Starting a Digital Advertizing Campaign
If you have a limited marketing budget, you have to spend money very carefully. Great budgets don’t save you from thinking, too. Well, you can always squander all that you have on a one-shot single product campaign or hang identical banners all over the Web. But at first you’d better seat and ask yourself the following questions, that make all the difference when it comes to successful digital advertizing:
- Who exactly do I want to sell to?
I know, I know. To everyone! But the first thing to define for yourself is: who really needs your product? Who cannot do without it? Whose life is incomplete until the product enters the market? Focus on this target group.
Write down the characteristics of these people:
- gender;
- gender dominance in the group – male or female;
- income;
- education level;
- occupation;
- Internet activity;
- marital status;
- location;
- what problems of these people could be solved by your product;
- what ways of shopping they prefer;
… etc. You know better what is important for your target audience.
Create the group’s portrait with maximum details. Penetrate its collective mind. Look at yourself with the eyes of these people.
- Do I know where my market is?
On what websites you target audience communicates? On professional resources? In clubs and groups? On parenting forums or blogs? What social networks they prefer? Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.? The effect of your digital advertizing will depend on the relevancy of sites you choose.
Don’t spare money on useless places. How can one know if the site is suitable? The easiest way is to do it via Google and internal search of social media. Enter keywords relevant to your niche, look through the given results, select people, sites and communities you are interested in – and begin working with them.
- Do I have a decent slogan?
Let’s say you company’s name is “Urgent Dental Help Center”. The name speaks for itself, so it would be enough to create a slogan like “We’ll make your life easier. Quickly”. This is quite logical. But if you are called “Smith and Robinson”, using a slogan like “We’ll make your life easier. Quickly” wouldn’t do you any good, since the name provides no information on the company’s niche and how exactly it can help.
Resume: if your company’s name speaks for itself, you are relatively free in the slogan creation. But if the name is vague, you should define your occupation and benefits by means of the slogan. The latter is applicable to all cases though, including webstores.
- Do I have an irresistible offer?
Making an offer people can’t resist is a base of any advertizing campaign. Check these bullets. Such an offer must:
- Solve a real problem;
- Satisfy one of the basic human needs, such as: to earn/save money; to belong to a community; to save time and efforts; to support one’s relatives; to create an impression; to secure one’s safety; to get more pleasure of one’s life, etc. (remember Maslow’s Pyramid?)
- Bring more value than the price supposes;
- Provide guarantees allowing a buyer to take the purchase easier;
- Contain a call-to-action, clearly defining the action you want from a recipient.
- Have I described not only the product’s features, but also its benefits?
Features are the physical characteristics of a product – such as its size, color, kitting, terms of delivery, etc. They help a customer to make a purchase decision. Nevertheless, enumerating only features doesn’t work well.
Benefits are non-material product characteristics making a customer’s life better. They are connected with emotions he experiences while buying your goods or services. If you make the right mixture of features and benefits, you’ll able to stimulate the brain area which is responsible for pushing people to a purchase.
Some companies sell goods and services. Other companies sell emotions. Which ones, to your mind, are more successful?
- Do I have a sales strategy?
Any individual advertizing campaign should be a part of an integrated sales system turning you prospects into real clients. Before you start another digital campaign, make sure that you have a clear vision of its place and role in the general action plan.
It is easy to make mistakes while marketing your product – if you don’t weight everything in advance.
Draw a plan. It is amazing, how the schemes, drawn with a marker on a board, clear one’s mind, detect weak links and put the things into their places. Draw every stage your prospect should pass (according to your plan) – from getting your first email to his first purchase from you. Nearby describe your activities at every stage.
Advertizing campaign is a complex of activities targeted at certain audience and thoroughly planned beforehand. Working out such a campaign, you should define its goal and collect as much information as possible: carry out the market analysis, detect your customers’ preferences, define a prospect’s portrait, formulate the offer, plan the budget and select the right media.
