The approach you take with advertising changes based on who you're trying to reach and what you're aiming to achieve with the advertising.
In the majority of cases, advertising is not a single point of conversion.
People will research and consider options across different devices and over different periods of time for each individual.
Don't think of advertising as a single touchpoint. Think about how you reach potential customers along their journey.
What are you trying to achieve?
You want to create more customers, right? Easy enough.
Who is the customer you're trying to reach with this campaign?
Think about these groups based on use cases and the unique value propositions you have for customers. Do you have more than one target customer with differing value points? If so, isolate those when running campaigns.
How does this target group research and decide on your offerings?
How long do they typically take to decide?
How do your competitors approach the market?
Do these target customers know about you, or have some brand recognition?
Map out your conceptual plans of approach.
The best I can offer here are examples of hypothetical scenarios as these are entirely unique based on your prior two step details.
Let's say you are looking for leads for your sales team, trying to reach potential customers in the market for luxury travel accommodations for a future trip.
You'd need to deliver warm up messaging to get your offer in their minds. You'll need enough frequency to build up to something more concrete with a CTA like get info or view a brochure. Then finally building to your goal of speaking with a rep.
Does this all happen in ads?
Is your goal email capture feeding automation?
You'll need at minimum a great video overview for the awareness building, more specific messaging in video and ads for follow up and retargeting which directs to a landing page.
Don't start without clear measurement.
If your goals are to measure a campaign for ROI, then you should have your reporting systems feeding those signals of success back to the sources where your ads are running.
If there are holes in your system, you need to modify your goals of how you measure success to match what you can track.
Why are these steps so critical, not just important, 100% critical?
It's not logical to expect a result that you can't measure. If your systems don't work as you need for measurement, you need to change how you measure success of your campaigns or enhance your systems.
People don't make decisions (for the types of good and services we're talking about here) as impulse buys. They research, over a longer time period, looking at options, learning about the options and their own needs before making decisions. If you're advertising with a single touchpoint approach then you're missing out on even greater potential.
Marketing is most effective when you speak directly to someone. If you generalize your message to try and hit everyone, you'll end up intriguing no one.
Don't be so quick to rush into campaigns.
It doesn't mean you can't move quickly, just not thoughtlessly. We're all guilty. Whether it's agencies just rushing to meet client demands, or clients rushing to appease leadership's ideas. It's our job as the person with more understanding to respectfully ask the questions that naturally pump the brakes without having to be the person pushing back.
What are we hoping happens?
Who are we trying to reach?
Are we approaching this in a way that aligns with buyer journeys and expectations?
Can we track the success we want?
A few small questions can go a long way.
Thanks for reading.
