How businesses attract customers to their products and services has changed dramatically over the past 15 years. For the first time in history digital ad spending has surpassed traditionally advertising.
If you want to know if traditional advertising is dead click here
Although advertising methods may have changed you might be surprised to find that building a successful online campaign is based on many of the same ‘old fashioned’ marketing principles.
This article focuses on advertising techniques as its what’s 95% of small businesses need to drive revenue.
To learn about the difference between branding and advertising please sign up for our Gravity Bounce Marketing Bootcamp.
If you are struggling to reach your clients online here are 7 principles you should consider:
1. Your message
If you are advertising to drive revenue you better have a strong call to action message.
Every advertising message needs to have a ‘trigger’ - something that catches their attention and brings them closer to your business. Brand advertising is great when leads reach out to you but if you’re not Google you better stick to advertising for lead generation.
You should build 3 to 5 strong marketing messages and then test them out using different a/b testing techniques and campaigns.
Ask friends and family for their opinion and more importantly test them out in your market and track your results.
Hint: If your message doesn’t say exactly what you do, chances are your clients aren’t going to know either.
2. Target Audience
Before you spend any money online you better spend time researching your target audience.
One of the most powerful aspects of online advertising is being able to target your audience with your ads that motivate them to move forward.
Spending your advertising dollars on men and woman aged between 19 and 65 isn’t a target audience as it’s 90% of the population!
It means you are going to be wasting a huge amount of your ad spend targeting consumers who may never become your client!
3. Your creative
As the digital age emerged consumers have changed how they buy. No longer do consumers see an ad, contact the company and become a customer.
The internet has empowered consumers to do research and to ‘qualify’ a company before any purchases are made.
Over 88% of consumers now regularly read validated user reviews and experiences according to a 2014 Brightlocal survey and place higher importance on these over statements made on the business website.
The buyer experience is now broken into smaller incremental steps so companies need to be diligent in having a consistent online creative.
Make sure all company touch points (website, advertising ads, other online pages) use the same colors, fonts, addresses and phone numbers. Your brand needs to be consistent at every touch point a consumer may see. When a consumer sees conflicting information it lowers their confidence that the product or service will meet their needs.
It is not uncommon now for companies to regularly google themselves, troll online consumer user groups, and monitor reviews.
Even 1 negative review placed in the wrong place (especially if you have a weak SEO strategy or placement) to leap frog that negative review to the #1 organic link for your brand.
Hint: This could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost review!
As consumers do their research they are going click on these negative reviews over and over thereby cementing its place in history as your number 1 (and bad) brand review!
4. Your value Statement
This is a big one and its where so many companies can go wrong.
You need to understand why consumers use your service.
If you don’t know – don’t guess.
You should have programs in place that allow you to regularly gather information from current and past clients.
This is one the reasons digital media has become such a powerful tool – and once its setup the information you gather can be incredibly valuable.
One more word of caution….you need to be careful what you claim your product or service can do.
Making false statements that you have the ‘best’ product or that it can do / fix things it can’t do is going to hurt your long-term brand reputation.
Google actually monitors such claims and may reduce your SEO traffic or prevent ads from running if they appear misleading to the consumer.
When possible back up any claims you may make with research and when it doubt, leave it out.
5. Ongoing Updates
Another powerful aspect of digital media is the ability to change your campaigns as they run in real time. Traditionally, advertising (think radio, tv, and print) campaigns were built and then launched with a ‘pay and pray’ strategy as syndicate networks ran the ads.
This type of advertising was traditionally limited to the ‘big boys’ who, if the million-dollar campaign failed they would regroup and try again next quarter.
As your campaigns progress you should be constantly checking them and tweaking where required to improve results.
Give ads enough time to adequately gather enough consumer data before deciding to pull them. Again, traditionally advertising had to have the consumer see your ad up to 7 times before it was effective and this same rule still applies to digital media.
Another great tool available to online marketers is a / b testing that can allow you to challenge your assumptions and advertising campaigns. This should be part of ever successful campaign.
6. Interaction opportunities
Consumers are busy people. The proliferation of smart phones has allowed consumers to be plugged in 24/7 and its no surprise that many spend a lot of time on their phones.
This has fundamentally changed how we communicate and depending on your ‘target market’ many consumers doing their research online love to use tools like loan calculators, do you qualify wizards, and anonymous question opportunities.
Remember, the longer a consumer interacts with your brand the more comfortable they become – the more likely they are to buy either now or in the future.
This is an important consideration when planning how to build a strong online marketing platform.
7. Your end result
Be patient. It takes time to learn how to build a successful online marketing campaign.
You need to track your leads and clients and learn how to build accurate ROI reports.
· How much did you spend?
· How much revenue did you earn?
· Did the campaign pay for itself?
Our advice is build on the campaigns that work, dump the ones that don’t.
Once you have a program you know works – never – never turn it off.
Digital advertising is a lot more than a few keywords and a slick banner ad. It requires a lot of thought, planning, and expertise to build a platform that can deliver consistent results.
Once you have a successful marketing campaign make it a corner stone of your overall marketing plan.
Kind Regards,
Aaron Johnston Google Expert & Marketing Guru
Email: aaronj@gbma.ca Website: www.gbma.ca
About the Author:
Aaron Johnston grew up in rural Ontario and has run multiple companies in varies industries over the years. After attempting to hire “the wrong guys” to try online marketing he decided he could do a better job! After 11 years of online marketing experience he shares his experience with others from Taiwan where he now lives with his two daughters.