I talk to a lot of small business owners that want to bring attention to their business through advertising. This is a great idea, but it’s important to realize that a good advertising campaign involves more than just the ads.
Sure you can always drop $50 on promoting a Facebook post to see what happens, but if you are planning to put some real money down, you need to do some planning to make your money work for you.
What do you want out of the ad?
Many people think of advertising in general terms, and focus on raising brand awareness or driving people to their website. That’s a good start, but then what?
Are you looking to make a quick sale online, or do you need to collect leads to start the sales cycle?
If you’re not sure what you’re trying to sell, your customers won’t be either. Think about what you’re trying to sell or what actions you want people to take and then craft your ad to make that happen.
Targeting
The great thing about all the data that’s available these days is that it lets you target qualified leads.
Whether you want to advertise on Google, Facebook or LinkedIn you can specify parameters to lets you serve your ads to a very focused group of people. People that are more likely to be interested in your product than the average Joe.
Consider targeting based on:
- Age
- Location
- Interests – fashion, politics, fitness
- Job title or industry
Where will you send them?
In my opinion you have no business running an advertising campaign unless you have a dedicated sales page. Interestingly this is where I get the most push back from my clients, who simply want to send people to the homepage.
In some cases this works just fine, but let’s imagine you are promoting a webinar. If you send people to your homepage how will they find out about the webinar? Even if you have a promotional banner about the webinar, chances are people will still need to click through to another page for more information or register. You run the risk of loosing your audience every time you make them click to a new page.
In a good campaign you would send them directly to the page that has information on a webinar, ideally with a registration form built in. Don’t make people take extra steps if you can avoid it.
Optimizing your pages
I have a lot of clients that want to use Google AdWords to drive traffic to their website. This is a good strategy, but it’s important to know that Google’s advertising is driven by keywords.
If you are advertising on a keyword that doesn’t have anything to do with your target page then Google will not find your ad very relevant. A low quality score will make your ads will cost more and rank lower on Google’s results.
What’s more is that if a user is searching for a contract lawyer, but doesn’t actually see the words “contact lawyer” on your ad or landing page than chances are they don’t think you can meet their needs and will move on.
Calls to Action
Once someone lands on your website you need to give them very clear instruction on what you want them to do – fill out a form? Call you?
Include a clear statement on your landing page that tells the user what the next step is and make it easy for them.
A good advertising plan should pay for itself by bringing in revenue. To make that happen you need a solid strategy that will help you peak a user’s interest and make it easy to convert. If you skip these steps you’ll find your advertising campaign drains your budget without boosting your business.
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