Do you have a favorite TV commercial jingle? Sure you do! But for many of us, even the most memorable jingles do not inspire us to buy the product or service being advertised. Likewise, we are now largely immune to many of the ads we encounter online. That not only goes for banner advertising, but to the Facebook advertising spots and promoted posts on Twitter.
Does that mean you should stop taking advantage of paid advertising opportunities? Not at all! It just means that while you may continue utilizing paid ad channels, you should make your primary marketing platform – your own website – the number one priority. The way you do this is by perfecting your content. Here are three tips for achieving the goal of near-perfect website content, so that your paid ads can be more effective:
1. Think Like a Consumer
Consumers are not part of your industry, so they don’t build their lives around your brand. They are just people who will (hopefully) have your brand in their life. Unfortunately, some marketers forget that consumers don’t think the way they do. That is why the Internet is bursting with annoying marketing terminology that the average consumer doesn’t understand (“customized solutions,” for example. What user searches for “customized solutions” to their problems)?
Instead, marketers should think like the consumers they are targeting. What keywords and phrases will consumers search for? What are the semantics they will use when searching; will they type in a full question, or use a short tail keyword specific to the product or service? Knowing these things can help marketers perfect their content and make their paid advertising campaigns more worthwhile.
2. Be the Expert
While a consumer may not specifically search for “solutions,” he is still looking for an answer to a question or problem. As a marketer, your role is to be an expert in the subject that concerns him. Perfected content is informative content, while being engaging and shareable at the same time. Find out the questions your audience is asking, and then provide the answer in your content. Also, be sure to do it in a way that is totally unique from your competitors; beating competitors to the punch is an important part of defining yourself as an expert in your field.
3. Set Process-Oriented Goals
Reaching 10,000 Facebook likes may seem like a good goal, and buying Facebook ads may seem like the logical way to get there. But do you really want to define success by Facebook likes? Numbers can certainly gauge the effectiveness of your process, but the process itself is what really establishes your success. Here are some more practical goals that support the content perfection process and improve the effectiveness of your paid advertising campaigns:
- Make the entire website more relevant, one page at a time
- Create one page of highly shareable content per week
- Create one high quality, relevant landing page for each paid ad
These are goals that hold marketers accountable every step of the way, and they are all relevant to the process of content perfection. If your website is in need of a marketing strategy that entails content creation and a paid advertising campaign, Crest Media will be glad to help.
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