Advertisements are everywhere. From TV to billboards to your phone, it’s tough to go through an entire day, let alone an entire hour without seeing an ad. On average, people see 4,000 to 10,000 ads a day, according to Forbes. So how can you break through the noise and make sure your ads are heard? Is it even worth it to advertise when people see so many a day?
Yes. Ads still are influential and — when done right — have the potential to engage new and existing customers.
Whether this is your company’s first-time advertising or you’ve been running them for years, there are ways to improve your ad campaigns and increase your bottom line.
Creative
Any successful ad campaign starts with unique, memorable ad creative. You want your ad to break through the clutter of competitor ads, so you need to ensure your ad will stand out. Look at what all the companies around you are doing — and do something different. Don’t be afraid to step outside of your normal ad creative and push your boundaries.
Like any other marketing piece, start your process by identifying your audience. Next, determine what your key message and call to action will be. Once you have those key elements figured out, you can start brainstorming ideas. Things to consider while brainstorming ad creative are:
- Research: Research is the key to creating effective ads. Use primary and secondary research to test out colors and ideas as well as learn about audience preferences and behaviors.
- Brand standards: Although we encourage you to push your boundaries, you still need to stick to your company’s branding. Make sure you keep your company’s voice, logo, colors and fonts intact when making new ads.
- Advertising medium: What medium will be the most impactful for your audience? Keep in mind what platforms your audience spends the most time on, which ones they are most interactive with ads on and which ones your budget allows you to invest in.
- Appeals: Will you make an emotional appeal, bandwagon appeal or maybe a humor appeal? There are many types of appeals you can use to capture the attention, hearts and memories of your audience.
Timing
Anyone in sales knows that timing is the most important part of the process — you have to be there when your audience is ready to buy. Although ads don’t always entice people to buy right away, they plant seeds for when people are ready to make a purchase. You can use ads to raise awareness about your products and services, company, and values. These ads will help keep your products and services top of mind when the customer is deciding between you and a competitor. Having seen your ads, they will already know who you are and why they should buy from you; and they will see you with more credibility than a competitor that they haven’t heard about.
Ads also give you the ability to talk to customers 24/7. You don’t have to wait for them to drive by your store or come in and talk to a sales rep.
Repetition
One of the reasons your ad campaigns may not be performing is lack of repetition. Like we said earlier, people see thousands of ads a day. Repetition will help them remember your ad.
Do you remember the HeadOn commercials? Yes, they were annoying, but you didn’t forget what HeadOn was or how to use it.
You don’t have to be as repetitive in commercials as HeadOn was, but you will see more success in your campaigns if you are repetitive over time. Running ads for at least six months helps you consistently stay top of mind to buyers. That’s not to say you have to run the same ad. As a matter of fact, we suggest changing up your ad creative periodically to not let your audience go ad blind.
Offers
If you’re offering a discount or incentive for people to buy your product or service, make sure it’s a good one. It doesn’t have to be outrageous — it just needs to be enticing enough to get people to change their habits and choose you over a competitor. For example: A pizza place wants to bring in new customers, so it decides to offer $2 dollars off. That offer probably won’t make many people change their mind. It doesn’t appear to be that much off, and it doesn’t build excitement. If that same pizza place was offering free delivery, that may be enticing enough to switch. Even though free delivery is only a dollar or two more, using the word “free” builds excitement and catches people’s attention. That kind of offer is enough to at least make people check out your site or menu.
Additionally, really good offers like 50% off or buy-one-get-one-free are sure ways to get people to give your product or service a try. In a report from AMG, 66% of shoppers said they like BOGO the most out of all discount promotions. They also found that 93% of shoppers reported they have taken advantage of BOGO promotions at least once.
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Analyze and Adjust
Advertising campaigns won’t do anything for you if your product or service aren’t great and aren’t delivered to the customer’s expectation. Once you put a product or service into market, keep an eye on customer feedback. Watch your online reviews, monitor social media, use call tracking and digital analytics, and track your coupons. The information you glean from user feedback will help you 1) determine if you are delivering on your promises, 2) ensure your advertisement is effective, 3) adjust and improve ads, and 4) improve your products and services overtime.
We understand tracking and analyzing data isn’t the easiest thing to do. That’s why our team is here. We use the latest technologies to track and analyze your ad campaigns so you can make informed decisions and see hard ROI.
To learn more about how we can help you create ad campaigns that actually yield results, visit SaveOn.com/business.
