Whether you have an in-house advertising team or you outsource to an agency, there are a few things you as a business owner should be asking your team to make sure you’re getting the best quality ads experience for your customers.
1. Who is our current target and who do we want it to be?
Almost every brand has a specific target audience that engages and purchases better than others. You can check the demographics on your website or social media pages to find your current target consumer but if you’re trying to branch out and find new potential customers, you may need to rethink your strategy. Not only do you need to tailor your message to speak to your new target, you may also need to rethink where you are advertising and if those people will see your message.
2. What platforms are best for our brand and audience?
Once you get the who and what you want to say from a brand standpoint, you need to find out where your audience is most likely to see and engage with your message. It’s the engage part that is key for a conversion or lead generation campaign but if your goal is more of awareness, that could open up more platforms. For example, most people scrolling Instagram at 10pm may be willing to buy a cute dress but would not be in the right space to sign up for a digital marketing newsletter.
3. Is our message appealing to our target audience?
Digital marketing is a very different form of marketing compared to traditional advertising for many many reasons but one is the ability to tailor your message in a way that drives people down your marketing funnel and then track their progress. If you are a new brand, you need to start with awareness. Once you get someone to engage with your ad by clicking or watching your video, you can then target those who did engage with your next message step in the funnel and keep driving them in until you get a conversion. The key is putting yourself in the mindset of your target customer and deciding where and when you would be most likely to receive the message of your brand. Our team uses personas to accomplish this and when we create a campaign, we put ourselves in the mind of each persona we are targeting.
4. What are our goals and how do we prove we hit them?
When we ask clients what their goal is for a campaign, we usually get a list of things as the goal. Social media specifically, is not great at helping you out with more than one goal at a time. If you have multiple goals, you need to get creative and more importantly, you need to get strategic with your advertising. If your ad team is using blanket messaging for all your goals, you could be wasting money on unnecessary impressions or using the wrong call to action based on your target and the platform.
We recommend ranking your goals to start and plan your budget according to the most important goal in your mind. It’s also helpful to define what success of your campaign means to you at the beginning so your ad team has a very clear picture of what you want to achieve. The last piece is of course the KPIs. What metrics will you be looking at to prove your campaigns were successful and where you can improve next month.
5. Does our reporting tell a story and is it relevant?
Lastly, you need to be sure your campaigns are successful. Another way digital marketing is (in my opinion) superior to traditional marketing is the amount of data points we can track for people engaging with your brand online. If your goal is to have someone purchase your product, you may need them to go through several steps before they do that. Your reporting should show exactly where people are dropping out of the buying process or if they are even beginning the process in the first place. A good report will be customized to show your goals, the KPIs you are using to show the success of your goal, and provide a story each month on how consumers are reacting to your message by making a goal completion.
As an example, if your goal is to have someone sign up for your newsletter but all you are tracking is impressions, that report is not giving you the information you need to prove success for your goal.
If you are asking these questions of your advertising team and not getting the answers you were hoping for, reach out to us at Digital Story. We can help your team get back on track to drive your goals to success this year!