Is It Time to Embrace the Paid Social Media Marketing Option?
Eighth in a series
It’s tough reaching customers when they are overwhelmed by content. But don’t join the “pay-to-play” crowd before you learn how to play this game to win.
Last time, we hit all the high points for successfully connecting with your social media audience in an organic way. While it’s important to continue this kind of interaction with your core followers, your reach is, unfortunately, limited. Complicated algorithms control who sees which of your posts, so you can’t count on organic marketing to fulfill all of your goals. Eventually, you’ll want to explore paid options.
Some folks are sure that all they need to solve their marketing problems is to throw some money at them, while others are loath to part with even a single dollar. By researching the options and setting reasonable goals, you won’t waste your money or the opportunity to grow your audience.
Start with what you know
The logical place to start with paid marketing is to boost your past posts. Take a look at your insights and analytics to see which of your organic posts get the most attention. Since they worked well with your current audience, there’s an excellent chance that they will work equally well with the new, similar, audience you can create with the paid advertising option.
Frivolous things like funny cat memes are popular, but don’t blow your budget to boost those. Look instead for well-received posts that have a clear Call To Action (CTA) that will benefit your business by making a sale, generating a lead, or adding an email to your list. You planned out your customer’s journey toward the “buy” decision way back when you built your website foundation. Use that information to guide your marketing decisions now.
Develop something new
If you have success with a few boosted posts, you can try creating a unique ad. Again, to make the most of your budget, have a very specific business goal in mind for each ad that you create. Designing a successful ad isn’t easy either. Essentials include a strong graphic, persuasive text, and a compelling CTA. Even when you think you have created a winner, early results can surprise you. It pays to try out a couple of choices before going all-in on the best one.
When you set up an ad on social media, you’ll be given all kinds of options for building the perfect audience. Remember that “everyone” is NEVER your audience! Be specific about geography if you are a local business, or gender if that’s important to your appeal.
Finally, understand that those algorithms take a little time to generate and then act on data. If you decide on running an ad campaign on the Monday before Black Friday, don’t assume that your ads will be accurately hitting the target in time to be successful.
Pursue likely candidates
It’s happened to you, so you already know how this works. All you have to do, apparently, is think about getting a new mattress, and suddenly mattress ads are everywhere on your social media feeds! This kind of advertisement is called retargeting, and while a bit unnerving, it does make sense.
If someone cared enough about your organization to interact with your website, popping in via a retargeted ad campaign reminds them what they were interested in. Otherwise, the message that originally caught their eye just gets buried in the sheer volume of content generated every day. You miss out on a prospective customer, but they miss out, too.
Get serious results with serious investment
Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) is a marketing tool that delivers significant results, but it is not for the casual marketer. Remember that this is the world wide web, so you are competing on Google with the entire world, including companies with substantial budgets.
Researching and choosing the terms that will best fit your audience is only the beginning. Having a clear understanding of the bidding process and the budget to fully participate is also critical to success. Sprocket Websites partners with an accredited Google Ads expert to help you find that audience when needed.
Organic social media marketing is the best first step, but the next step is to start investing in paid ads to reach new customers. There are lots of options to explore at price points for every budget. Best of all, the Sprocket team has years of experience in paid advertising for our clients and can guide you through the process. Let us do the same for you!
Sprocket, Run My Ad Campaign for Me!
Read the next post in this series.
Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich from Pexels
Kate Gingold
I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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