The Three Steps to Social Media Advertising Success

Many businesses and brands find social media advertising difficult to understand, opting to avoid it rather than engage with it. However, businesses avoid social media advertising at their own peril, because despite its ever-changing rules and developments, it is one of the most effective methods of advertising. 

Social media advertising should be considered an essential element of any advertising plan, as the sheer numbers of people who use these platforms makes them impossible to ignore. Billions of active users consume content on the Facebook platform, and others, including Snapchat and Twitter, continue to grow and expand. 

Social media advertising is not just one thing; it is a collection of different parts and techniques, including digital design, analysis, audience targeting, online copywriting, A/B testing and pixel tracking. These elements come together to form effective, successful social media advertising campaigns.

As there are lots of different elements to social media advertising – as well as an abundance of different techniques to try – businesses must be willing to experiment before finding success.  Even top industry professionals, such as Chief Creative Officer Ajab Samrai, accept that experimentation and failure are inevitable. However, whilst experimentation is key, there is a three-step plan that businesses can follow, which will guide them towards success in their social media advertising. 

Top of the Funnel

Increasing brand awareness will focus on customers that do not know your brand, or who are not actively seeking a particular service or product. Organic social media posts are an effective way to improve brand awareness on social media platforms, and brands should also focus on amplifying the content that is already performing well. By boosting content that is performing well amongst your target audience, a business can almost guarantee engagement – and simply amplifying content that is already published costs very little time or money. 

Middle of the Funnel

In the middle of the sales funnel are the customers that know your brand, or those that are looking to find a particular product/service. Advertise to this audience segment by targeting and retargeting. There are some very effective tools for doing so, such as Facebook’s Lookalike custom audience tool and Facebook Pixel. 

Bottom of the Funnel

At the bottom of the sales funnel are the customers looking to make a purchase, who may just need something to tip the scales in your favour. Social media adverts that contain a great offer – such as free shipping, coupons and discounts - are highly effective at converting potential sales into actual sales. 

Marketing for Small Businesses

Businesses must have an intuitive and in-depth understanding of their customers if they are to successfully market their products to them. Understanding each customer’s needs, wants and preferences is essential in marketing, though it is not the only requirement. Businesses must also be able to clearly communicate with their target audience, presenting themselves in a persuasive and believable manner.

Award-winning Chief Creative Officer Ajab Samrai has worked with plenty of global brands and big businesses throughout his career in the marketing industry – and as a result he has an instinctive understanding of the marketing process. Some of the best marketing tips for small businesses will be shared in this article, offering an impression of the present-day marketing landscape.

Marketing Methods

With thousands of platforms, methods and techniques for marketing a business or product, small businesses can choose to employ traditional advertising methods or more up-to-date digital ones – or, better yet, a combination of the two.

Online traffic, paid advertising, email promotions and social media ads are all effective tools in modern marketing. However, there are plenty of other options that may be effective, including media coverage, press attention, giveaways, contests and guerrilla tactics.

Each form of marketing will have a very different reach and results. Depending on the platform that is used, the language that is chosen and the budget that is set, a marketing campaign will be able to reach a certain volume of people, in a particular target audience, and at a particular stage of the sales funnel. The different forms of marketing vary dramatically in terms of reach, results and costs. Therefore, many businesses choose to use a mixture of marketing techniques to communicate with the biggest possible audience.

The Disadvantages and Blind Spots of Market Research

What Is Targeting?

Every business should understand that it is only attractive to a certain segment of the overall market. By acknowledging this, a business will avoid wasting time, money and other precious resources trying to sell to an audience with zero interest in its products.

The most successful marketing campaigns are created with the target market in mind, and as such, market research is a vital element of every effective marketing campaign. By defining the target market, a business will have much more success communicating directly with this audience, offering them the products that they want and need.

Marketing for Small Businesses