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On Tuesday Widewail announced it made the Inc. 5000 fastest-growing private companies list for 2023, coming in at #544. A big thank you from us to you, our clients and community! We've grown 10x in the last 3 years with help from your support.
A Heartfelt Thank You: Widewail Makes Inc 5000
A key piece of our Trust Marketing Framework is being deliberate about where you distribute customer feedback. We call this influencing your brand mosaic.
Feedback on its own is good, but where it’s worked into your marketing mix directly impacts how much influence it has on prospects and, downstream, your business.
We generally recommend driving reviews to Google because of their positive impact on local search rankings. 93% of Google searches have local intent and the majority of clicks go to the Map Pack. How do local businesses get priority in that Map Pack? You guessed it, reviews.
This week I came across a new distribution strategy recommended by Demand Curve.
The Tactic
Encourage customers to leave feedback on high-performing social ads.
Why it Works
Social ads have a unique point of differentiation from search, display or Youtube ads: an open comments section.
LinkedIn indicates its ad relevance score is “based on indicators that LinkedIn members find the ads interesting, such as clicks, comments and shares, which will help you win more bids.”
On Facebook, ads with positive comments outperform ads with negative comments.
Anecdotally, I saw this ad the other day and thought, “Wow!” How is this ad generating 3k+ engagements? Must be a product worth considering.
All of this to say, driving engagement to your ads could be a new way to drive down costs with social proof. It might be worth testing for your business.
Here’s How to Do It
Automate a request to go out via SMS or email after purchase (or the equivalent in your industry).
“Hey [customer name], this is [rep name] from [business]. Thank you for being a customer! We’d be very appreciative if you could leave us some feedback. We are working to generate awareness on Facebook and are asking customers to leave us a review in the comments of this post. Thank you! <link>”
How much you delay the request is a matter of preference. We generally recommend 0-2 days after a service is completed and 5-10 days after product purchases. Less time if you want a review of the buying experience, more time if you want a review of the product in use.
A unique campaign with tailored messaging driving to a specific ad is easy to set up in Widewail.
Get Shareable Links to Facebook Ads
Access your account ad manager, get into the ad settings and find this share dropdown next to the previews:
Select “Share a link” which will get you here:
This is the destination link you’ll want to share with customers via email or SMS.
Get Shareable Links to LinkedIn Ads
If you run LinkedIn ads, getting a link to post is available via the Campaign Manager, or go to your company profile > posts > ads.
A side note: You can see any company’s LinkedIn ads this way. It’s a great competitive research tool.
I’ll wrap up with this advice from Demand Curve:
“Do this with your best-performing ads. Incentivized engagement won't turn a "meh" ad into a "WOW" ad. So start with a "WOW" ad and amplify it.“
For more helpful marketing info and guidance, be sure to check out our choices for the best marketing newsletters.
If you've been a reader for a while you likely know Widewail is proud to be a Vermont-based company. ~95% of our team is here in the Burlington area working out of the Hula Lakeside complex.
Vermont definitely isn't known as a thriving business hub, but in addition to fantastic maple syrup we have an impressive and growing startup scene in our small state of 600,000.
Widewail's excited to be 1-of-10 Vermont businesses named to the Inc. 5000 fastest-growing private companies list this year. A shoutout to our Vermont peers, Fluency, Tuck Consulting Group, Alkemi, Sticky Brand, Resonant Link, Reconciled, Image Relay, IXIS and StaticWorx. Congrats!
See you in 2 weeks - Jake, Marketing @Widewail