Here at New Jupiter Media, we’re a bunch of number-crunching, data-analyzing, Excel spreadsheet enthusiasts. We optimize each of our client’s campaigns by finding meaning in each click and conversion, piecing together the patterns found within the user behavior we are able to quantify.
Scott Cook quote on branding via @The_Fox_Theory on Instagram.
For advertisers and business owners alike, it’s easy to forget about the human faces behind the metrics we are measuring. But as we head into the holiday season, it’s important to take a step back from our computer screens – get our nose out of the Excel workbooks – and remember that the user is so much more than a number, a click, a conversion, or a bounce rate.
It’s our jobs as digital marketers to reach the user in a series of moments throughout their day, their week, and there-on after, and serve them ads and content that nurture a relationship that increases Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
A comprehensive digital marketing strategy – one that includes consistent branding and messaging across multiple platforms and devices – is a lot like dating. And I’m not talking about the new-age, swipe-right-if-you’re-down-to-netflix-and-chill type of dating.
Take a lesson from our grandfathers who romantically courted our grandmothers. Be in it for the long term and turn your one-conversion-stand into a long term customer relationship. Because chances are if they converted on the first click…You got lucky.
So How Can You Court Your Target Customers?
Three elements of any marketing strategy that can help add value to your digital presence include creating compelling, customer-centric ad copy, sending your traffic to a user-friendly and easy-to-navigate landing page on all devices, and reaching the customer on multiple advertising platforms.
1. Use Your Ad Copy As Your Pick-Up Line
Writing compelling ad copy is like selecting the opening line to use when asking her out on a first date.
When a user searches a keyword that triggers your ad to show, that person is like an eligible bachelorette on the market…On your market.
How do you create ad copy that seals the click with your target audience? It’s about striking a balance between informing the user and enticing him/her to click on your ad over your competitors. In many cases, it’s important to make the ad more about the user than about the business or service you are advertising.
According to Wil Reynolds, founder of Seer PPC, SEO and Analytics agency, “So many of us are winning at search and losing at people…At some point winning hearts and minds is going to win on the SERPs [Search Engine Result Pages].”
2. Use Your Landing Page As the Restaurant Where You Bring Your Date
Once you’ve scored the date, it’s important to think through where you’re going to take the lucky lady.
In the PPC dating world, an even more pressing matter is – where on your website do you take your user?
Your campaign manager can set up the most strategic campaign with the best keywords and most compelling ad copy; however, if your landing page has issues – it doesn’t appear relevant to the user’s search, is hard to navigate, has a call-to-action that’s difficult to find, contains too much text, not enough text, too many images (I could go on, but I won’t) – the user won’t hang around. They will bounce (click off your page immediately) and they will not convert.
Don’t bring your user to the McDonalds-equivalent webpage on your site.
Make sure you’re using carefully designed, clear and relevant landing pages with your campaigns. Design elements – anything from content, to image selection and placement, to the way your lead form is set up – strongly affect the number of conversions you receive as a result of your digital marketing efforts.
3. Use Retargeting (Plus Marketing Across Various Platforms and Devices) As Your Way of Continuing the Conversation After the Date
If the first date goes well, make sure you follow up to let her know you had a great time. Say hi to her at the bar if you see her out the following weekend, send a thoughtful text or call her up to see how her day is going.
But don’t be too forward and ask her to meet your mother. Hold off on sending the singing flower-gram to her office until you’re going steady.
Whether or not the click lead to a conversion, advertisers, too, need to find a way to continuously engage with users without being overly aggressive and driving them away from your conversion goals instead of towards them.
It’s important to utilize multiple platforms and multiple channels of advertising in order to keep a rapport going.
For example, take the mother waiting in the car at her son’s baseball practice. To pass time, she takes out her smartphone and starts to Google prices for the cleats he added to his Christmas list.This mother is more than just a mobile click on your ad who didn’t make a purchase from her first arrival to your site. She’s a busy mom getting a head start on holiday shopping, on the hunt to find the best deal.
A few days later, we want to re-engage with her while she’s taking a break at her office desk checking her Facebook feed on her desktop computer, where she sees an ad offering Free Holiday Shipping.
After she makes a purchase, we want to be the friendly email in her inbox, thanking her for her purchase and offering 10% off her next order.
There is no cookie-cutter formula for a successful digital marketing strategy. We use data to dictate our optimization decisions, and test new strategies constantly to increase ROAS for our clients. But no matter the business or service you’re promoting, building an online presence must consider the human element.
Humans are on-the-go, social and curious beings, and this real-world behavior translates to the online world. It translates in the way more than 70% of searches take place on a smart phone. It translates in the way the brand has become less about what we tell the customer it is and more about what the customers tell each other it is, according to co-founder of Intuit, Scott Cook. It translates in the 2 billion plus searches that take place on Google alone every single day.
Contact New Jupiter Media today to see how we can help you court your potential customers and continue optimizing your online presence through our services, as well as the products available exclusively to our agency.