The difficult part of any ad campaign is measuring the success (or failure) it brings in. Any particular ad cannot be viewed in isolation from the rest of the campaign. In fact most marketers will not be able to attribute success to a particular piece of advertisement. However, there are many things that you can do to make the money spent on ads work harder for your campaign. To make ads give that extra punch to sales, you need to have a roadmap.
Roadmaps are simply plans and actions that you need to take periodically. Actions can be on daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal or even on yearly basis. But the ones that work are a combination of all the five. So, your first step toward optimizing must be to writing down a roadmap and dividing it into 5 distinct segments – daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal and annual.
A Few Words on Creating Ad Copies
Writing an ad copy can be tiring and boring as well, and that is because in ad copies you don’t have the space and time, and the luxury of writing a big story. When you write copies, you will have to keep it short, but it must carry a message to the reader to propel him into action. Even a small mistake in writing the copy can boomerang on you, and you must be prepared to face that too. At the end of the day, you will find it is all experimenting again and again. But the silver lining is your copies will get better over the previous ones if you keep to a roadmap.
Here are some simple guidelines that you can follow when writing an ad copy – tell your readers you have a solution, make readers feel better, be optimistic, make them feel they are richer and finally let them feel sexier. Yet another thing you need to do is make your ads unique and different, and don’t hesitate to use a little hype. That is what ad copies are about – grabbing readers’ attention and getting them to act. You don’t have to be an expert ad copy writer to do that. Simple things like Click Here, Email Us, Call Us, Learn More and Order Now are really effective, you should understand.
The purpose of this article is not to guide you on the art of writing captivating ad copies, but to show you what a typical roadmap looks like. They have been divided into 5 distinct periods for easy understanding and action. You are at liberty to add more or keep it lesser, and that is up to you.
Activities that Need Attention on Day to Day Basis
- Keep all data in your website updated to the last minute. When someone is responding to your ad copy, they have not decided on buying your product or services – they are looking for information for now, and it has to be accurate. Therefore, price changes, new product launches, discounts, coupon codes, or any other information visitors may want should be kept updated on a daily basis.
- Check ad copy responses. As said earlier, ads get better over a period of time. But you will want some assurance that indeed it is producing results. This will help you write better copies. The only way you can do it is by checking the response your ad is producing, and you should do it on a daily basis. Should you notice an under-performance, switch to something better.
Activities that Need to be Done Weekly
- Use different tactics to check what is working best and to your advantage. For some products talking about low price, great quality, discounts and validation from third parties, and many other concepts can work. Choose the ones that are converting to sales and give it a push.
- If you can think about introducing some promotional activities you can try them on a weekly basis. Typically you can try weekly deals, shipping-free, 2-for-the price of 1 are some of the tactics you can apply to ad copies. If you are a retail store, then a weekly review of your stores online performance is very important.
Activities that can be kept to the End of Month
- Create new concepts and formulate new strategies based on the observations you made during the course of month. You can for the month concentrate on talking about low prices, discounts, new product lines, free home deliveries, and even something for new customers.
- Take a look at customer queries, complaints you received, from where responses are pouring in and so on. Monthly reviews are also best for reviewing best selling products. Best seller list can actually help you concentrate on those products. It will also help you promote weaker products by paying more attention to them in the ad copies.
Activities that Require Seasonal Attention
- Some products are simply seasonal, and don’t sell throughout the year. A typical example is winter wear. So if your store is on and off in winter wear, it is better that you place online ads only for a particular period. The other seasonal ads are Easter, Mother’s Day, Founder’s day, Valentine’s Day and many others.
- Concentrate on clearance sales during off-season for certain products. The main theme of the ad copy should concentrate on low prices and big discounts.
Once a Year Activity
Your annual activities should take stock of your ads’ performance in its totality. It should be a fair appraisal of how your ads performed and what had driven sales. It is also the time to weed out the ads that did not show results. You should focus on creating fresh ads. It is also the time for making a new roadmap based on the experience gained so far.
In fairly large organizations with hundreds of products, it is wise to consult each product head before you write ad copies and a roadmap. They will be able to provide you with unique selling features, and information on peak selling periods. As someone entrusted with the job of writing a roadmap, it is your bounden duty to consult them.