This post marks the first of a 6 part series on sharing insights across marketing channels focusing on the benefit of combining paid digital media with other channels in your marketing plan.
Paid media and social go together like biscuits and gravy, peanut butter and jelly, Johnny and June… you get the picture! There are many benefits to leveraging paid social versus organic. But even if you prefer not to run paid campaigns across social media, there are learnings that can be shared between social and other paid avenues such as paid search or alternative display networks. Below are some of the benefits that you can reap at the intersection of your paid campaigns and social strategy.
Connect with Loyalists
What better way to reach your brand loyalists than to launch a campaign targeting people that have liked you on Facebook or followed you on Twitter? These are great audiences to tap into when you are launching a new product, offering a sale, giving out referral deals, or making big announcements. Running a paid advertisement ensures that you’ll get maximum visibility.
Boost Your Following
In addition to leveraging your social following, you can also run campaigns to build it. As noted above, there’s value in knowing who your consumers are and how to reach them. Running a paid campaign designed to increase followers and likes allows you to do just that. There’s recurring value in boosting your social following, since it also opens them to your organic social posts.
Tap Into Your Demographics
One of the greatest things about paid social is that there are so many great targeting options, which allow you to market to only your target demographics. I highly recommend putting together personas and then building your campaigns around them!
Improve Messaging
Paid media allow for rapid ad copy testing and optimization. Even if you don’t utilize paid social, you can use the learnings ad tests in alternative channels to improve organic social posts. Likewise, audience engagement with both organic and paid social can be used to inform ad copy text and design across other digital channels.
Share Audience Learnings
Ad test learnings aren’t the only thing that can be shared from channel to channel. Demographic data can also be used to inform campaigns across other networks, too. Even better, in some situations, whole audiences can be shared. Have an email list that works really well? Upload it to Facebook and Twitter! Then create lookalike audiences from them!
Engage and Re-Engage
To successfully lead your consumers through your buying cycle, keep them engaged by having a voice wherever they may be. With some (minor) exceptions, your customers are almost certainly using some form of social media. Leveraging social as part of your multi-channel strategy allows you to stay top of mind.
Push & Pull, Push & Pull
There’s a time and a place for push and pull marketing efforts. The time might be simultaneous for both but the place medium is usually different. Social, if done correctly, can be used for both. Layering social into your marketing efforts allows you to keep a pulse on what your customers are saying: the good, the bad, and the ugly. It allows you to make announcements, promote yourself, join into conversations, answer questions and provide solutions. Layering in paid social, for all the reasons listed in this article, allows you to put those efforts on steroids.
Be sure to check back over the next few weeks to read the latest posts in the series!
