Trading Up Media Blog

There are a lot of different ways to reach your target audience. From emails, text messages, phone calls, to social media, and even when they visit your website, there are a variety of channels to connect and engage with your customers and prospects. Whether this is an organic route or a paid route, both have their pros and cons. While organic reach is a low-cost marketing method, it can be tricky to reach a specific audience due to the different algorithms we are faced with each day. This is where paid media comes in. If you are looking for an opportunity to be precise with your reach, this is the way to go. 

Paid media can be expensive, however, there is a rhyme and rhythm when it comes to reaching a larger percentage of people. This method will help you connect with prospective customers who you may not be able to reach through organic methods.  

You might ask how “paid media” works when it comes to boosting your presence. Paid media is a method where organizations can promote their content through sponsored social media posts, display ads, paid search results, and other promoted multimedia. It is also an excellent approach to increase brand exposure, particularly for SMEs. If your content appears often on consumers' homepages, search results, and feeds, brand familiarity will automatically skyrocket. For instance, think when you see an advertisement banner on the side of your screen on a shopping site. That is an example of a paid advertisement. 

The real question is how can you use these paid media outlets to drive engagement. Here are a few tips and tricks we came up with to help you nail down your paid media campaigns. 

• Use Content Mapping

Knowing your audience is one of the biggest portions of marketing as a whole, but it is extremely important when it comes to your paid media. Content mapping is a multi-step process that will help you deliver the right message, to the right demographic, at the right time. (There were a lot of rights there!) Throughout this process, you will be able to define your buyer's persona, and customer journeys, and even audit your current marketing situation. When you do this it sets you a clear vision of what has worked in the past and what you should shift now.

• Take Advantage Of Automation

One of the best tips is to use what is available - ie. automation! Automation allows you to offload the most time-consuming elements of paid media which allow you to focus on the fun stuff (like responding back to comments). According to Google, 80% of advertisers are using automated bidding to achieve their goals! 

• Boost Posts That Have Good Engagement

Once you have done an analysis of what posts have done well (in terms of receiving more likes, comments, or shares) and the others that may be lagging behind, you can sit down and begin to boost the post. By boosting posts that have performed the best you can further increase engagement with your content. It allows for a new group of people to see content that is already doing well. 

• Target Those Ads

As mentioned before know your audience is BIG. Targeted ads are extremely helpful and effective when it allows marketers to provide advertisements that are specific to the customer seeing them. The advertisements can be tailored to individual characteristics, interests, and purchasing habits. This is often accomplished through understanding demographics, shopping preferences, and browsing activity, and then creating a unique advertisement that is suited to them.

• Use A Sales Team

Sales teams have more knowledge when it comes to closing on leads. This can be beneficial for your advertising because they know what the bottom line the prospect may want to hear is. The sales team will monitor current customers' profiles and any competitors to show you how to interact with potential customers

• Quality Over Quantity

Don’t just put out content to put out content. It is useless to have multiple paid advertisements with no quality content for your audience. You are losing money and potential clients this way. If you are spending the time and resources to put out content, you should make sure it is content your prospective customer wants to see. 

• Encourage Your Team 

One of the best ways to drive engagement is by referrals. One of the best referrals is the people who work directly on your team. Since they are so close to the product or service they would be able to speak on the impact it has. Whether this is simply sharing on a social media wall or commenting on a post. It is a way to establish a sense of trust between your staff and your customers. 

With the right strategy, paid media can help you get your message in front of the right audience at the right time. Use this as an opportunity to study more to find different tips and tricks for you to drive your engagement. Let us know if you need help with your paid strategy.