As a serial entrepreneur and business coach for over twenty years, I’ve had the opportunity to interact with many entrepreneurs. One of the most discussed problems I hear is “I keep losing money using paid advertising.”
On today’s Black Entrepreneur Blueprint podcast episode # 425, Jay discusses and decodes how to make money with paid digital advertising, provides you with examples, and gives you that one missing step that most entrepreneurs don’t know can literally transform your business.
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST NOW
BLACK ENTREPRENEUR BLUEPRINT SHOW NOTES – EPISODE # 425
WHAT IS PAID ADVERTISING (OR PAID MEDIA)?
Paid Advertising is – Paid advertising is any kind of advertising that you have to pay for, versus owned or earned advertising/media. With paid advertising, marketers pay for ad space in exchange for use of that space. There are several categories, including pay-per-click (PPC), pay-per-impression (PPI), and display ads.
Owned media – media that you own which allows you to communicate with your audience anytime you want for free
Earned media – is media that you get when another entity mentions you, your product, service, or business. This media exposure is free and deemed worthy of being shared via reposts, articles, podcast appearances, etc.
Paid media – is the same as paid advertising
WHY IS PAID ADVERTISING IMPORTANT?
Paid advertising is important because it allows you to drive traffic to a product, service, or business in the hopes to generate sales, revenues, and customers. Paid advertising also allows you to scale your business if used correctly.
HOW DO WE MAKE PAID ADVERTISING WORK?
There are certain conditions and components that make paid advertising work.
Here are some characteristics of a profitable paid advertising campaign
Your product or service must have certain characteristics such as:
- Good profit margin
- Enough profit to pay for advertising (the dollar amount, not the margin) You buy ads with dollars not margin
- Efficient fulfillment of that product or service
THE MISSING STEP THAT WILL MAKE YOUR PAID ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS PROFITABLE
Here’s what most people do. First, let’s look at two paid advertising campaigns (a profitable campaign and a losing campaign)
Example of a losing marketing campaign:
- You sell a Green powder supplement for $30, your cost is $7 each. Your gross profit is $23 (not counting shipping)
- You run paid ads on You run ads on FB or a native ad platform where you use PPC (pay-per-click). Your average cost per click is $1 because it’s a competitive market. But It takes 27 clicks to get a sale, meaning you spent $27.
- Your profit per jar is negative, you lost money. $30 minus $7 minus $27 = -$4
Example of a profitable marketing campaign:
- You sell a Green powder supplement for $30, your cost is $7 each. Your gross profit is $23 (not counting shipping)
- You run ads on FB or a native ad platform where you use PPC (pay-per-click). Your average cost per click is $1. It only takes 5 clicks to get a sale, meaning you spent $5.
- Your profit per jar is $30 minus $7 minus $5 = $18
A losing Marketing Campaign looks like this:
Paid ads – to a product page
Paid ads – to a sales page
A profitable Marketing Campaign looks like this:
Paid ads – to an advertorial (pre-sell page in the form of an article) – to a sales page
THE MISSING STEP IS THE ADVERTORIAL (PRE-SELL PAGE)
What is an advertorial?
Definition: An advertorial is a form of advertisement in a newspaper, magazine, or website which involves giving information about the product in the form of an article. Usually, a brand pays the publisher for such an article, or you can create your own.
Why are advertorials so important?
With advertorials, businesses get the chance to advertise their products and services in a way that adds value and usefulness to the reader. In return, the reader perceives your brand in a better light and becomes more interested in wanting to know more about what your business has to offer.
Readers trust the publications they read – if they didn’t, they wouldn’t come back – as a result, readers know that their favorite publications take pride in upholding their reputations. If those publications started publishing branded content for any old company, it would reflect badly on the publication – not the advertiser.
As a result, advertorial content – whether it’s a long-form article, a video, a podcast, or any other type of content – can be a simple and effective way to get your brand some much-deserved coverage and some extra clout.
ADVERTORIALS PLUS NATIVE ADVERTISING
Advertorials work well with Native Advertising (https://www.outbrain.com/, https://www.taboola.com/, https://www.revcontent.com/)
Native advertising is the concept of creating ads that are so cohesive with the page content, assimilated into the design, and consistent with the platform behavior that the viewer feels the ad belongs there. Promoted search results and sponsored social media posts are popular examples of native ads. Example: Go to www.Aol.com, www.msn.com, www.cnn.com,
TOP FOUR BENEFITS YOUR BRAND WILL RECEIVE FROM AN ADVERTORIAL
1. Boost your brand reputation
Reputations take years to build but can be destroyed in minutes. However, by utilizing the existing reputation of a respected publication, you can boost your company’s standing quickly and easily.
2. Reach an engaged audience
Engaging an audience with your content and messages is one of the hardest skills in marketing. People on social media platforms don’t want to see adverts and nor do they want to be constantly bombarded with posts espousing the virtues of your company.
However, by using advertorial content, your brand can gain front-row tickets to an existing and engaged audience of potential customers and partners.
3. Tell your brand’s stories through advertorial
At its heart, journalism is about telling stories, and, by using advertorials you can communicate your brand’s story to the people you want to reach.
An advertorial can help introduce your brand to readers and explain why you’re in business and what you’re trying to change. This, of course, is markedly different from how publications traditionally write news and even business features.
With an advertorial, you will be able to set out the problem you’re trying to solve directly to the reader and begin to unravel the issue and how your business is working around it.
4. Reach a new customer base
Perhaps you’re a company already established within one sector and are looking to expand into a new one – think, for example, New Balance looking to gain some interest in its new soccer cleats.
By using an existing publication with kudos and standing in the sector, an advertorial can help to convince readers that your brand is a serious player in the market – despite being new.
THE 7 COMPONENTS OF A WINNING ADVERTORIAL LAYOUT
1. The Headline – Your headline must grab the reader’s attention. But it must also give him or her a reason to read the rest of your piece.
2. The Problem – In this section of your direct response ad, you want to call out a hot, burning pain point they want to solve.
3. The Agitation – You focus on the problem, how does it manifest? What will happen if it doesn’t get solved? This is the section where you dive into the repercussions of not taking action and what that will cost the prospect.
4. Discredit – This sounds bad but it’s an imperative component you need. This section addresses alternative solutions and why they are ineffective, costly, unsustainable, etc. You want to dispel any idea of using these other options in a professional way.
5. The Solution – This is where your product or service is discussed. Present your solution, mentioning desired outcomes and the results of those outcomes. How do these outcomes affect your customer?
6. The Call-To-Action – The CTA (call-to-action) must be specific and lead to the direct response you want the audience to take. The action may include making a purchase, completing a form, taking a survey, or more. The sole purpose of the campaign is to get the response you desire from your audience. Do not give more than one call-to-action, you want to keep people focused on one track.
7. Additional Components – include images and videos to make your advertorial more appealing.
ENROLL IN THE BEB ADS WORKSHOP AND TRANSFORM YOUR MARKETING AND YOUR BUSINESS
CLICK TO ENROLL NOW: www.BEBAdsWorkshop.com
