Advertising an online business can be difficult. Without a brick-and-mortar location for people to stumble upon or get natural traffic, getting people to investigate your website can be a struggle. That is why good marketing and advertising is essential for an online business. When making ads, you want them to be effective and rewarding. Here are three things to keep in mind while making advertisements for your online business.
Keep It Simple
People have a very short attention span. Generally speaking, if an ad doesn’t catch your audience’s attention in the first five to 10 seconds, it’s not going to work. This is why a lot of ads either start with the name of the brand or are framed around a story. Even if your ad loses some people’s attention after the first few seconds, they’ll have seen your brand name.
If you decide to frame your ad like a small short or story, people are more inclined to watch to the end out of curiosity, wanting to know how it ends. Don’t drag things on for too long though. Get to the point, and provide the necessary information early. Consider integrating banner ads into your site in a subtle way. You need to balance being eye-catching and hard to miss with simplicity and subtlety. When it comes to advertising, less is more.
The Call to Action
Just identifying your brand and product isn’t enough. It’s great that the information is out there at least, but customers need to have an incentive or drive to act on it. Unless they just so happen to be looking specifically for your service when they see the ad, they’ll just move on and forget all about it. That’s why a call to action is so important. A call to action gives customers direction for where to go or what to do next, such as visiting a website or calling a phone number.
Match Your Image
Lastly, your advertising should suit the image of your business. Nothing is worse than giving customers a complete tonal whiplash when your advertising has a completely different personality from your brand. Make sure your advertising meshes with your brand’s style guide. If you don’t have a style guide, make one. Consistency is key when it comes to advertising. The more consistent your ads look, the faster people will recognize your brand.
By keeping these three key points in mind when making your ads, you’ll be sure to make consistent and attention-grabbing promotional material that will help draw traffic to your online business.
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