2017 is GONE… welcome to 2018! It’s time to get your game face on when it comes to where you advertise your business. As with everything, it’s important to take a look at what’s out there before making your decision. To help you, I’ve laid out the five top areas in which you can make sure that you’re focusing your attention in the same place that your customers are focusing their attention.
Here are five advertising platforms/focus areas for you to adapt to your business in 2018.
Advertising Platform #1: B2C Businesses
Are you a business-to-consumer business? If you are not on Facebook adverts, get on there. The single best way to get in front of everyone in the world right now is Facebook adverts. The best way to get in front of your target market on Facebook is to figure out what you want to advertise, determine to whom you want to advertise it to, create a news-feed advert, and get your message out there.
One of the BEST adverts we saw in late 2017 was the one below from Aaron Zakowski. It has everything: the shock factor, a catchy headline, and an image that you just cannot scroll past. In late 2017, these kinds of adverts were gaining less than $0.05 per click. Be smart, get on Facebook.
Advertising Platform #2: B2B Businesses
Are you a business-to-business business? If you are not on Facebook LEAD adverts, you should be. These adverts have an incredible power to attract business-people who are browsing on Facebook. Let’s get real for a moment: NO ONE IS ON FACEBOOK TO SEE YOUR ADVERT. People go on Facebook to look at cat and dog videos, see what horrendous things their friends got up to last night, or to run their own personal PR game. The trick is to stop people in their tracks while they are engaged in the platform. One of the best ways to do this is with a Facebook lead advert.
Below is one of the BEST lead adverts I have seen all year; it is clear, it is concise, it gives the value proposition, and it shows what the user gets from signing up. It’s perfect for gaining more people for your advertising plan.
Advertising Platform #3: Offline Businesses
Do you own a business that isn’t online, and think that online advertising cannot help you? Think again. Think shopping centers, think driving instructors (my dad is one), think cameramen, think local shops; they are ALL able to be influenced by online advertising in 2018… more so than ever.
How and where should a local, bricks-and-mortar business advertise? Bring the business to your audience. Create an incredible video of your products and services—and when I say incredible, I don’t mean with a whole bunch of money thrown at it, I mean one that is honest and displays your business in the best light. With a low-cost production video advertised in the right ways, a little consistency in your advertising across social media, a little video advertising, and a little budget (as little as £20/$30) behind your adverts, you could start a profitable pipeline of successful footfall through your doors. The key here is showing off what you do on a daily basis—letting your customers know that you are just around the corner.
This is a very successful video advert that we ran on Facebook for my father’s business. (Let’s hope he doesn’t mind my sharing!) When we ran this advert—which literally just shows the instructors car driving down a lane and off to their next lesson—this video was the catalyst to increasing sales by 50%. Can you imagine if you were to increase your own sales by 50%?
Advertising platform #4: Video
In 2018, video is where it’s at. All of our customers are on a path to video. Why is video so important? In the early days of the internet, we had text-based adverts. Those were cool, but as internet speeds increased, we were able to install image-based adverts. Now, as mobile internet is nearly as fast as Wi-Fi, video is the weapon of choice for advertisements. We as consumers crave video; right now, it is the most immersive medium we have at our disposal. (Though in the near future we will probably crave virtual reality!) Social networks know this, and they give video more distribution than they do a text or image advert. The sliding scale goes a bit like this:
In 2018, video is the dominating force in online advertisements. It’s important to note, though, that it’s not necessarily the high-cost videos that win, it’s the videos whose creators had the ability to create in an agile fashion.
Advertising Platform #5: The Customer
We can tell you to be on Facebook or YouTube, but what if your customers are more engaged on Etsy or LinkedIn? I am not saying that we are 100% right about your brand—only YOU can understand what your customers want and where they hang out. Taking the time to understand where your customers congregate is one of the most important parts of determining which advertising medium you choose to have a presence on.
How do you find out where the customer is? Hang out with them for a while and watch what they do, ask them where they go online, watch their behavior, and really immerse yourself in their culture to find out where your adverts are best placed.
What are your top tips for advertising online in 2018? What are the methods you will be using? I hope you will share in the comments below.
An informative post i will admit, But what about the other ways of advertising such as Social Media, Gumtree, Free Ads etc? Are any of those viable anymore in 2018? Or is it all being over crowded these days?