Advertising doesn’t have to be scary. Avoiding simple mistakes can make all the difference. Read below to see if your agency is tricking or treating you!
Skipping Out On Research
You may think you know your customers. But do you really? Do you know their go-to social platforms are? What types of content they tend to consume? What about their buying habits, income levels or social values? Not knowing the answers to questions like those could be scarier than Jason Voorhees himself showing up at your front door.
The first step of any campaign – before creating ideas, budget levels, or tactics – should be research. Research serves as the foundation of campaigns and will help form the content you create and how its promoted.
We have countless media researching tools at our disposal that provide in-depth data on media consumption and demographic behavior to drive strategic-decision making during the campaign planning phase.
Focusing On Traffic Quantity, Not Quality
It’s easy to get a lot of people to your website. Notice I used the word “people” in the sentence above, not “potential customers.” Driving one million people to your website over the course of a year means nothing if they aren’t your target audience – remember, the audience you did so much research on from the section above?
Instead, we try to focus on driving quality traffic to your website. Potential customers who are in-market for your product and/or services. Where they are in the purchasing cycle (research, consideration, or decision) will dictate what content we serve them and which landing page we drive them to. Each piece of content and landing page will have specific actions we want them to take; whether it’s signing up for a webinar, downloading a whitepaper, calling a salesperson, or purchasing directly.
Advertising Everywhere
Did you know that people see an average of 5,000 to 10,000 ads daily? It sounds like a lot, but just think about all the advertising you see. Five or six commercials every 10 minutes or so, radio ads, billboards, website banners… I could list all the possibilities but this blog would be 30,000 words and my boss would be upset.
A common mistake we see is companies that advertise anywhere and everywhere. Instead of concentrating on where their target audience (yes, there is a theme here) spends their time consuming content.
We help companies build a comprehensive, integrated plan that will best capture their customer’s attention. This is much more effective and cost-efficient than blindly throwing advertising dollars at every single platform.
Not Testing
No, we’re not talking about how kids can skip the ACTs and SATs. We’re talking about A/B testing your marketing strategies and landing pages. Some different testing we use include:
Email Subject Lines – consumers get flooded with emails every single day. Finding the right hook, or subject line, is important if you want your prospects to open an email. Our email marketing tools allow us to randomly split your lists and test different subject lines to see which performs the best in terms of open rates, click-through rates, and conversions.
Forms – best practice tells us to make them as easy as possible for users to complete. It shouldn’t take 10+ minutes for a prospect to fill out a form. Stick to pertinent information like name, email, phone number, and company and watch your form-completion rates rise.
Buttons – we’ve seen the number of button clicks increase simply by switching the color of it! Test out different colors, sizes, shapes and more to see which works best for your audience.
Call-To-Actions – examine what your CTA is and if it’s enticing enough for a consumer to take action. Do you really want them to “Learn More” or do you want them to “Contact Us Now!” Simple text changes can lead to more results.
Pushing Products Too Much
Remember all those ads you see and all those emails you receive on a daily basis? Consumers are smart enough now to block out a lot of advertising that they’re not interested in. Again, thanks to our research, the number of wasted impressions and unsubscribes will decrease because we’re giving them information they want. Rather than spamming your customer, take a step back and analyze what pieces of content get the most traction.
There’s a saying in our industry: “people buy from people.” Be relatable and personalized with your marketing. Address your customers’ needs and wants with relevant solutions.
Think about it: no company is actively saying how unreliable their product is or how poor their customer service is. Every company believes they have the best product and will tell you that. Younger buyers especially will focus on your company as a whole, not just the product you offer. Promote your company culture and values to show that you care about their interests!
Looking for more information? Contact us today!
