Lets expand on advertising campaign effectiveness factors, which parameters influence their success.
The number of specialists in the digital sphere is growing in inverse proportion to their value.
The ability to push buttons costs nothing - add to that automation, which will soon replace manual ad setup. And that's why working with designers plays a key role in targeting.
Let's be honest: everyone knows how to structure audiences and analyze campaigns, but often forget about the quality of the layouts themselves. If you want to jump on the band wagon and become a top specialist on the market, get creative. Generate non-standard ideas, test crazy hypotheses, try things out. Remember that you are working with people, not a "number of reaches".
Guide to developing advertising designs.
Chances are, your creatives aren't maximizing results - here's why:
The main task of advertising is to show people the solution to their "problem". That is the marketer's job - to identify the pain of their audience, and broadcast a solution through an advertising campaign.
Instead, many professionals focus on "selling" the product and only tell people what they think is valuable.
Let's look at how to create a pool of designs and attract customers through relevant messages.
Step 1: Research the consumer and his "problem"
Often companies incorrectly define the pain of the audience, or work with the wrong segment at all. As a result, advertising budgets are wasted on unworkable offers, and potential customers do not see the value in the product.
What do you do in return? Get to know your customer:
Study the customer as a person. Each person has an individual life story and experiences, environment, values and goals, problems and solutions. It's important to study your audience not only in the context of interacting with your product, but in the rest of their lives as well.
Conduct research and don't rely on your own understanding of the product. To do this, conduct interviews with previous customers, take data from research in your niche, and study insider information.
Identify the customer's real problem and offer a solution. This way, your product will get a clear positioning, and the client will see the designs as a solution to their own, supposedly individual problem.
For example:
We identified a new target audience: freelancers, IT workers, entrepreneurs, and people with pets. Buying a house was a dream for most of them - a poor-quality picture with a house would hardly be suitable for such a trigger.
We had to completely redesign marketing communications: renderings, brochures, banners, corporate identity and website, village plan, etc.
In the advertising design we used knowledge about the audience:
- Gave clear figures and product information;
- Part of the clients wants an inexpensive house right by the city - we would use this trigger;
- We know that majority of families plan to have animals in their private house. So second the ad would be aimed at dog owners. That is an emotional trigger.
Step 2: Study the product
Studying a product means understanding its real advantages and benefits for the target audience. This also includes positioning the brand and how it stands apart from competitors. All of this will affect the messaging and packaging of the offerers.
For example, a frequent problem for premium brands is a mismatch between communication and positioning. Manufacturers forget that advertising requires content that matches their status.
Step 3: Systematization
Having collected the necessary customer and product data, structure the pool of advertising designs. What does it offer?
It simplifies testing. We know what hypothesis the creative is testing - a message, a play or an audience segment. Thanks to this, we understand what it is that the target audience was attracted to or repulsed by.
Reduces the cost of non-working layouts. Findings from previous launches are used in future campaigns. So, we won't work with a trigger that didn't resonate last time.
Helps to touch the audience's pains in a precise way. We develop different ads for each audience segment and client's position in the funnel. Thanks to this, the offers always hit the mark.
Advertising designs are structured according to several factors.
Funnel stage
Primarily, ads are divided into 3 categories for different funnel stage and audience segments.
Each campaign has its own task - to familiarize the customer with the brand and product, to encourage them to buy, to remind them about the products after a while, etc. Accordingly, ads with different meanings are developed and structured.
Rational and emotional triggers
Sometimes in targeting we divide the audience into emotionals and rationals - people who respond to rational and emotional triggers respectively. The former focus on numbers and facts, while the latter focuses on the feelings and emotions they experience when using the product. That's how we reach more of our audience.
We used this approach in advertisments for a dog clothing store. Initially, the audience was divided into funnel stages and tasks. For example, new visitors needed to be introduced to the brand, and those who threw a product in the cart needed to be motivated to make a purchase. After that, all the offers were divided into rational and emotional. The former revealed the objective advantages of the brand, while the latter told about the positive emotions that await a person after making a targeted action.
Consumer insights
To reach all audience segments, we divide ads by the problems they address. In this way, we don't broadcast irrelevant information about the product, but a solution to the customer's problem.
Step 4: Compose Offers
Every user thinks and reacts to triggers differently. That's why we use 4 formulas when composing the text communications in advertising:
- 1. AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action)
- 2. ODC (offer, deadline, call to action)
- 3. PAD (problem, agitation, discredit)
- 4. PmPHS (pain, more pain, hope, solution)
This is the standard model of consumer behavior. We attract attention with a colorful headline, generate interest in the product and a desire to buy it, and an easy and clear CTA prompts action.
A typical story for e-commerce: show a specific offer - a discount, a promotion, a favorable price on a product, and a deadline - "only 24 hours until completion", "only today". At the end we add a simple call to action - go to the site / make a purchase / leave contacts.
The formula is suitable for clients with pronounced pain - I can't learn English, I can't lose weight. We put pressure on the pain and discredit it with our offer. It is important to convince the user that this time the problem will really be solved - just use our product. This is how we build ourselves up against competitors and all the unsuccessful attempts of the customer to achieve the goal.
Similar: emphasize the client's pain, escalate it to a critical point and offer a solution - our product.
Hope that helps!
Good Luck.