Top Three Ways To Connect To Your Audience
Consumers are taking control of how and when they consume media-increase your campaign ROI and consumers’ interest by reaching out to them with relevant, engaging ads.
Cutting Through The Clutter
Today’s consumers are bombarded with brand messages everywhere—from the media they consume to the places they shop, to during their leisure activities. Combine this with the fact that they are empowered consumers, who want relevant information delivered when and how they need it. As people take more and more control of their own media experiences, advertisers need to stay competitive by providing them with innovative and interactive online content. By using rich media advertising, marketers are empowered to communicate with consumers in meaningful ways to convey their brand messages effectively. Implementing the following three guidelines, you will be well on your way to a successful marketing campaign.
Guideline #1: Target Your Message
When you try to appeal to too many groups with one creative execution, you risk not capturing any attention. Tailor your ad to appeal to your intended audience. Do everything you can to attract and hold their attention by considering the following:
- Who is your exact demographic target for a particular ad?
Choose and remain focused on your key audience for a particular ad. Establish the audience before you concept, so that you can design an ad that appeals to the people you want to reach. Your consumers’ time is valuable; engage them in ways that convey your brand message, while also providing them with a meaningful, helpful, or fun experience aimed directly at them.
- Which types of interactive options are most likely to engage your target audience?
Think about how your consumers connect with your brand and products. Create ads that will entice your audience to learn about your product. For example, catch the attention of sport fans with a ball bouncing between multiple ad units on a single page with Ad Unit Synchronization. Or, include a free ringtone download within an ad to draw in young adults aged 18 to 24-years-old.
- Which websites will most efficiently reach as many members of your target audience as possible?
Zero in on sites that appeal to your audience. The more focused your placements are, the more effective your campaign will be. Thousands of websites are Eyeblaster-enabled. If you run across a site that is not, let us know. We will work with the publisher to quickly get them enabled.
Guideline #2: Include Interactions
The question you should ask yourself is not whether you should include interactions in your ads, but which interactions should you choose?
Interactive features are your key to getting and keeping consumers’ attention focused on your ad. The following are some of the ways that you can incorporate interactive features into your ad campaigns. Keep in mind that this is just a brief list of ideas to get you thinking.
Be innovative - design ads that use one or multiple interactive features to deliver engaging, pertinent ads that achieve all of your marketing goals.
- Ad Unit Synchronization
Create a large interactive presence with coordinated ad units on a single page. Have an item moving between the multiple ad units to initiate viewers’ attention being directed towards the ads. - Behavioral Sequencing
Show consumers ads for products in which they have expressed interest. Your campaign can be setup to show ads based on how they respond to previous ads in the same campaign. - Coupons
Encourage purchases by offering coupons to be printed and used offline or promotional codes to be used online. - Data Capture Form
Use forms to capture information about your consumers. Include forms directly inside your ad for everything from requests for additional information, trial offer submissions, contest entries, or calculators. - Deja Vu
Offer second chances. Has a consumer put products in a shopping cart on your site, only to abandon the cart? Use Deja Vu to serve them ads that encourage them to come back to your site to complete their purchase. - Downloadable files
Leave consumers with content they can keep after the ad experience is over. From pdfs to music to images to icons for instant messenger programs, your ad can offer multiple brand reinforcing downloads. - Dynamic Data
Get the most current information out to the market. Your ad can automatically update in real-time showing current prices, the weather, news articles or other fluid information that may change throughout the day. - Extensive video options including full-screen and interactive overlays
Capture their attention with video - one of the most powerful online tools for engaging consumers. Enhance the viewing experience by offering an option to expand the video to full-screen mode (great for movie trailers!) or add interactive overlays to make areas of the video even more engaging. - Games
Show your consumers a good time by including games in your ads. While male mobile and online gamers like action and adventure games, women prefer strategy and puzzle games. Use your audience’s gaming preferences to structure your ad’s game to appeal to the people you most want to attract. - Polling
Solicit consumers’ opinions. Show the results of the poll within the ad. - Printing Option
Include recipes, directions, or other helpful information that consumers will want to refer back to after the ad is no longer available in their browser. Make it easy for them to print the ad content with a print option embedded directly in the ad. - Send to a Friend
Make the ad a viral campaign by incorporating a send to a friend feature. An ad for a restaurant may offer an ‘invite to a colleague to lunch’ option, another ad might ‘invite a friend to learn about a free offer’.
Ads with interactive options will drive up the time and attention that consumers spend with your brand messages. Strategically choose features that will most appeal to your target demographic – and watch your campaign ROI rise.
Guideline #3: Measure Your Success
Rich media can dramatically increase the performance of your ads. Even better, you can track the enhanced performance with in-depth reporting features - no longer confining you to standard online ad metrics (impressions and click-throughs).
With rich media, you are not only able to create a more engaging, content-filled ad, but you can evaluate your ad’s performance on a much deeper level. Your interaction rates empower you to drill down and find out information such as:
- How are viewers engaging with your message?
- How long did viewers play the video in an ad?
- Did they listen to audio or place it on mute?
- Which panels captured the attention of viewers?
- Which interactive features are viewers responding to in your ads (i.e., downloading files, requesting samples, sending to a friend, etc.)?
- Did particular ads or offers result in higher interaction rates?
- Who is filling out data capture forms?
- Which offers are appealing?
- How did your ads perform on different sites?
- Are your ads resulting in conversions?
- Drive your upcoming campaigns with lessons you learn from past campaign performance.
- Determine which of your products garner the most attention.
- Share this data with others areas of your organization. For example, product development teams may be able to use this information to deliver and adjust product offerings.
- Learn more about your audience by seeing how they interact with the features you offer. Use what you learn to create future ads that will capture their attention even more.
- Discover where your ads perform the best. Find particular websites or areas of websites that deliver the most attention and interaction with your ads.