Bloom Ads

Tips for a Creative Marketing & Advertising Strategy

A creative marketing plan and advertising strategy is the key to a successful campaign. Even while using tried-and-true methods like television, radio, and print advertising, thinking outside the box can help your brand stand out and make a memorable, longer-lasting impression on your audience. Then there are all the ways you can branch out of those traditional avenues, such as social media and digital marketing.

Of course, creativity in marketing is often easier said than done. So how can you make sure your marketing strategy puts you ahead of the curve while meshing well with your unique product/service and message? We’ve got you covered with these tips for creative marketing.

Join Trending Hashtags

Social media is beyond valuable as a digital advertising platform. Social media marketing helps you reach vast yet targeted audiences, meet consumers where they are (i.e. on their mobile devices), and distribute brand awareness and conversions across multiple channels. One of our favorite tips for creative marketing on social media is to label your content with trending hashtags.

Well-written hashtags help contextualize your content so that users can find it more easily. By using trending hashtags, you can involve your local business in something that is happening nationwide.  Just remember to look into the trend before you post about it to make sure that it’s appropriate.

Tell a Story

Storytelling is effective on almost every advertising platform. Whether you are creating a new TV advertisement, developing a print ad, or crafting digital content, telling a story has always been the most effective way to grab an audience’s attention and transmit information in a meaningful way.

In today’s fragmented media climate, storytelling in marketing is more important than ever. By crafting a unique, specific brand narrative, you can cut through the noise and reach the consumers who need you most. A well-delivered story helps you connect with audiences on a deeper level, allowing your brand to speak to their specific identities and values. We can’t stress how important this tip for creative marketing truly is.

Hold a Contest

Contests can help generate engagement with your audience. In a marketing climate increasingly dependent on multichannel engagement, you’ll want your consumers to have as many opportunities to interact with your brand as possible. Contests specifically tailored to your product or service can help establish a community around your brand, through which customers can then express their unique selves and values.

Have your social media followers share photos or videos with you in order to win something relevant to your business. If you’re an activewear brand, for example, you may want to ask for skate or surf videos. There are as many kinds of contests as there are businesses. Find the right one for your company, and don’t forget to include a snappy, succinct custom hashtag!

Make an Infographic

People have different learning styles, and presenting the same message in a variety of ways – visually, verbally, in written form – tends to help it sink in best. But in today’s mobile, social-media-dominated climate, the power of imagery is stronger than ever. Just look at the popularity of Instagram if you need hard evidence.

Images can usually grab your audience’s attention more quickly than text. A picture is worth a thousand words, after all. And since some reports show that the average person takes no longer than 50 milliseconds to form a first impression, the speed with which you can get your message across is crucial.

Take advantage of visual marketing with a sleek infographic about your product or service. Whether in a print advertisement or shared as part of your digital strategy, an infographic can not only catch your audience’s eye, but it can also help them retain the information you are sharing in a deeper, more lasting way.

 

Still having a hard time putting these tips for creative marketing to use? Our digital marketing experts are here to help you develop unique content and an effective plan that works for your business’s needs.

Learn more about our media planning and media buying services directly on our website. You can also give our digital marketing experts a call at 818-703-0218 to learn more about the services our digital advertising agency can offer your business.

How to Make An Effective Facebook Ad

Is your brand active on social media? Facebook is more than just a platform for sharing with friends; it’s a way for companies to keep in touch with customers in real-time. Right now, Facebook ads are one of the best ways to reach consumers, especially since Facebook is actively deprioritizing organic business posts after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. With that in mind, not very many brands know how to make an effective Facebook ad.

Facebook values user experience first, as this ensures that its users stay as active as possible. To protect this experience, Facebook prioritizes ads that appear like and don’t significantly interfere with the organic content users are consuming. This prioritization means that the ads you create need to be relevant and highly compelling. If you use visually stunning imagery and video, you’re more likely to catch a user’s attention, and users will be more likely to remember what they saw. Also, Facebook video ads, more than ever, are being treated more favorably by the Facebook ad prioritization algorithm.

It All Starts with the Image

Let’s start to outline precisely how to make an effective Facebook ad. As your intuition likely asserts, images and video are everything in Facebook ads. It only makes sense, then, that when making Facebooks ads you’d want to place your essential messages directly on the images and video.

Perfect, sounds great right? Hold on, before you go loading up your Facebook ad image with copy, Facebook won’t allow your ad to garner impressions if the image has ad copy on it that takes up more than 20% of the image. Facebook has technology that scans the whole picture looking for numbers and letters, even if they are offers, logos, or slogans. So, use text carefully and cautiously in the image. The first step in learning how to make an effective Facebook ad is erring on the side of caution and sticking to short promotions or your logo.

Next, Focus on the Ad Copy

Although visuals are king in Facebook, it is vital to have clear, concise, and helpful ad copy in your ad to convey your message. Facebook ads offer three sections for your copy. There is the Text section above your image or video, which is where you can place the more extended portion of your ad copy. There is the Headline, which appears bold and larger right below your image or video. Finally, there is the News Feed Link Description under the Headline.

Text: Best Practices

The first ad copy field that you can enter is the Text, which is where you will enter the bulk of your message. We recommend saving your value proposition for your Headline, so this section should support your value proposition. How does your offer work? What exactly separates you from your competitors? How can people take advantage of your products or services?

You can put quite a bit of copy here, but eventually, Facebook will cut it off. When Facebook users are scrolling through their news feed, they won’t stop to read a ton of text, especially if they need to click to expand the remainder. Our recommendation is to use at least 90 characters, but not to exceed around 125 characters.

Headline: Best Practices

The Headline is right below your image or video and, in our opinion, is the most crucial piece of text. It is a slightly larger font than the rest of the ad copy, and it is also bolded. Due to it being more prominent than any of the rest of your ad copy, it should be the most critical part of your message.

We recommend placing your value proposition here. The value proposition is an assurance of value to your customers. It should be a differentiator from your competitors. It can be an offer or a promotion or can state why your product or service is the best. The Headline can be 40 characters, but we recommend limiting it to 25 characters so they aren’t cut off in mobile ads. This means you’ll need to pack your punch in a small message.

News Feed Link Description: Best Practices

After the Headline is the News Feed Link Description. We recommend using this to offer supporting information to your Headline. Users are likely to see the Headline and then scan the News Feed Link Description right after. You can likely place your best two bullet points in this space. We recommend 25 characters here as well and keep in mind that this text field will not show in your mobile ads.

Carousel Ads for Direct Response Campaigns

We’ve discussed standard image and video ads, but we’ve also found that Facebook Carousel Ads work well for direct response campaigns. Carousel ads highlight up to five different products or services that your prospects can individually click on to learn more about each.

Each of the five options can have a distinct click-through URL, giving your customers more options and more opportunities to convert. The standard Facebook ad best practices outlined above still apply, but carousel ads offer marketers more creative options.

We Know How to Make an Effective Facebook Ad

Want more info? Contact our full-service digital advertising agency to learn more about how we can help you improve your brand’s social presence through social media advertising.

Call us at 818-703-0218 to speak with a digital marketing expert directly or visit our website to learn more about our digital services.

The Advantages of Media Planning & Buying with Bloom Ads

 

The first place consumers go when they want to learn more about a business, product, or service is the internet. Not only do they want to check out reviews, but they want to make sure that the company in question is trustworthy and maintains an active online presence. Currently, those implications are complex and far-reaching.

Some might be looking at a business’s website or blog. Others might be looking at their presence on social media sites. Still, others might want to see what kinds of reviews a business has. They might have faith in a company if they show up on the first page of Google. They might be looking for deals, sales, and specials they can find online.

There are many factors consumers look for when choosing the brands and companies they want to work with or purchase from, and we haven’t even touched on paid digital marketing and the many advantages of media planning.

The Advantages of Working with a Media Planning Agency

The scope of digital marketing is vast and ever-changing. No matter the size of your company, it can be hard for business owners and marketers to find the time to handle digital marketing on their own, let alone doing so without wasting money. That’s why it’s so beneficial to work with a media buying agency.

Media buying agencies are doing this type of work day in and day out. Not only do we know and understand the current best practices of running digital marketing campaigns, but we know when and how to pivot as the industry evolves. It’s the job of a media buying agency to stay on top of new trends, platforms, and strategies to offer the best return on investment to our clients.

From gaining access to competitive research to saving on resources, here are just a few of advantages of media planning agencies.

Market and Competitive Research

One of the core advantages of media planning with professionals is the fact that many media buying agencies have access to proprietary marketing research and competitive research tools that can provide valuable data about a multitude of industries, products, and services. This research can inform strategies, budgets, and bidding before a campaign even launches, ensuring your business and its campaigns are one step ahead of the competition.

Strategy & Media Planning

Today’s consumer is sophisticated, empowered, and active across a multitude of digital platforms. One advantage of media planning with an agency like Bloom Ads is that we prioritize the platforms that are most likely to convert first while leaving some budget behind that’s intended to drive brand awareness and engagement with individuals who are early in the buyer’s journey and still need some nurturing and encouragement.

We have the experience and know-how required to understand which platforms and the overall mix of platforms and budget to use to reach your business goals. These strategies are the business advantages of media planning with an agency that will give you the best bang for your buck.

Changing Trends

Marketing trends change all the time, and unless you have the time and resources to stay on top of these trends, campaigns will suffer and spending inefficiencies will arise. You probably remember the issues that Facebook had with their data early in 2018. Because users lost faith in Facebook’s data privacy and protection, Facebook decided to remove certain types of targeting from their ad platform.

Save Resources

Budget and people are both resources that your business needs. Another one of the advantages of media planning agencies is that they can save your business on both. Companies that forgo building their own in-house media buying team save significantly on their marketing investment. Agencies have multiple experts on staff to assist in different areas of marketing, and by hiring an agency, you aren’t paying multiple salaries, medical benefits, and extraneous benefits like 401Ks.

Bloom Ads is a full-service media buying agency that will help you effectively reach your business goals. Reach out to us anytime using our online contact form or call 818-703-0218 to speak with a digital marketing expert directly.  We can answer all your questions about the advantages of media planning and buying with Bloom Ads.

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The Importance of Media Planning for Your Business

Media planning entails sourcing and selecting the optimal media platforms for your marketing campaigns, and at the end of the day the importance of media planning comes down to determining the best combination of media to reach a marketing campaign’s objectives.

Creating an effective marketing strategy is a crucial and necessary part of marketing. Nevertheless, the importance of media planning often gets lost because business owners and marketers don’t have the time, tools, or experience required to do it on their own. For example, do you know which marketing platforms to prioritize first? Do you know which have the best ROI? How about what media mix is needed to supply the ideal number of consumer touch points to drive leads and sales? Each marketing platform has its strengths and place in a media plan, dependent on your budget and business goals.

Although the fundamentals of marketing change very little over time, strategic media planning is not entirely as cut and dry as it was in the age of traditional marketing. Today, marketing is all about data and the ability to find statistically significant information within piles and piles of statistics. There is so much more possible than simply applying demographics and having a limited range of media placements on TV, radio, and in print.

The digital landscape is vast and complex, and the importance of media planning and buying has never been more obvious.

Start with Questions

When putting together any marketing plan, it is most important to start with questions, including: 

  • What is the goal of the campaign: sales, leads, in-store visits?
  • What will the measure of success be?
  • What is a typical sale or lead worth?
  • Are there individuals that you aren’t reaching, but would like to?
  • What is a reasonable budget to spend?

All of these questions, among others, should be answered as soon as possible.

Without having a firm grasp of your goals and objectives from the start, it will be hard to measure success later. And without case studies and proof of success, being able to show stakeholders and executives the importance of media planning will become more and more difficult as time goes on.  

Know Your Market and Define Your Audience

The second step after defining goals and ironing out how you will measure them is research. Ask yourself these questions:

  • What do you know about the geographic area you want to target?
  • Do people need to drive to your store?
  • How far is too far to drive?
  • What are the commonalities of your current customers?
  • What are their ages?
  • What interests do they share?
  • Are these interests common in your market?
  • Can you create an audience profile that will have enough people in it to support your advertising spend?
  • Are there too many people?
  • Should you refine your audience to be more manageable?

By working with a media buying agency like Bloom Ads, you’ll have access to a group of experienced professionals who not only understand the importance of media planning but have access to the research tools and data necessary to properly define your target audience.

Map Your Consumer Journey

There’s typically a specific path a customer takes before converting to a sale or a lead and knowing this path (or customer journey) is crucial because you want to be able to speak appropriately to users at every stage and offer valuable information which will lead them promptly to the next step. Most of this time, the path is represented as a funnel. The people who have just found out about your or your products or services represent a more significantly sized number of people at the top of the funnel. As people progress, they drop off and move on. This is inevitable for any number of reasons.

The thing to note is that as people become more informed about your company and the audience gets smaller, the people that remain are more and more likely to become customers or new leads.

Prioritize High Intent Users First

If you desire to have the most significant return on investment, you’ll want to go after that smaller, more qualified audience first. It makes sense that if they convert at a higher rate, you should be talking to them first. However, since they are often a much smaller audience, you’ll always need to be reaching out to new potentials and creating a buzz around your brand.

The Right Media Mix

The importance of media planning lies in making sure that you devote budget to the high intenders, but also lay the foundation at every step of a user’s journey to guarantee that you don’t miss opportunities. We recommend starting at the bottom of the consumer funnel and working backward with your marketing budget, trying your best to fill in as many steps as possible.

ROI is at the forefront of every ad campaign we run at Bloom Ads. We recognize the importance of media planning and work to create the best possible marketing strategy for your brand. Learn more about our media planning services on our website or call 818-703-0218 to speak with one of our professionals today.

What are The Objectives of Media Planning?

Media planning is an essential part of any marketing strategy.  As a business owner, not only should you be thinking about your day-to-day plan, but you should also be thinking about your overarching goals for 2019 and into the future.

So, how do you focus on both long-term and short-term goals?  Media planning!

What is Media Planning?

So what exactly is media planning? The objective of media planning is to identify the ideal combination of media outlets for marketing a product, service, or brand. It involves market research, identifying target audiences, analyzing their propensity to engage with your business, planning your marketing execution, and working with specific marketing budgets.

Successful media plans require strategic balance. Today’s customers interact with dozens of mediums on a daily basis. Your business goal should be to meet them at as many of these points as possible. A lot of these touch points will be online, but others will be offline, like television, radio, or print. Media planning uses data, research, and previous experience to deduce the optimal mix of all these platforms.

What Do Media Planners Do?

Media planners will first speak with your business leaders to understand your key objectives and goals. One of the first objectives of media planning is to ask probing questions about your business, what you offer, who your current customers are, and what your customer’s motivations seem to be.

Once this initial fact-finding discovery conversation is complete, a media planner will conduct external research. Our media planners will gather and analyze insights about your marketing region, research current industry trends, analyze what your competition is doing, identify the ideal target audiences, and strive to understand where those audiences are most active.

This manner of analysis is where marketing meets intuition and experience. This stage is where our experienced media planners delve into the nuances of their research and audience behaviors. These behaviors include where they go for information, what other products and interests they share, and why they interact with specific media channels.

TV, Radio & Print vs. Online Channels

After identifying the target audience and their habits, the next objective of media planning is to determine the best media outlets on which to place your advertisements. Our media planners decide how much of the marketing mix should be on traditional media like television, radio, or print. They also figure out how much budget allocation goes to online channels like paid search, social media ads, display, and video campaigns, or even email marketing.

Consumers experience and engage with content in a multitude of ways, both traditional and digital. Our job is to find the ideal media mix for your target audience across all media channels. Once channel selections are final, one of the final objectives of media planning is to reach out to traditional media outlets with RFPs. They also give digital media buyers the plan for the digital platforms, this way the media buyers can set up the online campaigns through all the digital channels.

Budgeting Properly is Key

In pretty much all marketing scenarios, the discussion about marketing budget decisions should happen at the start. It’s a business imperative that you not only determine how to advertise your brand’s message but that you allocate funds so that you will have ample return on your investment. Proper budget projections should prepare media planners to understand precisely how to spend your budget effectively. Spreading budget should encompass reaching your most likely customers first, while still balancing engagement and branding.

Media planning is an integral part of any business strategy, but it can also be time-consuming for business owners.  Fortunately, we know all the objectives of media planning and are here to help. Our full-service advertising agency offers media plan services that help generate ROI.  Our media planning experts will help you craft a successful campaign that drives consumer traffic and improves your overall brand presence.  

Learn more about the media planning services that we offer, or you can call 818-703-0218 to speak with a media planning specialist directly.

Why Integrated Marketing Analytics is So Important

Is your brand utilizing an integrated marketing strategy?

In a world where consumers find information when they need it, where they need it, it’s important that businesses know how to measure the effectiveness of their marketing strategies.

Brands need to determine which aspects of their marketing strategies are working, and which areas need improvement. This requires integrated analytics that makes the most of consumer interactions.

Why It’s Important:

  • You Can Prove ROI – You want to be able to tie the effectiveness of your marketing and advertisement efforts to business results. Determine your business goals, develop a plan, and take a look at your analytics to prove your results. According to a recent study, brands that develop well-established metrics are three times more likely to hit their goals.
  • You Can Improve Performance – Brands that utilize marketing analytics are 39% more likely to see improvement in the overall performance of their marketing programs. When you see what is working and what is not, you can alter your strategy to best meet your brand needs.

At Bloom Ads, we have a hybrid approach to media buying that helps brands get noticed. Our integrated strategies provide a fresh perspective. Though our media buying and planning services, we can help determine which advertising channels are most effective to integrate into your marketing strategy.

Call 818-703-0218 to reach our office or visit our website for more information about our media buying and media planning services.

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Mother’s Day Opportunities for Brands

Mother’s Day is right around the corner.  Have you started shopping yet?  Whether you’re a son, daughter, or you are looking to show some love to a mother figure in your life, Mother’s Day is the perfect opportunity to show how much you care.

This gift buying holiday is also an opportunity for brands to reach out to sons and daughters that are looking for the perfect present.  According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), $19.9 billion was spent by consumers for the 2014 holiday.  That adds up to $162 per person!  With marketing trends becoming more and more digital, it’s important that brands are taking a look at their demographics to see who they should be targeting for the holiday.

Mother’s Day Marketing Opportunities by Region:

Midwest

People who live in the Midwestern states tend to be searching for flowers, desserts, greenery, home decor and perfumes.

Northeast

Those that live in the Northeastern US (New York, Connecticut, Maine), tend to search for gardening accessories, home decor, desserts, gift cards and perfumes.

South

From Florida to Texas to North Carolina, Southern shoppers purchase gardening accessories, spa days, home decor, desserts and perfumes.

West

Western Mother’s Day shoppers are likely to search for spa day gifts, desserts, flowers, decor and gardening accessories.

Although consumers in these regions focus on these trends, Mother’s Day is still an opportunity for your brand to get noticed regardless of the industry.

If you have any questions about how to effectively market your brand this Mother’s Day, contact our professionals at Bloom Ads.  We offer media buying and media planning services that help you optimize your marketing strategy for your business goals and needs.

Call 818-703-0218 to reach our office or visit our website for more information about the services we provide.

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How to Promote Earth Day at Your Business

Happy Earth Day!

Today marks the anniversary of the birth of the environmental movement.  Since 1970, Earth Day has reminded us to make a difference in the world around us!

What is your brand doing to make a difference?

With everyone’s minds focused on how to make their lives a little bit more eco-friendly, now is the perfect opportunity to share what your business does to give back – and make a few changes to make your brand more sustainable.

Start a Recycling Program!  Recycling all of the paper, cardboard and bottles that your business uses each day can make a big difference.

Invest In Carbon Offsetting – Carbon offsetting is a great way to offset the environmental impact of your business.  For all of the carbon that your business produces, you can invest it back into the environment (offset your environmental impact).  These projects invest money back into planting trees, environmental research, wind power, and more!

Use Recycled Materials – Consider where you are buying the materials that you use for your business. Invest in using more energy-efficient products that are made from recycled materials.

Of course, don’t forget to let your customers know that you are making these changes!  Promote your eco-friendly efforts on your website, social media, blog, print advertisements, and television ads.  You want your customers to know that you are an eco-conscious brand.

Our hybrid approach to media buying helps brands get noticed.  Call 818-703-0218 to reach our office or visit our website for more information about our media buying and media planning services.

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Industry Tips: How to Create an Effective TV Commercial for Your Retail Business

For businesses in the retail industry, TV commercials are the perfect way to get noticed by potential customers — but where do you begin?

It’s important to create an effective television ad that conveys your message andresonates with your audience.  An image is worth a thousand words!

Are you a national brand? 

National brands are looking to reach a large audience.  Due to the wide range of your audience, it’s important to focus on storytelling and humor that connects with your audience.  You need a script that will stick in your audience’s mind and separate you from your competitors.

Are you a local retail business?  

Smaller businesses can’t afford the large scale television advertisements that national brands can, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t create an effective commercial.  Consider your environment and your audience.  You might be able to use slogans and phone numbers that stick in your audience’s mind.  Get creative and don’t be afraid to take a unique approach to your retail advertisements.

Although you are targeting locally, this doesn’t mean that you can’t reach a national following!  Upload your television commercial to your YouTube channel and Facebook page for maximum exposure.

Ready to create a TV advertisement for your retail business?  The advertising experts at Bloom Ads are here to help you develop the perfect marketing strategy and television advertising campaign for your unique business goals.  We script, shoot and edit your TV spots — as well as ensure that you get the best possible ad rates available.

Visit our website to see a few of the television advertisements we have created for brands in the past or give us a call at 818-703-0218 to learn more about our television advertising services.

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Mother’s Day Marketing Trends

Mother’s Day is just a month away.  How will you be showing mom some love this year?

People everywhere will soon be searching for gifts and ways to celebrate.  For brands — Mother’s Day presents an opportunity to generate brand awareness and improve ROI.

Here are a few Mother’s Day marketing trends to keep in mind when creating your strategy.

Mother’s Day Marketing Trends:

  • Gifting More Than Flowers – Flowers account for about a third of all Mother’s Day related searches.  However, they aren’t the only gift you can give to mom.  All brands should be capitalizing on the trend and using their marketing strategies to create opportunities for sales.
  • Expand Your Customer Reach – Think about all the relationships mothers may have.  Daughters, relatives, sisters, grandmothers, and friends all might be searching for Mother’s Day gifts around this time of year.
  • Always Think About Mobile – Over ⅓ of shoppers used their smartphones to find their moms a gift last year, according to Bing.  Make sure that your website is mobile friendly.

Starting to develop a Mother’s Day marketing strategy for your brand?  Learn more about our media buying and media planning services on ourwebsite or call 818-703-0218 to speak with one of our advertising experts directly.  We’re here to help you create a Mother’s Day marketing plan that is optimized to your brand goals and needs.

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Bloom Ads Global Media Group | 818.703.0218 | info@bloomads.com
20720 Ventura Blvd. Suite 140 Woodland Hills, CA 91364