Fabulous AIDA on advertising

Fabulous AIDA on advertising

Whenever I hear any of my clients saying “that doesn’t work” I smile and ask for their evidence. It was no different on Thursday when we were looking at advertising ideas with J who was working on getting more clients locally. Looking over the wording of the advert she had used I could see why she was not getting results. J had described her services in the advert (as you would) but was not aiming at anyone in particular, no interest was generated nor was there an emotional hook; the call to action was not very compelling either.

Given that we are all subjected to thousands of adverts everyday, we tend to switch off if we don’t see its relevance to us within seconds I explained. J was intrigued, she sat back in her seat as I continued sharing: A good way to get a customer to engage with an advertisement is to use AIDA:

A – Attention (Awareness): attract the attention of the customer. The more niched you are (in the advert) the more you will be directly speaking to the reader and attract them.

I – Interest: raise customer interest by focusing on and demonstrating advantages and benefits (instead of focusing on features, as in traditional advertising). Offer something your competition doesn’t; or is not seen to offer.

D – Desire: convince customers that they want and desire your services and that it will satisfy their needs. Connecting with reader’s emotions is very powerful: “sell the sizzle not the steak”

A – Action: lead customers towards taking action and/or purchasing.

I paused and watched as J was digesting the information. She was starting to see the importance learning how to target a market effectively.  I explained that this was a known and trusted advertising and marketing process and I would also add the following steps:

1. Bring your advert right up to date by printing your QR code on the advert so that smart phone users can take action immediately by scanning your code and be visiting your web page or your Facebook page in seconds. (You can get a free code at www.qrstuff.com in seconds, they are the new barcodes you see on posters and printed ads)

2. Ideally have a way of capturing customer’s details by offering an E-book, a free report or a free session when they do visit you online. You can keep in touch if they are not ready to engage right now.

3. Measure responses and try different adverts until you find one that works well (based on results). You can try different ones that speak to different clients (niche and micro niche).

You don’t need to have all the above in place, build up to it one step at a time but it is good to have an overall plan. Be on the lookout for the adverts that grab your attention and notice how they are worded and put together.

J grabbed a pen and quickly redrafted her advert. The result was much more powerful, once she had refined the aim of her campaign to just one section of her audience: it just spoke to you! J’s body language made it quite clear that she was pleased and much clearer as to where she was going with this and the steps she needed to take.

I took a sip of my coffee and we continued chatting over all the other places she could try publishing her ads for free. She was ready to go online too so I mentioned that sites such as Gumtree have produced results for other clients and are worth looking into.

It was time for me to put on my coat and head out into the wet and windy London streets. It was a lot darker and colder now but as I made my way towards the Embankment for my next meeting, I felt a warmth and comfort that reminded me how much I loved and enjoyed the work I do.

www.yourbusinessbuddy.biz

Are you having a good flight?

Yesterday as I was enjoying reading my book on a flight to London for a meeting with a client, I picked up on how confident the pilot sounded when announcing our altitude, speed and how he could tell us where we were and how long before we land. He sounded so as a matter of fact and I started to Imagine being in the cockpit with him, surrounded by dials, gages, lights and switches; wondering how he kept track of all the information he is fed at any given moment and why so many sources of information in the first place?

Then I remember reading somewhere that the pilot has to make constant adjustment to the direction and speed as the aeroplane is actually off course a large percentage of its journey. The weather conditions, wind & turbulences constantly throw the plane off route but using the information he can bring us back on route again and again and of course he has a couple of qualified and experienced people on his team who help him throughout.

It occurred to me that running a business is not so unlike flying a plane. We take off aiming in the general direction of our goal and need to make constant changes to our strategy to satisfy our customers as their needs change, reacting to what the market and competitors are doing to name but a few.

However unlike the pilot most small business owners have not gone through years of training to run a business, nor have they many systems in place to give them accurate timely information. Most of them are alone in the cockpit ignoring parts of the business they don’t like or fully understand, missing so much vital information no wonder they end up off route, with limited fuel trying to keep the business going at all costs, wondering how they got into this situation. It can all get very stressful and the possibility of failure begin to fill their mind.

How different would their experience be if they had some simple systems in place and help on hand to get timely feed back so they can act fast and get back on course, saving time & money and avoiding potential disaster.

The reality is that far too many entrepreneurs take off with only a vague idea as to their destination; chartering territories never encountered before and inevitably loose their sense of direction, usually without enough fuel on board. After all they are just trying to get away from a job they had and taking off in the business plane seems like a good escape plan. Totally unprepared but the sense of adventure & encouragement by a few friends seems to fuel their ego enough to take off.

They are usually intelligent, hardworking people with a great idea so some manage to make it as they learn quickly en route but they are putting themselves, their investment , their health, their family and all the other people on board (staff, customers, suppliers, investors etc.) in danger.

The truth is that it does not have to be that hard, a clear vision, more preparation, putting simple information systems in place and getting affordable expert help that is available can go a long way to help avoid a bumpy ride.

So fasten your seat belt and have a pleasant flight.

www.yourbusinessbuddy.biz

Facebook for your business

“Social media” are the new buzz words in online marketing. Everyone has heard about it, everyone wants to be part of it, but very few people know how to use it to their advantage.

Facebook is undoubtedly the King when it comes to social media. With over 800 million active users and growing rapidly, the marketing possibilities are unlimited.

If Facebook were a country, it would be the World’s 3rd largest. It is just too big to ignore.

Every company should have a Facebook presence.

How to start

There are basically two ways to go about advertising your business within Facebook. From mentioning it and linking to it within your own personal profile, or making a separate account/page for your business. The latter is a better way to start.

The secret within Facebook is to get people to ‘like’ your page or your updates. There are many ways to go about this, aside from the obvious contacting all your friends and acquaintances.

Buying fans

Some companies opt for paid advertising within Facebook, which for larger companies, is a good way forward. Besides the obvious branding, having fans is ideal when using targeted marketing campaigns. Say you want to send to a newsletter to male-only fans, between the ages of 35 – 45 and only ones that are based in the UK – Facebook makes this very straight forward. You can easily segment your fan base.

Someone ‘liking’ your page (or commenting on it) has a ripple effect. When you ‘Like’ (or comment on) something within Facebook this ‘Like’ is automatically visible to your friends.

If you have a picture or video for example that generates a lot of ‘likes’ the exposure can be massive and relatively instantaneous.

Visibility within Facebook

As with any form of marketing, visibility is the key. Luckily Facebook is far more transparent than search engines.

Facebook uses an algorithm called Edgerank to determine what makes it into their ‘Top news’ section.

Recently they have made several changes to this and there are now manual settings that people can change to alter what appears and what doesn’t.

But in essence, these are the five main points to bear in mind if running a Facebook commercial page

1. Ask questions. Questions generate feedback and likes. This pushes the news higher up in the algorithm. Research found that when a brand utilizes keywords such as “where,” “when,” “would” and “should,” the objects will see a higher number of engagements from fans. The word “would” drives the highest spike in ‘Likes’ due to fans using ‘like’ as a way to vote “yes” on the question rather than posting “yes” to a Wall.

2. Facebook assigns a higher weight value to photos than to other objects (including videos and links). This weight factor increases the Edgerank. Pictures seem to be given a preferential treatment in Facebook. If you can, post pictures, they tend to get greater exposure.

3. Research conducted found that fans are more likely to engage with current events.

4. A major component of an object’s Edgerank is timing and relevancy, therefore posts that contain content relating to upcoming events or short-term campaigns will have greater success in the News Feed.

5. Beware, however if you post too often, Facebook might take that under consideration and block your updates to work against you. People may also quickly get sick of too many updates coming from you. Post regularly and consistently.

www.yourbusinessbuddy.biz