Marketing Best Practices

mktpractice

Crafting Good Ad Copy

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If you don’t want to just throw away your money, then you have to learn how to craft good ad copy that produces results.
Everyone knows that, right? But what they don’t tell you is that you have to write a lot of copy to get good copy. And you need to always be testing.
A successful ad produces the right message to the right people at the right time.

There are some simple things that aren’t easy to do. But they will ensure you get a better ad.

Write a Clear and Concise Message

  • What is your ad about
  • Who is it talking to
  • What does the ad want these people to do?

If your purpose is just brand awareness, you want it to be clear who you are and what you offer but no action is necessary on the target audience.
However, if you want them to like your page or sign up for your newsletter, you need to be clear in your copy.

Create a Strong Call to Action

Make sure you have a simple next step for them to follow. Keep the copy simple and consistent with the action.

  1. Click Here.
  2. Call This Number
  3. Sign Up Here (this one I tend to avoid. Very few people like to think they’re signing up for something)
  4. Like This Page
  5. Watch This Video
  6. Get This Free Book

Bounce the Copy Off Someone

Find a trusted person and have them review your copy. You may be missing something. Feel free to use the Facebook Page for this site. Or if you’re in my Mastermind, we can review it there.

Watch The Language

I was talking to a friend in support the other day. She was saying they’re trying to set up “easy to search” support documents for customers. The problem is the customers are using different terms then they would use.

The lesson to be learned? Use the language of your client.

Use forums or question sites to see how people describe something. For example, if you have a high priced item, you may assume that people like it for the snob factor. But what if they like that high priced item because of its safety? You’ll get more conversions if you tell people how safe they’ll be using your product instead of telling them they’ll be the envy of all their friends. (Ok, I confess, I was thinking about my Audi A6. I get teased that I like expensive cars. I do. But after being in a few accidents, the Audi keeps me feeling safer.)

Benefits Not Specifications

A huge and common mistake is to discuss the specifications instead of the benefits. If the person reading the ad goes “So what?” then you missed an opportunity.

You’re going to help this person with a problem. Let’s pretend you’re a small caterer and trying to figure out what stand mixer you should get. In your sales page, if you just said that they have a 59-point planetary mixing motion, the caterer would move on.

But if you said it would allow them to mix larger batches more thoroughly and faster than regular stand mixers, you’d get their attention. Then point out it would allow them to produce their food faster, well, that’s the pain that needs fixing.

Your goal is to have the person reading your copy go “YES! You understand me.”  You want them feeling like you’re talking directly to them. That builds know/like/trust factor, and they’re more inclined to buy.

What do you think?

Do You Really Need to Stay On the Bleeding Edge of Everything?

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Do you think you have to be on the bleeding edge of every marketing tactic? If so, you’re probably suffering from head explosions. I’m talking overwhelm.  Information overload.

cropped-bigstock-Worker-Showing-Tablet-With-Soc-102952541.jpgYou’re looking at trying to juggle Pinterest with Instagram and Facebook with Twitter. And is Tumblr still relevant?

And blogging and vlogging and YouTube and Facebook Live. And what about Snapchat.

What’s a marketer to do?

Review Your Marketing Plan

You should have already crafted a plan that details who you’re marketing to and how you’re marketing to them.

People over a certain age are probably using tablets and sharing information on Facebook. And they’re probably not on Instagram or Snapchat.

Some are. I’m not trying to clump everyone together. The key is to identify generally where your ideal target audience hangs out. Would you rather be fishing in an ocean or a bucket?

Have a Content Calendar

Know in advance what you’re going to post and when. It can be monthly or weekly. For example, I have a website CookYourselfThin. My target audience is women 35-55 who want to eat better so they can lose weight. But they think healthy cooking takes too long.

I use a weekly content calendar.

  • Monday – Lighten a Classic Dish
  • Tuesday – Substitutions
  • Wednesday – One Ingredient Focus
  • Thursday – A Quick to Make Meal
  • Friday – Restaurant Quality Dish or Meal
  • Saturday – Healthy Habit
  • Sunday – Kitchen Skill or Small Appliance or Tool

This allows me to go in and find my content with a focus. I’ll be releasing an ebook soon on Focused Facebook Ads that will show you how I drive traffic that converts.

Outsource or Batch Create

For this site and others, I’ll find themes and write about four or five blog posts based on that theme. Then I schedule it over the next few weeks or months. It works with the content calendar.

But the bottom line is that if you’re going to research one topic, you may as well write a few articles on it while the information is still fresh in your head.

Repurpose Content

Have you written an ebook? Created some videos? Wrote a bunch of good blogs? Re-use that content. The ebook could be turned into a series of videos. The videos could be turned into blog posts. The series of blog posts could be turned into an ebook.

Take a quote from one bit of your content and attach it to a vivid stock image in Canva. Then post that on the image based sites along with a call to action to click through to read more.

That’s it for now. I’ll write more tips in a future post. (maybe I’m writing it now and scheduling it…maybe I’m not…but what do you think?)

Five Quick Facebook Ad Tips

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I’m always trying to find Facebook ad tips that will save you money. Today, I have some updates for how Facebook handles things.

Updated Terms of Service

First, they added in new personal health section into their advertising terms of service.  It has examples of good images as to what will be approved or declined. Before they weren’t really clear what they would find acceptable.
Check the page regularly as they’re always updating it.

Manually Place Your Ads

Second, when you’re setting up an ad, automatic placement is the default. That means they choose. I don’t recommend that. You can switch to manual placement.
It’s better to separate mobile from desktop ads. You’ll have different audiences for both. For example, if someone is waiting somewhere and checks Facebook, they’re less likely to want to see an ad to sign up for a webinar. But they may be interested in seeing a recipe and going to your Facebook page to read more of what’s there.
Someone on their desktop is more likely to watch videos and sign up for everything.
Bottom line is make sure you uncheck “audience” and “Instagram”  focusing only on Facebook ads. This will save you money.

Retarget Custom Audiences

Third, there are some enhancements to Custom Audiences. You can create new retargeting audiences based on engagement. So an example is you post a video. If someone watched five second, you can create a Custom Audience.  You can create one if they watched it fifteen seconds as well and show them a different ad.
Retargeting means that you’re showing an ad based on a pixel that got set by someone’s behavior.  Another behavior would be going to your sign-up page but not getting to your thank you page.  You could send additional ads to those people to get them to come back and sign up for your offer.
Now, it’s essential that you never make it clear that you’re retargeting. You can’t say “Hey, you left something in your shopping cart.”  Facebook considers that too intrusive. They may be spying on us, but they don’t want us to see it blatantly happening.

Creative Hub for Agencies

Fourth is wonderful if you’re managing ads for clients. Facebook released something called the Creative Hub. It allows you to mock up an ad for the client to review and approve.

Right Side Ad Placement

Finally, if you test right side ad placement, only set up video ads and warm traffic audiences. Don’t waste your money on cold traffic. We tend to ignore what’s on the right side unless it’s someone we know, like, and trust.
Keep in mind your goals when making ads.  Test regularly. Do something to move towards it every day

Simple Crazy Traffic Review

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I found a newly released product called Simple Crazy Traffic.  It’s being offered right now at US$9.95 with a full money back guarantee.  I’ve bought other products that claim they have something new to teach me on paid advertising.  I was schooled in the arts with this one.

So that’s why I’m recommending that you pick it up at their launch price. Dave has found some really great new sources of paid traffic. And let’s face it…when you’re starting out, using paid advertising is a great way to test your sales funnel.

Sure you could wait until people find your site organically. But you may not have enough people to be testing the language and flow.

Check it out and see if it will help you boost your traffic.  I can’t wait to test it on my smaller sites.

3 Biggest Facebook Advertising Mistakes

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Most people are afraid to do Facebook advertising because they’re afraid they’ll make mistakes. Perhaps they already lost a lot of money to Google Ads. Or they spent too much on a Facebook campaign that had zero return.

This video I found lists three. Watch it and then let’s talk about it further.

Finding the Right Audience

It’s true. A big mistake is sending the ad out to everyone and spending a lot of money but getting no return. You may as well go to a convention and shout “Who is interested in learning about Tupperware!”

You want to talk to the people who have an interest in what you’re offering. The best people to buy from you are those that have already bought something similar.

Don’t believe me? How many books or courses have you purchased on a single subject like sales, marketing, or advertising? If you’re like me, one is good and five or six is better. (The key is to actually read through the material and then apply it. You don’t get smarter by osmosis.)

The best person to buy a hamburger is someone who already bought one because they know they like it.

Brian Flemming talked about a look-alike audience. You have to have your pixel seasoned before you can do that. What’s that mean? It means you send at least 1000 people from your Facebook page to your website so Facebook knows what kind of people convert best.

Not Using Conversion Pixels for Tracking

The pixel will help you tremendously. You can use it to help Facebook help you. What I really love is that you can advertise to people who went to your sales page but did not end up on your thank you page. That is called retargeting.

You don’t know what happened…maybe a girl scout came to the door. Maybe their computer froze up. Maybe they had a question. Convince them to come back and re-read your sales materials.

Conversion pixels are powerful. You can have more than one. You can have them set to track lead generation, page views, conversions. They’re the WD-40 or bailing wire of online advertising. So learn to use them.

Not Using Facebook Reports

As we mentioned, a targeted audience is the best audience. If you’re advertising to men and women, look to see who engages more with your ads. Then create a new audience for just men or women.

And then you can start targeting down even further when you find age ranges and interests. As you get better engagement and conversions, the less you’ll pay per click. Facebook rewards good performance.

Two Tricks to Improve Facebook Ads

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Want to improve your Facebook Ads? You’ll need to have a great custom audience. In the past, I’ve counseled to do research rather than just randomly choose things.

But if you’ve ever thought that you are your best target market, have I got great news for you. You can spy on how other advertisers are viewing you.

If you see an ad, click on the down arrow in the right hand side and select Why Am I Seeing This.

Rick’s free video goes into more detail. Watch it here.

The Takeaways

First, you can find out how you’re being targeted, and it may give you ideas for your custom targeting.

Manage your ad preferences allows you to see what Facebook is using to target you for ads. You may want to clean things up to adjust

You can spend a lot of money for tools that show ads that others have created and how well it performed. This can be useful for finding out how older ads performed.

Find What Works and Mimic It

You never want to flat out copy someone else’s ad. That would be wrong. But if you’ve seen that they tested head shot images of people and full body shot images, and that they continued the head shot ads, then you can be certain that they outperformed the full body shot ads.

So you should go out and find head shot images and start testing your ads with those.

You can also review the ad text and see what words worked better than others. What colors seemed to stay with the ads as time went on.

When you’re serious about advertising, you need to use all the tools to find the information that you need.

That doesn’t mean you don’t try things on your own.  You should always be testing. It’s just good to learn from other people’s mistakes.