Digital ad? Better do this first.

It’s all fun and games until someone wastes budget.

If you’re thinking of setting up an ad. Get some help *cough, cough, me*. Building out ads for platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Google are encouraged by Instagram, Facebook and Google and they can be profitable if you know what you’re doing. They can also be a waste of time and money.

If you think you don’t have the money to hire someone, you should reach out and find out if you can come to a special arrangement with the ad specialist (read, “call me”). If you do however decide to go it alone without reaching out first, allow me to help anyway.

The Questions

There are 3 main things you want to answer before starting an ad campaign.

  1. What are you selling?
  2. Who are you selling to?
  3. How are you going to get them to buy?

What Are You Selling?

This is the most obvious, but at times can be overlooked. I’ve seen plenty of people set up an ad “promoting the business.” Brand awareness is important, but it’s also vanity. Your ads should be tied to sales and therefore tied to a product. Once you decide what you’re selling, move on to who.

Who are you selling it to?

If you’re the business owner. This answer should come natural to you. Who has bought this product? Create a list of traits that they share. If this is a new product. Find similar products online and try to define their audience. How do you “define” an audience? Here is a starting point for you:

  • Where do they live?
  • Male/ Female
  • Similar Products or Services
  • Income Information
  • Activities
  • Keywords
  • Married/ Single
  • Do they have Children?

How will you sell it to your audience?

The most common way of finding an angle is to create a list of features. Find the feature that will benefit your ideal customer the most. That’s your main angle. If you come from sales or advertising this might be second nature to you. Great! If you don’t, this will take practice.

This should help you with your headline and visuals. It will also dictate the look and text of your Landing Page. A landing page is a web page that is devoted specifically to the product you’re selling.

I would argue this is the most crucial piece of the puzzle. You want to design a web page that matches the look, feel and promise of your advertising. Let’s say you’re a chiropractor and you create a headline like this:

How to get rid of lower back pain in 3 minutes.

And let’s say you use a visual of a person stretching. Heads up, I would find a visual that looks like the person your are targeting. Lower back issues tend to occur in older people and larger people. I would have a visual reflect that.

At that point you want a web page that delivers a small solution to lower back pain. Perhaps, a 3 minute stretch routine. Your main goal however to sell a consult or collect a lead. So I would put that up front and center.

There are plenty of ways to collect emails, but offering an extra bonus is tried and true.

Conclusion

Before you start an ad campaign, ask yourself some questions.

  1. What am I offering?
  2. Who am I offering it to?
  3. How should I sell it to them?

For a bundle of templates I use when writing copy and a pack of blank ad sizes for Google AdWords sign up here:

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