Making An Effective Ad Strategy: Information vs. Irritation
Over the last few months, the huge influx of emails sent out by companies regarding their pandemic policies has become a running joke. Inboxes are crammed full of seemingly unnecessary messages – and most of the time, those emails are immediately deleted, unopened.
This trend highlights the divide between information marketing vs. irritation marketing. Irritation is when your ad – whether an email, banner ad, or any other form – has placement, frequency, or content that ends up annoying your target audience. Information, on the other hand, is being creative and savvy enough with your ads to clearly show how you (or your products) can solve your audience’s problem.
Marketing in the Age of Information
So how can you be sure that you’re seen as an informative, helpful presence, and not an annoying one? Here are some things to consider when planning an ad strategy:
- Who is your target audience, and how do they engage? If you’re serving ads to people that will never respond, or in irrelevant ways, it’s wasted resources and opportunity. Take the time to target the right demographic because, as just one example, properly segmented and targeted audiences make up 77% of email marketing ROI.
- What are your goals? The requirements of marketing to sell products, generate web traffic, or promote an Instagram contest are all different. Know what you hope to achieve before you start, and track data before and after so you can follow how well you’re doing. As a general rule, value offers (like discounts) will drive good results.
- Focus your message: Templated, copy-and-paste emails are a death sentence for your open rate. Build your brand’s personality, keep it authentic, and focus on reaching the people and groups that it will resonate with. As Diego Santos, the Marketing Manager of Hubspot EMEA, says, “Small and authentic will win over big and generic every time.”
- Find the right frequency: Most email users unsubscribe from lists because they are simply sent too many, and we’ve all seen the same Facebook ad repeated in our timelines, over and over again. If your “Unread” rate is high on an email campaign, and your digital ads aren’t converting, try reducing your frequency.
- Retargeting: If your audience needs a few touchpoints to purchase or convert, it’s a common marketing mistake to let them pass you by – especially right now, with everyone having increased screen time. A great email campaign strategy retargets people who may not be all the way through your sales funnel and offers unique incentives for them to keep going.
Building Effective Email Marketing Strategies
Email marketing is the most reliable method of reaching your audience – after all, if someone trusted you with their contact information, they must have some interest in what you offer. Here are some key steps for creating the perfect email digital marketing campaign, and avoiding irritation territory.
- Engage new users within 24 hours, and have a way to get feedback
- Hyperlink images and include at least one relevant CTA
- Use social sharing buttons
- Monitor performance, and use the data to clean up inactive contacts
- Proofread everything a few times
- Triggers are extremely effective for retargeting – these send automatic emails when certain events (purchases, site visits, abandoned carts, etc.) are performed. Regularly review automatic emails to avoid mistakes
Giving Information, Not Irritation
A lot of variation exists within marketing, but there are some definite trends that you can count on to help make your strategies the best they can be. For example, with the huge rise in online advertising – and the often-intrusive nature of many of them – many people consider mobile ads to be extremely irritating. This goes up even more if it has a “clickbait” title, or it looks unprofessional or spammy. Put the effort in to show your brand as the leader it is, and it’ll go a long way.