As you've learned in the previous courses, you don't need to pay to create an

organic presence on social media. However, you do need an audience for your message
to have a business impact. In this video, you will learn why growing that audience
may be a reason to consider paid advertising. When first starting out, you'll
likely only have a few followers, so the relative impact of your content will be
fairly low. Your audience will of course grow overtime, especially if you post
engaging content and interact with the people that visit your page or your account.
Play video starting at ::39 and follow transcript0:39
Your organic posts can only reach the people who like or follow you as well as
their friends. And on top of that, not everything you post will end up in the feed
of your followers. Most social media platforms use algorithms that prioritize post
from friends and family. And they use many other factors to predict whether your
post will be engaging enough to give it a spot in your followers feed. You'll find
that overall this can make it quite challenging to see large reach for your posts.
So if you find that your follower growth is slowing and if you see that the actual
number of people exposed to your posts is too low to drive meaningful results, you
should consider investing in paid advertising. And this will help you expand the
number of people who get exposed to your product or your business. In other words,
paid advertising can help you increase your reach.
Play video starting at :1:36 and follow transcript1:36
The main goal of paid ads is to reach people who are likely to become your
customers. Social media ads allow you to get your message out to just those people
who may have an interest in your product. And this is possible through a variety of
targeting options as we'll see later. But for now, it's good to remember that paid
advertising can help you reach a specific audience that you may not be reaching
already with the organic social media efforts.
Play video starting at :2:7 and follow transcript2:07
In contrast to traditional advertising channels such as TV or out of home
campaigns, social media ads are very accessible. Self serve ad platforms allow you
to create your own campaigns and you can spend as little or as much as you like
depending on what your goals and your budget are.
Play video starting at :2:26 and follow transcript2:26
Bigger organizations with sizeable budgets might still choose to hire an agency to
design the creatives and manage and optimize their campaigns. But it's definitely
not necessary to get started, and you will learn this in this course. In our next
video, we'll take a closer look at some of the differences between paid and organic
marketing on social media.

Organic post vs. Paid ads

In the previous video, we saw how paid ads can help you increase your reach or in
other words, the size of your audience and how they help you getting in your
message in front of people most likely to be interested in your product or service.
By the end of this video, you will have a better understanding of the key ways in
which social ads differ from organic social media posts. There are five key
differences between an organic post and a paid social ad and I will walk you
through them over the course of the next minutes. Organic social posts can appear
in the feeds of the people that already follow you and once you have post your
content on your page or profile, the content is usually shown to a portion of your
followers. As your audience shares and engages with the content, your posts will be
shown to more people. As we saw in the previous course, content engagement is one
factor that determines the reach of your post. So be mindful of what content you
share with your followers. The most successful posts focus on creating value for
your followers rather than getting people to buy. So try to tell stories, inspire,
and educate your followers with your organic content. You can of course, plan in a
special promotion for your loyal followers once in a while but they should be mixed
in with great content that engages your followers. You want to help them get to
know and trust you and your brand. With organic posts, you share content and hope
that it seen by your target audience but paid ads are guaranteed to get displayed
as long as they don't violate any of the platforms policies, of course. That is the
first way in which paid ads differ from organic posts. Paid social ads will show up
in the feeds of people who belong to which ever audience you decide to target and
it doesn't matter whether this audience already follows you or not. You could
target any audience based on demographics, location, interests, and other factors.
Remember DCB cleaning services? They provide cleaning services and now they plan to
introduce a new product called SnackWall. Companies can subscribe to SnackWall
choose snacks via the SnackWall app and DCB will then make sure the company never
runs out of their favorite snacks. James is tasked with introducing SnackWall to
the market. In the first six months after launch, DCB focused on attracting
existing customers to the new SnackWall service. But after that, DCB wanted to
reach new potential customers who work at startups around Silicon Valley and who
might have an interest in healthy snacks. So James decided to use paid ads on
Facebook because that way he could reach this specific audience. It's a way for him
to reach prospects beyond the people that already follow the company's Facebook
page. Social media advertising is powerful because of its targeting capabilities.
If you find that you're not quite reaching your intended audience with your organic
efforts, it may be a good idea to consider spending some money on advertising. When
you choose to use paid advertising, you'll also get more control over when and
where people will see your message. Since a lot of social media content is consumed
on mobile, it's possible to pay for ads that show when people are in a particular
location, like near your store for instance. Paid social ads look very much like
they are organic siblings and they blend into the native experience of the
platform. However, there are two elements that usually differentiate them from
organic posts. First, a note that they are sponsored or promoted as in this example
of an ad from Wayfair on Pinterest, and second, paid ads often also have a call to
action button that takes users to the desired locations, such as a landing page.
Here is an example of an ad on Instagram and its call to action button that says
"Shop Now". Of course, paid ads are different from organic posts as they are not
free. How much you pay to get your posts seen is usually determined in what it's
called an auction. Each time there's an opportunity to show an ad to someone, an
auction takes place similar to a competition to determine which ad to show to that
person. This auction happens in the background, but the price and success of your
campaign are mostly determined by a number of factors. How much you're willing to
pay for a given action, such as a click or a video of you, how many other
advertisers are interested in the same audience, and how relevant your ad is to the
audience, among other factors. Every social media platform has its own unique
equation for how an ad wins an auction. We'll go into ad relevance later but for
now, do keep in mind that while you can focus a lot more on selling actual products
with paid ads than organic posts, the key to success is making sure that the ad
resonates with your audience.

Organic posts vs. Paid ads on facebook and instagram

In the previous video, we had a look at the ways in which paid ads differ from
organic posts, and you will find that the main components of ads on different
social platforms, are the same. But it's helpful, to take a closer look at examples
from Facebook and Instagram. After all, they are the biggest social media channels,
so it's important you get to know them in detail. By the end of this video, you
will have a better understanding of why ads on Facebook and Instagram can be a
valuable addition to organic posts, and you'll be able to point out the two ways in
which they differ from their organic siblings. No matter what kind of business you
have on Facebook and Instagram, you can connect with people who care about what you
do. Through regular posts, you can keep people who followed or liked your page
informed on everything happening in your business, such as: sales, events,
promotions, or information about your product or services. Same goes for people who
followed your account on Instagram. When you post to your page, people who've liked
or followed your page can see that post. And when you post on your Instagram
account, people who follow you can see your content in their feed. People may like,
comment, or share this content if they wish, and this type of reach is called
'organic', which is another way to say that it's free. You create a post and it
spreads organically from people who engage with your content to their friends and
so on. This process is an important part of increasing your number of page or
account followers, but it may not grow your audience as quickly as you'd like, and
this is when you might want to think about advertising. Advertising on Facebook and
Instagram, can help you accomplish specific business goals. Here are a few ways in
which you can utilize ads on Facebook and Instagram. First, let's say you want to
grow your Facebook page to build an audience of loyal followers. Then you can
create an ad to promote your business page to more people, which can help increase
engagement on your posts, and get you more likes, comments and shares. Remember
Imre at Calla & Ivy? She wants to grow the audience for her website, so she can
sell her hand bound bouquets online. One way in which Imre could build up the
audience for a site is by promoting her Facebook business page. That way, she can
increase her followers, which may help her to get the word out. Second, you can use
ads to market your goods and services on Facebook and Instagram. To do that, you
can create an organic post showcasing your businesses products and services, and
then turn it into an ad, and with that ad, you can reach shoppers who are likely to
be interested in your product, and turn them into customers. On Facebook, ads you
create from posts on your page are called "boosted" posts. So for Calla & Ivy,
boosting posts with images of bouquets that people can buy on the website could
help to get the posts in front of immerse target audience. Boosting posts may also
help Imre to get more people to react, share, and comment on them. Third, if you
have a local business, you can use ads to drive potential customers to your store.
By targeting people who are living nearby or visiting a specific city, you can make
it easier for them to discover, and visit your physical place of business. So Imre
could use this type of ad to get people to come, and check out her store in
Amsterdam. Fourth, you can use ads on Facebook and Instagram to promote your
website. If you've invested in a great website, use your Facebook page to help
increase traffic to it. That's especially useful if you have an online shop and
wanted to promote and directly sell the items you offer. So for Calla & Ivy, this
is a great way to get the word out about their new website and get people who are
interested in hand bound bouquets to visit the site and buy some flowers.
Advertising on Facebook and Instagram can be a great way to accomplish these goals
and many others. Based on what you choose, your will ads can appear in people's
Facebook and Instagram feeds, and stories alongside images and videos, shared by
their friends, family, and other accounts and pages they follow. You can also
choose to show your ads in Messenger where people are connecting with others. There
different ways you can set up an ad on Facebook and Instagram, either based on an
existing post, or from scratch, and we'll dive into the details later. Either way,
your promoted post will appear alongside other posts and stories, and look almost
like an organic post. However, there are two differences we briefly want to point
out here: first, at the top of your promoted posts people will see a label that
lets them know you've sponsored the post, because you want to reach out to them.
Have a look at these examples. Second, ads can have a call to action or CTA, and
this call to action is a little button at the bottom of the ad that tells your
audience what to do next. Facebook and Instagram give you some suggestions for your
call to action, such as learn more or sign up. Alternatively, you can also pick
from a list of options. Call to action buttons are optional but they can be a
powerful way to point your audience in the right direction.

Five components of a Social Media Ad

Independent of the platform you decide to run your paid social media campaign on,
social media ads tend to consist of the same basic elements. By the end of this
video, you'll have a better understanding of the five components that make up a
social media ad. Let's walk through them. First, your target audience. Clearly
defining your target audience is the very first thing you should be doing and
compared to many other forms of advertising, social media platforms allow you to be
very specific and choosing who to show you ads to. Ask yourself the following
questions, start with the demographics. What's the age of your target audience? Is
it a specific age range of people you want to target? What's the gender? Are you
interested in targeting men, women or both. What's their educational level and
their profession? What's their location? Do you want to reach folks in your
community or in other parts of the city, state or country. What are their
interests? What hobbies does your target audience have? and finally, what are their
behaviors? Do they visit certain websites, follow particular accounts or causes?
Ideally, you have a good description of your target audience already. You may
remember the target audience for Calla and Ivy's new website. Imra, the owner is
targeting women between 30-55 years old with some higher education who live in
Dutch metropolitan areas. They've an interest in interior design, fashion and
sustainable living, and they browsed interior design websites in magazines, they
also like to follow a few well known Dutch lifestyle bloggers and they enjoy yoga,
the outdoors, and entertaining friends. Getting very specific in describing a
target audience will help you in reaching relevant people only instead of random
users. The second component of your social media ad is the text or the copy of your
ad. Here you articulate clearly and concisely, what do you want people to
understand and remember about your offering. What does your brand stand for? What
value do you offer? What problems or needs do you solve? When developing your copy,
keep the audience in mind that you're targeting and make sure your words resonate
with them. We will dive into how to develop effective copy later. The third
component of a social media ad is your Ad creative, and that's usually an image or
a video that conveys your message and that tells a story. The more visually
appealing your ad creative is, the better. It will be more likely to grab people's
attention, be shared, and be remembered. When designing your creatives, you want to
make sure your content matches the interests of your audience. Remember, you're
spending money when someone views or clicks on your ad. If you're showing Ads that
are not relevant to your target audience, you're wasting your time and money and
you will likely not see success with any kind of advertising. If some tips for you
on how to create beautiful and relevant creatives later. The fourth component of a
social media ad is your call to action. A beautiful and relevant ad is great but
without a call to action or short CTA, the viewer might not know what to do next.
Add a CTA like buy now and save 20 percent or offer ends soon. That is sense of
urgency to your viewer. Your call to action should encourage people to take the
right action. In some platforms such as Facebook offer you CTA buttons that you can
add to your Ad. The last basic component of a social media ad is your destination,
often referred to as the landing page. This is the place your audience gets
directed to after they click on your ads. This can be your website, a specific
product page in your web shop or your page in an app store. Being intentional about
the user experience on your landing page is a very important aspect of planning
your campaign.Your ads could have brilliant copy and beautiful imagery but if users
click the ad and then don't follow through the intended action, it's likely because
your landing page is not effective. Now whole course is about designing great
landing pages, but the one thing to remember for now is the importance of a
matching message. You want to make sure that your ad content and their
corresponding landing page create one consistent experience and use similar
headlines, images, calls to action, and most importantly advertise the same offer.
Your landing page should feel like a natural extension to your ad. Your audience
knows that they are in the right place and what action you would like them to take.
If you're promoting a pair of shoes with a special discount, make sure the landing
page shows the same pair of shoes with the exact offer you advertised. Otherwise,
you will risk that people will close the landing page right away because they can't
find the offer you are promoting.

How your business goals determine yiur kpi

Before we go into hands-on tips on what makes great ad creatives and copy, we need
to take a step back and look at the big picture; your business goals. In this
video, you will learn how your objective influences how you evaluate the success of
your campaign. Whether your creative approach is effective or not is determined by
the outcome your campaign creates, and the outcome is backed to your objectives. So
before you get creative, you need to become very clear about what you're trying to
achieve. Your objective is also an important element of setting up your campaign on
most social media platforms. Most platforms, and we will later see this on
Facebook, will ask you to select a campaign or ad objective, such as website
traffic or sales. The objective you pick will then determine who in your target
audience your ad is shown to. In other words, your ad will be shown to the people
in your target audience who are most likely to take the action you would like them
to take. The objective you set will determine the most important metrics, or KPIs
you will then later look at to measure the effectiveness of your campaign. Sounds
very theoretical, doesn't it? But it doesn't have to be. So let's look at a few
examples of how your objective influences the metrics you will use to assess the
success of your campaign. Example 1, your objective is to increase awareness for
your brand by reaching people who are most likely to be interested in it. Here you
would typically measure the so-called ad recall lift, which shows how many people
would remember your ad if they were asked within two days after seeing it. Example
2, your objective is to drive more people to check out your website. Here you would
typically measure the number of website visits that you have received as a result
of your campaign and what each visit costs you. Example 3, if instead of website
visits, your objective was to actually sell products off your website, you would
run a campaign that's optimized for conversions and here you would measure the
number of purchases and more importantly, whether your campaign is producing
positive financial results for your business. The metric you would look at is
called return on ad spend, ROAS, which is the online marketing equivalent of return
on investment or ROI. ROAS is simply the total revenue generated from your Facebook
campaign divided by your total ad spent. So let's assume you spend $5,000 in a
month on Facebook ads and they generate $15,000 in new sales for your business.
That's a return on ad spend of 15,000 divided by 5,000 is 3x, meaning you made
three times the revenue of what you put in on advertising dollars. Example 4, your
objective is to drive sign-ups for your newsletter, and then you would measure the
number of sign-ups, often called leads that your campaign has created and the cost
to incorporate lead. If you have sufficient data to know what percentage of
newsletter subscribers ends up becoming buyers and how much they purchase on
average, you can also calculate your return on ad spend. That would allow you to
get an even better sense of how effective your campaign was in growing your overall
business. So check out the following example. Let's assume you spend $2,000 in a
month on Facebook ads and they generate 400 leads for your newsletter. Now let's
assume that 20% of them ultimately become buyers and that's 80 people. Now these 80
people, on average, bring you $100 in new sales. That's a total of 80 times $100 is
$8,000 in new sales. Now we can calculate the ROAS. It's 8,000 divided by 2,000
equals 4, meaning you make 4x the revenue of what you put in on advertising
dollars. The most effective campaigns out there, there are rarely built in one
attempt. You start with a foundation and then optimize step-by-step, but doing more
of what works and less of what doesn't, and that's one of the big advantages of
social media advertising. You can test all different components of an ad and then
optimize as you go. Your KPIs will tell you what is working and what isn't for you.
With the objective clear, get specific about the key message of your campaign. Your
key message should be supported by all the elements of your ad, both the visual and
the verbal ones. Only if all elements are aligned closely, you have the best
chances for success. A quick note about resources. Depending on whether you work in
a big organization or you are self-employed, you might have different resources at
your disposal to create copy and visuals. We'll go into tips on how to work
effectively with larger teams of experts later. But if you're all by yourself,
don't worry. The beauty of social media advertising is that it's very accessible
and you have the same chances for success even if your resources are limited.

Tips for sourcing and creating ad visuals

In the previous video, we saw how important it is to be first clear about your
campaign objective, before beginning with the actual ad creation. In this video,
you will learn how to create compelling visual assets, so your ads are effective at
delivering the results you want. A photo or video that pops out, really gets people
to stop and spend some time with you and your ad. The good news, you don't need to
spend a fortune on a photoshoot our film crew. But before we dive deeper into some
tips for creating compelling visuals, it is helpful to look at some different
sources for your creatives. Consider the following options as a starting point.
Have a look at your existing posts. What sort of posts you ran in the past that
matches your campaign objective and got a lot of engagement that you feel was
pretty successful. Well, why not use that post for your campaign? Another option is
to use product images you might have created for your online shop. Show your
product from different angles and in different contexts. To create attention-
grabbing ads that feel like a familiar part of someone's social fabric, show images
of people benefiting from your product, instead of just the product itself. For
authentic photos of people using a product, have a look at the content your
customers have generated and shared on social media. Typically would need to ask
them for their permission before you can reuse their work, but the effort is worth
it. Remember, social media is all about authentic native content. Having creatives
that come directly from your target audience can be really powerful. If you have a
specific setting in mind and you don't have any existing content, shoot it from
scratch. This doesn't have to be expensive. You can use your phone's camera to take
compelling photos or videos. There's some great apps out there that help you turn
your idea into effective visuals in just minutes. We have some recommendations to
get you started later. If you do prefer professionally shot videos or photos, but
you don't have the resources or knowledge to create them yourself, you can also
consider stock images or videos. There are many vendors that offer millions of
creatives for you to use or tweak to meet your needs. In some platforms such as
Facebook, even have whole library of high-quality stock images that you can just
use in your ad for free. Taking your own image with your phone or camera can feel
daunting, but it doesn't have to be. Don't be afraid to experiment or take multiple
images of the same object or background until you find what looks best. Also,
remember you can test different versions of the same image later when you run your
campaign. No need to predict exactly what will work best. With eight simple
photography tips that you can use to make better images for your ads. Number 1,
think mobile first. Look at images on a mobile device and makes sure that the main
subject is clear and any text is legible on a small screen. Number 2, keep it
simple. You don't need a ton of props or complicated staging to create a compelling
image. Number 3, follow the rule of thirds. Don't center your subject. Instead,
your subject should be closer to either side or along the top or the bottom of your
image. But there's one exception. Faces can be anywhere in the frame and bigger is
often better. Number 4, try varied perspectives. Mix big and small things and try
different perspectives of your subjects to create interesting contrast. Number 5,
use interesting layouts. Consider organizing multiple objects neatly to create an
appealing design and then photograph the display from above. Number 6, add a focal
point and different textures. Make sure that you have a clear subject in the image,
and play with textures to create an interesting contrast. Number 7, light and
shadow create a nice contrast. Use bright lights and deep shadows to create a stark
contrast that can make your photos more interesting. Number 8, use attractive color
combinations. Keep a color wheel handy, and use it to create interesting color
combinations when selecting subjects for a photo. If you follow these simple tips,
you can create compelling photos that pop out in the social media feeds of your
target audience. You can apply most of these tips also when you create videos for
your ads and your smartphone, as a great tool to get you started. But before you
shoot your first video to use in a social media ad, here are three things you want
to keep in mind. First, think vertical. Most people hold their smartphone
vertically, and to scroll Facebook and Instagram stories. Shoot your video holding
your phone in a vertical way. This way, your videos will use more of the screen.
Number 2, you also want to keep your videos short. Fifteen seconds should be your
maximum, but you usually only get about three seconds often lasts to grab people's
attention. Last but not least, your video should make sense even with the sound
off. When people scroll online, videos are usually muted, and you can't assume
people will tap your video to hear the sound. So pick a moment that doesn't need
it, the sound should improve your video, not detract from it and you can always use
captions. The bottom line here is that the content of the video matters so much
more than the production budget. Your video should be rich in imagery and say
something authentic about your business or product, and in as little time as
possible. If you've both images and videos, create different ads with each. Using
different creative assets in your ads will help you learn what resonates best with
your audience.

Writing effective copy for your ad

Let's talk about words. The copy you choose to include in your ads can make a big
difference between a message that's heard and a message that's ignored. In this
video, I will walk you through a few tips for writing great ad copy. Here are two
Facebook ads DCB Cleaning Services has created to promote a paleo dietary plan that
they want to introduce as part of their snack wall offering. Paleo means that the
diet is based on foods similar to what might have been eaten tens of thousands of
years ago. If the goal was to get people to sign up for their 30 day diet
challenge, tell me which ad you think is better. The first says, "Stop counting
calories and take off inches with our 30 day challenge. Real food, filling meals
that curb cravings." The second says, "Lose weight in 30 days. Try the Paleo diet."
If you were looking for a dietary plan, which ad would you click on? Well, the
second example has one thing going for it, it's short and sweet, but also pretty
vague. The first example, however, is a lot more effective. It addresses the
objective of the targeted audience in a concise and familiar way, taking off inches
while also addressing a typical objection, counting calories. It then introduces a
solution, the 30 day challenge, that, unlike other diets, contains real and filling
foods. The headline of ad one is also more effective, and uses a customer rating of
five stars and a quote to demonstrate social proof. The advertiser included a call
to action button that points people directly at what they're supposed to do next,
and more about the 30 day challenge. Well, I would click on the first ad, how about
you? But before you put down any words, go back to your audience and your
objective. Who are you targeting and what do you want them to do as a result of
seeing your ad? With that in mind, you're now going to organize your copy using a
simple three part framework that advertising expert Molly Pittman shared on the
social media marketing podcast. I will share a link to the podcast in the course
resources. The three parts are; opening, transition, and call to action. Let's
start with the opening. This is the most important element of your ad copy. Because
depending on the length of your copy, this might just be the first sentence or the
first paragraph. But especially on mobile, your opening as crucial as users will
often only see the first sentence or so before they have to click to expand the
rest of the copy. In your opening, you want to accomplish two things. First, call
out your audience. Imagine for a moment that you're in the business of producing
and selling Almond milk. While you don't have to directly address your audience in
a proper sentence such as, "Hello almond milk drinkers" you should use words that
suggest who the ad is for. In this case, it would be a good idea to include the
words almond milk or non-dairy milk in the first sentence. Alternatively, use words
to describe your target audience, such as 'lactose intolerant' or 'gut health' if
your goal is to reach people who have a specific need or interest. You could, for
example start your opening with, "As a coffee lover with lactose intolerance" Or,
"Looking for a healthy milk alternative?" In any case, make sure that the people
you want to reach have an easy time understanding that your ad is for them. Second,
pique the curiosity of your audience. To do that, you can use a number of what
Molly calls hooks, and here are a few options you can test. Pain points can be a
great hook, so speak to a pain point you know your audience has. You can also pose
a question that addresses a particular pain points such as, "Can't drink dairy milk
but love a good latte, we have got you covered." See how these two sentences both
call out their audience and pique their interest. Another option is to create a
hook, are feelings. Similar to addressing your audience's pain points, you can
describe how your customers felt before using your product. Or describe the
feelings a customers experience after using your product. Here's an example. Before
switching to almond milk I had little energy and experienced stomach pain on an
almost daily basis. Finally, there's the logic hook. Find a statement or a fact
that proves your point, so people who are logic-based immediately agree with it and
want to learn more. A common way to do that is a did you know statement such as,
"Did you know that almonds are good for your gut? Once you've grabbed your
audience's attention with your opening and made them aware of the problem you're
solving, it's time for you transition. As the name indicates the transition is
where we start to transition the introduction into the how. The transition is when
we introduced the solution, and we talk about the benefits of your product, or we
describe what someone's life looks and feels like after using it. A good transition
can be short or long. Here's an example of a short one. After drinking almond milk
for a month, I started feeling more balanced, had more energy and improved my blood
sugar levels. See how this one sentence describes multiple benefits from the
perspective of how an individual is feeling? We know that people are more likely to
take action if they are told what we expect them to do. That's why after your
transition, you want to close your ad copy with a call to action. Keep it short and
sweet and tell your audience exactly what to do. Whether it's to watch a video,
sign up for a newsletter, or buy a product, whatever it is you want them to do.
Here's the call to action for our almond milk ad. Click here to claim your free 10
day supply of almond milk today. It's very clear to the target audience what
they're expected to do and why. Give it a shot yourself and structure your ad copy
with an opening, a transition and a call to action. You can cover all elements in
just one sentence or a multiple paragraphs, and it's a good idea to test different
lengths to see what performs best for your target audience. Here is seven
additional tips that you can use to write better copy for your ads. Number one, tie
text to your visual. Your copy ad image should individually tell your story, but
also complement each other. If your ad is talking about vegetables, don't show a
fruit basket. Number two, create different ads for different people. Tailor your ad
campaign message to your audience segments with separate ads. Try addressing
different audiences with the benefits that speak most to them, rather than just
approaching everyone with the same one. Number three, speak to the audience. Decide
on a person who characterizes your audience and write like you're speaking to them.
If you can get hold of someone who represents your target audience, get their
feedback before publishing your campaign. Number four, try emojis. Depending on
your audience, emojis can be an effective way to grab their attention and
communicate in a more casual way, Also a great way to tell a story just to make
sure to not overuse them or otherwise your message might be hard to get. Number
five, be recognizable. Use the same tone across channels so your audience
recognizes your message no matter where they read it. Before publishing your ads,
also check your landing pages and make sure that content and tone align with your
ads. Number six, when appropriate, mention price. Price listings can motivate
people to buy, especially when you have a good deal to offer. However, do make sure
to only mention a price if this is in line with your brand. If you represent a
luxury brand, advertising prices might not be in line with your tone of voice.
Number seven, include a time-frame to create urgency. Using words and phrases that
indicate time like today, now or this week only can add a sense of urgency and
motivate people to click on your ad. Remember, you don't have to write the perfect
copy straightaway, test a few different approaches and see what works best for you.
Then take the winning copy to create your next set of iterations.

Collaborating with external and internal teams

n this lesson, you will learn how to work effectively with other professionals or
agencies to create successful social media campaigns. In this video, we will go
over a few different roles and team setups that you might encounter as a marketer,
so let's get started. When you are all by yourself marketing your own business and
on a tight budget, chances are you're planning, executing, and optimizing your
campaigns end-to-end. But if you working in a marketing team of a big organization
or an agency, you will often collaborate with internal and external teams to
achieve your goals and the goals of the business. Here's some of the typical roles
that you might find as part of a bigger marketing organization that you as a social
media specialist collaborate with. Let's start with brand marketers. Brand
marketers own and set the overall vision of a brand, it's personality, and how it's
positioned in the market. They often also define official guidelines, and what
colors, and fonts, and imagery, and also what tone of voice should be used to
advertise the brand. These guidelines are often summarized in a brand book or
corporate identity guidelines. This is helpful because it ensures consistency
across all marketing campaigns and channels, and especially for big brands such as
Coca-Cola, hundreds or thousands of people collaborate to create marketing assets,
setting these standards is key to create a consistent look and feel for the brand.
Next up, designers. Designers, as you might have guessed, are in charge of creating
the visual assets for your campaigns. They often are specialized in designing
assets or for certain kinds such as web designers who design your landing pages,
motion designers to produce videos and animations, or illustrators who can draw
illustrations from scratch. They're obviously even more specialized creative roles
you might encounter such as photographers or animators. They often rely on the
brand guidelines I've referred to earlier, to get work that it's in line with the
brand's personality. Visuals go hand in hand with copies, so let's talk about
copywriters next. Copywriters produce all the written materials that represent a
brand. This can be the copy you find on the product packaging or sales materials,
the website, and landing pages, or the copy of your ads. Some copywriters are
generalists. Some are more specialized in writing short and succinct marketing
copy, whereas others specialize in search engine optimized content for blogs.
Copywriters also play an important role in crafting copy for email marketing
campaigns that are often planned by email marketers. Email marketers set and
execute an organization's strategy to communicate with prospects and customers over
email offers and newsletters. This is often a very data-driven job as they need to
closely monitor data related to email performance, segment audiences in the right
way, and conduct tests of different emails to optimize performance. Email
marketers, for example, evaluate and optimized based on how often an email was
opened, which subject line performed best, and how many people clicked on the call
to action, included in the email. The final role we will briefly cover today is
data at its core. Marketing analytics specialists often called marketing analysts.
They track, analyze, and report and the various marketing campaigns to evaluate
their success, measure their ROI, and determine best practices. They often have a
holistic look at campaign performance along the full customer journey and all the
channels used. They can help you build the right audiences and slice and dice your
data effectively to understand your campaign results so you can make better
business decisions. This was just a selection of roles that you will often find in
big organizations, and depending on the size of the team, you will find many more
specialized roles, especially in the digital marketing space. People who specialize
in search ads, search engine optimization, display ads, or influencer marketing
just to name a few. Sometimes you will not have a specialist on the team but look
for ways to get experts from outside the company to help you out. In this case, you
either get an individual expert, a freelancer, or a contractor, or an agency to
provide you with their services. An external setup can take different shapes, you
might just work together on one, or a few specific deliverables, such as a video or
some marketing copy, or you collaborate on an ongoing basis. In that case, you and
they often commit to a certain amount of work and payment, usually on a monthly
basis, and this is often called a retainer. Maybe you are a freelancer or are
considering offering your services as a freelancer to people in bigger
organizations.
Play video starting at :5:4 and follow transcript5:04
Whether you are working with internal or external experts or teams to accomplish
your goals, you need to make sure you communicate well in order to get the required
work done effectively.

Creeative brief

A creative brief is a document that's produced by the person requesting creative

work to define the most important aspects of that piece of work. And in marketing,
this is often the first step when creating work with other teams, both internal and
external, because they set and manage expectations for everyone involved. And by
the end of this video, you will have a better understanding of how creative briefs
are used, and what components they typically consist of. So whether you need a
promotional video, a landing page, a set of Facebook ads, or printed brochure, it
is important that everyone you work with shares the same understanding of what has
to be created for what target customer to achieve a specific goal. A creative brief
is a guide and a source of inspiration for the professional who will ultimately
receive the request. And there can be situations in your marketing career where you
are the author, or the recipient of a creative brief.
Play video starting at :1:5 and follow transcript1:05
So in the first situation, you are for example planning an ad campaign on Facebook
and Instagram for a specific product, and you need stunning images and compelling
copy.
Play video starting at :1:14 and follow transcript1:14
So in order for your graphic design agency and your internal copywriter to help you
produce their best work, you write a creative brief for them outlining your needs.
Play video starting at :1:25 and follow transcript1:25
In the second case, the marketing manager for specific product is planning a
holiday campaign, and writes a creative brief for the whole team to specify how
this campaign is supposed to be executed along all marketing channels. Now as
social media marketing manager, you receive the brief, so you know exactly how to
adapt the base campaign to the social media advertising world. And without that
brief, your campaign might feel and sound different, or promote different products
than those that were advertised on TV, or via email.
Play video starting at :1:57 and follow transcript1:57
A template for a creative brief can vary by organization, but it should give us
much details and context as possible to the recipients. So after this video, you
can access our template that you will also use later when it's time for your course
project. And I will walk you through the different components of the template in a
moment. So to illustrate what information to provide in your brief, we will also
write a brief together as we go. We'll find the written and more detailed version
of that same brief later in Course 5, when it's time for your project. The purpose
of our example brief now is to instruct a designer who will design an ad for Calla
& Ivy. The flower shop is launching a new subscription service. They want to
promote in the Netherlands, and they need an Instagram ad to do that.
Play video starting at :2:44 and follow transcript2:44
Typically, a creative brief includes the following components. First, describe your
objective. And this is concise statement of what you want to accomplish in your
target market. Do you want to inform, persuade, or motivate an audience? And what
specific action do you want them to take? For Calla & Ivy, the objective is to
encourage their customers to take advantage of a sale, and purchase their new DIY
floral subscription that they will be offering next month. DIY, or Do It Yourself,
in this case, means that the customer receives a curated selection of flowers they
can assemble themselves into a bouquet of their liking.
Play video starting at :3:25 and follow transcript3:25
Next, describe your target audience. Who's the creative work addressing? Describe
in as much detail as possible who you want to engage in influence. Use demographic
information, describe their interests, behaviors, needs, and fears.
Play video starting at :3:40 and follow transcript3:40
Calla & Ivy want to target 25 to 55 year old women with a household income of
50 to 150,000 euros, who have an undergraduate or professional degree, and live in
the Netherlands. Also, this audience has an interest in gardening, flowers, urban
biking, sustainability, and local businesses. And they are looking for convenient
and easy access to beautifully arranged flowers.
Play video starting at :4:8 and follow transcript4:08
Next to cover in your brief are your competitors. Ask yourself, who in your field
also targets the same audience? Summarize what products they are currently selling,
or campaigns they are running that might affect reaching your own objectives. And
this information is important for your designers and copywriters, so they can make
sure that your brand stands out.
Play video starting at :4:29 and follow transcript4:29
In Calla & Ivy's case, there are several floral shops that offer subscriptions
in the Amsterdam area. Five shops are direct competitors in the area, but none of
them are selling subscriptions that include some kind of DIY component.
Play video starting at :4:45 and follow transcript4:45
Next in your brief, describe your offer. In other words, what are you trying to
promote or sell exactly? What aspects or features of your offer stand out?
Play video starting at :4:55 and follow transcript4:55
Calla & Ivy are promoting a DIY floral subscription. And a subscription
provides flowers and additional pieces for an individual to design their own
bouquet. The subscription arrives once per quarter, and can be combined with a
monthly, biweekly, or weekly subscription as a replacement for that period's floral
arrangement.
Play video starting at :5:15 and follow transcript5:15
After describing your offer, describe your key benefit. What is the single most
important benefit of your offer for your target audience? It should be highly
relevant to their needs. Connect with them on an emotional level, and be
differentiated from what your competitors are communicating. You can include
secondary benefits, but getting the single most important benefit on point is
crucial. So let's have a look at Calla & Ivy's key benefit. Their flower
arrangement can simply be placed as they are, or they can be used as an opportunity
for a fun project. Floral arranging can be calming and relaxing. And their target
audience is often busy and rushed, so they hope it provides a time for them to sit
down and calm their mind and body.

Data bbased aadvertising

Our online experience is supported by advertising. In fact, 86% of all time spent
online in the US is spent on advertising supported websites. And many of these ads
are tailored to specific audiences using data. In this video we'll have a closer
look at what data-based advertising is. Before then learning more about data
collection, data formats, and data storage later. Let's dive right in. Advertising
is at the heart of our content experience online, and in an indirect way it is what
funds our experience. And this model isn't new, think about newspapers, cable TV,
and magazines. While you do pay for access, advertising is still what pays for most
of the content. And maybe you would like an experience without advertising. But it
would also mean that we couldn't consume as much content for free. And the ads we
see online differ on how annoying or useful they are to us. Often, the more useful
ads are the ones that are customized to our specific needs. But for some people,
those ads also feel a bit intrusive. Ads that are customized to our needs use data
to understand what may appeal to us. And that data is collected by various parties
based on our online behavior and our privacy settings. And data-based advertising
uses data to optimize an ads' audience, its message, and creative, so that it's
maximally appealing to the people who see it.
Play video starting at :1:28 and follow transcript1:28
Data also helps advertisers gain a better understanding of the audience, reach that
audience online, and adapt or customize the ads shown to that audience.
Play video starting at :1:38 and follow transcript1:38
Data-based advertising is widely used online. It was introduced in the early 2000s
by companies like Yahoo and MSN, and it shifted the advertising paradigm from
contextual advertising, which was the common model until then. In contextual
advertising, advertisers look for content that is topically related to their ads.
For instance, an advertiser would try to advertise running shoes next to content
about running or other sports. And this is the most common advertising model in the
magazine industry. And in the early days of the Internet, that was the advertising
model adopted by most websites.
Play video starting at :2:15 and follow transcript2:15
Data-driven advertising is different. Ads are matched with the audience who sees
them, regardless of where the ad appears. So an ad for running shoes would appear
to a person interested in running, independent of whether that person is looking at
running related content or not, at the time when they see the ad. Data-driven
advertising typically results in more relevant advertising experiences. When ads
are targeted to people who may have an interest in the product being advertised,
they will be more useful to them. And this is typically a more pleasant experience
than when people see ads online for products that are not relevant to them. For
instance, if you're not a dog owner, ads for dog food are not relevant to you. But
if you are a dog owner, those ads may actually have interest to you, and they may
give you information you may want to act on. Data-based advertising, chances are
the advertisers knows your interest, and can match the ads better to the things
that appeal to you. From an advertiser's point of view, being able to show ads to
people more likely to be interested in them is important. Data-based advertising
enables advertisers to deliver ads to people based on their demographics, location,
interests, or previous behaviors. And research has demonstrated that data-based
advertising is over 500% more effective than advertising without data.