3 Steps to Increase Your Return on Advertisement

Do you know that over 81% of customers leave their online shopping carts once abandoned? Think about the pains an advertisement company goes through to get the people through the door, and just when they are reaching the end of the finish line, customers leave them. It is one of the many reasons many companies cannot make the best returns on their advertisements.

What is lacking in this situation? Is the company not willing enough to push through a brand's message? Do the customers feel a lack of response from the brands on their customer journey? Or are there some advertising fundamentals that companies are quick to ignore? The answer is a mix of all three.

The funny thing is it doesn't take more than three steps to increase your returns on advertisements. In this article, we will explore those steps in depth so that you have the ad campaign's lead results.

Elements of a Successful Ad Campaign

Before diving into the three crucial steps associated with an advertisement campaign, it is important to break it down into five main elements. We will decipher them properly later in this article to help you learn how to leverage these elements better to create a campaign that yields the results you are looking for.

A Clear and defined target audience

The first aspect to focus on is knowing who you are speaking to since they would be the ones you would be selling to. It adds precision to your brand's message, allowing you to elicit the exact emotions you want from the target audience you want to serve.

However, the word "target audience" gets thrown around a lot without putting any meaning behind it. Let us define what it is.

A Target audience is referred to as a type of people that you define based on certain demographics and behaviour. When we extend this definition to an advertisement campaign, a target audience would mean the kind of people more likely to buy your product. Companies establish a clear and defined view of their target audience by putting together the following demographic information:

  1. Age
  2. Gender
  3. Profession
  4. Location
  5. Income and Education Level
  6. Mental Status
  7. Education

This is an insidious element of the advertisement campaign that gives it life and makes it something that can be communicated to your prospects. Without it, your brand message is nothing more than throwing paint on the wall. People see that as an attempt at doing something, but it will yield no result.

Value Proposition of your brand

The second crucial element of your ad campaign is your value proposition. It is the uniqueness of the service, feature, or product that you provide that is capable of getting prospects attracted to your brand. It is another crucial element you must display with your advertisements on the home or landing pages.

However, if you want to create a successful ad, be subtle about it. It gives voice to that "show, don't tell" factor that most customers appreciate. It is one of the reasons why 69% of B2B firms have established value propositions.

The second reason you must value your proposition with your ad content is that it is short. Readable within 5 seconds, a value proposition can get an instant reaction from your prospects, provided you have taken care of the first element of an advertisement –understanding the target audience.

Quality Content and Design

The third crucial element of an advert is the quality of content and design. Crafting the perfect brand message takes effort from content writers and designers. This third pillar is responsible for aligning the written content with the image, the image with the content, the combination of the two to the brand's message, and the brand message to the demographic.

Designing and content creation has three goals: inform, persuade, and remind. These three ideals form the roadway through which a direct communication line is formed between the company and the audience.

Creating a Call to Action

According to the CTA statistics, 47% to 93% of leads generated through content come via a call to action.The aim of a call to action is to prompt a reader into doing an activity that you want. Legacy calls to action like "sign up", "learn more", and "buy now", are some relevant call-to-actions that are still relevant to this day.

A CTA not only pushes the prospects down the marketing funnel, turning them into leads, but it also gives you insight into the success of your marketing campaign.

 The Follow Up

The final element of running an advertisement that converts is following up. However, it is also one of the most ignored elements of the process. Stats show that over 44% of salespeople give up after following up once, which is wrong because sometimes, it takes multiple tries for your brand message to get across.

Running a follow-up is not something that can be taken lightly. Do it too little, and your prospect will forget you, but partake in it too much, and your brand will repel your customers. Following through an ad campaign by running a follow-up is akin to walking a tightrope –you need to be precise, you need to be favorable, but you shouldn't, under any circumstance, appear annoying.

Now that we have discussed the five crucial elements let us go ahead and dive deep into these elements as we discuss the three steps of running an ad campaign.

Run Better Campaigns

Let's start with the first step, running the ad campaign. To become effective at an advertisement, you need two things. First, you need to get your message clear, and second, you need to know the right mode to spread that message

Know your Audience

To craft the perfect brand message, you need to understand your audience. As we already mentioned, that requires understanding the audience and creating a buyer persona. It is a crucial step that takes an audience-first approach to the brand message. However, you would be surprised to know that only 6% of senior executives understand their customers.

n order to understand your target audience, you can choose one of the two approaches: Qualitative research and Quantitative research.

Qualitative Research

Understanding the experiences of the customers is the goal of conducting qualitative research. Rather than being focused on statistics, it gives you insights into a small number of individuals you can't generalize. By providing you with deep insight into the behavioral attributes of customers that you cannot generalize, qualitative research gives you access to specialized behavioral characteristics to work on. Due to its experience-focused approach, qualitative research is considered better for creating a buyer persona. Conducting qualitative research involves.

Interviews

Interviews for creating a buyer persona are conducted between a market researcher and a respondent. The researcher asks the respondent a group of structured and unstructured questions to understand the respondent's motivations for buying or using a particular product. Following is the list of questions that are typical askes.

  1. Why did you buy this product or service
  2. Have you used or purchased this product or service before?
  3. Did you consider us first or go to our competitors before checking us out?
  4. Does anything frustrate you about the product or service?
  5. Has anyone in your family used the product before?
  6. Would you still buy this product if you were in another location?
  7. What more do you wish the product to be?

Don't misconstrue these questions are merely an attempt to get feedback, for they help you fashion a brand message using precisely the words of your customers.

Focus Groups

A focus group is a collective of customers or prospects in a controlled space where they are asked about a brand or product. Your job, as a company, is to ask certain questions and record their responses.

These responses can be verbal or non-verbal. Another reason that focus groups are preferable over an interview is they allow non-structured approval of questions. You can just set up a group discussion if you want and get your responses.

Typically, you can use a focus group to:

  1. Conduct a sensory test (forinstance, let your customers taste a particular product)
  2. Evaluating your ad
  3. Evaluate your marketing or product concepts
  4. Test your customer's needs (what they say they want and what they really want might not be the same)
  5. Get a sense of the perception around your brand.

Journaling

You will not always get the right answers when you ask structured questions. In a bid to answer you as precisely as possible, some customers might trade talking about their true feelings for being coherent. So, if you're looking for raw input from your customers, journaling is the way to go.

Invite your prospects to an event and give them a task to fill a journal. It provides a way to capture what your audience thinks about your brand truly. It will help you not only craft a more precise brand message but will also guide you in making long-term decisions for your business.

Social Listening

Social listening is the process of monitoring your audience's conversations online about your brand. One of the most well-known steps to understanding your audience, social listening, will have you check out the social media pages of your perceived customer base to get closer to understanding their needs and their behaviour.

Facebook is the best way to know how to implement social listening. As the oldest active social media platform in the market, it is used by everyone –which is why there are over 10 million active advertisers on Facebook.

Quantitative Research

Suppose you are willing to understand the technical side of customer behaviour by looking at the statistics and drawing conclusions from them. In that case, quantitative research has a lot of offers.

However, there are pitfalls to this approach. One, the sample sizes need to be robust. Secondly, the results you draw can be generalized, which means it might end up lacking any "real life insight" that you can get through qualitative research.

Here are the techniques implemented during quantitative research

Surveys

Surveying is the process of getting responses from a large group of audience by asking them a series of questions. These questions can be subjective but, more often than not, consist of multiple choices.

Due to the fact that they can be easily administered, can be easily decoded, and deliver quality data within a short period of time, Surveys are favored among most modern advertisers. However, it suffers from one pitfall of quantitative research –subjectivity. You can't be sure that your customers are willing to give you the right answers. How many times have you picked the right choice when during a YouTube ad break, you are asked whether you're receiving the right advertisements?

In order to get the most appropriate responses for your surveys, remove all biases, make the questions neutral, and provide enough context so that respondents can answer correctly.

Data Analysis

Data analysis means assessing the data that you have accumulated from your customers to uncover insights that could be useful for your business.

For instance, if you have information about 1000 persons and want to create a buyer persona, you're going to analyze the data by:

  1. Segmenting them based on their different attributes
  2. Factor in the common denominator
  3. And use the accumulated traits to create a persona.

How closely your buyer persona resembles your target audience depends upon your skill in accumulating information about your audience. Simply put, you will only be able to analyze the data fruitfully if you have the right data

Trend Analysis

Trend analysis is similar to data analysis, but it gives you a more generalized overview of the market by informing you about the current market trends. That said, it provides many robust details, such as

  1. Customer demographics
  2. Purchase volumes and habits
  3. Product or service performance
  4. Customer retention
  5. Brand perception

Trend analysis is good for predicting the market as well. Combine your accumulated data with the trends, draw similarities and divergences from the insights, and you can forecast the market.

Create Ads that Engage with your Chosen Clientele

Now comes the hard part: integrating all the client information you have accumulated into an engaging advertisement. Content-wise, you have to implement the rules of copywriting to your ads –which means highlighting the benefits of the product's features you're providing.

However, the benefits you highlight must align with what you have learned about your customers. For instance, suppose you're selling a lawnmower to a customer that you have found that seeks to mow the lawn in less time. Here, you will highlight that benefit in your ad in the following way.

"Save time with your classic lawnmower, built to cut through grass within seconds, giving you a smooth lawn mowing experience."

The above example has started with "save time", and we have integrated the brand value proposition, which is to "cut grass within seconds to give you a smooth lawn mowing experience".

It was only the content part. To leverage a combination of that and images to create your customer-centric advertisement, you need to follow the following tips.

Place your ads in the right place

Where you place your ad will have a direct impact on whether someone clicks or not. With everyone getting more internet savvy by the day, a bad ad is seen as a red flag that can harm the brand even if your product or service is of high quality.

Now, the placement of the ad will differ depending on which device your prospects are using. Since the image you choose will be the first thing to jump out at your audience when they see the ad, make sure that you check the previews before hitting that "submit ad" button.

Another factor to keep in mind is making the ad more image-centric. We admit that you want your crafted content tojump out. But it is your value proposition that can be read in 5 seconds, which means your primary focus should be on giving your image more berth.

When selecting the image, focus on a simple image that gives your audience one focus point. For instance, if you are a lawnmower seller, you can't just use a complex picture with multiple focal points. You need a simple image that focuses on one aspect you learned about when creating the buyer persona.

Make your ads mobile-first

With over 79.9% of users using Facebook through mobile and over 61.1%of organic searches on Google done through mobile phones, it would be foolhardy not to make your ads mobile-first.

Don't worry about desktop users much, as mobile ads can easily accommodate them. Even Facebook's new design is more inclined toward mobile users. But what do mobile-friendly ads mean? It means focusing on the following:

Website experience

Make your website easily accessible and your ads easily interactable through mobile phones.

Page speed

Patience is "not" a virtue for mobile users, so your page must load fast, or it will "bounce your customers" off the page, and you'll be wasting a lot of money on ad campaigns.

Use Multiple Platforms

Getting an understanding of where your audience is most active is great. However, you must still take a holistic marketing approach –leveraging multiple ad platforms. It will put a burden on your budget, yes. However, the inroads you will be able to make to your targeted audience will outweigh the cost.

Here are the stats of the demographics to which ads are served on the most prominent platforms.

  1. YouTube ads are served to 60% of males between the age of 18 and 24
  2. Facebook ads are mostly served to adult females
  3. Snapchat targets kids between 13 and 17 years of age.

Consider these stats when you create ads; they will help you attract people from multiple fronts.

Use retargeting

Let us take this point to the start of this article, where we pointed out that 81% of customers leave their shopping card as it is. What do you think happens to them? They end up receiving adverts about the product. The goal here is to turn these "window shoppers", these "going to the mall just for fun" type of prospects, into customers. It is known as audience creation.

You can produce retargeting ads easily, they can reduce cost, and you will be able to get a bigger list of potential prospects to which you can market your products.

Make a Better Impression. It will Lead to Good Conversion

Where your customers land upon clicking your ad is equally important. Are they going to see a form they must fill out before they get to see the goods? Or will they be directed to the landing page? Will the landing page focus on funneling them quickly to the CTA? Or will it first provide customers with a worthwhile page to explore?

Create a Landing Page

If you want your ad to hit its mark and leave a lasting impression on your customer, make sure that your landing page stands out. However, you must ensure that your landing page doesn't alienate your customer. What do we mean by that? Let us explain,

Clicking an ad creates expectations in the mind of your visitor. The imprint of the look of the ad and the brand message it gave drives the customer to expect the same look, the same message, and the same approach on the landing page, only magnified. Therefore, treat landing pages as the logical extensions of the ads you are running.

Here are the 15 types of landing pages that you can choose from. All have their own strengths and weaknesses.

  • VSL: A VSL is a video sales letter that allows marketers to quickly cut down all the fluff and pitch the product.
  • Hero: A Hero landing page is perfect for telling people about your company. It also plays host to funnels and links. Social media-savvy marketers favour this over all else.
  • Summit: The summit landing page lets you tell your story through a virtual event. You can invite people to sign up for free and then upsell your product to them. It also allows you to create amore dynamic (and live) ad where you can give live interviews.
  • Tripwire: Tripwire landing pages fall on the simpler end of the spectrum, great for creating small offers and booking funnels.
  • Invisible: Invisible landing pages are for those who want customers to feel safe. It is best suited to sell live training.
  • Webinar: Webinar is suitable for selling high-ticket courses. They are extremely interactive and offer a more personalized experience to the user.
  • Squeeze: With the squeeze funnel, you can grab the email IDs of your visitors. It is also suitable for providing free value at first and then upselling.
  • Live demo: This is another form of landing page that cuts through the fluff. You can use it to launch a course by showing clips of training.
  • Sales letter: For a copywriter, there is nothing better than a sales letter. You can create a medium to long sales letter emphasizing the need for the course. However, since "reading" is involved, it is most prominent for using offers below $500.
  • Application: The application funnel is great for removing unqualified leads from the equation. It is suitable for those looking for those who want to be excruciatingly precise about who to provide the product or service.
  • Survey/Quiz: If you receive multiple visitors to your channel, a survey or quiz landing page will allow you to segment them. It is suitable for companies that have multiple offers.
  • Membership: As the name suggests, a membership funnel is a preferred way to sell a membership or offer any kind of recurring payment.
  • Ask campaign: An Ask campaign should run not only for the landing page but on all the phases of a customer's journey. It asks what the customer really wants.
  • Product launch: As the name suggests, it is best for launching a product.

Have a Clear Call to Action

The thing that will move your customers to act when they land on your "landing page" is the call to action. However, this story-centric world makes many calls to action extremely niche and complex. Embrace simplicity if you want your marketing campaigns to actually convert. Here are the five elements of writing an effective call to action.

Focus on the Imperative

The aim of a call to action is the action that you want your customer to take. So, before you mull over how to "beautify" a CTA, focus on the imperative. Words like "Join", "Buy", "Click", "Read", and "Shop" are strong words. They are direct and don't need any decoding by your audience.

Don't Put Pressure on Your Audience

High value and low risk are traits of a good CTA. Focus on both of these aspects when crafting a call to action. Inform your audience that they are not "committing" to anything yet. "Ask to join" or "Read More" are the low-risk CTAs that come under this category.

Be Persuasive

Focus on persuading correctly when writing the call to action. Take help from the copywriters. Let them implement their "PAS" or "AIDA" technique to breathe converting energy into the simple words of CTA. They will create a CTA that can createintrigue and generate curiosity in your audience to take the next step. And take the next step.

Create Urgency

"Hurry before the offer ends" or "Read before we remove this book" are some of the best examples of CTAs. They create urgency while not creating panic. This "FOMO" –Fear of Missing Out –approach has done well for the crypto space and would do the same for your business.

Make it Snappy

Combine persuasive language with great design to make your CTA pop off the page. Use bright colors and place your CTA inside the whitespace to put special attention to it.

Good Follow Up and Follow Through

Once you have gotten people through the ad and onto your landing pages and have gotten their information through CTAs, your job is still ongoing. As we said before, it sometimes takes multiple attempts to turn a lead into a customer. That is where follow-up emails come in.

Follow Up enables you to remind customers of your offers. It is also a great retargeting move, allowing you to tell those prospects that left their items on the online shopping cart to follow through with their purchase.

Writing and delivering follow-up emails are not optional when you are running an ad campaign. You can either do it manually or automate it, but you have to be active.

Writing Tips for a Follow-Up Email

Implement these tips to write a kick-ass follow-up email.

Keep the Buyer Persona In Mind

Like your marketing email, your follow-up email should be crafted after considering the buyer persona. Before you manually sendan email, assess the nature of the prospect by hitting their socials like Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook. It will help you create a better tone when you write.

Make sure that your Subject Line is Precise

Nailing the subject line matters, for it is the only way people will open up the follow-up email. 33% of the email recipients base their decisions to open the email based on the quality of the subject line.

The key to creating a great subject line is conciseness and directness. No trigger words are needed here; write like you're continuing a previous conversation. "You didn't respond to our [brand name] offer" –doesn't have a marketing flare to it, but it is direct and precise.

Make the follow-up email about the customers

Follow-up emails should address the customer's pain point. So, it is the customer who should be the hero of your email. Please don't make the mistake of making an email about it. So, instead of "Did you check out our offer", make it "Did you check out your offer?". It might sound reversed, but it makes the recipient the hero of the email.

Do not waste time on fluff

Fluff words are boring. Focus on the real meat of your content. Short, precise, and to-the-point paragraphs will accelerate the conversion.

Writing multiple Follow-Ups? Time it Right

Only 18% of customers respond to the first follow-up email. And the more follow-ups you write, the lower this percentage gets.

However, the sixth email of the sequence has a 27% approval rate.

The open rate of your emails will also depend on when you send them. The best daysto send follow-up emails are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Regarding the best times, 6 am, 8 to 11 am, and 4 to 6 pm is the time to send emails.

However, knowing the times isn't enough. How long must you wait before sending a follow-up email?

The general rule suggests that two or three days are the perfect waiting times for sending follow-ups.

Once they have responded, you can focus on pushing these new leads further down the marketing funnel.