In order to connect with a target audience, it’s necessary for a company to appeal to the desired consumer. The business needs to highlight what it has to offer and how it will improve the life (either immediately or long-term) of the buyer. Regardless of the product or service, each successfully marketed attribute from a company shares several key points of interest within the advertising approach. That is why it is necessary to include these six vital elements of a successful advertisement.
What’s the Goal of the Offer?
For an advertising goal to prove successful, a business needs to identify the desired outcome of the offer. In most instances, the goal is to make sales and convert leads into customers. However, other times a business may want to boost its social media presence or drive up its email list. There are a number of potential outcomes when creating new advertisements. A business needs to determine what kind of outcome it’s interested in far before ever releasing any kind of content to the general public.
The desired outcome of any marketing approach will impact what eventually is offered to the customer. A valuable offer will differ depending on whether a business wants to make a sale or whether a business wants to gain a social media follower. The desired endgame of the marketing offer goes to impact every other aspect of the offer. That is why this is the first point of concern a business needs to identify before moving forward.
According to the Content Marketing Institute (originally published 2016, updated 2017), there are a number of options and drives for businesses marketing to consumers. 53 percent of businesses polled said their goal for a marketing approach revolved around sales. However, 74 percent wanted to focus on brand awareness while 71 percent wanted to focus primarily on engagement. In fact, sales generating fell to the fifth most desired goal for businesses asked in the marketing survey (larger only than building an audience through subscription growth). These numbers indicate there are a variety of possible outcomes for any offer. But before a business can offer, it needs to determine what its goal is ahead of time.
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Dive Into the Target Audience
No the matter the product, for an advertisement to prove successful, it needs to connect with the target audience. Often times, a business has multiple demographics it sells to. For an advertisement to connect though, the company needs to focus on a singular target audience and not the entire consumer body it sells to. Different customer demographics purchase products for an assortment of reasons, and including all of this information will spread the advertisement thin, reducing the potential impact of the marketing material.
The target audience for a successful advertisement includes information regarding their common behavioral background, their geographical background, sociological background, demographical background and psychographic background. All of these attributes put together will help pinpoint the exact requirements of the advertisement. By hitting every one of these points of concern on the head, the marketed offer has a greater opportunity to succeed.
With the individualized specifics of the target audience, it’s then necessary to focus on several of the advertisement’s characteristics. This includes what consumer problem the product solves, is the target audience likely to purchase the given product and how will the product improve the target audience’s life. By focusing on these specifics of an advertising campaign and how it connects with the target audience, it increases the likelihood of the presented offer becoming successful.
According to Infusion Soft (2018), 85 percent of the entire United States consumer population is on social media. Of this, 58 percent follow brands on social media. A younger generation is more likely to follow a brand on social media, as 95 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 34 do follow at least one brand online. In terms of gender, women are more likely to follow a business online than a man, while women also use social media more frequently than men. On top of this, people with lower income levels are more likely to follow businesses on social media than those with higher income levels. The same research indicates 46 percent of consumers who do follow a business online do so in hopes of receiving regular coupons and promotions, while 34 percent say they are interested in an incentive. All of this indicates the importance of knowing a target audience as it not only indicates whether they are likely to use social media, but the social media platforms they use and what they’re interested in from a business.
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Offer Value
An offer should do just that: offer value. Without value, there’s no reason for the target audience to consider a product or service from the business. It needs to propel them into potentially buying the product and making a move in order to spend their own money on what is being offered in the advertisement. If the ad does not provide any distinct offer to the consumer, there’s no reason for the target audience to spend their money.
The offer itself often hinges on not only the demographic but on what is being sold in the first place. This is where identifying what the end game goal is for the advertisement. Is it to increase sales, boost social numbers or grow an email-marketing list? Each goal will likely affect the offer. In some cases, the offer itself has no monetary value to the business. The company might provide free eBooks, a trial offer or another service the customer receives a substantial discount on.
Sometimes the goal of the offer is not to make an immediate sale. Whatever the desired outcome of the offer is, the company needs to ensure it offers something of value to the key demographic. If the product contains very little (if any) actual value, even if it’s free there’s not much of a reason for the consumer to put forward the effort and sign up for the offer.
The business needs to make sure the consumer understands the value of the offer as well. Sometimes it may not prove immediately evident to the consumer. If a consumer fails to identify the immediate value of the offer, they may still not move forward with the purchase (or signing up) process.
Go Where the Market Goes
No matter how appealing an offer is unless the target audience sees it they are unable to do anything about it. That’s why it’s so important to go where the market is. By diving deeper into the specifics of a key demographic it becomes easier to determine where to market them and where to provide the offer.
Varying channels provide opportunities to go where the market goes. Social media provides an obvious choice, as do more traditional means of print and television ads. For smaller businesses focused on a local community, this may entail sending out mailers to a select region in town.
In order to go where the market exists, the business needs to know ahead of time where the market exists. Performing additional market research before pushing forward with the advertisement allows the company to understand exactly where the consumers are. From their social media platform of choice to the videos they are more likely to watch on YouTube, this preliminary understand helps make a successful advertisement and ensure the desired market sees the promotional offer.
This doesn’t mean fine-tuning will not continue even after the offer exists. Monitoring the analytical data of how the target audience responds to the advertisement. Over time, a business may determine it’s better to alter how it’s reaching out and the avenue with which it’s doing this.
Markets shift and change over time, so shifting along with the market allows for a more impactful result with the advertised offer.
According to Marketing Sherpa (originally published 2015, updated 2018), the best method for promoting a new offer differs significantly from one age range to the next. Email remains the best way to reach out to a consumer in every age range except one: those 65 and older. Consumers over the age of 65 are more likely to respond to postal mail, followed by an email. For every other demographic, using postal mail is the second most desirable outreach method, except for the 18-34-age range. For this group, television advertisements and social media ads perform better than postal mail. This information indicates the importance of not only knowing the target audience but also marketing the ad based on where the target market currently is located.
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Follow Up
Often times, promoting an offer doesn’t happen in a single attempt. It requires several different attempts before it’s possible to reach the consumer and to convince them to take action on the offer. While the first exposure to an offer may entice a target audience, it doesn’t mean they will immediately jump at the opportunity right away.
In order to remain in the vision of a key demographic, a business needs to follow up on its initial offer. A drip campaign works in such a way. Secondary emails go out to the consumer based specifically on how they responded to the previous email. A business can do the same with follow-up mailers, social media posts and any other secondary marketing methods to ensure the target audience is fully exposed to the offer.
According to Marketing Links (2017), only two percent of sales are made on the first contact (based on research released by the National Sales Executive Association). Three percent of sales are made on the second contact and five percent of sales are made on the third contact. In fact, 80 percent of all sales are made between the fifth and twelfth contact. This demonstrates the importance of not only following up but ensuring the target audience is continually exposed to the offer. Failure to do this reduces the potential of someone taking advantage of the promoted offer, even if the offer provides value to the consumer.
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Clear Call To Action
The most successful offers are usually the easiest to understand. The language is concise and up front. A potential consumer knows exactly what the offer is and how they can go about obtaining such an offer. This is why the call to action must prove as clear as possible.
A clear call to action often comes at the end of the offer. At this point, the CTA informs the target audience of exactly what they need to do. Whether this is contact the business right away, sign up for their email or does anything else of this nature, the advertisement needs to make all of this as clear as possible. If there’s any kind of confusion with the CTA, it may result in the consumer turning away and not following through with the desired action. Everything needs to remain straight, to the point, and easy enough for anyone to follow.
Different calls to action are used in varying outreach methods. Facebook alone provides a number of CTA buttons. According to Facebook, (and reported by Protocol 80, 2016), the “Learn More” CTA button performs nearly twice as well as the “Shop Now” and “Download” button. However, the set CTA does depend on the industry. The “Learn More” CTA works best for finance, healthcare, and educational businesses, while the “Shop Now” CTA works better for home, crafts, consumer electronics and apparel companies. Due to this, it indicates not only the importance of using a CTA but using the right CTA based off of the industry.
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In Conclusion
No matter the product or service, all well-performing advertisement offers share several similar commonalities between one another. From focusing on specifics within a key demographic to providing value within the advertisement itself, a number of important variables go into crafting successful marketing campaigns. These are six of the most crucial aspects of a successful advertisement offer. Each of which a business needs to practice and implement in its next marketing approach, regardless of what it offers or who it’s selling to.
