Social Media Advertising: not a might do, a must do.

Social Media Advertising is not a might do it is a must do.

Why is that you ask?

It is strange the things that you notice when you actually take a break from the office. I am working from home this week as it’s school holidays and my 6 and 9 year old are sitting behind me right now playing Skylanders trap team and are in the process of slowly driving me mad with noise. It was then that an interesting parallel occurred to me. This is no different to the level of noise and distraction now facing marketers and consumers in the digital space.

The reality is – the good old days of putting a full page ad in the Yellow Pages and watching the money roll in are long gone. This poses some serious challenges for business owners with a finite marketing budget.

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I often get asked by clients “how do I spend my marketing dollars?” and “what are the critical things that I need to know or focus?”. Here are some key things to consider:

 

1. Do you have it all covered? There is more to it than just TV, radio and print.

Have you ever noticed when the minute ads come on TV, people in your household pick up their smart devices and start surfing their social networks? The reality is that one of the best uses of your Social Media Advertising is to be used to back up your Radio and TV spend. It is important to ensure any social ads running in tandem with other marketing channels (such as TV or radio) are reflective of the same messaging. Ultimately, increasing the awareness your target audience has of your brand and/or its message. Even more importantly, make sure you are capturing this audience on your website through a Facebook Pixel at the same time so you can re-market to your web visitors.

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2. Understand your Google Analytics and the paths of travel on your website.

We often get asked to run campaigns to websites where the client has never looked at their Google Analytics data, and is keen to have us drive traffic to pages that are not optimised for conversion, or loaded with a clear call to action.

No fear! There are some great plug-ins available that allow you to see click through rates on different parts of your website. It also pays to have a good look in analytics itself at Acquisition, User Flow and Demographics, which is a great place to start if you don’t know the sources of current web traffic to your website. Having a good grip on where your traffic comes from is key to then optimising those channels to get more people to your website, and in turn your business!

 

 

3. Yes! Facebook has your audience – even if you are a B2B company

Often clients in the B2B space who are looking at social media advertising in Adelaide or around the country will say to me “but my clients aren’t on Facebook”. When I point out to them that the current SA Telstra Business of the Year Winner and the SA Telstra Business Woman of the Year winner are friends with me on Facebook and are quite active, it usually changes the direction of the conversation.

There are CEO’s, Managing Directors, Business Owners and Marketing Managers and many many more people on Facebook to speak to through Social Media Advertising. In saying that, you need to know what it is you want to talk to them about and whether or not you are merely conducting a brand awareness exercise, or if you actually want to generate leads and conversions. All of these different campaigns are structured depending on what you are trying to achieve and your normal path to purchase.

 

4. No, it’s not a license to print money.

Like any marketing spend it can be elusive tracking conversions as it takes time, tweaking and testing to be able to find the magic formula that hits the Action hot button.

That being said, consistency is key. The age old saying of ‘7 touch points to get a sale’ is dead. Depending on your path to purchase your sales funnel could require as many as 13 touch points to lead to an enquiry. The higher the cost of purchase is, or the more barriers to purchase there are, the more touch points required.

 

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Think with Google snapshot

There is a great tool from Think with google that allows you to play around with some of their data to see how much Social factors influence the beginning, middle and end of the purchase process.Your Social Media Advertising campaigns may have a different impact on your customers based on where they are on the purchase path. At the beginning, social allows customers to learn that your product or service exists, in the middle it creates interest and want, and at the end it helps seal the deal.

I often say “Social Media is not the silver bullet” in your marketing arsenal, but it is a serious tool in your marketing tool kit and one worth exploring.

If you need help running your social media advertising campaigns and marketing to your ideal client we have you covered!  Whether it is Strategy, Content Management or advertising and best of all; we always start with coffee. At Digital Marketing AOK we firmly believe in getting to know our clients well so we can do our best to help them achieve their marketing goals, so coffee is always the best place to start.

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Simone Douglas

Simone Douglas

Simone is co-founder and Senior Principal Solutions Architect of Digital Marketing AOK. Simone offers over 17 years in corporate management roles encompassing generalist HR recruitment and development of small to large teams across multiple sites, industry sectors and states. Experienced in a variety of social media platforms and their complimentary applications, social media strategy, risk management, disaster recovery and associated HR policies and processes.