It sounds simple, but too many brands are creating ads that are missing their target audience, which results in a poor return on investment, and sometimes it puts them off that particular type of advertising.
The best advertising is the stuff that is not seen as advertising. Community and local focus, catchy jingles and music, unforgettable images and viral videos are what we are talking about. Good product placement in content that gets shared for reasons other than sales or buying can bring about brand awareness to an even wider audience for less cost.
Knowing who you are marketing to is the first step. It also allows you to plan where you will advertise and how.
For example, research has shown that the age group 12-17 flocks to YouTube as their social media channel of choice. From an automotive point of view, these are your learner drivers, maybe even first car buyers in a few years. The aim here would be to create video content that is of value to them, whilst also having an emotional attachment to it that is easily remembered or triggered later on.
Content that triggers an emotional response is usually better received by viewers and can lead to sharing and post engagement. Content examples include:
- Trending Topics
- Cuteness overload – cats, puppies and babies
- Community or Local Event/News
- Charity Work
- Health, Fitness and Family – easily connected with by viewers
- Funny Images, Video or Article
These are just some topics that will evoke an emotional response. Think about the content you see in ads and social media, and think about how you react to them. Often seeing these posts will lead to you watching the full video, liking the post, commenting or sharing.
The trick here is to ensure your brand is noticed but not as the star of the photo or video. Take a funny video, perhaps a skit by your staff, as an example. Make sure it takes place either in your showroom that people can recognise, or outside in front of your signage or recognisable area. The focus needs to be on the skit or course, but good visuals of your brand in the background will be noticed when the video gets shared around.
Look at your bigger company giants and their marketing, and take note of how they do it. RedBull for example features their ideal audience doing what they do – extreme sports and action adventures. Their branding shows in sponsorship apparel and products, and even on the equipment such as motorbike flanks and skydiving parachutes. Whilst the focus will be on the crazy stunt or sports image, RedBulls unmistakable logo, colours and images will show in less obvious placements. That is why people share videos like RedBull’s Jump from Space, Wing-suiting, and Mountain bike downhill rides.
Once again knowing your audience will allow you to create content to appeal to them. You need to look at your customers data through your DMS or through a third party like Experian data. Once you have this data, you can see who is the most engaging with your product in terms of sales and enquiries, you can also separate them by demographics such as postcode, marital status, and product interest.
This data and breakdown of your customers will allow you to:
- Create advertising material and social media content that will appeal to a specific buyer.
- Upload your data into Facebook Ads manager to create a custom audience to send ads to.
For more information on getting data from your DMS or Experian, or about creating suitable content for your ideal audience, talk to our team at DriveSocial.
What will you try next? Keep the above in mind when creating your content, and as we always recommend, build a social media community and audience that will result in better long term brand awareness and loyalty, rather than just pushing for sales leads.