When you make the decision to advertise, your decisions aren’t done. Successful advertising involves constant experimentation. There are many factors that go into a productive ad. As you try out different permutations, you can observe the way your results change and ultimately find the solutions that work best. Let’s dive in and talk about 4 elements to experiment with in your digital ads.
Why have I specifically focused on digital ads here? Digital ads may feel like a more realistic option because you often can start with a lower budget. The cost of advertising in print publications, radio, TV, or podcasts (for example) tends to be valued in packages at fixed rates and come at a higher premium. Digital ads or solutions like boosting traffic to a specific piece of content can be available at incremental rates, allowing you to have some say in setting your own price.
Just because you can advertise for the cost of a take-out dinner doesn’t mean you should. If you are throwing a little money here and there at advertising, it is unlikely to get you to your sales goals. Successful advertising works best when you are studying, analyzing, and comparing results. If you need more on this before we talk about what to compare, read here!
If you are throwing a little money here and there at advertising, it is unlikely to get you to your sales goals. #advertising #business #entrepreneur #smallbusiness
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Advertising is in part a scientific process, and digital advertising has many factors for you to evaluate, such as:
Location
This element is one you should look at first. It has a great deal of impact on all the finer details you can adjust. You are looking for platforms that are attracting your target market. More importantly, you want to advertise on platforms that have the attention of your target market. Is it better to advertise somewhere that in theory has access to a higher volume of people but gets less traction with them or to advertise somewhere that has a lower volume of people but has their loyal attention? For most of us, there isn’t just one place to advertise. You have options. Many options. So, make a list of who – what influencers, what companies, what platforms, what publications – is reaching your audience. Evaluate their effectiveness and start your experiment with the ones that are highest on your list.
Advertising is in part a scientific process. #advertising #business #smallbusiness #smallbiz #smb #entrepreneur
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Audience
Once you have decided what platform to advertise on, there may still be a decision for you to make on the audience you want to reach. Social media advertising, for example, allows you comparatively a lot of control over targeting different audiences. Yet, even something like placing a banner ad on a company website gives you audience options. Sure, that company has an audience overall, but there may be certain kinds of people drawn to certain landing pages or blog content. You may find that your ad performance changes depending on the type of people landing on that page, how warm they are, or the way the content of the page sets you up.
Visuals and Ad Content
There are so many things to play with here. You could try video ads, but even just saying that isn’t the end of the decisions you make. You could try videos of different lengths. Videos with different backgrounds. Videos in which you teach. Videos that are values-driven. Q&A videos. Perhaps it’s better to go with a picture? What colors, posture, facial expression work best? Will your audience respond to certain kinds of images over others? In some scenarios, you may only have a little real estate, such as a banner ad. How do you dress it up to get people’s attention for a couple of seconds and convince them to click?
Copy
Depending on what kind of ad you run, you will have different restrictions or allowances in terms of copy. Can you include a headline? If so, which version of words is most powerful? Do you have a subheading? How does it complement the heading? How many characters are you allowed to include in your copy? When you only have a couple of sentences, it makes sense to formulate short, to-the-point copy. If you can write as much as an essay, you can take multiple approaches with the copy and see which works best. Above all, what call to action are you making, and how do you make it?
Advertising at its best is like a scientific experiment. You are trying out different iterations of the factors above and seeing what combination works best for you. Once you have found it, you should still keep an eye on the results, because trends change. Your audience moves. They acclimate and use new tools. They get bored with the same old thing you’ve been doing. Those who have been experimenting and tracking results will be the first to know when their audience starts responding differently and will be able to make changes more nimbly to stay in front of them.
Did you already realize that all these factors exist? Great. Keep moving forward in experimenting with your ads and use this Marketing Tip of the Week for ideas on new data to mine.
The more you measure, the better you get to know your audience. #advertising #smallbusiness #smallbiz #smb #business #entrepreneur
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Does this list surprise you? Is it daunting? If it is, then I wonder if you are ready to advertise successfully. Of course, you can throw a little money at it here and there. But will it have impact?
The more you measure, the better you get to know your audience. As you start planning your own digital ad strategy, think about how you can test out these four elements!
Interested to learn more about experimenting with ads? Check out this tip on split testing!
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