Catherine Langman:
Well, hello there, it’s Catherine Langman here back with another episode of the Productpreneur Success Podcast. Today on the show, I am super excited to welcome our senior Facebook ad manager onto the show for a bit of a chit-chat about a particular aspect of Facebook ads. Sally has worked with me on my team for many years now. She is a really fun and smart lady to work with. We’ve had many good times working together over the years, but what I really love about working with Sally in this area of Facebook advertising is that she is such a great storyteller. She really has a really strong grasp of storytelling and how to communicate through the written and visual aspects of story.
Of course, as human beings, we all understand and remember more accurately and more quickly when we hear and see information presented to us in story format. I think that is hopefully commonsense. Certainly, if you go searching through magazines or watching television or think about paying attention to what you notice when you scroll social media, what stands out to you and what you remember tends to be some kind of story.
We’re going to jump on to talk today about the importance of creative in our Facebook advertising or Facebook/Instagram advertising. The reason that we are highlighting this particular aspect of paid advertising is because it really does the heavy lifting when it comes to attracting and engaging the attention of our ideal customers.
When you think about the way users of social media use the platform, oftentimes, we go on to social media to procrastinate and to pass some time and just to entertain ourselves, and so what’s going to stop the scroll and grab the attention of people? Really, it is the visual aspect and the creative aspect of the ad. It is an incredibly important part of the mix. It is going to be, and it is already, becoming more important part of a successful ad strategy, thanks to the impact of Apple iOS update. We really can’t rely so much on the data and the algorithms knowing exactly who is a buyer for your product so that you can just show a picture of the product to that buyer. It doesn’t work like that, we know we need to be a little bit more creative and clever in the visual storytelling aspects of our ads so that we do attract the attention to people.
We’re going to go through a whole lot of do’s and don’ts and share some very detailed examples of good quality creative, how it works, why it’s important, and I guess at the end of the day, why you can’t just assume that it’s okay to have one lot of photography that you created three years ago and be able to rely on that indefinitely for your ads or for your marketing, generally speaking. We’re going to talk about all the ins and outs of the creative aspect of paid advertising on social media.
With that preamble, let’s invite Sally onto the show. It’s a fantastic conversation. You’re probably going to want to take notes, so maybe pull up a pew, grab a cup of tea and a pen and paper, and let’s dive in.
Catherine Langman:
Welcome to the show, Sally.
Sally Bingham:
Thank you very much for having me today, Cath.
Catherine Langman:
Super excited to have you on the show. We’ve worked together for so long, so it’s about time.
Sally Bingham:
It has been a very long time. And look, I’m excited to come and chat to you about all the creative stuff that we do.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Awesome.
Sally Bingham:
Cool.
Catherine Langman:
So obviously today on the show we’re going to be talking about the do’s and don’ts of creatives in advertising. And I know that you’re a storyteller and this is an enjoyable part of the work that we do for you.
Sally Bingham:
Yes.
Catherine Langman:
But before we dive into some of that stuff, just for the listeners’ benefits, what are we actually talking about when we refer to the creative in advertising on social media?
Sally Bingham:
Yeah. So, the creative refers to essentially what people are going to see, so what’s going to stop them in their tracks and look at the ad that you send out into the world of social media. So it’s the images that you put in your ad, it’s the videos, it’s the GIFs. It’s the copy and the headlines and the Stories, the Reels, the YouTube videos, all those sorts of things that you create to get your message across to people. So, yeah, that’s essentially the creative. It’s what all comes together in the ad and is presented all together. It’s all the different pieces of the puzzle essentially, that come together for the ad.
Catherine Langman:
That the customer’s going to see. Yeah, absolutely.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah. Exactly. Yep.
Catherine Langman:
And of course behind the scenes, there’s all the other technical aspects of advertising that comes into the setup, the audience research and the literally building things out on the platform. We’re not really going to talk about that today. We’re going to talk about-
Sally Bingham:
No.
Catherine Langman:
… what you guys see when you are scrolling your newsfeed on one of these platforms.
Sally Bingham:
That’s right. Yeah, the other stuff, gosh, you could be here for hours talking about that, but one thing at a time.
Catherine Langman:
We won’t do that to our listeners today.
Sally Bingham:
No. Not today.
Catherine Langman:
So what do we want the ad creative to actually achieve? What is good ad creative?
Sally Bingham:
Yeah, so I mean everyone has probably got an idea in their heads of what a good ad is because we all see an ad every now and then we go, “Oh God, that’s a good ad.” But we don’t often think about what is it about that ad that has made you think about it in that way and stop and look at it. So it usually starts with an eye-catching image. That’s the first thing that people see. It’s very rare that the copy will be what people see first. It’s usually the imagery itself, whether that is a static image or a video or a GIF or something like that. So it’s got to catch their eye, sort of make them stop scrolling, essentially.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, yeah.
Sally Bingham:
And that’s the biggest thing. It’s the first thing you can achieve is make someone stop scrolling and look at your image for maybe another second, in which case they’re going to read the copy then, and they might actually click on the ad, see more, or go through to the website and that’s the ultimate, that’s what you really want people to do, is to get them over to your website.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah.
Sally Bingham:
So the ad needs to get the message across about who you are and what you’re doing and what you’re offering and engage the viewer to react in a positive way towards it, so yeah.
Catherine Langman:
I always like to think about how social media, it’s a social platform. Most of us go there to procrastinate and entertain ourselves or distract ourselves from something else for a while. We’re not going there typically to purchase.
Sally Bingham:
No.
Catherine Langman:
So I think that you probably see this too. A lot of times the knee-jerk reaction of a business is to have an ad that literally wants to achieve everything all at once. Stop the scroll, get the click and the purchase all at once. But, it’s pretty hard to do that all at once, right?
Sally Bingham:
Oh, especially on a cold ad when there’s … if then the ad is showing to someone who does not know your business at all, it’s very, very difficult to get a cold conversion because people need to trust you.
Catherine Langman:
Yes.
Sally Bingham:
And I think people are sort of becoming a bit more careful about ads on social media in some ways, because if an ad shows up in front of them, they’re not immediately going to go, “Oh yeah, I’m going to go check out that website.” It has to actually resonate with them in some way. And it has to actually show them that, “Oh yeah, I do have that problem. That’s an issue for me. That looks like a solution that I could implement in my life,” before they’re actually going to click through to the website.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah.
Sally Bingham:
So yeah, there’s a lot to achieve in one little ad and that’s why we have to have a funnel. You have your cold prospects coming in off of one part of … one set of ads, and then you can follow up with another set of ads that give a little bit more education about the product and maybe show them the experience that other people have had with the same product and how they’re just like you, and now their life is better because they’ve got this product and that sort of thing as well.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah.
Sally Bingham:
So it’s more than just one ad, I think is what I kind of want to get across, you know-
Catherine Langman:
I was just going to say, the implication there is that we need different kinds of creative that might tell these different stories at different stages in that buyer journey.
Sally Bingham:
Yep. That’s exactly it. You can start off by putting out an ad that says, “Hey, we’ve got this great product that solves this problem that people like you have in their life. And it’s going to make things better.” But most people are going to look at that and go, “Oh yeah, that looks all right.” And probably keep scrolling for a while. But then it might kind of stay in their head for a little while, next time they experience that problem they’re like, “Oh yeah, I saw something about this. What was that?”
And then that’s when you can … if they’ve actually engaged with your ad in some way, so they’ve clicked on it or they’ve maybe visited your social media page or something like that, then those warm ads come through, they give that little bit more education about it and they see those ones and they’re like, “That’s right, that was that thing that I saw. I might actually give that a try. I’ll go through to the website, I’ll check it out a little bit more, do a little bit more research.” And so, the buyer journey can be extremely long, or it can be extremely short depending on the product. But there still needs to be that follow-up. You can’t expect to just put one ad out there-
Catherine Langman:
No.
Sally Bingham:
… and go, “Yep. That’s it. Done.” And kind of wipe your hands off it. There’s more to be done to bring people to the website and convince them to buy as well.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. So let’s go through a few examples to bring this to life a little bit for our listeners.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
And we had a quick discussion beforehand to make sure we were choosing some good examples to really illustrate these points. And let’s maybe talk about Baby Loves Sleep, who’s a really long-term client of ours, has a fantastic invention so she has … Do you want to share the product that she has and the problem that she solves?
Sally Bingham:
Yeah. So she’s got a couple of different products and the first one was the Sleepy Hugs sleep suit, which was designed to help transition babies from being swaddled out to sleeping with free arms. And as every parent knows, when you’re hitting this stage you swaddle up your babies so they feel nice and secure and they’ll sleep well and all that sort of thing but then they hit a point where they can get their arms free of the swaddle and once they can roll over it’s no longer safe to swaddle them, and that sort of thing.
But jeez, everyone’s still wants that good night’s sleep. And so when your baby’s constantly waking up with their arms breaking free, then you need a solution because if you just put them down to sleep with their arms free, they won’t … They’ve got to learn to sleep with their arms free which takes time. So the Sleepy Hugs helps with that. But particularly the one that I want to touch on today was her second product which was the Koala Hugs swaddle. And it’s a swaddle that actually has these really clever little pockets inside the swaddle so that you can pop the baby’s arms into these pockets before you swaddle them so that their arms can’t actually escape.
Catherine Langman:
It’s the Houdini-proof-
Sally Bingham:
The Houdini-proof baby swaddle.
Catherine Langman:
I needed it when my kids were little.
Sally Bingham:
I remember when the first time I saw it and I went, “Oh my God, I needed this.” I still remember that-
Catherine Langman:
Me too.
Sally Bingham:
… horrible, “Oh my God, they’ve got their arms out again.” Getting up during the night, getting so tired and that sort of thing.
Catherine Langman:
Yes.
Sally Bingham:
And that’s what formed the basis for this ad, which was … it started off something like … I haven’t got the ad right in front of me at the moment, but it started off with this sentence about, “It’s a Groundhog day constantly getting up through the night to settle your baby and redo their swaddle and to make sure that everyone gets some sleep.” And because there was that problem that pretty much every parent-
Catherine Langman:
Absolutely-
Sally Bingham:
… has dealt with that. Ad has just gone so well. It was presenting that problem of, “Oh my God, I’ve got to get up again and put them back to sleep and they won’t go to sleep on their own-
Catherine Langman:
It was a video wasn’t it? I can’t remember.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah. Because there was a video that showed how to actually … what it was essentially, with the pockets in the side. So that people weren’t worried about their child being too constricted, that the baby could still move their arms within the pockets as well.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, that’s right.
Sally Bingham:
So driving home that message of, “Oh my God, it’s Groundhog Day. I’m up again. I’m up again. I’m up again.” And then going, “Here’s the solution.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah.
Sally Bingham:
This will help your baby to sleep better. And everyone then gets a good night’s sleep when the baby’s sleeping better.” So yeah.
Catherine Langman:
So I think from a creative perspective and communication perspective, it really nailed the ability to show that problem and the solution that the customers were really desperate for-
Sally Bingham:
That’s right.
Catherine Langman:
… in a very engaging way with the video and then the headline and the copy that backed it up.
Sally Bingham:
That’s right.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah.
Sally Bingham:
That’s it. That’s it. And I mean I think it was really one of those ads that parents probably saw as they were scrolling while they were trying to settle their baby in the middle of the night so you can probably hear that loud voice-
Catherine Langman:
So that’s coming through at 2 AM in the morning-
Sally Bingham:
Yeah. That’s it. So that ad’s still running. That one’s been running for quite a long time. We do tend to freshen up creative as much as possible, but when there’s something that just keeps on performing well, and it’s still hitting the right spot, we fresh up other parts of the Baby Loves Sleep creative but that ad is still going-
Catherine Langman:
Still converting, yeah.
Sally Bingham:
That’s still the one that’s converting well, it just hits that note so yeah, it was telling that story behind the creation of the product and an issue that parents everywhere experience, so yeah-
Catherine Langman:
Definitely.
Sally Bingham:
That was a good one.
Catherine Langman:
So I guess you just hinted at being needing to change up creative sometimes. And so I guess, how often do we need to do that? How often should advertisers expect that they would need to be producing new imagery or graphics or video or other creative assets?
Sally Bingham:
Yeah. And that’s one that’s a bit hard to answer as one answer for everyone because it is such a different thing for all different businesses and the products that they have. So I guess it’s a matter of looking at the data. I’m a big fan of looking at the data and looking at it and going, “Okay, this data’s going well.” It’s converting consistently so we know that that ad is still doing well. But then when sometimes you just see the data just gradually starts to fall and that’s when you start going, “Okay, it’s time to change this up. Now we need something fresh in there. We need to get some new interest in there, get some new images, some new video, a new message all in there as well.” I mean, you’d probably have to freshen up the warm content more than the cold one sometimes because if you’ve got a large warm audience, they’re going to be seeing those warm ads all the time and they get bored with that.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, and you don’t want the audience to switch off. Exactly.
Sally Bingham:
No. That’s it. That’s it. They need something fresh and new, whether it’s new testimonials or whether you’re highlighting different products and doing that cross sell or the upsell to them, you might want to … If you’ve got new products coming, you can let people know that there’s new stuff on the way so they can get excited and they can pre-order and that sort of thing, if you want, educate them about new things, or other products that you have. There’s a whole lot of scope there for speaking to your audience and keeping them engaged.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah.
Sally Bingham:
That’s the thing. If you can keep that engagement on your ads and have those comments and likes and that sort of thing happening, then other people … then the people who’ve seen the cold ads who then start seeing the warm ads see all that engagement. And that helps with the trust that they have in your brand. If you see an ad that’s got absolutely no engagement on it, the first thing I sort of think is, “Oh, okay. Are they a legit brand?” You might need to go and look and make sure but-
Catherine Langman:
Yes.
Sally Bingham:
You know? You know it’s-
Catherine Langman:
We do need that trust factor to be established for sure.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah. Exactly.
Catherine Langman:
But also I heard this really cool analogy. I think you’ll like this one.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
I was reading a book recently and it was talking about when it comes to your marketing and you’re communicating with your audience, that you’ve got to think in terms of the sidewalk, the slow lane and the fast lane. And the fast lane is easy to sell to because they have already made a decision that they want the kind of product that you sell.
Sally Bingham:
Yep.
Catherine Langman:
So those will be the people that are going to buy off your cold ads. They don’t need a whole lot of convincing. They’ve already decided to buy that kind of product. The slow lane, they’ve at least recognized that they need something or they want something or they have a problem that needs solving. And they’re going to be the ones that are doing their research and starting to maybe respond to marketing messages about that problem or that need. And so those people will start to notice your advertising if it’s eye-catching and it speaks to those needs and problems, but they’re going to need a bit of warming up. So they are going to need these different creatives and these different messages and so on and so forth before they’re going to buy. And then you’ve got your sidewalk who have zero awareness that they need something, or they have a problem to solve yet. So they’re-
Sally Bingham:
They’re just meandering along without …
Catherine Langman:
They’re meandering along.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah. Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
So I think to take that analogy to the extreme, it’s like a lot of people with their advertising, they only want to go after the people in the fast lane, but that’s like your 20%-
Sally Bingham:
There’s not many people there though. That’s the thing. Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
Exactly. Your 2% of potential buyers, the rest of them, you’ve got so much potential to win over the slow lane if you put that right effort into the marketing messages, the stories that you’re putting out there, visual stories, as well as the written word and all of that stuff, so.
Sally Bingham:
That’s it. Look, I’ve probably got an example about the cold lane … not cold lane, the sidewalk. Walking along the sidewalk I saw a … This happened last year or the year before, I was literally just scrolling Facebook and an ad came up in front of me for this product that was like a cooling … it was meant to be for hiking. It was all themed around hiking, which is something that I do, but it was like a neck band that you could wet down and it would keep cool while you were hiking and you could use any type of water, all that sort of thing. And so I went, “Oh, that’s interesting because that’s something that I could use.” And so I went to … It wasn’t something I was looking for in any way, shape or form, but went to their social media page because I hadn’t heard of the brand before.
So I was like, “Oh, I want to see if this is actually a legit brand or if this is someone who’s trying to scam me.” When I looked at their social media page it was like, “Okay, well they’re actually posting, sort of daily and there’s engagement on the post so that leads me to believe it’s actually quite legit. I’ll check it out a bit more.” Went to the website and ended up buying three different products straight off the bat-
Catherine Langman:
Wow.
Sally Bingham:
… because I looked at it and I went, “I actually do have this problem. I don’t want to go hiking when it’s hot because I’ll get too hot and overheat and then I feel unwell.” So with this product, that’s actually solving a problem that I probably didn’t realize there was a solution for, so I hadn’t gone looking for it, but it was presented in front of me and I went, “Oh, yes, that’s actually what I need.”
Catherine Langman:
That’s so cool.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
That’s a very cool example.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah, so it just goes to show if I’d gone to their social media page and there hadn’t been organic posting on there, creative posting there as well, I wouldn’t have gone any further-
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, that’s a good point-
Sally Bingham:
… but the creative is important for the organic as well as your paid … just to make sure that there is that engagement with your existing audience, but also to show your potential audience, potential customers, that you’re here, you’re active, you’re legit, potentially-
Catherine Langman:
You’re for real.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah, exactly.
Catherine Langman:
That’s an awesome point to make. Definitely.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
So I want to talk a little bit about the secret behind good visuals and copy and I guess this really comes down to knowing your customer avatar.
Sally Bingham:
Yes. Yeah, definitely.
Catherine Langman:
So a customer avatar really, it’s just like a description or a profile of your ideal customer, the kind of person who’s normally going to buy from you. And let’s kind of share some anecdotes around our client, MadMia to illustrate this one.
Sally Bingham:
Oh gosh, she’s got the best creatives. It’s so good. Her product is these little bright socks and that’s her core product, but she’s got so many different designs and that sort of thing, but she does these awesome photo shoots where the kids are wearing these socks, she’s wearing the socks. She’s often in the photo shoots herself and they’re bright. The kids are happy, they’re … it’s so targeted towards her target customer, the whole content of the imagery and the imagery, being bright as it is, stands out on Facebook. It’s not as if all her socks are blue and all her images are blue and that’s all you see. [crosstalk 00:19:35]. There’s lots of bright colors and that’s what those people are after because they’re into the world of dance and acro and all these sorts of things.
Catherine Langman:
Roller-skating and-
Sally Bingham:
Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
Jazz dance, all of that fun stuff. Hula hooping not doubt.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah, exactly. And these are kids who like to dress up and like to take photos and put them up on Instagram and all this sort of thing. So that’s essentially what she’s going for there.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. But you have to say if you just look at the product shots alone, which is what you see a lot of people put up in their ads, they’re not that inspiring really.
Sally Bingham:
No.
Catherine Langman:
I mean they’re cool looking products, but just the product on a white background is not ever going to give the same impact.
Sally Bingham:
No, the product on the white background, it doesn’t convey the fun and the joy that’s behind the brand. That’s what you need people in the images to do. And I mean, I guess a good example here with MadMia is that when we started working together, we set up cold traffic, we set up warm traffic and we set up dynamic retargeting which obviously used the product catalog and that pulled images directly from the product pages, which were the products on a white background. And we just found this dynamic retargeting using the product catalog and those images was not converting.
Catherine Langman:
No.
Sally Bingham:
So quite early on, we changed the retargeting up to just a static image, retargeting … just kids having fun. And that converted-
Catherine Langman:
Consistently-
Sally Bingham:
… really, really well right from the start. So we could see from that little test alone that people wanted to see the kids, they wanted that aspirational image of, “With this product, my kid is bright and happy,” and all those sorts of things. It’s not just about dressing up. It’s about that feeling behind it. And that’s what those images convey. They conveyed that feeling.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah.
Sally Bingham:
And that’s what people are buying essentially.
Catherine Langman:
100%.
Sally Bingham:
It’s not just a bright pair of socks. It’s that feeling of feeling confident and happy and all that sort of thing, so yes.
Catherine Langman:
So I guess in a way having the right images or graphics or the right creative in total really conveys that context. And it attracts the right audience in the first place. And it really conveys that context that they’re looking for. So it makes it easy for them to understand what it is. “Is it for me? And is this what I would really want?”
Sally Bingham:
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. I mean, who doesn’t want their kid to feel bright and happy and all that sort of thing [crosstalk 00:22:15]. I think even if you don’t have a kid who’s into that sort of thing, a lot of people will just stop and probably smile at the images themselves-
Catherine Langman:
Oh definitely.
Sally Bingham:
And have a good feeling towards it. And then probably remember it for when they might need a gift or something like that too. But-
Catherine Langman:
I do laugh though, because my teenagers, they just want to wear black now. There’s no color left in the house.
Sally Bingham:
Oh no. I don’t think that’ll ever happen in my house.
Catherine Langman:
Just you wait.
Sally Bingham:
Oh no, I’ve got a few years to go. I hope it doesn’t, but oh, we’ll see. I’ll have to get something creative in there for them, but we’ll see.
Catherine Langman:
That’s it. Oh dear.
Sally Bingham:
But yeah, looks the MadMia images, sorry it’s … Her images are so important to her branding and they’re not just there for the ads, they’re there for her whole social media. She has so many really good images on social media and she uses them on her website and all that sort of thing. It’s her branding-
Catherine Langman:
It is very consistent.
Sally Bingham:
… essentially, in those images. Yeah. Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
Super cool. I want to sort of jump sideways a little bit now. And as we’re recording this episode, lots of changes are rolling out on the Facebook platform and other platforms as well, thanks to the Apple iOS update that is making some big changes and big waves in the digital advertising space.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
And I want to kind of talk about how we can slightly tweak and change up our strategy perhaps with our creative and also the way we’re using it so that we can still take advantage of the huge audiences that are on these platforms, but still work around the new technical limitations that are being put in place for us. And I guess to this point, I wanted to bring in the lovely occasions example that we sort of had a chat about. This is a party supplies brand and you sort of think, well, with things like balloon garlands and all sorts of other fun themed party products, it’s like a fun brand, right?
Sally Bingham:
Yeah, exactly. It’s like MadMia, it’s happiness on the website, isn’t it?
Catherine Langman:
It is. Yeah, absolutely. And we definitely have had this recent scenario that required a bit of a change up in the way we worked on the creative and the way we used that creative as well to really improve the ads.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
So-
Sally Bingham:
Yeah. Did you want me to talk about that one?
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, go for it.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah. So we were hitting some hard blocks on getting these ads to convert because we were presenting the products and while we were getting lots of people over to the website to look at the products and look around and that sort of thing, getting them actually across the line to purchase was much more difficult. And we assume people were doing their party planning, coming to the website, having a look around, getting some ideas and then maybe just going to their local party supply place to buy what they needed. So we had this video to use that showed how to create your own balloon garlands. And we thought, “Yeah, we’ll pop this out there and we’ll see what happens,” because we know that video is one of those pieces of content that Facebook loves. Facebook loves to show video to people because it keeps them on the Facebook platform.
Catherine Langman:
Yes, the engagement is on the platform.
Sally Bingham:
They’ll sit there and watch it. Yeah, that’s right. It’ll keep them there so Facebook’s like, “Yeah, we’ll send this out far and wide, because it’s going to keep more people on the platform, it’s not going to send them straight to a website.” So we put up this video about how to do your own balloon garland. It wasn’t a video that pushed a sale or anything like that. It was simply just showing the process on how you could do it, but the engagement that happened on that ad just exploded, which then increased the performance of the other ads that we had running because once there was that engagement on that ad, then the audiences that had social media engagement in their targeting suddenly had so many more people to show ads to.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah.
Sally Bingham:
And of course the more people you can show the ads to, the more people you’re going to get across the line with purchases and conversions. So that was one that kind of surprised us in its performance.
Catherine Langman:
Immediacy.
Sally Bingham:
But it goes to show that, yeah, you just need … sometimes you’ve just got to test a few different things and what you think is what your target customer wants to see may not be exactly right. So it’s worth trying a few different things, putting them out there and then over the coming week or so you can actually see what the engagement’s like on those, get rid of the ones that aren’t working as well. And then just focus on the ones that do work really, really well. So yeah.
Catherine Langman:
So good.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah. I think with that balloon garland when people like to watch the process of something coming together, something like a balloon garland people would be thinking, “Well, that’s not something I can do. That’s something I’d need a professional to do,” but if it’s like, “Well, this is how you create it yourself,” there would be people who go, “Yeah, I could do that myself.” And then there’s people like me that go, “No, I can’t do that myself, but it’s pretty cool to watch anyway.”
Catherine Langman:
I’m going to buy it. Yeah, absolutely.
Sally Bingham:
Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
Super cool. All right. So beyond that, let’s go through some dos and don’ts that people should or should not be doing with their ad creative. So can you list us off maybe … I mean, I guess to summarize some of the dos that we’ve already gone through, we absolutely do need to think about the customer avatar and what are the specific scenarios that are familiar to them that we can show in our content.
Sally Bingham:
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And then it’s about creating the content that they want to see and that they enjoy seeing because that’s what’s going to engage them and yeah, to make them stop scrolling.
Catherine Langman:
Actually, I think we had one more scenario that we were going to talk to illustrate that too and that was the Oz Inflatable Kayaks.
Sally Bingham:
Yes. That’s right. So the great thing about working with Oz Inflatable Kayaks is that she has so much content. She has worked very hard over the last few years to get the content together to show to her customers and she hasn’t been necessarily running a lot of ads, but she’s got it all on her website because there’s so many questions that people have about these products and she literally cannot be on the phone or on her email all day every day answering all these questions to people. So she’s got loads of blog content to answer people’s queries and all that sort of thing. But she’s also got some really good videos. So, she’s got a video that we’ve got in the cold which is the kind of white water aspirational, how we’d all like to see ourselves in a kayak, going through the white water and all that sort of thing.
Catherine Langman:
I don’t know. That would freak the crap out of me.
Sally Bingham:
Maybe that’s just me. It’s that aspirational thing of, “This is how you’re going to feel being on a kayak.”
Catherine Langman:
True.
Sally Bingham:
But then that then feeds into little bite-sized videos of, “Well, how does an inflatable kayak actually handle on the water? How long does it take to set up?” And, “How do you store it?” And, “Do you need roof racks?” And all these little questions that people would be emailing or messaging her or calling her to ask, we have put into a warm traffic campaign to show to people who would have seen that first video so that those questions are answered before they get a chance to ask her.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah.
Sally Bingham:
So that then it makes it so much easier for her because she doesn’t have to be dealing with that all the time, but it also makes the customer themselves feel empowered because they’re like, “Okay, I’m getting all the information I need and I can make this decision as to whether I want to purchase or not.” And it also builds the trust in her brand because they are so willing to give out this information and educate their potential customers about, “Well this is why this kayak is better than this kayak.”
Catherine Langman:
For you.
Sally Bingham:
And this is why … yeah. There was a video or a blog about an inflatable kayak that’s made for fishing. And it’s like, well, most people would think inflatable kayak, “No, I can’t take that fishing. There’s too many sharp things.” Or there’s another one about taking your dog kayaking because she was getting loads of questions about that, so and that one, it always blows my mind how much engagement there is on that one. There’s obviously a whole lot of people who want to go kayaking with their dog.
Catherine Langman:
I love it.
Sally Bingham:
So yeah, creating that content, going through your customer avatar and your buyer journey and identifying the places where people have some kind of barrier to purchase or they will have questions about the products and that sort of thing. You can go back through emails, I guess, or messages and see what questions keep coming up.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah.
Sally Bingham:
Create some content around that to answer that question. And that’s going to put you in a very favorable light with people who are looking to find a solution for their problem as well.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Love it. All right. What are some things that people should not do with their ad creative? Let’s get blunt here.
Sally Bingham:
Get blunt? Don’t try and put up images that are blurry and out of … that aren’t really sharp. That’s an absolutely … seems really obvious, but sometimes we do get images sent through but it’s just like, “Well, I can’t use that. It’s out of focus, it’s blurry.” Make sure you use images that are very clear, very sharp and that are on brand as well. If you want people to think of your brand as soon as they see an image, then you need to make sure it’s actually on brand.
Have it nicely styled according to your brand. Make sure your images are the right dimensions for where you want to run it. That’s a really important one because all the different placements that we have available to us now all have these different dimensions and needs and that sort of thing. And sending … like trying to use a portrait or landscape image in a carousel ad or on Instagram isn’t going to work because they have to be square. And then when you need to crop things out and that sort of thing, so you might actually be cropping out a really important part of the image.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, totally.
Sally Bingham:
So image dimensions are really important too.
Catherine Langman:
I want to add a quick one that I’ve just been reminded of as you’ve been talking. With video, don’t start with your logo and business name at the front. It is not going to grab anybody’s attention.
Sally Bingham:
No they … Yep. Yep. You need to have something exciting happening right at the start of that video. And as much as you want to get your business in there, if you put your logo up first, people are just going to keep scrolling because that’s not engaging for them so by all means put it at the end. And if they want to know who your business is, they can see it right at the top of that ad anyway.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah.
Sally Bingham:
So yeah, but things have to be clear and with video too, if you want it to run on Instagram, it’s got to be below two minutes, otherwise it’s not going to run.
Catherine Langman:
Yes.
Sally Bingham:
So things like that, those little things are very important to make sure that it runs the way you want it to run across different platforms.
Catherine Langman:
And then I suppose, just to summarize some of the things that you’ve been talking about with us today, really thinking through the sorts of content that’s going to marry up with that where in the buyer journey you are using them. So the kind of creative that might be appropriate for a cold audience is probably going to be pretty different to what’s going to be working with a warmer audience. So if it’s for a cold audience, it’s not all the little FAQ videos like you were just talking about with Oz Inflatable Kayaks, that’s more appropriate to the warmer audiences where you’re really trying to overcome any questions or perceived risks before buying.
Sally Bingham:
That’s right. And that’s where you buyer journey is so important. We often talk about how important that customer avatar is but the buyer journey is so important when you’re mapping out which ads and which content’s going to work best in what part of your funnel you need to know buyer journey really, really well to be able to get the right content to people right when they need it.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Totally. Ah, super cool. Any last thoughts? I shouldn’t put you on the spot like that before we wrap up our conversation today. It’s been great having you on the show.
Sally Bingham:
Thank you. It’s been lovely to sit and have a chat for a while. Look, I think the most important thing is, especially in your cold, is to not try and be super salesy. You need to build a relationship with someone first before you try and really sell to them. It might be that they see your ad and they go, “Oh yeah, that’s great,” and buy, but without any kind of relationship, then most people are going to just go and buy and you might get them in the warm and that sort of thing, that’s great. But yeah, just try and speak in the language that your target customer would use and be approachable, all that sort of thing. It’s just like you’d speak with someone kind of face-to-face.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. I love that. That’s a good note to finish up on.
Sally Bingham:
Oh good.
Catherine Langman:
Thank you so much for joining us on the show today, Sal. It’s been a wonderful conversation. I’m sure all of our listeners will really enjoy listening to it too.
Sally Bingham:
Oh, I hope so. It’s been good to catch up and good to have a bit of a chat about all those things. It’s nice to revisit some of those old ads and pass on a bit of knowledge about it.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Awesome. All right, listeners, we will catch you again on next week’s episode. Bye for now.