Attracting customers: It’s at the forefront of your mind. And as a business owner myself, I know the struggle.
However, I want you to know that you’re not alone in your journey to social advertising success and there is a better way to manage and even utilize your social media advertising to attract new customers, engage your audience and build a successful brand.
Set Your Sights on the Stars
Hey, having goals is a fantastic thing as a business owner. But if you set the bar too high, you’re going to get discouraged.
The same is true when it comes to social media advertising. And I promise you don’t have to be on every social media platform available to have a successful social media advertising campaign.
Instead, do a little research and figure out what social platforms your audience tends to spend the most time on and go from there. If your demographic is 18-29-year-olds, chances are you’re going to have the most success on platforms like Instagram and Snapchat. Are you targeting business owners? LinkedIn is a great place to start.
My advice is always going to be for you to put your efforts where success is most likely going to be found. You don’t necessarily have to have one destination in mind, just make sure you’re shooting for something and have a way to measure your results so that you know what’s bringing the most success and what you need to spend more time and resources doing.
A Successful Social Advertising Campaign Doesn’t “Start” at the Finish Line
If you’ll give me just a few minutes of your time, I’m going to quickly outline three things you can do to set yourself on a path to success through your social media advertising campaign.
- Target Your Ads to People Who Haven’t Completed the Checkout Process
I know you’re looking at this one thinking, “Wait. That’s a no-brainer.” but you’d be surprised at how effective and yet forgotten this trick is when it comes to promoting your business or service through social media. As an expert in the social media galaxy, my creative team and I swear by this little trick and pretty soon, I can guarantee you will too.
- Target People Similar to Those Already Converted
Another extremely effective promotion strategy, especially for advertising on platforms like Facebook. In fact, Facebook actually gives you the option to make a similar list and then narrow the list down further and customize it to better fit your target audience.
- Test Out a Minimum of Four Ad Designs
Between me and you, it’s vitally important that if you walk away with anything, you should always test EVERYTHING, trust nothing until you’ve tested it for results and NEVER make assumptions! You never know when something might resonate with your audience and take off to unexplored depths of the social media galaxy.
Even if it’s just testing two different images with the same ad copy, or the same image with different ad copy; when in the depths of social media ad creation, make it a point to test out four different ad designs at a minimum. Doing this allows you to narrow down the types of ad design and copy that works the best for your service or product and run with it.
Put Those CTA’s in Orbit
The all too common "Call to Action" is greatly under-utilized. Now, don't get me wrong, a CTA isn't going to put your conversion rates into overdrive, but it will most definitely decrease friction, improve your overall conversion rate and lower your cost per conversion.
But how? Simply put, it helps because your audience will already know what to do upon arriving on your landing page. Instead of having to think through the next step, you’re letting them know ahead of time that when they click on your ad, they can download your E-Book, subscribe to your newsletter or make the purchase for your product or service immediately.
P.S, putting those call-to-actions in orbit is something you can implement NOW to start seeing results ASAP.
The Image ADvantage
Consider this: social media advertising is like a game of capture the flag between businesses and the battleground is whatever screen your ad comes floating across. In order to win a battle, your ad has to “capture the flag” or, in this case, someone’s attention.
So how can you, as a business, gain an advantage over the opposing teams? Let me let you in on a little secret: the real advantage comes with the right image and the way you present it.
Your ad needs to possess several key qualities in order to capture the attention of your target audience. This would include relevancy, contrast, and copy. Ads that possess these types of qualities typically perform at a much higher rate than those that don’t. After all, who’s going to click on an ad for cake decorating services from a company advertising an image with a girl petting a dog? Remember that relevancy is the highest priority, followed by eye-catching contrast. The two of these things combined with the perfect ad copy? Out of this world.
Humans Are Emotional. But Also Logical.
And because of this fact, you’ll have to prepare for a launch that perfectly addresses and provides for both of these mindsets.
In running my own business and doing my own social media advertising, it was easy for me to only think of humans as logical creatures. I figured that I could make a strategy that would work 100% of the time because I relied on the fact that everyone was going to react a certain way.
But the truth is: people don’t like boxes. And what’s more? Not everyone is going to react the same way to a particular promotional campaign.
The thing is, the emotional side of our minds has a lot to do with the what, why and how of our purchase decisions.
When you write social ad copy, you have to keep both the logical and emotional sides of the human brain at the forefront of every word you type. Let me give you an example:
If we’re buying noise-canceling headphones, the product features are going to call forth the rational thinking in our brain. However, it's going to have very little, if any effect on our emotional state.
The emotional side of our minds wants a product to solve our problems, (so in this case, cancel out all the other noise in a room) not necessarily offer us the best bass we’ve ever heard in a pair of headphones.
Making sense? You have to keep in mind that people don’t start a business to get rich. It’s not about the money, it’s about the lifestyle. Which of course can encompass the money, but that’s not all it has to offer.
Remember that humans are logical but emotional. And if you want to convert, you’ve got to speak to both halves of the brain.
Reaching Beyond the Ad Space: Making a Landing
Beyond every ad on a social network is a landing page. And if you think the landing won’t have some sort of effect on the entirety of your flight, I’m afraid I have some bad news.
You’re not going to be able to meet your conversion goals.
The perfect landing page is like icing on a cake. It’s like falling into a cold glass of water after a long walk in the sun. And what does a perfect landing page tell your potential clients? “Hey! It’s the perfect solution to my problem!”
There are three things your potential clients need to convert on a landing page.
- Consistency is the Key
The space between the click of your ad and the first word on your landing page should be nonexistent. Similar to the idea behind a call-to-action, consistency always does the trick when it comes to reducing friction and encouraging your potential clients to convert by taking the next logical step. Which, if your ad is written in a way that attracts and engages, it will have been outlined for them in a call to action so that they immediately know what to do upon making a landing on your site.
One of the biggest mistakes most social media advertisers make is sending people to a page that doesn’t even contain what they originally came for. An example of this would be that you’re scrolling Instagram or Facebook, see an ad for a yellow sundress, click on it and are taken to a page that has hundreds of sundresses on it. But no yellow one.
Ask yourself this: How long would you stick around? In order to foster conversions, you have to think like your buyer and make it easy to convert.
- Easy to Navigate=Easy to Convert
Having dealt with this several hundred times, I can honestly say that the easier your landing page is to navigate, the easier it is to convert potential clients from a social ad campaign. Consider inserting hyperlinks into your content that help readers jump to the relevant information on your landing page and further reduce friction. Remember: Consistency is always your friend when it comes to social media advertising and converting those leads into real-time sales.
- The More You Engage, The Better the Landing
When it comes to landing on a plane in an airport, the most popular and preferred method by far is definitely the slow and steady landing.
Give your landing page the same appeal a smooth landing would have over a fast landing full of turbulence.
And the secret to giving your leads a better chance at conversion through a great landing page is, believe it or not, engagement.
Engaging with your leads and providing quick solutions, information, and empathy for their problem fosters relationships and promotes conversions in a fast and effective way that will, given the time, snowball into bigger and bigger opportunities to grow your brand and your business.
Landing pages may seem like something you stick on the back burner and use only when you need them, but the reality is that they’re one of the most powerful tools you can use in the realm of social media advertising.
It’s Time To Utilize Your Social Advertising Efforts...
...take those opportunities to the next level and convert those leads!
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