As lockdown continues, we understand that there’s a demoralising common feeling that things will never be as they were before. Not being able to see loved ones and the effects of boredom are taking their toll on the nation, and businesses are still being impacted greatly by forced closures.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t spend the unavoidable downtime wisely though. Industries are slowly being reintroduced to the government guidelines, so is your business going to go back to work and KILL it?
After all, competition is going to be fierce once normality starts to resume. So, what’s going to make people choose your business to partner with over your competition? In this post, we’ve outlined two quick wins for B2B marketers to explore post-lockdown to maximise potential success levels.
We’ll cover:
Create top-quality Google Ads
Once businesses are back into the full swing of things, we predict that paid marketing is going to skyrocket. So, you need to make sure that your Google Ads are on point. From the content of your ads to your landing page design, you need to make sure that everything aligns so that your ads are a roaring success.
Google Ads is the perfect opportunity of getting your business in front of the right people who need to see it the most. We’re expecting things to be pretty hectic after lockdown, so the last thing you want is to invest time into leads that are a non-runner from the start. Instead, use paid ads to segment the market and cherry pick what type of viewer can see your ads.
However, you can’t produce any old advertisement and expect to see groundbreaking returns. Effective Google Ads require focusing on the right keywords, managing and utilising your budget intelligently and carefully articulated copy - so, there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye.
Arguably most importantly of all, your ads need to be relevant throughout the core. If they don’t align with the rest of your marketing campaign or portray different messaging from your landing pages, they’re only going to confuse the reader. This makes their journey down the buyer’s journey a rocky one, rather than sailing straight through and converting.
Once you’ve nailed down all of these factors, you’re ready to unleash your ads to the world. But stop right there! Have you set goals for your campaign? Have you organised your ads properly? Have the right filters been segmented for your ideal target audience? And that’s not the end of the questions, either.
You need to have 100 percent clarity that your ads are primed and ready to be launched for success. Otherwise, you run the risk of spending way over budget and not hitting the heights that you’ve expected. Without the right knowledge and knack, Google Ads can go from being an effective lead generation and conversion tool to ineffective, expensive and a waste of time.
Additional Resources
For quick tips and expert guidance on how you can keep your Google Ads cost to a minimum, whilst maximising your return on investment (ROI), check out these two blogs:
Utilise paid social media advertising
Social media advertising can be the perfect asset to assist any B2B marketing campaign - in particularly, LinkedIn. This platform is the perfect place for businesses to reach out to other businesses and showcase their products, services and their assisting value to their ideal target audience.
LinkedIn is a completely different ball game from other social media platforms. Ads are more likely to be clicked and engaged with on this platform than any other. For example, LinkedIn users are in a far more professional mindset when using the platform than say the audience of Facebook.
Image Credit: Youth Employment
Like Google Ads, you can’t aimlessly set up an ad campaign and expect it to set the world alight. You need to have a clear structure, alignment with your holistic campaign, and set goals for your ad campaigns. Otherwise, how can you track whether they’re successful or not? Plus, they’ll all pull in different directions and will be counterproductive if anything.
Starting an ad campaign is particularly exciting. But you need to reign that excitement in and think logically when planning your campaign (we promise you can revel in the excitement at a later stage of the process). It’s easy to go all gung-ho at your first ad campaign but slow it down and make logical decisions and you’ll be better poised for success.
Some best practices to take into account when setting up an ad campaign are:
- Set SMART goals. What’s a campaign without any goals? Make sure they’re attainable and realistic though so that they’re not too demoralising.
- Monitor and utilise smart bidding. Don’t get too caught up in trying to secure as many positions as you can as you’ll likely overshoot your budget.
- Target your ideal audience. The best way to guarantee success is to reach out to your ideal audience. What’s the point in targeting a persona who doesn’t fit the bill and is unlikely to convert?
- Choose the right ad type. Choose an ad type that aligns with your content style. Otherwise, people are unlikely to interact with the ad if it doesn’t match.
- Test and optimise your ads. If you don’t test and optimise, how do you know what works? And more importantly, what doesn’t it?
Red-Fern can help your B2B paid marketing campaigns
As we’ve mentioned, we’re expecting paid marketing to be incredibly popular after lockdown. So, with that in mind, you need to ensure that your ads are watertight and best prepared for success. We understand that setting up your first campaign can be a little daunting. So, we’re here to help!
To assist you, we’ve created a free checklist for you to follow to make sure that your ads are positioned perfectly. That way, you can be confident that you’re creating ads that’ll BANG!
However, it’s not quite ready just yet. So, in the meantime, to see how we can further assist your business, why not book a discovery call with one of our expert team who’ll be on hand to help you.