Journey Based Advertsing: Chapter One
In 2006, the Inbound Methodology was born. In contrast to the traditional mass outbound marketing, the new inbound marketing approach concentrated on drawing people to your company through helpful and relevant content.
At first, advertising had no business there.
Today’s platforms have evolved for the individual user’s experience. Companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook provide exceptional value, convenience, and experience, allowing users to have unique experiences all in the same place.
Now, these platforms can serve ads that are appropriate and interesting to unique segments of their users. Before, ads used to be all about exposure. Ads can now be helpful and relevant, and in turn, that means they can be inbound.
Organic reach is shrinking
Average organic reach on a social post is now as low as 2%. That means that even if you have relevant and useful content, you might not reach your audience by just posting to your pages.
When we look at search, 95% of traffic on Google goes to sites that appear on the first page. Sites that are building authority or wanting to rank for very competitive keywords can find it hard to achieve this, meaning you could be missing out on opportunities for organic search traffic.
To reach your leads and to continue to be present on the platforms and networks you prefer - you need to supplement your Social and SEO efforts with online advertising.
HubSpot
Supporting your organic SEO and Social efforts with paid social and PPC advertising allows you to show up where your target audience is, compensating for where organic is now slacking. But good ads don’t just show up; they blend in. The most successful ads are useful and relevant to the target audience, so much so that they won’t consider it an intrusive ad at all; they should find it helpful.
That means you need to understand your buyer’s personas and target audience. By understanding whom you want to engage with, where they are online, and how they use different online platforms, their goals or roadblocks, you start to align with the content they value most.
So, depending on where your customers are in the buyer’s journey, you’ll want to provide different content, use different targeting strategies, and optimise your ads for different objectives.
How do we do that? Journey Based Advertising!
What is Journey Based Advertising?
Journey based advertising - a digital advertising strategy where you tailor your ad targeting and ad creative to align with the buyer’s journey.
To understand Journey Based Advertising, we need to understand the buyer’s journey, and the process your leads go through to become a customer.
Here’s a great resource to learn more on the buyer’s journey and inbound marketing.
In simple terms, JBA is an ad strategy that follows the buyer's journey and puts a high emphasis on the user’s intent. It can be also be considered the happy crossroads where your content, social media, and lead nurturing strategies meet.
Let’s dive into what that would actually look like:
Awareness Stage
Your buyer realises they have a problem.
It’s now critical to understand what these pain points are, and deliver ads addressing them.
- Ads: Focused on addressing the problem your buyer persona is experiencing
- Content types: Helpful blog posts, quizzes, educational content that helps your audience start to describe their problem
- Audiences: Demographics and lookalike audiences
Consideration Stage
Your buyer is now considering broad categories of solutions.
They may be looking at comparisons and general information and are looking for solutions to help them make decisions – but they are not ready to buy yet! You’re on their radar as a potential – it’s now crucial to come in with very relevant ads that show your value.
Pay close attention here - you want to target those who are developing a relationship with your brand, not just those who have interacted with your brand.
- Ads: Want to be pointed at more branded content to tell your users more about your company and showcase why they want you as their trusted advisor
- Content Types: Webinars, landing pages, branded videos
- Audiences: List-based audiences
Decision Stage
Your buyer is now ready to whip out the credit card and make a purchase.
- Ads: They should point to a variety of different content offers that highlight what sets your company apart. Include keywords that focus on pricing and product features.
- Content types: coupons, demos, promotions, consultations, flash sales, showcase your products
- Audience: List-based audiences and exclusion audiences
Using these tips above, you can make journey-based advertising a reality for your campaigns.
Check out this blog post to learn how to adapt Journey Based Advertising for search and social. Or, just ask the experts! Get in touch with the ExtraDigital team today, and we’d be happy to discuss your Advertising strategy.
Next Chapter: 2 - Adapting Journey Based Advertising for Social and Search
