Nowadays, the digital space is saturated with ads. With brands fighting for the attention of their audiences, and competition at a fever pitch, social feeds can be overwhelming to look at. More and more people aren’t even reading ads anymore, they’re skim-reading and are only absorbing information subconsciously.
To give your ads the best chance of success, follow these 10 top tips.
Make Your Ads Attractive
Whatever form your ads take, and whatever platform they inhabit, they must be attractive and aesthetically pleasing. In order for your audience to notice them (and to stop scrolling to take a closer look), they must be bold, colorful, cleverly formatted, feature powerful copy (often less is more), and use CTAs to create urgency. Just make sure that you stay in-line with your brand’s identity.
All ads should feature at least one image, but don’t disregard video, too. Whatever your business, there is an opportunity for you to utilize powerful video marketing, especially on social media platforms like Instagram where they have automatic playback. Through video, you can capture audience attention and communicate a story in a matter of seconds, as long as its attractive and high in quality/resolution.
Consider Your Competitors, but Don’t Copy Them
Competitor analysis is key when creating your marketing strategy and designing your ads. Often, they can provide valuable insights into industry trends and user behavior that can help to inform your own strategy.
However, be mindful that you aren’t replicating a competitor’s ads – your audience will notice and they certainly won’t stand out. Successful ads are unique and innovative, so don’t be afraid to take risks.
Keep in Line with Your Brand’s Ethos and Identity
When creating a marketing strategy, each ad should be customized to suit the platform in which it is being placed on. Although your ads may look different or feature different content, they should never be inconsistent.
If consumer stumbles across one of your social media channels, they will often cross-check what they’ve seen by visiting another of your brand’s online destinations before they invest in your services. Therefore, your brand identity and the overall message should be consistently present throughout, or else you risk looking amateur-ish or untrustworthy.
Refine Your Target Audience
The incredible thing about Facebook ads is the level at which you can target audiences. Through the advanced settings, you can select certain demographics such as age, gender, location, etc. You can also choose to target audiences who have expressed an interest in a certain hobby, or have a particular relationship status that relates to your service or promotion.
By tailoring your ads and making them personal and relatable to the people you are targeting, you will have better success at guiding them down your sales funnel.
Don’t Over-sell
Millennials and Gen Xers are digital natives; they’ve grown up in the digital space and are well-attuned to business’ marketing ploys and endeavors. In fact, if they feel they are being “oversold” and are being inundated with ad, after ad, they may choose to unfollow/unsubscribe from a brand’s social pages. Or, worse, they may hide or mute the ads or page, meaning you lose the chance to market them entirely.
Therefore, you should make sure to publish non-sales posts amidst your ads so that you don’t frustrate your followers.
Offer Value for Free
Another way to nurture your relationship with customers and see better results on your ad campaigns is to adopt content marketing and offer value for free. Content marketing can take many forms – blog posts, news articles, “how-to” guides, images, video, podcasts, etc. Through content marketing, you can effectively engage your audience and generate leads.
Offering your audience valuable material for free (e.g. a PDF download on helpful tips relevant to your services or industry) is a great way to position your brand as trustworthy and authoritative. When customers feel valued, they are more inclined to invest in your business.
Create Designated Landing Pages
No ad campaign is complete without the creation of a designated landing page to accompany it. If executed well, your ad will drive users to your website, but it is then your website’s job to keep them engaged, and encourage them down the sales funnel.
Without a landing page that is designed to give the user the solution they were after (i.e. the reason they clicked on your ad in the first place), they will bounce off your page quickly.
As a rule of thumb, your landing page should offer no navigation off the page, but should contain powerful call-to-action or a form submission where they can enter their contact details. This is crucial for increasing leads.
Showcase Your Point of Difference
Today’s successful ad campaigns on social media are a far cry from traditional marketing. They are more creative, more relatable and more thought-provoking.
You should think of your ads as a place to really show off your products or services; how they can improve the lives of your audience and why your product or service is the only one of it’s kind that they should invest in.
The online marketplace is noisy, and unless you think outside of the box, your ad will blend into the background of your competitors.
Don’t Be Afraid to Spend Money
Although social media platforms are free to use, you should consider investing in paid ads. When it comes to marketing your business, it does not pay to cut corners. The more money you put in, the more you will get out.
Leverage the Right Platforms
You may assume that social media isn’t for your business due to your industry, but that’s a dangerous assumption – all businesses can benefit from having a strong social media presence. That being said, a law firm, for example, may not find it necessary to have an Instagram or Pinterest page, but a wedding band certainly should have social media platforms as these platforms have a generic audience that can bring business to such companies. However, with 1.47 billion active world-wide users on Facebook, it’s essential that every business has a Facebook profile.
Conclusion
Social media is a powerful and influential arena, where businesses can generate leads, increase sales and enhance brand awareness. Follow these tips and your ads will be a huge success.
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