Five Steps For Paid Social Media Advertising

As you set out to create your Social Media and Digital marketing plans for 2017, here are some steps to help you plan your social media advertising for 2017. Based on the success of your organic content or previous advertising efforts you can choose social media network that delivers the best results.

Step One : Define Your Objectives

Start with defining your objectives. If increasing awareness is your objective your goal will need to be more specific.After defining the objectives pen down the goals i.e. Increase awareness by 20 percent.

Step Two : Know your Target Audience

Who is your Target Audience?

What are their interests, lifestyles, frustrations?

What does this group of customers want/need?

What will motivate them to click on the ad?

Develop personas of your Target Audience. Here is an example of personas for foreign Language learning Software company.

Step Three : Develop Compelling Creative

Generate interest with the creative that will make the customers click on the link or take action with you ad. It is essential to use Bold and striking imagery that will compel people to click on the ad creative.

Create Intent by using phrases in your ad that users are most likely to be looking out for in your brand’s context.

Include Call-to-Action in your ad copy. Promotions and Incentives help drive the intent to purchase, while CTA is important for increasing Click-through or allowing the audience to know how to engage with your content.

Specific Landing Pages

Design Specific landing pages tailored to different products and promotional offers. Well designed Landing Pages are essential for providing a quality experience for consumers and driving conversions with a personalized targeted message. Fresh creative, iteration and constant testing keeps your brand current and top of mind, while avoiding saturation within your audience.

Step Four : Test New Layouts and Styles

Define the goal for your creative testing. Advertisers test ad creative to understand how to improve the performance or which ad concept resonates with the target audience. Set aside a budget for testing. Test different themes to arrive at the best performing themes. Test thematically to top performing audience segments, and use iterations of winning themes concepts. Narrow down on best performing content prior to roll out.

CTRs increase and CPA decreased with a change in creative.

Step 5 : Target and Optimize

Optimize your campaign by targeting the top performing audience groups. Targeting your audience is based on Age, Gender and location. Narrow down your targeting options to include audiences that are most likely to respond based on your buyer personas. Specify the behaviors, interests and demographics in detailed targeting. For an Organics brand, here is an example of Detailed Targeting and Interests that can be used to narrow down and targeting specifically.