Make your money work harder for your business with advertising and marketing strategy that gets attention. Nail your digital advertising with the tips below, whether your ads are placed on Google, in Facebook Business Suite, or through any pay to play platform.
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Below you’ll find advice on how to put in the hard work that will make your conversions look easy. By taking a holistic approach to advertising, both creating campaigns and embracing disruption opportunities, you can unlock the secrets to standing out. Whether you call it being prepared to do what the competition isn’t, or zigging while they zag, this is the work you need to put in so that your spend goes further and your message reaches more people.
1. Lead on the benefits of what you can do for your audience.
Embracing Google Adwords keyword research is a great way of ensuring your CTA cuts through, whatever the advertising platform. Use Adwords, Google Ads features and search intent, not only as SEO tools in their own right, but to reveal the needs of customers so that you can lead with that detail in your messaging.
This also works on social just as much as PPC or other forms of advertising. Pay real attention to the verbiage that your audience and competition are using; search out high ranking keywords relating to these terms and embrace them in your messaging. It’s got to remain natural and to your brand’s tone of voice, but engineering your ads with focal points of what your potential customers are already searching for will only go to help you satisfy their need.
Combine this with your tailored strategy, leading on the benefits of what you do best, and you’ll create attention-grabbing advertising with an irresistible click-through opportunity every time.
2. Find your why and tell people about it in your advertising.
Facebook ads and social media spend is all about immediacy and intimacy. In the era of attention, you’ve got a split second to engage, persuade and delight your potential customers. This is the secret to inbound marketing plus.
When you pay to play on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or through Google, put the right message in front of the right people by understanding where your customers are in their buying journey. This isn’t new advice, but it’s rarely used in these days of “do everything immediately if not sooner.” There’s a lot to be said for populating platforms with content for long term engagement, but that doesn’t mean you should forgo a little thought about what you’re saying.
If it’s a new audience, lead on the inspirational “why” of your business or service – what is your purpose and what do you believe as an entrepreneur? Learn more about this approach in the Simon Sinek TED Talk: How great leaders inspire action.
When the advertising demographic is made up of people that already know your background and product, adjust your message accordingly. When you display crafted ads to the right people in the right mindset, they click and they convert.
3. Great graphic design has never been more important.
Just as vital as a consolidated message in advertising and lead generation, your ad design needs to be immediate and engaging in every campaign you set live.
At just eight seconds, the human attention span is now less of that than a goldfish – seriously, look it up. Think how little time you spend looking at a post as you’re swiping your finger up the screen. Would you pay attention to your ad? Do you pay attention to any ads?
You can think of those adverts that genuinely captured your attention. The ones that looked different and exciting; the ones that just worked. Whatever your competition is doing, even if you perceive it as being a successful approach, do something different. Look to other markets and sectors; even completely different industries for inspiration. Borrow elements you like and let others inspire you to do better. Adapt and never copy what you see. It’s the internet. Someone will call you on it and you’ll lose more than you started with as far as reputation goes.
When disruptive design meets value in the copy, ad magic happens.
4. Track your progress and create your own advertising insights.
There are no steadfast rules when it comes to adverts that convert, every time. First of all, algorithms across Google, Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms change and audiences catch on to advertising technique trends.
Just like the pop-up ads hell of the late ’90s, prospective customers will soon start turning their noses up if their experience is interrupted for no benefit to them. Instead, use the advice above to add to their experience and service the needs of tailored audiences.
Lastly on this point, listen to the insight of others but follow your own results. There are endless pages and accounts around promising conversion rates and follower numbers, but your business and your audience is unique. If someone is saying “I can get you x followers or x conversion rate on your marketing spend,” it should come as no surprise that they’re not the people to be talking to. At best they can tell you how they achieved those metrics, numbers or sales.
In fact, if you can find someone who’s willing to talk to you about their experience as opposed to trying to sell you on how to do something, nurture a relationship with them as a trusted advisor. They are few and far between.
Look at what posts engages your audience the most and build on that. For paid ads, test a few options with smaller spend and then keep what works and ditch what doesn’t. Increase the spend as you find out what gets you the best conversions, and keep evolving your strategy over time to keep more eyes on your ads.
5. Communicate, share ideas and help other people.
You’re reading this article to gain insight on how to get more attention from less effort with your marketing spend, but more likely than not you already have plenty of advice of your own. Share it. There are no secrets anymore, and communication is key to unlocking new paths and partnerships.
The advertising and marketing communities have so much to offer between businesses, and between hierarchal levels, too. Don’t be afraid to reach out to someone higher than your pay grade, and don’t ever think that anyone’s position is beneath you. We’ve probably all reached the point of webinarmageddon; we’re Zoomed out and have made enough notes that we’ll never read. However, sitting as part of an audience is very different to a one-on-one where you can riff off each other’s ideas.
Get in touch with colleagues or old friends and forge new contacts by reaching out to the people behind campaigns that inspire you. Ask questions. Ask those people who inspire them. Then make a note of their answers and get in touch with those people. Expanding your networking capabilities will expand your professional influence and inspiration.
Keep learning, keep applying those lessons and keep pushing for better. Put the effort in before you create those ad campaigns and you’ll save effort in the long run.
