Why Ads Aren’t The Answer (at least right away)
The next time you use paid search or ads, picture Will Ferrell yelling this.
I want you to be as confident as he is that you look really damn good. If you aren’t that confident, then you might want to consider pausing the ads until you look the part.
Are you using ads right now? If so, does your website look really good? Is your message and copywriting on point? Do your customers know what you do, how you can help solve their problems, and how to buy? Does your visual brand reflect your vibe and how you want customers to feel when they interact with your brand? Are the words on your website clear? Are you proud to send people to your website?
I’ve been told by countless business owners that their number one marketing strategy is to use paid advertising. They fly right by all the important prerequisites to paid ads and end up just yelling through a megaphone that everyone should look at them.
You DO want to yell through the megaphone for people to look at you… but not before you look good, have a clear focused brand message, and create a sales funnel. Otherwise, you’re wasting money and will fail to convert quality leads.
Here are the 7 steps we recommend to take before starting ads:
Step 1: Craft a compelling brand message
Step 2: Have intentionally designed visual branding
Step 3: Create a beautiful website that works (i.e., copywriting and design)
Step 4: Utilize one or more lead generators
Step 5: Nurture leads and sell through email marketing
Step 6: Focus on showing up in local and organic search via SEO
Step 7: Choose your content marketing mix (i.e., blogs, vlogs, podcast, social media, etc.) and consistently create valuable custom content for your target audience
After all that, then it makes sense to employ…
Step 8: Use paid search (ads)
I’m not sure why it has become so commonplace to breeze by all the prior steps and waste crazy amounts of money on ads that don’t convert. My guess is that all the big money out there pushes ads on our feeds and search results that encourage us to do the same. Don’t fall for it.
It’s quite simple. Ads drive traffic, but they don’t do the converting. The preceding steps are required to actually pique someone’s curiosity in your brand for them to take the next step in buying from you.
Ads aren’t going to help you if you have a weak message, boring branding, and an ugly website that doesn’t work. And they definitely won’t help you capture leads and nurture them.
Sure, you will get more traffic if you jump straight to Step 8: Paid search (ads), but traffic isn’t worth measuring until you have something you are proud to drive traffic to! A large amount of traffic to a bad website is actually more of a liability than an asset. We all know about first impressions. Don’t let your website make a bad one.
If your website doesn’t look good, this is a short and sweet wake-up call to quit spending money on ads driving traffic to it. Don’t waste the money. Invest that money first in looking good and building a sales funnel that helps you capture and convert qualified leads.
Then, do your best Will Ferrell impersonation and fire up the ads.
More soon,
Mahla Hoffbeck
CONSULTANT + PARTNER
P.S.
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