A while ago HubSpot issued a survey in an effort to find out which types of digital ads people disliked the most. The results came back, with the majority of people agreeing that the most disliked ads were pop-ups, mobile ads (designed to be clicked accidentally), pre-rolls and banner ads. They also agreed that these types of ads were very intrusive. Proof that intrusive display ads are annoying and hardly get any attention because people dislike them so much. They also tend to get accidental clicks which inflates their performance. But this is not to say that all digital advertising is bad, quite the contrary. It’s actually great when used in conjunction with excellent content as the survey further revealed. Non-intrusive ads, like Google search ads and ads found on social news feeds, were ranked very low on the list. Meaning that the ads weren’t seen as annoying and intrusive because of their contextual relevance.
Digital ads paired with powerful content
Digital ads should be used as a tool to reach your ideal target audience and should be paired with content that they actually enjoy. Some examples of this in action include:
- Pairing social media ads with ungated, top of the funnel content that is designed to improve your audience’s life in some way.
- Promoting virtual events via your newsletter or social media.
- Retargeting readers of your content with a video on social channels, designed to tell them more about your products or services and why they need them.
- Investing in Google ads for keywords that you are trying to organically rank for while promoting helpful organic content.
Activation and long term brand building
You can sell your products and services in two ways according to researchers Les Binet and Peter Field. Through activation which involves evoking an immediate response from consumers and long term brand building which entails changing peoples minds permanently.
Activation is a short term marketing tactic that doesn’t require doing much to change people’s minds. In fact, it’s just about convincing your audience for a moment, which helps to spike immediate sales and can be highly profitable and efficient.
Long term brand building is a little trickier as it requires a lot more dedication, time and effort to be a success. It’s all about the long game, slowly sowing seeds every day that will change peoples minds over time. It’s also about building up mental structures and conditioning your audience’s behaviour. Once you get this right, your business will begin to see an ongoing stream of sales, revenue and profit.
Both are effective for bringing in sales and you should ideally do them at the same time. Some of your campaigns should focus on long term brand building while others should fulfil a more short term activation role. Activation and long term brand building are designed to enhance one another.
Building your brand long-term helps to form a preference and attracts people who like your brand. Activation then converts that preference efficiently into sales. In order for this combined strategy to work, you need to do both at once and balance them well. The reason you should focus on long term brand building and activation is because both are effective in making sales in the long and the short term.
But businesses can be tempted to only focus only on activation (also known as digital ads) because of the quick results they bring in the short term. These results can be in the form of responses, clicks or short term sales. And if you are nervous about spending money as a business owner, this kind of short term effect can put your mind at ease because you immediately see the returns. The only problem with this is that the short term metrics distract from the long term metrics because they are immediate and consequently, long term growth is neglected. This is a pity because when you focus on building your brand long term, customers and clients come to you, rather than you having to fight for their business.
A good way to tell if your long term brand building is working is to observe your inbound organic search queries as opposed to your paid search and click-through rates for your digital ads. If your brand is strong and resonates with people they will actively seek you out. If not, you will need to keep working at it because, make no mistake, a recognised and loved brand is arguably one of the most valuable assets a business can own!
