Marketing your products and services to reach customers has always been a costly challenge for any aspiring business. Businesses have the challenge of working out how to grow their markets, informing and educating people about their products, and growing their customer base. Media, such as newspapers, radio and television has been widely used to promote businesses to thousands or millions of viewers, in the hope it would generate interest in their products. Businesses have also used alternate strategies, such as letterbox catalogues, market stalls, and of course 'word of mouth' campaigns to try and grow their business.
If your business sells its products to big retailer chains, you may also be required to provide in-store promotions and advertising. In this scenario, you will almost always be required to provide advertisement material for newspapers and catalogues in the regions your products sell.
Traditional Media
Traditional media outlets are costly. A newspaper advertisement generally costs hundreds of dollars for a small space within the newspaper. However, studies in recent years have shown that advertising in newspapers is still an effective means of advertising your business. Radio advertising, and television promotions are also effective tools to help grow your business.
Traditional Media does have one caveat; it doesn't give you a means of engaging potential customers. It relies heavily on your ability to engage the interest of the viewers, and motivating the audience to take action to contact you business.
Social Media - A new audience awaits
Social Media is on the rise. In Australia, Facebook and Instagram are the largest Social Media outlets, each having millions of active Australian users. With Facebook, they have provided a means for businesses to develop their very own business Facebook page, list products and services, and grow a user base of customers who can be interacted with at any time. More importantly, Facebook offer a way that you can create sponsored ads that can reach thousands of people, even if they are not existing customers. And it's very easy to do.
Create your advert
Assuming your business already has it's own Facebook business page...
- Create your Advertising: As obvious at it sounds, creating an effective ad is not so easy. Excellent graphically designed artwork and/or professional video ads designed for Facebook are highly recommended. Ensure your business and brand is well represented. Mistakes we've seen many times include businesses creating their own ads with poor quality photos, or creating an ad with poor grammar. If you want excellent engagement you need to provide excellent advertisement.
- Create your Facebook Post: A Facebook post is placed onto your Facebook business page timeline, and incorporates your photo or video, and any wording you wish to say.
- Boost your post: When a post has been shared to your timeline, you can elect to press the 'Boost Post' button. This is where the paid advertising begins. In this section you can allocate a budget for your total spend; the amount of days you want your campaign to run for; and you can even tailor which audience you want the advert to go to. For example, you can tailor your advertisement to only reach an age range, or to reach specific regions, like towns, cities, states, or countries. Facebook will inform you how many people your ad will likely reach.
- Analytics for your Campaign: Facebook give statistics for each post you place on your business page. This information is brilliant for determining the effectiveness of your advertising campaign, and to give you insight on how to improve your marketing for future campaigns.
Repetitiveness Rules!
The great thing about advertising on Social Media is that an advertisement shows up time and time again on people's accounts for the duration of your campaign. This equates to 'repeat exposure' of your business and your brand. How effective is repetitiveness for advertising? To prove a point, what product do you think of when someone says 'Melts in your mouth, not in your hand'? What product do you think of when you hear 'Just Do It'? These product and brand slogans gained traction due to the repetitiveness of the M&M's and Nike's advertising. In a similar way, Social Media gives you the ability to have repetitive marketing campaigns that can engrain your Brand into the minds of the audience you are targeting.
Start Advertising!
So now is a great time to start advertising your business on Social Media. So, for professional photography, exciting graphic design, and great advice, talk to us today.