If you're a business owner, you know how important it is to advertise your brand. You've probably tried all kinds of advertising methods, including radio, television and print ads.
But are these traditional marketing methods still effective? The answer is "yes." But there's more to it than just throwing an ad in front of people's faces and hoping for the best.
Here are some tips for advertising effectively:
Show your customers that you care about them
A lot of businesses just don't seem to care about their customers anymore — but this can be detrimental to your success. If someone feels like they're just another number or dollar sign, they're likely to go elsewhere for their needs and services. If you show them that you care about them as individuals by offering personalized service, they'll feel like they matter more than just another customer at your business.
Create content that speaks directly to your ideal customer base. Know who your ideal customer is — what age group do they fall into? What gender? What interests do they have? Create content that speaks directly to them on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter so they feel like their questions are being answered right away by someone who knows what they're talking about.
Promote the right product to the right people
You need to promote your products to people who are interested in them. You can do this by targeting your ads based on people's interests, location and other factors.
The best way to do this is using Facebook's Custom Audiences tool. This lets you upload a list of email addresses or phone numbers and then target your ads so that they show up only on Facebook pages that contain those email addresses or phone numbers.
This is particularly useful for e-commerce merchants as it allows them to show their products only to customers who have already bought something from them.
If you don't have a customer list yet (or if your business is still too small), then try running Facebook ads based on interests instead: choose an interest category that matches with your product (for example, if you're selling hiking gear then choose "Outdoor Recreation") and start running ads there. Then look at which ad gets the highest conversion rate and start showing it more often than other ads in that same category.
Engage your leads and prospects on social media
The best way to advertise to your customers without bothering them is by engaging them in conversation, whether it's through a Facebook post or a Twitter reply. You can also use social media ads to target those who have already shown interest in your brand.
There are many different types of social media ads you can use for this purpose:
Facebook ads: You can target people based on their interests, demographics and location. When you create an ad, you'll be asked about the audience you want to reach and what kind of post they'll see when they click on that ad. For example, if you're promoting a new product line, you might choose an image of one of the products with a caption that asks "What's your favorite item?".
Twitter ads: You can target users based on keywords they've tweeted at least once in the past 30 days. This allows you to reach users who may not follow your business account but are talking about similar topics as those who do follow it.
Track your customer behavior, and optimize accordingly
When you know what customers do on your landing page, you can optimize the content and design to better suit their needs. For example, if most people are clicking on the “buy now” button instead of scrolling down to read more about your product or service, then maybe you should make it bigger.
Use A/B testing to test different versions of your landing page against each other. You could test as simple as changing the button color or text size. It’s a good idea to use tools like Kissmetrics or Optimizely for this kind of testing because they allow you to see how effective each variation is before rolling out a new version live (meaning no user will ever see both variations).
Takeaway: The saying "The customer is always right" does not apply to advertising. Advertising is an art form, and the consumer is merely an audience to be captivated. You can only engage your consumer once you have them hooked or fixated on purchasing your product. And let's face it, no one likes being sold to unless they were already willing to buy whatever it is being sold. Remember that advertising involves tricking the brain into thinking that you're making a consumer happy with what you are offering them; it's all about imitation of feelings.