Advertising your business is easy, right? You just need to create the adverts and then put them out there so that the public can see them. And then, you can simply sit back and relax until all of that new business comes rolling in. That’s how it works, right? Well, not exactly. If you are just putting out adverts on various platforms without even thinking about it, then you could be heading for trouble.
In actual fact, advertising is something of a fine art. You need to carefully plan each campaign to ensure that the marketing strategy has a beneficial payoff. Not only that, though, but it has to work out as good value for money for your company. That’s how you ensure that each of your adverts is as effective as it could be.
Think you need to improve your SME’s advertising efforts? Here are some dos and don’ts that you need to follow.
Do Consider Outsourcing
If you don’t have time to focus on your advertising, then don’t be worried about outsourcing it to a marketing agency or specialist freelancer. This is often useful when there are only a handful of people working in your small business but don’t yet have a dedicated marketing department. To help grow your business to get to the point where you can employ marketing professionals, it’s really worth outsourcing it than forgetting about it. You can outsource it to someone to work on remotely, but you might prefer to use an agency or freelancer in your local area so that you can have face-to-face meetings with them every so often.
Don’t Rely On Freebies
You might be tempted to save some money and rely solely on free advertising opportunities. Unfortunately, though, these won’t be able to deliver the significant results that you need in your business. For example, lots of business owners think that they can get by on social media posts and free adverts alone. That isn't the case, though, as you now have to compete against companies who are also using PPC. Wondering what is PPC? It stands for pay-per-click and means the adverts that are at the top of Google search results. These get a lot of clicks and can drive a significant amount of traffic to your website. Believe me, they are a lot more effective than any free adverts you post on social media!
Do Figure Out Your Target Audience
Do you know who you are targeting with your adverts? If not, why not? By researching the correct target audience, you will be able to ensure that you create tailor-made ads that will appeal and reach this specific group of people. If you aren’t sure who to target the adverts at, carrying out some market research should help you define the best audience for your products. Once you know which demographics to target, you can then use targeted sponsored posts on the like of Facebook and Twitter. Doing this, rather than simply aiming the advert at anyone and everyone, will bring you a lot more traffic and an increased chance of turning that traffic into sales!
Don’t Forget About Analytics
Another major mistake that many companies make on a regular basis is that they don’t check their analytics. There are lots of platforms and programs that you can now use to track how each of your ads is doing, and it really is important that you are using these to check how the ads are performing. You can then use the analytics and results to tweak your future adverts and improve them. For instance, if you run the same ad twice but target it at two completely different demographics, take a look at the analytics and see which of the demographics responded better to it. In the future, this is the demographic that you should mainly be targeting.
Do Consider Seasonal Advertising
It’s always a good idea to consider which holidays and seasons are coming up and try to tie in your marketing and advertising campaigns with them. Even though this can sometimes seem a bit gimmicky, you might be surprised to see just how well the public respond to them. Holiday promotions are money when they're done well. So, for instance, in December you should endeavor to put out some festive-themed adverts and social media posts. Easter adverts will also go down very well indeed as well.
Don’t Ignore Your Brand
Your brand needs to be instantly recognizable in each advert that your company runs. So, it’s a good idea to take a look at your current adverts. When you look at them, do you instantly see your brand? Do you think that the public would know that it is an advert for your company just by looking at it? If not, then you need to try and incorporate more of your branding into the adverts. You can do this by using your logo, using the same typefaces and fonts throughout your marketing campaigns, and using the same color scheme throughout.
Do Remember Content Is King
It can be easy to go all out with adverts and push all of your marketing budget into creating new and exciting ad campaigns. However, in the current climate you can not afford to forget that content is king. Sure, adverts will help to open up your company to new customers, but it isn't enough on its own. You need to make sure you are also pumping time and money into your content marketing. So, just because you are posting lots of adverts online and even running TV and radio commercials, that doesn’t mean you can neglect your company’s blog and website content. If you do, you will find that your website’s SEO starts to deteriorate and you will lose your ranking in web search results. That will be a big blow for any business these days.
Hopefully, all of the above dos and don’ts can help you come up with some gripping advertising strategies and campaigns for your company. But don’t forget that they aren’t the be-all and end-all of marketing!
I hope you enjoyed this article about what you should do and avoid doing for SME advertising campaigns & small business marketing.
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