Friday, June 30, 2023
Thursday, June 29, 2023
Wednesday, June 28, 2023
Optimize Your Ad Traffic: Mistake #1
Like many of us running traffic on popular online platforms like Google and Facebook, I’m sure you’ve experienced some significant (and not so great) changes in your CPL, conversion rate, and monthly ad spend.
And I won’t even get started on how frequently ad accounts are being shut down.
Here’s what we’re learning…
It’s NOT going to get any easier.
In fact, expect things to get even more difficult as more and more restrictions unfold.
Any good news?
Over the next few Infinite Business Newsletter editions, I’ve going to cover the TOP 3 costliest mistakes businesses are making right now when it comes to running ads and driving traffic.
These are also the most common mistakes that are pretty easy to rectify (as they are variables you CAN control).
If you have an inhouse team member who takes care of your ad management, or you outsource it to a third party, make sure you forward them these three newsletters to ensure you get them corrected.
The first mistake has everything to do with how your target audience “sees” you.
96% of consumers simply don’t trust ads. Not a HUGE surprise. But did you know that fewer than 1 in 5 adults say they trusted social media ads?
As if the odds weren’t already stacked against us!
The challenge: Create an ad that not only grabs our prospect's attention, but ALSO conveys “trustworthy” and our “message” must be compelling enough to get them to take action.
One of the biggest ways to instantly FAIL in this task is using stock images in your ads and your social posts.
How often do you see companies like Apple, or Pepsi, or Canon using stock images in their ads?
You won’t. And there’s a very good reason why…
Nothing displays lack of ingenuity and effort quite like having the same stock photos that have been circulated all over the web. Using stock photography translates that you just don’t care about your brand or your culture…or even the message you are trying to deliver.
It also shows lack of differentiation and authenticity (as clearly you look like everyone else). Those “big league” players know the value in building their brand–they want to be unique, they WANT to stand out. They want to resonate with their audience on a higher level.
If you really want to resonate with your audience, entrust a dedicated person on your team to be responsible for unique content and ad creation.
Create your own unique content.
You don’t need to be in the race to post all day everyday, either. It’s all about quality content. Just look and see how many times big, successful companies post in the red oceans and win big. They only post quality videos a few times and they are almost always part of a campaign that leads you to the next one.
Strategic placement of creative custom footage and ads is exactly how you play to win.
Now, I hear this quite often…
I know it might seem EASIER and sometimes even FREE to just get a subscription to some stock photography service or platform.
But have you ever read the fine print? Many subscriptions under a free subscription are free, but with risk. The site might only let you use it as long as your subscription is valid. Some time goes by, and maybe your forced to pull your ad because you canceled your subscription.
Sometimes the creator of the stock footage decides they don’t want their photography on the site anymore and requests it to be pulled. Then the content creator might place a block on any photos videos on YouTube or Facebook using that footage regardless of the license you have.
In rare cases, getting the wrong license can and will lead to lawsuits. Let’s say you paid for a license for up to 100K reach and you exceed that reach. Now you have to adjust and pay for more licenses. If don’t, you could be up against legal action if they can prove that you knew and didn’t pay. Then they go for a big chunk of your earnings. It’s simply not worth it.
Another reason NOT to use stock photography is the risk of using a photo that someone has used and in turn has created a negative “anchor” around it. Then you use it (not knowing)and when your audience sees it, they automatically feel negatively towards you.
Using stock images can cause a major disruption in the message you are trying to send to your target audience.
One last tip:
Think long and hard about the message you want your audience to see. Ask yourself if what you are putting out is congruent and aligned with your brand, your culture…Your mission…Does it represent who you are as a company?
As always, get clear on what you are offering, and the value it brings. By doing this, you’ll become the trendsetter.
One of the best ways to own your market is to position your brand as the trusted company it is… Again, one of the best ways to do that in your ads is to create and promote your own content.
If you don’t have a team member or a third party that can help you optimize your ads (and ad spend), I highly recommend investing in a traffic audit (having a team of ad experts put your ad accounts, strategies, ads and stats under a microscope and audit every moving part of your prospect journey).
My senior ad team performs Premier Traffic Audits here at Business Nitrogen. It’s a 30+ point comprehensive audit process that identifies any and all areas that can decrease your CPL, increase your conversion rate, and optimize your ad spend overall. Sometimes just one discovery and alteration can pay dividends in the end.
You can get more information here: Premier Traffic Audit.
Stay tuned for Mistake #2!
To your success,
David
Tuesday, June 27, 2023
Monday, June 26, 2023
Saturday, June 24, 2023
Friday, June 23, 2023
Piercing Through the Veil: Maneuvering in the Walled Gardens of Advertising and Ad Tech
Thursday, June 22, 2023
Tuesday, June 20, 2023
Wednesday, June 14, 2023
Thursday, June 8, 2023
Tuesday, June 6, 2023
Friday, June 2, 2023
Do You Create Results with 100% Certainty?
In the last edition of The Infinite Business Newsletter, I talked about the vital importance of innovation (aka continual improvement).
The commitment to always be striving for new, better and different allows your company to stay relevant and service your clients even better.
I’m always shocked to discover most businesses fail to use one of the most powerful tools in their tool box when it comes to finding out EXACTLY how to service their clients better (Maybe it’s obvious, therefore it’s often missed)...
And if you aren’t doing this to some degree in your business, it’s never too late to start…
One of the quickest ways to innovate and take steps to improve your business is by asking the most important person or people in your business.
Who are the most important people in any business?
Your clients.
Your clients are the BEST people to go to when you seek improvement suggestions, ideas for new products or services, or to discover future wants, needs, and desires.
How do you really get inside the mind of your future clients? By asking your best clients…As they once were your prospect.
The wealth of invaluable information and insight you can gain just by having a conversation with a client is absolutely priceless.
Which is why I’m so surprised more business owners don’t utilize this approach.
One business owner I know created something called a “Client Council”. He runs a very successful service business that specializes in HVAC. Each year he selects 10 of his best clients and asks them if they’d like to be a part of his Client Council. As a council member, they agree to give him insight and input on anything he sends them (marketing pieces, offers, new service ideas, etc.) and they give their honest feedback.
In exchange for their council “work” he gives them 20% off any service in his company for an entire year. He also extends a new customer one time 20% off coupon to any friends or family that live in the area (brilliant how he wove a referral strategy into this program)!
By having this ongoing council, he gets continual insight and feedback on what he is doing, or would like to do.
He also attains new customers from these referrals.
What’s also important to note, is he selects new council members each year, giving him a variety of people to test his marketing on.
The positioning is perfectly structured for his clients too. First, it’s not a HUGE commitment (only 1 year). It also makes the client feel special to be a part of an exclusive and unique group. Let’s face it, they have probably never been asked to be a part of something like his council ever before. It also gives them the opportunity to become the hero to any friends or family that need HVAC work done…As they hold the key to getting them 20% off their first service call.
People like to be the heroes and have solutions to help people, which is why people will go out of their way to recommend any product or service they know could help someone (especially with the added bonus of saving them some money).
It’s a win-win-win for everyone.
Another business owner I know takes his clients out for Client Appreciation dinners. He invites 3 or 4 clients and their spouses to a restaurant for dinner on him, as a way of thanking them for their business. In their time together, he is able to ask them as a collective group what they think about new products and services he’s thinking of offering in his business. He gets to find out what’s changing in their lives which gives him even more ideas on how to improve his business as well. He schedules these dinners twice a year, and has for the last 20 years.
Now you might be thinking, “I don’t have the ability to meet with my clients one-on-one.”
If you don’t have that ability to meet in person with clients, simply call them.
Many times with our clients, I’ll randomly hop on a meeting they have scheduled with my team just to check in and ask them how they are doing. If one of these clients is someone I think would be a perfect candidate for a new program we are offering, I’ll ask them if they’d be interested in scheduling a one-on-one with me to discuss in greater detail.
Another EASY way to get insight and input from your clients is by sending them regular surveys on a consistent basis. You can send them by email or direct mail. I highly recommend implementing this strategy in your business no matter what, and in addition to any other thing you do.
Sending out “How are we doing?” surveys on a regular basis shows your clients you really care about the level of service you provide them (that you are always looking for ways to improve). It also gets you information you need.
It’s easy for anyone to set something like this up in their business. Remember, people want to share their experiences…They desire to feel heard.
One last example that I couldn’t resist including because it’s so good…
I heard about this approach from a mastermind I attended. The business owner ran live events at least twice a year for high school students interested in the field of medicine.
His main marketing vehicle was direct mail. His company established a successful “control” and had tested a few new strategies and vehicles to no avail in beating their existing “control”.
One day as he was talking to his CMO about what to test next, and she suggested it was time to start testing different messaging. Messaging that really resonated with the parents and the students.
“How would we know what to test?,” He said. She then said, “We ask them.” A bit confused, he asked, “Who?”she said, “Our prospects”.
Here’s where it gets interesting…
They brainstormed various ways to attain all the relevant information they would need to guide them to create the perfect messaging. They knew in order to get it right, with 100% certainty (and in the shortest amount of time before the next event), they would need to do something extreme.
They landed on what they called a “Prospect Tour”. They chose 10 prospects at random that agreed to meet with both of them in person. They then flew around the country to visit each of the prospects and their families.
Extreme? Yes.
But what they were able to discover in a few weeks of talking to prospects one-on-one was absolutely eye-opening. Not only did they gain insight on objections they never considered, they achieved their ultimate goal (which was to collect exact verbiage directly from their prospects that they could use in their copy). Messaging that ended up resonating on such a deeper level with their prospective audience.
I hope these examples gave you some ideas on how you too can gain insight quite easily from prospective clients and existing clients to help propel your business forward.
Think about integrating any one of these strategies (or variations of them) in your marketing efforts. At the very least, get a survey out to your clients every 6 months, even if it's just one question you ask them. It’ll pay dividends in the long run, and quickly elevates your business to new heights if you take what you learn and make necessary changes to continually improve.
To your success,
David