When it comes to launching a marketing campaign for your business there are quite a few pieces that need to be in place before you spend any money. This guide is by no means an exhaustive list of what you need but rather a starting point to build the unique assets your campaign will need.
Let us start with visuals. Pictures and graphics are the most important aspect of any marketing campaign. Your logo appearing everywhere helps to reinforce your brand. Images are better at sharing ideas than text alone. You can convey more meaning with images, so they should be the base of any marketing campaign. Though when it comes to images, not just any old image will do. Remember we are talking about a marketing campaign for your business! You must put your best foot forward. Images should be of very high quality. They should be composed with good lighting, focus, and visual balance. They should also have little to no text in them. Facebook prefers images without text, and if you try to put an image with too much text in your ad, they will block it. Images should also be personal to your business. Stock photos work in a pinch if you do not have anything else, but you should really invest in good images for your campaign, and most if not all should be original images specifically for your business. Stock photos tend to show up in multiple places around the internet. Don’t be a copy-cat!
You should also look into video. Just as images are more powerful at conveying messages than text, videos are more powerful than static images. Again though, this is a marketing campaign for your business. You should really be putting your best foot forward. Don’t ask your nephew to come over and make the video for you, hire a professional. Like investing in a well-made pair of shoes or a reliable car, a good quality video will last you a lot longer than one marketing campaign. A powerful video can also become the centerpiece of a strong marketing campaign and really gain traction in front of your audience.
To go along with all of this graphical content you will also need good text copy. Text reinforces the messaging of an image or video. Good text copy can strike the right tone for your marketing campaign. But text copy depends on where your campaign is going to be placed. For those who have not read our blog on sales funnels I suggest you take the time to do so.
There are basically three stages to most sales funnels: starting at the bottom, the landing page that actually sells what it is you have to offer. The text here should be full of action verbs, and information to reassure your client they are making the right decision in purchasing from you. Copy here needs to be problem/solution oriented. Identify the client’s pain points and illustrate how your product/service solves their problem. You should have some good pictures on this page and the polish should be top notch.
The step above this purchase page is your landing page, website, social media page/s. The text copy here is all about expanding the information about your product or service. You should talk up the benefits and features of your product. You should have testimonials. Along with this additional information you should have images or videos that showcase your product or service and how it will make a difference in the lives of your clients. The last top-most level of your sales funnel are your ads. These are the things that get everyone’s attention. The text here should cause people to stop and click through to one of your middle pages of the campaign. Depending on where you advertise, you have either great restrictions on what you can say in terms of length (Twitter), or you have restrictions on images (they are required on Instagram). So it is in this top level that you are going to need the most diversity when it comes to images, videos, and text. You really need to take the time and create a separate ad for each platform you want to advertise on. So how and where should you launch a campaign? That is what we are going to discuss next.
When determining how and where you should launch your campaign there are two rather important questions you need to answer first: what are the results you are looking for, and where are you headed?
Are you looking to market to a hip young audience that is all about image and short attention spans? Then you need to look at snap chat, Instagram, and twitter and stay away from LinkedIn. Are you going for moms and young women? Then investigate Pinterest. Are you going after a professional clientele? Then LinkedIn is you best bet. Are you just going after the masses, getting the word out about your business? Then you need to advertise where the masses are and that is still YouTube and FaceBook.
What are the results you are looking for? Hopefully by now you have read our blog post about finding your ideal client. You need to first identify where your ideal client is on the internet so you know which platforms to advertise on. When going for the masses remember the top three websites are Google, Youtube, and Facebook. Beyond that there are plenty of guides out there that show which demographic is on which social media platform. We always recommend to our clients that they are on at least one of the big three because that will help bring new people to your brand. After that you are looking for sites that have a high concentration of your ideal client base.
You also need to answer the question of where you want to head with your campaign. Of course the goal of every campaign is going to be brand awareness and purchase decision. But what I am talking about is writing those goals down. How do you know a marketing plan is being successful? You need to know how much you want your social media numbers to change so you know if your campaign is working or needs tweaking. So write down how much you want your engagement to grow, write down you follower goals, write down your views per month goals. You need those in place before you start so you can effectively maneuver your campaign from day one to make sure you reach those goals. Also I have found if you wait to write those goals down after you start the campaign, you never do and then you have no way of knowing if you are getting the results you need.
Now that you have these questions answered you can finally launch your campaign. You need to make sure the purchase page/link/graphic/button/etc is in place first. Then you need to make sure all your landing pages are done. Lastly you create your ads and link them to your funnel. Finally when everything is in place and looks good you can start putting money into your ads. Over the run of the ads keep an eye on your numbers, and if an ad on a particular platform is outperforming your others, adjust your plan. If you did multiple different ads with different images and text on the same platform, and one of those is outperforming the others take money away from the underperforming ads and put it in the one that is doing what you want. Just because an ad is out there does not mean you cannot tweak. Just be sure you give things a chance before you go changing things. As Billy Joel says, “Don’t go changing, to try and please me…”
And as always if you have any questions about this or other social media marketing issues give us a shout-out at contact@armedia.us .
