When you remarket your company to people who have previously visited your site or sampled your product/service, the goal is to get them to see you in a new light. These are the people who have seriously considered giving you their business before, but weren’t convinced enough to take the plunge. Having the right remarketing strategy and the opportunity to create brand new material is basically a second chance for you to win over these prospective customers. For those of you who are marketing geeks such as myself, that’s all part of what makes this field endlessly thrilling.
One of the most recent trends, and cost-effective methods, of remarketing is taking place on the social media front. However, with social media still being fairly new, unexplored territory, there’s a lot of room for error. Not doing your research on changes the social networking platforms have made since your first online campaign, as well as neglecting attention to detail, could cause you to blow your second chance with your audience. Although these mistakes may be remarkably simple, they’re common. Before you put everything out there for the rest of the social media world to see, make sure that you aren’t committing these faux pas:
Having Unclear Business Objectives
Before you start posting creative, witty content or innovative contests to engage your followers, the very first thing you should do is establish your objectives for your campaign. It’s shocking how many marketing and social media professionals dive in to the last steps first, resulting in a campaign that looks nice but lacks any real value.
No matter what your goal is—a boost in sales, increased opt-ins for your email newsletter, a higher click-through rate from social media, more social media engagement in general—make sure the goal is clear, measurable and time-oriented. Also, don’t forget to have a clear naming convention. This will avoid any confusion when it comes to optimizing your campaigns later.
Not Tracking your ROI
At the end of the day, or by the deadline of your social media-remarketing project, your boss is going to want to know how successful your marketing efforts were. Was it profitable? What were the takeaways?
While tracking ROI is as simple as calculating how much money spent on marketing came back in the form of revenue, figuring out what specifically generated that revenue can be tricky. Along those same lines, deciphering what’s of value to your campaign can also be difficult. If you achieved your objective of having a higher click-through rate and more impressions, but they didn’t lead to conversions, it might be time to rethink your content marketing plan. Think of the big picture—what are you trying to sell, and what do you offer that sets you apart from competitors? You may be attracting more attention on social networks and getting more clicks, but if your content doesn’t match with what you’re trying to sell, it’s a lost cause.
Stepping back to examine the goals of your marketing campaign and re-strategizing may be necessary, but if you’re not taking the proper steps to track ROI you won’t realize your need to re-evaluate in the first place.
Text Copy Errors
If someone hasn’t beaten this word in to you already, do yourself a favor and beat yourself up a bit—proofread!
Really, it’s amazing how many typos make their way on to professional marketing materials. Whether it’s a print ad or a Twitter post, typos are a surefire way to lose credibility and trust from your consumers. Your audience will assume that if you don’t have someone in charge of communications who can spot those little mistakes, then your business may be careless in other aspects. That may seem extremist, but it’s true—especially in the high-visibility world of social media. The slightest typo could make you the butt of a joke, which could be difficult to recover from even if you’re a social media maven.
Your Ad Creative is Poorly Designed
The first step in ad design is figuring out which networks you want to place an ad on, and then evaluating how that site uses ad layouts, colors and visuals. Choosing a high-quality image that is enticing yet doesn’t give too much away is critical, because that’s what will be the attention grabber. Select contrasting colors from the website where the ad is being placed to make your ad stand out from others. It never hurts to create several versions of the same ad with variations in text, size and visual elements, either. In the event that a website changes their ad policy or requirements, you’ll be a step ahead and already have something on hand.
Most of these factors contributing to poor ad creative are simply from not following the most basic design principles. It’s practically visual communications 101, but if you go take a scroll through your Facebook feed, apparently some ad designers skipped that class.
Poor Targeting
Having an ad displayed to an audience that has no intention of purchasing your product or service is probably the most costly mistake you could make. Even if you have problems such as poor design or copy errors, some people are forgiving enough to cut you a break if they feel like the ad is relevant to them.
However, if you’re advertising plastic surgery for fat-loss to a crowd of personal trainers and nutrition professionals, your ad will probably be scoffed at and ignored. With Facebook’s latest Pages update, for example, businesses have more control over the reach and target audience of their ads than ever before. In addition to monitoring audience reach, your company can also keep a close eye on competitors and what content is working for them. Use the tools that social networking platforms provide you with to your advantage, and you’ll save yourself precious time and money.
Your Landing Page is Not Optimized for Conversions
So you’ve done everything right—designed a visually appealing ad, wrote killer copy, figured out your social media campaign objectives, narrowed down your network audience—you got ‘em hooked. They follow your call to action, click on your ad and then they see…your homepage?
No one should be directed to your homepage when you have them clicking on an advertisement on a social network. Whatever conversion you’re looking to achieve by having someone click on your ad is what you want him or her to be directed to. Don’t make them hunt around your site, because I guarantee you they’re not going to spend more than a couple of seconds trying to find it. Furthermore, not optimizing your landing page is going to cost you results. If it takes more than a few clicks to sign up for more information, or it forces the user to exit or open new windows, you’re making it a hassle for someone who most likely isn’t interested enough to stick through the process.
When done right, remarketing can convince someone who has already had exposure to your brand to take a second look. Remarketing is a strategic component to every campaign that shouldn’t be ignored, because there is a wealth of opportunity to boost sales and revenue with an audience you have already reached. However, these mistakes could be the nail in the coffin for your online campaign, so make sure to get it right the first time around.