Perfecting Your Media Mix

Think for a moment about how you bake a cake. If you put in too much flour, the finished project tastes terrible. But too little? The cake deflates and doesn’t turn out right. Too much sugar and you’ll get a toothache, but too little and it won’t be sweet enough. Baking experts all have their own personal recipe for getting things just right, and finding exactly the right mix takes a bit of time, effort, and skill.

Marketing is pretty similar in some ways. The first step to growing your eCommerce business starts with understanding the right media mix for your needs. While this is easy for some to do right off the bat, it isn’t something that everyone understands immediately. Furthermore, not everyone considers all the various aspects involved. While some people might think to rely heavily on social media or on email marketing is enough to see a big difference, the truth is that you can have too much of one thing. That’s why it is important to mix things up in order to come up with your perfect recipe for eCommerce success.

Thankfully, our CAKE team is here to help you sort things out and we’ve created this handy guide for you to look through. Here are a few tips for perfecting your media mix.

Step One: Choosing the Right Ingredients

The first step in perfecting your media mix is to choose the right ingredients—i.e. channels. We’ve had many clients come to us for just social media marketing or just paid advertising. Over time, they’ve loved our results and decided to trust us with more elements of their ideal marketing mix. After all, that’s why we named our company CAKE.

Creating a recipe for success from a variety of different methods is the easiest way to see improved sales, increased ROI, and customers that are true fanatics about what you’re selling. The five most popular include:

• Paid Traffic: Perhaps the easiest and most widely recognized part of a successful media mix is paid advertising. This is a great way to build brand awareness, bring traffic to your site more quickly, and improves the trust factor of potential shoppers. It’s also much quicker than solely relying on organic traffic.
• Social Media: Let’s be honest, we all use social media in one way or another on a daily basis. Reaching out to customers new and old via social media channels is great for two reasons. Not only does it give you a way to help catch the attention of people who don’t already know about your brand, but it also gives you the chance to make contact with your existing customers. This two-fold approach is one reason why it is such a vital part of a healthy media mix.
• Email Marketing: Email marketing is one of the top converting channels for your online store. Furthermore, it also helps you nurture the ones that have already purchased your products. Think of this as your gateway to getting their attention on new sales, promotions, or product updates. This is one of the most important parts of your marketing mix to help turn one sale clients into lifelong buyers.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engine optimization is also important to your overall marketing mix. In fact, this is often the lowest hanging fruit for eCommerce stores to make changes to see big results. You want to make sure your website shows up organically on Google and other search engines, so it is important to always follow SEO best practices as often as possible. For example, write keyword-optimized product descriptions, update meta tags, use image alt tags for products, and more. Think of SEO as the yin to the yang of paid advertising—one helps you in the short term, while the other one helps you in the long run. You want to do everything possible to rank on the first page of Google and following all proper protocols is crucial to making this happen. Check out this graphic that shows the importance of ranking on page 1 of Google: anything after page 1 gets barely any traction/click-thru. Think to yourself...do you even click on page 2 of Google? NOPE!

• Communities and Audiences: One of the most overlooked areas of the marketing mix is communities and audiences. This is where you can truly find interested and engaged traffic who can turn into solid buyers. Guest posting on blogs, discussing your product on forums, and other methods of engagement is a great way to find people who aren’t just going to purchase once but become fanatics about your brand and everything you have to offer.

Step Two: Setting a Good Rhythm Between the Channels

The next important part of finding your perfect media mix is setting a good rhythm between the channels. Brainstorm where your shoppers spend the most time and try to match their habits. For example, beauty brands might find great success on social media but an auto accessory manufacturer might have a better chance of spending money on Google ads. Finding the right rhythm between channels really depends on your niche.

See this graphic? The example on the left shows an eCommerce brand that didn’t have the right mix of ingredients, while the one on the right has what we recommend to all of our clients.

Step Three: Testing a Pinch of This and a Pinch of That

The next part of finding your ideal media mix is testing. Just like when you’re baking, there’s always a way to make the recipe better the next time. Taking a look at the results and adding changes with a pinch of this and a pinch of that is the best way to get to your desired level of growth. Additionally, it is helpful to plan ahead by having a calendar with upcoming promotions, holiday events, giveaways, and more.

It’s also important to remember that more isn’t necessarily better and quality is always vital. You can spend money on a hundred mediocre paid ads, but ten quality ones will likely be more successful. Always strive to build customer relationships with quality marketing material, tons of value, and an easy-to-understand benefit to the buyer.

And don't forget about top-notch landing pages. No matter how great your targeting or ad copy is, having a page designed for conversion is important in increasing ROI and improving the customer life cycle.

Step Four: Enjoying the Sweetest Results Possible

Finally, having the right marketing mix means you get to enjoy the sweetest results possible. Once you’ve worked out the right recipe for your particular eCommerce business, you can easily begin to scale your results and grow your brand accordingly. And who doesn’t love that idea?

Need a partner to help you perfect your media mix? Our knowledgeable CAKE team has the skills and experience to take your marketing plans to a tasty new level of success. Contact us today to schedule an appointment.