14 Digital Media Advertising Tips for Your Marketing Strategy
Did you know over 50% of adults are unable to correctly identify a paid advertisement or sponsored links in a results page of a search engine or social media feed?
This is a great example of the many reasons digital marketers are using a digital media advertising strategy.
Instead of waiting for organic content marketing and SEO to get results, you can also be using paid ads. But be warned, it’s easy to dump a ton of money into paid ads with little results if it isn’t done correctly.
So what’s the best way to implement digital media advertising in your marketing strategy?
Check out these fourteen tips to get the lowdown for building your campaign.
1. Create a Mission
Your digital media advertising efforts need to have an end goal in mind. For example, a company could say:
“This digital marketing campaign’s main objective is to position X company as the lead supplier of Y product in the city of Z.”
It should be specific in what the primary objective is while not referencing any particular metrics. The actual numbers will come within the strategy itself. This mission is important for several reasons. It will:
- Keep the team on the same page
- Help drive key decisions around the strategy
- Allow the strategy to be more efficient and not have duplicity
Ultimately, it will allow you to make better decisions when designing your digital media advertising strategy.
You’ll always be able to ask yourself, “Will this help get us closer to our objective?” If the answer is no, you know to move in another direction.
2. Identify Your Niche
Your digital marketing efforts will get way better results if you have a narrowed niche market.
Sometimes it feels right to try and market ‘to all the people’ in order to entice as many leads as possible. What this actually does is create a campaign that isn’t enticing enough to convert anyone.
Identify who it is that needs your product or services. Then get clear on what their exact frustrations are. Use their frustrations as a marketing tool to express how you can solve their problem.
At the end of the day, they aren’t getting sold on your product or service. They’re getting sold on the transformation you offer.
3. Do Market Research
Business optimisation happens when a company gathers great data, makes actionable insights from the data, then implements systems to improve their processes.
The first step is the data collection.
You’ll need to do this for your digital media advertising strategy, too. Now that you’ve chosen your niche audience, you’ll want to:
- Create surveys
- Send out emails
- Create polls on social media
The point of these outreaches is to ask specific questions about your audience’s needs.
Find out, in their own words, what they frustrations are and what would be the dream solution. Your advertising will express how your products or services bridge the gap between the two.
4. Consider Geofencing
Geofencing is a relatively new movement in digital marketing. It creates an invisible ‘fence’ around a specific area and allows you to send targeted ads to people within the perimeter.
Imagine you’re walking down the street and stop for a coffee. As you sip and scroll Facebook, you see an ad: “Buy a pair of shoes today and get a free purse! The store X is having an exclusive sale, today only.”
You look up and — low and behold — there’s the store from the ad! This is the power of geofencing.
Rather than target randomly for things like in-store specials, you can target people who are in the area.
This can increase conversions and response dramatically as it makes ads time-specific.
5. Go Mobile
Did you know more than half of all website visits are now on mobile devices?
If you aren’t prioritising mobile, you’re losing out on ROI for your digital media advertising strategy.
The willingness to make purchases directly from a mobile device is already huge. And it’s only going to continue to grow.
The desktop is dead and mobile is in. Make sure your ads are catering to the movement.
6. Tap into Minimum Bids in the Industry
What’s the going rate for minimum bids in your industry? This knowledge can help you make smart purchasing decisions when it comes to your paid ads.
Monitor your minimum bids as well. Keep track and be consistent to ensure you’re aware of what ROI you’re getting on your spending.
This way you can hone in on the efforts that are giving back the most profitability wise.
7. Check Out Popular Ad Formats
The best way to increase your conversion rate is to focus on ad formats that are currently converting.
For example, video media has significantly increased in popularity and continues to do so. This is for good reason.
Companies are seeing a great ROI on their video content. It primes consumers to make purchase decisions.
How can you incorporate video and other popular formats into your paid ads?
This is an important question to answer while building your digital media advertising strategy.
8. Understand Your Buyer’s Journey
Your buyer’s go through three key stages before making a purchase of your products or services.
- The Awareness Phase. This is when your consumer knows they have a problem and there must be a solution for it out there.
- The Consideration Phase. This is when your consumer has found your brand and started interacting… They now consider you a possible solution.
- The Decision Phase. Now your customer likes your brand and only needs to overcome their purchasing objections.
You need to specifically understand what part of the journey your consumers are in when they are seeing your advertisements.
This will allow you to cater your messaging and placement for better conversions.
For example, if your prospect sees an ad for your web design services but has no idea what web designs services are… they’re never going to engage.
Be conscientious about the journey your buyers go through. Then use your ads to guide them through it.
9. Pick the Best Key Performance Indicators
A great KPI is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
You don’t want to accumulate a ton of metrics if they don’t serve you towards achieving your objective.
Keep your objective in mind when you are creating your KPI dashboard. You’ll want to measure KPIs connected to conversions, click-throughs, and more.
Your digital media advertising KPIs will inevitably be linked to your Social Media channels.
You’ll also want to consider other KPIs for every channel you choose to use for advertising.
10. Consistency Across Channels
Once you’ve chosen the best channels for your digital media advertising strategy you’ll want to focus on consistency.
You need to give equal efforts to the channels chosen in order to get a true representation of the ROI from each of them.
Make sure you are consistent with:
- Graphic design and imaging
- Branding
- Brand voice
- Marketing messaging
- Objectives
- The next step of the funnel
For example, you may want to modify an image slightly for different channels. But it’s a good idea to use a similar or the same image for the ad.
Then when leads click through you’ll want it to take them to the same next step, such as a landing page or opt-in.
11. Learn from the Analytics and Adapt
It’s great to have a digital marketing plan. But it also needs to account for some adaptability.
Once you begin to measure metrics and collect data, you’ll inevitably want to shift your tactics slightly during your campaign.
For example, you may run a split test with two similar ads that have a different image. Once one performs better you’ll invest more heavily in this ad.
12. Leverage the Right Social Media Platforms
We already talked about how important it is to get to know your target audience.
This becomes even more relevant when you look at the statistics for social media use.
For example, 88% of 18–29-year-olds use Facebook. This means if your target demographic is primarily in this age group, it would be a great platform to leverage.
There are key considerations like this for every social media platform depending on your target audience.
13. Mix Organic Strategy with Paid Strategy
Your digital media advertising strategy is about your paid efforts. But it’s also important to consider an organic content marketing strategy.
The two mixed together are more powerfully effective. You’ll get more conversions, and it will greatly improve your chances of doing well at the next point.
14. Focus on Know, Like, and Trust
In today’s digital landscape there are a ton of ads out there. Your prospects are being bombarded with them regularly.
You’re going to need to get creative with your ad efforts.
Focus on creating copy that increases your know, like, and trust factor. This means always looking to build brand loyalty, even when you’re selling.
This means sharing content such as client stories, fun team activities, and other humanising content.
Digital Media Advertising Next Steps
When it comes to your digital media advertising strategy, we recommend getting some help from the experts.
There is a lot to cover to ensure you create a campaign that will give you an excellent ROI. And help you meet your major mission and objectives set out in step one.
We’ve got you covered. You can learn more about our digital marketing services here.
Strategic Optimisation + Growth consultant for lean start-ups and change-making entrepreneurs enabling them to grow their business in a sustainable and profitable way. My super-powers are customer experience optimisation, SEO, and leveraging data insights for business growth. #fuelledbycoffee
Originally published at optimiseandgrowonline.com.au on August 19, 2018.
