thread Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas in Community Corner

Marketing Refresh, new ideas

TheRealChipA — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 19:07:01 GMT

So, this year I’m deciding to double-down on online marketing. I’ve decided to expand into Instagram, for example, and will be cross-posting between it and Facebook which I’ve used a lot. I’ve also expanded my advertising with one of our local news sites so that I don’t just run an ad that redirects visitors to my website, but I’ll be adding newsworthy posts to their socials every few months during ice cream season.

Also, I’m updating my logo. I’m adding things like a rainbow filter (for Pride month, assuming that Pride isn’t banned by executive order, ha!). I’ve also made different versions of my logo — one just the plain logo, one with “Ice Cream Bar” for those times I want that to be emphasized, on with our motto “It’s time for something different” for use when that’s the point of a post, and one with all off that.

And I’ve starting having a third-party company animate my logo for use in social media posts. I’m adding a few of those below. The animations were quite inexpensive, actually, and there are lots of companies online who offer this service (just search for animated logos).

Anyway, what new marketing tricks are you going to employ this year? Do you have any unique or promising ideas that won’t cost an arm and a leg, especially since it seems like we all will be dealing with a new round of higher inflation and will have to cut costs to stay ahead of that, again?

(view in My Videos)

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

Lovewell — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 04:04:04 GMT

These are AWESOME!

We personally refuse to spend money on marketing. Never have paid for an add, never printed anything (that we paid for), and never pay for yelp or google.

Now that being said, we are trying to pay attention to little trends. On instagram carousel posts are gaining a lot of traction because each time someone refreshes their feed it changes to the next photo and then in turn exposing them to your content even more.

EMAILS! They actually do so well for us but that could be that we don't send them out ALL the time.

Organic business collaborations or cross promoting. It is hands down the best thing. We also gain new customers through this.

This may be boring or old school but so far it has worked for us!

Facebook isn't big on our end so we share our posts there but that's about it.

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

Stacelyn24 — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 17:23:39 GMT

really love that second video 🙂

That all sounds amazing! I’ve been toying with the idea of refreshing our logo too, but lately, I’ve been diving into Facebook and Instagram ads instead. I ran one recently and got a good number of hits… but no conversions. 😅 Rookie mistake—I realized I had set it up as a traffic campaign instead of a conversion one.

So now, I’m planning to run a retargeting conversion campaign and see how that goes. Definitely still new to all of this, but it’s been an interesting learning curve! Would love to hear if anyone else has cracked the code on getting real bookings from ads without spending a fortune.

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

JUYBoutique20 — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 21:03:14 GMT

Awesome videos and I looooove the rainbow logo. We use text and email marketing, and I have my catalog (website) attached to google. We just started using google local and that's going really well (and it's free). I also use Facebook and Instagram. I participate in local events as well as long as I feel they are in line with my products.

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

HC_Charlie — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 00:00:29 GMT

Great question @TheRealChipA , the logos look great! This year my goal is to take a step back and view my products more objectively from my buyer's point of view. All of my sales are online and shipped to either direct to consumers, or to wholesale retail partners. But in all cases, I include some promotional printer cards, flyers, etc. So I'm trying to establish a set way everything is packaged and shipped, with special attention to the "unboxing experience". I've seen a lot of online videos about people unboxing their online purchases (especially like Apple and other tech products).

I need to think about what exactly I want to convey through printed marketing materials to best showcase my items and promote continued sales. A major milestone is a full catalog or set of booklets for each of our product lines, which can be inserted in shipments, or sent as an electronic attachment to prospective buyers. It's a lot to tackle, but in the end my marketing will be much stronger and I can be more proactive instead of reacting to last minute sales opportunities.

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

TheRealChipA — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 13:31:06 GMT

Google Local is new to me. Thanks for pointing that one out. Local is where I live and die as an ice cream shop, after all!

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

TheRealChipA — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 13:33:01 GMT

@Lovewell I usually agree with you about advertising. But, because a good friend gave me a deal with this local news site, I decided to give it a try. In my first year, we got more referrals to our website from that news site than from Facebook & Yelp combined. Of course, Google search still was on top, but it is hard to beat a virtual monopoly!

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

TheRealChipA — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 13:40:49 GMT

I loved that one, too, @Stacelyn24. When I have new animations done, I have one rule — color! We have 80 flavors of soft serve, 1000s of flavor blends, with every color of the rainbow possible. I want that to be the subliminal message, obviously. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that we are a gay-owned business and that colorful is a part of that, too. We don’t wear our gay on our sleeves, but IYKYK, and around here everyone knows! LOL

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

TheRealChipA — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 13:38:47 GMT

@HC_Charlie In the food/beverage industry, the long-held “rule” is that customers eat with their eyes, first. Honestly, I’ve loved seeing how manufacturers and retailers have taken that to the next obvious level. I’m an Apple fanboy (since the Apple II, which dates me considerably!). To me getting new stuff and seeing the thought and care that goes into the packaging and presentation is still a rush. Yes, I know it is all costing me more as a consumer, but I’m a good little capitalist that way. I love being wowed. I think you will be gratified by your results.

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

rtfulk — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:35:49 GMT

@TheRealChipA The logos and animation looks great. Not much more I can add, except maybe something that can save you time posting to social media. There's a website called onlysocial.ai that allows you to post to all your social media sites at one time and it has a calendar so you can schedule posts ahead of time.

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

TheRealChipA — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 01:30:03 GMT

@rtfulk It’s interesting you mentioned that. A fellow business owner mentioned it to me yesterday, so I guess I need to look into it now. Trust me, I’m all for automation that is reasonably priced and saves me even a few hours a month. Thanks!

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

DinaLRosenberg — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 12:33:02 GMT

I'm sure by now y'all know I am a Gary Vaynerchuck fan..... and while a lot of the time he annoys me lately he's been beating the drum on AI Influencers. SO - we're attempting to create an AI Witch! We have no idea WHAT we are doing- but that's what we are doing right now.

We also put some money into TikTok- they were doing a special spend $2500 get $2500 so I figured we'd test it to see how it goes. We have had a pickup in in-store as well as our Tiktok shop. We're a week in but it looks good.

Also going to put a little money into Meta- a lot of similar local businesses have recently closed- so we'd like to capture some of those customers.

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

TheRealChipA — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 12:42:10 GMT

@DinaLRosenberg Some intriguing ideas there. Good luck with those. TikTok baffles me — I just don’t understand living life with that short of an attention span! LOL. But, I’m old, eh? Similarly this so-called AI thing (which IS NOT AI, folks) is both interesting, productive at times and scary. But I’m moving cautiously.

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

TheRealChipA — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 13:09:19 GMT

I’ve decided to give the Square Marketing integrations a go, too — FB, Google, and even am going to see how Marketing Assistant works. I’m open to any experience, strength and hope from anyone who has also done this. Or words of warning! LOL

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

DinaLRosenberg — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 13:09:57 GMT

I'm old too (gonna be 50 this year) but I am OBSESSED with free attention. I guess I got lucky and started TT during Covid before it sorta blew up.

Funny, we had two ice cream shops open in our town this past Fall (worst time to open- they missed the summer). One of them is doing OK- even in the freezing weather- the other not so much. One has fun flavors, toppings.. tries fun things and puts it on instagram...

The one that isn't doing well just doesn't get it- the days of opening a store with the "if you build it they will come" mentality is over. You gotta go get your customers. Even just going live and showing people how you make ice cream, waffle cones, etc- why not! It's FREE.

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

Lovewell — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 22:34:43 GMT

I will say we did get featured in a print local magazine that is food and drink focused especially for tourism and it brought so much love!

If opportunities come up that maybe aren’t our usual method but we have a connection we are more

than willing to give it a shot!

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

sugarlab — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 19:33:30 GMT

Oooh what magazine was it?!

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

sugarlab — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 19:35:26 GMT

I keep meaning to look into Meta ads more; I haven't done one in YEARS but last I looked at my dashboard, my account was restricted. But there wasn't a way for me to report.

The biggest thing I struggle with lately when it comes to social marketing is staying consistent. I'm just so burnt out trying to be a business owner, a cake decorator/baker, and a content creator. Too many hats but not enough money to outsource. At least that's what I tell myself. Not that I'm too controlling to let go of my social media haha

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

TheRealChipA — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 02:23:22 GMT

@sugarlab Consistency is the key. My goal is to keep my local audience (radius of 15 miles) engaged without feeling bombarded, which means one post a week on each platform, max. That seems to work for me.

Right now, my web site traffic comes from Google, Meta platforms, Yelp and my local news blog. I refuse to patronize Yelp as they are exploitative, mafia-like, and entitled. I tried. They took advantage of me once and I’ll never forgive them, most likely. Sigh.

I’m going to try Google ads on a limited basis this year. And, like I said, Instagram. My first Instagram ad has been submitted. I’ll watch that closely.

Like you, I still wear too many hats. But I’m still a small business, so that’s what it is. My media marketing partner has an open offer to assist and eventually I’ll take them up on it. But that will be after I’ve learned how all of this works! I might be old, but I still have all of my faculties. I’ll learn, then delegate where it makes sense.

One more thing directed to Square. I love the Google ingratiation. I love the Meta integration. I have ideas for a better Marketing ecosystem that is monitored by my Square account. Let’s talk. You’ve made a great start, from what I can see. It can be better.

@isabelle pass this on to whoever needs to see it. Square is on a good track for controlling and monitoring our social media integrations. You folks just need to get more bold and aggressive. Let’s chat.

Re: Marketing Refresh, new ideas

ChickenRacer — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 02:53:30 GMT

This was my goal this year, to focus on marketing, but instead have purchased a second venue, so next year! Will still do some things and always trying to move forward, but not a major focus.

My family got my logo tattooed on all of us (small albeit) so don't know if I can ever change that!