When it comes to marketing through the internet, you have so many options at your disposal. Each one offers its unique benefits. Running a blog, for instance, can help you establish credibility, trust and authority in your industry. Commenting in forums and on relevant blogs can help you connect with your ideal customer, and widen your audience.
Display ads are another potential powerhouse because they get your products and services right in front of the people most likely to buy from you. But, merely throwing up an ad on a relevant site is not enough to maximize their full potential. Like any marketing technique, you must carefully craft your message for optimal response. If you have not already been using them, you should seriously consider. Display advertising is a great way to amplify your advertising efforts, and here are some tips for putting together an effective campaign.
Make Sure Important Information is Included
Being able to completely customize a display ad is very exciting, and it is easy to get caught up in the creative aspect, and the appearance, while forgetting the basics, such as important information necessary to get the reader to click on that ad. Carefully consider your goal for the display.
Are you just trying to increase brand awareness? Are you hoping to call attention to a specific product or service? If you were doing the latter for example, you would want to include details about the product, and any unique selling points, such as offering free delivery, special discounts or a money-back guarantee.
A Clear Call to Action
Make sure your ad has a clear call to action—if there is some specific action you want the reader to take, it is imperative you spell it out very clearly. You are obviously trying to sell something, and the reader is quite aware of that—it would seem that you wouldn’t need to explicitly suggest any sort of action, but you do. Telling people to do something is much more likely to make them do it. A few years back, a marketing company study found tweets that included a request to retweet were twice as likely to be shared as updates that didn’t ask for a share. So, think of your goal, and include an appropriate call to action, whether it be ‘click here’ ‘act now,’ sign up for free updates,’etc.
Clarity and Simplicity
Clarity and simplicity is key to any successful marketing campaign. This can be one of the harder things to implement, however. Our natural tendency may be towards sharing a lot of information in hopes the more someone knows about our offering, the more interested he will be. But, you only have a short time to grab attention, and too much information typically works against you in that initial contact. The ad should be designed in such a way that what you are offering is immediately obvious. If you are trying to sell a product or service, be very specific about what it is, and a clear benefit. If you are building brand awareness, you might offer a free gift or some other offering to introduce the reader to your company.
Display ads are a great form of paid marketing when done properly, so be patient, and give careful thought to your campaign. And, no matter what you do, always test, test,test to see what is working and what needs tweaking.