3 Reasons You Need to Invest in Advertising
I saw a post the other day that said "stop advertising".
"The only people who care about advertising are those in advertising."
If that's true, then more people need to re-evaluate their entire business plan. If you don't think advertising is helpful, I highly encourage you to read this blog post. Advertising is essential. The argument seemed to imply that social media engagement was more important. BOTH are equally important and work towards a common goal of increasing sales, educating and creating a community. Depending on your services, advertising is absolutely 100% necessary along with your social media presence to build a community.
Advertising can Expand Your Audience
It's awesome to educate your present audience. In fact, you absolutely should be doing that already. However, if you want to expand your audience beyond your current followers, their followers, and whoever Instagram/Facebook/etc. has suggested for you, advertising is a great tool. Those who follow you on Instagram/Facebook/Twitter found you by chance most likely. Either a friend shared your post or a friend of a friend shared it. If you’re not marketing or advertising then all of your followers are somehow connected to you.
When you invest in advertising and marketing, you’re building and expanding beyond those who know you. Why leave it up to chance when you can invest in building your network and community while investing in the community that you already have? When you create an advertisement, you have the opportunity to select a different target group. You can choose to target age groups, locations, genders, etc. This will show your advertisement not just to those who know you and who are in your circle of "those you may know” but you’ll find people who don’t know you at all but are drawn to your services simply by the ads you put out and produce.
Advertising Increases Sales
Social media builds a community and loyal customers. This is a process and takes time. Social media engagement and posting opens the door to endless opportunities to educate and encourage your clients/customers. When you educate, you become credible and indispensable. You create a legacy.
Advertising targets clients and customers who may be looking for a specific product or service right now.
Put yourself in this situation. You need your oil changed right now. Not next year. Not in a month. Right now. So, you Google it. If you aren't advertising, don't even have a Google page set up, haven't set up anything on your site, don't have Google reviews, etc., people will not find you right away (if at all).
If you’re not advertising but you’re spending literally all of your time engaging with your current followers, engaging on those you follow then you will not expand to your full potential. People do not spend all day on social media (especially if they’re not being paid to do that). People work, live their lives, and when they need a particular service, they Google and go by word of mouth.
I won’t say that social media engagement isn’t important because it definitely is. I’ve grown followers and have actually gotten clients through social media engagement but I’ve also gotten clients through advertising and proper marketing. But to say that you shouldn’t do one or the other is missing the picture. You need both. They’re both incredible tools.
Advertising Provides Audience Insights
Social media advertising allows you to test your audience and see which posts are resonating with different groups of people. On Facebook, you can view Audience Insights in Facebook Ads Manager. You can choose age groups, gender groups, country, region, etc. There are so many options in selecting and optimizing your audience. If you want to see how well a particular post does with certain audiences, these analytics are available for you to see.
If you take these numbers, you can even narrow down your audience preferences and target more people with a more specific group selection. Or, if you notice that one post does better with a different audience after audience testing, then you know to start changing the way that you create your posts and/or graphics.
You Need Both Advertising and engagement
Advertising is a tool. Social media management is a tool.
Using one or the other isn't the question. You have to utilize both if you want to be successful. Maybe this means you need to hire someone to do your marketing and advertisement. Maybe this means you need to hire someone to do your social media engagement. Whatever you decide to do, know that both are equally as important. To erase advertising and marketing from your growth equation would mean leaving a lot of money on the table and a lot of missed opportunity for growth.
If you already have enough on your plate and can’t possibly comprehend the idea of tackling marketing, advertising, and social media engagement contact me today. I offer a variety of packages and can do all of these things for you so that you can fully focus on your business.
Profit Chatter is NOT something I just woke up and decided one day to do. I have been studying advertising since college. I've been researching and planning for literally years. This isn't just a gimmick to me. I may seem and come across as overly passionate about the need for advertising but I'm passionate about the need to educate on why you have to utilize these tools that are available to you if you want to be truly successful.
