there are quite a few ways that you can go about building your business’s social media following. Down below are four ways that you can apply, just to start with.
Four ways you can build your social media following:
1. Host a giveaway: Hosting a giveaway on one of your social media platforms can be a great way to build your social media following. Give away something exciting and that everyone would be interested in winning. That way it will generate lots of interest, and if following your account is one of the requirements you will gain a lot of new followers.
INTERACT:
2. Follow accounts back: When people start to follow you, you can follow them back. Sometimes people tend to like it if they feel like the interest is not one-sided. Every business has had times when people start to follow them for a giveaway or something and then a few days later unfollow them, am I right?
This way they will feel like you saw that they followed you, and then you followed them back. This can be a good way of helping you to create a relationship and help to decrease your follower loss.
3. Reply to people’s comments: No one likes to comment on a photo or video and not get a reply. If you’re not replying to comments, then people aren’t going to want to discuss and interact on your posts. So, in order to make sure that people are interacting with your posts you have to be replying and socializing as well. Not doing so could cause people to stop following you and stop interacting on them.
4. Post good content: Posting good, engaging content can really make the difference between someone following you or not. So make sure you’re posting photos and video that will make people want to follow you. Some things to avoid are controversial (let’s leave the politics at home), negative (no one likes to hear about the lousy weather), or questionable (let’s not air dirty laundry) content.
Building up your social media following is something that every business should be doing. Because gaining followers overnight is not an instant thing. It takes time and focus.
One last note. Yes, you can BUY followers; however, we highly recommend against it. Buying followers is not the same as gaining real-life people that are interested in your company, product, service or brand. They are not invested in you and are not going to increase your traffic or sales.
So, please, don’t even look into buying followers. Stick to the real thing.
Your business is going good, you are generating a lot of new leads, sales are up, and overall you are happy with how it’s working out. But sometimes we have to face the fact that business isn’t going to be booming forever. Every business hits a plateau, and you may even have weeks, months, and maybe even years when your business goes downhill.
Here are some ways to bring more business in if you start to find things lagging, or foresee that in the future they might start to.
One: The most important thing to remember when thinking of ways to bring more business in, is to make sure you are interacting with your current customers and potential customers. If you aren’t already doing this then start doing it right now.
Two: If you don’t have social media accounts for your business, then you need to get some, that just goes without saying. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, get them all and starting posting, liking, and commenting. Social media is going to be your best friend in the advertising department (here’s my post on the benefits of social media if you would like to read it )
Three: Advertise well. It’s important that you are advertising in more ways than one. Use Google ads, Facebook ads, and social media to advertise. Anything that you can use to advertise your business, do it, whether it is big or small. You are never going to bring in business if you don’t advertise on a daily basis.
Four: Almost no one can pass up a good deal! So do a 10% off sale or a 30% flash sale and talk about it everywhere. This can help you bring in some more business and possibly make it so people will come back to you when they want to buy that same product or service again, instead of going to someone else.
These are good things to keep in mind whether you need more business or want to bring in more. All four of these things are something that every business should be doing even if they don’t feel that their business is slow or diminishing.
Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and so many more social media platforms can help your business out a lot. I could talk about every one of them telling you how much they can help out your business and why you need them, but for this post, I’m going to talk about how Instagram stories can help your business out.
Here are five reasons why you need Instagram stories for your business:
1. The live video is one of the best parts of Instagram stories because there are just so many ways to use it. You can do a Q. and A. or tell a story, you can do anything, even just getting on and doing a Day in the Life at the Office.
2. You can use the poll sticker in the stories to ask your followers what they would like to see more of or what they don’t like about something. Everyone loves to join in on a good vote!
3. Use the superzoom to share a funny moment at the office, like when someone falls asleep on the job or you catch someone doing a funny dance. It adds a little fun to any day and your followers will love seeing a little bit of “real” life.
4. Instagram added music to their stories now, so you can add music to any photo, video, or anything you want! It’s fun to use and you have 20+ songs to choose from. Music videos are some of the best videos out there.
5. As I have said before, people like to do business with people they know. Using Instagram stories is a great way to allow people to get to know you, and you get to build a relationship with them.
These five things can help make your Instagram be the best business account out there. If you don’t have an Instagram account then you should really give it a shot and see the difference that the Instagram stories can make in your business!
So I was thinking since we have talked about what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a few posts ago, that we could talk about ways to get results from SEO! This is the post for you if you are looking for ways to get your SEO ranking up there and want to learn a bit more of ways to use SEO for your business.
Here are few tips on how to improve your SEO rankings down below.
Keywords: I’m going to talk about this one first because it’s an important one. Find on Google keywords that people search. Then take them and put them in your writing. But remember that you don’t want to use them too much, so only put them in about four times for every post.
Other content than text: It’s good to have more than just text on your website or in your blog posts. So go ahead and add some videos and photos. This can help people to engage more and be more tempted to keep scrolling.
Social media: So let me start by saying that if you don’t have a social media account for your business then you need to go and make one right now. Anyway, social media is great for improving your SEO ranking when people share links to your website on it.
SEO is great for your business and these are a few ways that you can use it. I hope that they were helpful to you in learning a little bit of how to use SEO and make it work for your business
Some people think that social media is a bad thing, and yes, it can be, if used incorrectly. But we think quite the contrary. We believe that social media can be hugely beneficial for your business. Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Snapchat, and many more can benefit your business immensely. All of these can display your product, let people know about your business, and overall bring you customers. The social media team here at Flocksy use almost all of these and have found that they have helped us a lot with building our business.
It is important for your business for many reasons, but one of the (many) is that it can be used to communicate with your customers in ways that you don’t usually get the chance to. You can be more casual and laid back with potential customers, let them see that although you’re a business, you aren’t always formal and serious. They can be free to ask you questions in the comments that they might not always feel as comfortable asking on your site. It lets your customers see a whole new side to your business that they may not have even known existed.
Let’s take Instagram for instance. Instagram has added the recent feature of Instagram Stories. You can take a photo or video and your followers can see it for 24 hours. You could use this feature to your business’s advantage by doing a day in the life. You could take videos of your day, at the office, going out for coffee. All the things that your customers don’t get to see when they visit your site. But this is just one of the many great advantages there are to having social media for your business.
It may take a while before you start seeing signs that these social media platforms are making a difference, but if used correctly, over time you will see the increase of customers.
If your business doesn’t have at least one social media platform we highly encourage you to start one. It’ll be worth the work when you see the increase in costumers.
Feel free to ask any questions you may have. Thank you for taking the time to read!
Social media: 
