12 Secrets to Make Ads that Still Work in 2017
Online advertising is more competitive than ever before, with virtually every company vying for the interest of the consumer online. Many of the old mediums that worked decades ago are no longer effective, now that we live in a new media world driven by online content.
- Powerful, Catchy Headlines Are Everything
Most consumers will only read your headline, so make it pithy and powerful.
On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the copy of an ad, so your headline needs to pack a punch, since it’s the only thing most consumers will read. Write your headlines with the assumption that consumers will, at best, skim the copy.
When you pen the headline of your ad, those 5 to 10 words need to be powerful, impactful, and immediately capture the consumer’s attention in the simplest way possible. Don’t make the consumer think. When an ad headline makes a sorry attempt to to be tricky, you leave your consumer puzzled, flummoxed, and uninterested in your ad. Simplicity and parsimony drive clicks.
2. Test Your Ads
Iteration is the only way to advertise online.
You can’t know which ad will work before running it online on various platforms, garnering feedback about which ads worked best, and then iterating to craft the optimal ad for the consumer you are trying to reach. Testing is everything.
With online advertising, you can run dozens of different ads with limited budgets and then evaluate the analytics for each ad, determining what worked and what did not work, and increasing budget on the ad that worked best. It’s usually more beneficial to isolate what you did right and do more of it (rather than focusing on what you did wrong). The best advertisers are “Bayesian” in the sense that they constantly update their hypothesis as more information becomes available and they get more feedback on what aspect of their ad worked best.
3. People Respond to Images, Not Words
The image sets the tone for the rest of your ad, so make it impactful.
The image is the first thing your consumers see, so your image needs to have impact and immediately convey your ad’s message. After seeing the image, they see the headline next, which should give context to the image they see. Humans are more visual than verbal, so whichever image they see will tap into every association they have and that will be the context in which they associate your product.
4. Your Ad Should Reiterate What Your Product Can Do for Your Customer
There is a saying in advertising: “people don’t buy drills…they buy holes.” Thus, in an advertisement, we should focus on the specific need that a customer has, not selling them on the engineering quality of the drill. In software advertising, it is especially critical to remember this since we can oftentimes get lost in the glory of the technology underlying a product…which the consumer neither understands nor cares about. Rather, an ad must focus on the value proposition to customers. So, focus directly on communicating the value proposition to the user, and always put the user first in your advertisement.
5. Research Will Help You Find Your Ad’s Target Language
Good research = your ad speaks the language of your consumer = your message will have punch = your advertisement will drive clicks.
If you want to deliver an advertising message that drives sales and augments brand recognition, you need solid solid research that provides detailed color on the language that your customer uses. This is true for one simple reason: if you want to persuade your customer to buy your product, your copy needs to sell your product to them in the language they use, and research will give you a picture of the type of vernacular that will take your ad copy to the next level.
6. Keep Your Message Concise
Simple ideas and concise messages are the easiest to digest, so keep it simple stupid.
Consumers are going to give your advertisement the absolute minimum amount of attention necessary…if you’re lucky. And consumers are going to find any way possible to ignore your message. Thus, your objective as an advertiser is to hit them with a concise message that’s easy to digest. If you do this, you can grab their attention and inch them closer to buying your product.
7. Competent People = Great Content
It’s important to ensure that the people who write your ads have very in-depth knowledge of your product, your customer, and your positioning within your respective market. The level of knowledge the people who write your ads will shine through in the ad itself, and will yield great content that will drive sales of your product.
8. Give Your Brand a Personality
Personality = clicks.
The company that hones in on building the most distinctive and clearly defined personality for its brand will get the largest market share and the most profit. Simple as that. How many beer brands are there out there that taste extremely similar? And why do they spend millions of dollars competing to have the best Super Bowl ad? Because the personality of a brand really matters in advertising. Thus, if you want to make ads that still work, you’ll strive to out-personality your competitors.
9. Proper Positioning
Positioning is everything.
The most important decision you will make as a brand is how to position your product. Which particular niche of your market vertical are you going after? Who is your consumer? And how do you bespoke tailor your advertising so that you get their eyes on your product? These are the critical positioning questions you must have very clear answers for before you craft your online advertising.
Beyond this, it’s critical to understand which particular medium you want to approach your customers through. Is it Facebook? Twitter? Reddit? Instagram? Snapchat? Having a very clear understanding of who your customer is and what they use will allow you to properly position your product.
10. Preview Your Ad Before Launching It
Your ad can’t look disheveled. Create the ad that you’d want to click, and make sure it displays that way.
This seems like common sense, but it’s more difficult to consistently execute in practice. Problems like having too much text in a social media post, having content display improperly on mobile devices versus via desktop browser, and having text that’s too small to read can derail your ad. So, make sure to preview how your content will look to various consumers on multiple devices will ensure that your ad has the greatest pull for your product.
11. Create Urgency
Your advertisement should be a call to action. Don’t just tell your consumers how great your product is…incite them to action. Flashy images, an eye-catching headline, and copy with personality can drive users to seek to learn more about your product or service. And offering a deal can be another great way to instill a call to action in your consumers. And the best part? You can bake the deal into your original price.
12. Consistency is King
Consistency is a huge, critical piece of advertising success for your good or service, and the key to most successful campaigns is proper and consistent execution. The advertiser’s task is to create a coherent image in the mind of the consumer, and in order to cement your product in your user’s mind, they need to receive the same coherent image in their mind every time you hit them with an ad.
Take Dos Equis beer, for instance: “The Most Interesting Man in the World” campaign ran for over 10 years. Progressive’s “Flo” has appeared in over 100 insurance commercials since 2008. And the Geico “Gecko” has appeared in Geico ads since 1990. You know and recognize all of these campaigns, and in fact, it’s what you associate these otherwise-uninteresting brands with. Why would anyone get excited about car insurance? Message consistency.
These 12 advertising tricks have worked since advertising was first invented, and they continue to work today. Online advertising is phenomenally competitive, but if you exercise these tools, you’ll be ahead of the curve.
