Advertising is expensive, especially for a startup or small business working with limited funds. In many cases, you can’t afford a large loss, which is why you must be intentional about targeting the right customers, controlling your message, and measuring results.
Keep reading for some crucial advertising tips that will help you convert more prospects into paying customers!
6 Tips for a High-Converting Advertising Strategy
Want to make sure you get the most out of your advertising efforts and prevent your hard-earned dollars from going to waste? Before rushing to hire an advertising agency or launch your next online marketing campaign, do the following:
1. Determine Your Ideal Customer
First, who is it that you’re trying to reach? You can’t reach everyone, especially with a modest budget.
Instead, you will want to target the prospect that has the most in common with your business—the type of customer that is most likely to buy your products, like them, and continue doing business with you. Take some time to map out this profile—their persona, wants, needs, interests, and any other attributes your best customers have in common.
2. Identify the Right Medium for Your Business
Today, there are more marketing channels than ever before—print advertising, image advertising, pay-per-click (PPC advertising), social media paid ads, email marketing, and influencer marketing, to name only a handful!
Not every medium is the right fit for every business. Identify the one that allows you to reach your ideal customers and convey your message as clearly as possible.
3. Test Your Strategy for a Minimum of 6 Months
Many businesses make the fatal mistake of giving up on their campaigns too early. They try advertising for a few weeks, don’t see the results they had in mind, and throw in the towel.
It can be a while before your advertising strategy yields results, and committing to a longer contract—as short as six months but as long as an entire year—forces you to advertise consistently and not overreact to early returns.
Think about some of the most successful jingles, commercials, and online ads you’ve seen. Even the catchiest, most memorable advertisements need time to marinate in the minds of customers!
4. Ensure Your Message Aligns with Your Goals
Your business has a message it needs to convey, and it’s your job to ensure that it’s delivered clearly.
You know your business better than anyone, so this goes back to knowing your ideal customer. If you don’t know who your ideal customers are, you’re not ready for advertising. After all, if you don’t know who they are, how can you expect your advertiser to?
Similarly, only you know what separates you from your competition. Of all the choices a customer can make (including nothing), why should they choose you? You need to know the answer to this, and it needs to be in your ad. Don’t settle for anything less!
5. Don’t Overcomplicate Your Approach to Advertising
If you’re a small business with a small budget, it’s important that you keep things simple, especially if you’re short on expertise, personnel, or resources to commit to your advertising strategy.
So, start with one advertising tool—the one you think will best allow you to reach and connect with your target audience. Remember, it’s always better to do one thing well than to do five things poorly.
6. Don’t Advertise Unless You Can Measure the Results
Image advertising works, but it’s difficult to track and measure, making it a risky venture for startups and small businesses.
Big companies can often afford to blow money on image advertising because their businesses aren’t dependent on one marketing campaign. In many cases, they can absorb a large loss. What’s more, they have access to personnel, tools, and data that allow them to measure the results to some degree.
Small businesses don’t have this same luxury. You need to use an advertising medium that will allow you to make a direct correlation between an ad and a sale. Unless you have a team of data analysts on board, the reality is that you’re going to struggle with image advertising.
Stick to direct mail and email campaigns, social media marketing, and other types of online advertising that make it easy to track, measure, and adjust your campaigns as needed!