Adverts can all have different displays, different designs, and different layouts, one thing that stays the same (or should stay the same), is your message.

 

Depending on the stage the consumer is at on their journey, your message can be tweaked to match. E.g. if they’re simply researching, you can include a link to your website homepage, or if they’re close to purchasing, including a link to a particular item or products page could be more effective. Either way, even though the call to action might be slightly different, the solution you offer and overall message should be similar.

 

Understanding which Channels to Use
Before you think about what you want to say, you need to understand how your audience interacts with social media, and digital in general. The general public love to research before they purchase anything both offline and online, which is why 92% of consumers who visit a brands website first time aren’t there to buy. During any consumer journey, there can be between 20 and 500 touchpoints, and not necessarily all from the same platform. This is why it’s important to understand which sites are best utilised for advertising purposes.

If your target customer scrolls through Facebook whilst eating their breakfast in the morning, then watches YouTube videos at lunch, and Instagram’s a picture of the sunset in the evening, you will need to be advertising on at least two of these channels to help reinforce your message.

 

Think about Mobile First
Creating content that not only looks good on desktop, but also on mobile, is extremely important. In fact, 82% of people consult their phones before making in-store purchases. This not only means social media content should be optimised for mobile use, but your website should be optimised too. Anything that means a potential customer has to click to ‘see more’ on a post, or scroll for longer than a minute, should be streamlined. You’ll also need to think about what media you’re using. If you create any videos, it might be best to include subtitles, as the audience watching them could be in a noisy public place where it’s difficult to hear.

 

The Message
Depending on the platform(s) you’re using to advertise; you may only have a few seconds to capture your audiences attention. You’ll need to describe the value of your product or service (think about your unique selling points), and how it provides a solution. Once you’ve hooked them, then you can give additional information (e.g. features, why it’s the best, the story behind it, etc.). Again, it’s important to understand which stage of the purchasing journey they’re on, if they’re at the beginning, it may be interesting for them to understand the story behind your product/service, if they’re towards the end, it might be best to describe key features.

It’s natural for messages to be refined over-time, so don’t panic if you don’t get it right straight away. Once you look at the data and can understand what’s working well and what isn’t, you’ll find it easier to streamline your message to suit the audience. As long as you keep them in mind, and understand their journey to purchase, you should have no worries.

If you’d like some help creating effective messaging, or a multi-channel marketing campaign, contact us today and discover more about our solutions.

 

 

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