If attention is key to building your brand, how do we catch that attention?
You want your audience to engage with your brand consistently. You want them to recognize your brand, think about your services, and come back to you for more. Your ad content needs to focus on creating these effects. When you approach an ad campaign, think about these questions:
- How can I develop brand recognition?
- How can I get them to think/talk about my brand after viewing the ad?
- What additional value can I offer to keep visitors coming back?
All the brands advertising on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and so on are in constant competition with each other over people’s attention. The more you can seize that attention, the more likely you can convert visitors to sales.
What then are some ways we can create engaging content to answer those three questions above? Below are 10 ideas on how to present the answers to those questions. To create engaging content to do just that.
10 Tricks for Attention Grabbing Ad Content
Use video and images
Moving images catch the eye a lot more than still images. According to marketer Jeff Bullas, it leads to five times longer views than static images. That’s five times the amount of time that the potential customer might click on something that leads to your webpage.
Images capture the eye more than words, mainly because words can tire the focus. Even in a blog – a place where visitors are willing to read – we have to put in some pics and spaces to give your eyes some time to relax and play before hitting the hard reading again.
If you can use video, use it. If you can use all three, use them all. But if you must choose one, choose video. Movement is always better than static.
Capture your audience’s attention quickly
This probably goes without saying. You must do this fast. Most people will scroll, press next, or close the window in less than 10 seconds after your video has started. Use eye-catching visuals and appeal to people’s emotions. Make them feel happy, sad, angry – the emotion doesn’t matter insofar as they feel something, and you are offering them either a bigger hit or a supposed solution.
Know your audience and hold their attention
Define your audience. Before you put up any content, make a sketch of your ideal customer. What does Customer X want? What drives them? What are their needs, problems, and worries? When you get a firm idea of your target audience, you can then cater your appeals and content towards them.
Understand your target’s intentions. Why are they visiting your website? Why are they viewing your content? When you understand that, you can edge them better towards a conversion – excuse me, a conversation. Assuage their fears, their desires, keep them coming back for more. Your content must be like a drug.
CTAs
The Call-To-Action cements the conversion. People are far more likely to convert if you ask them to. And they’re also likely to follow any calls-to-action if you make it easy for them. The call-to-action is somewhat tricky though, as people are also likely to skip over this when they smell it coming, just like when a YouTuber appeals to follow their sponsor.
It’s best then to do it when the viewer doesn’t feel it’s coming, and preferably to do it in a more non-intrusive way. Though people do have some tolerance and understanding when it comes to CTAs and sponsorship referrals – especially when they’re dealing with free content – you need to do it in a way that isn’t clashing with their sensibilities.
Mid-roll CTAs are generally a good idea. At the beginning, people aren’t motivated to stick with your pitch. They don’t really know why they’re there. By the end of the video, you’ve already lost most of your viewers. In the middle somewhere, their attention and interest has built. When you hit them with the appeal, they’re more likely to react positively.
Don’t make a CTA random though, make it have purpose and relate to the content. In fact, let’s see if you can spot where I stick my CTA in this text.
Optimize your video for the medium
It’s best to optimize your videos for both mobile and for desktop. If for time and convenience you must only choose one, then choose mobile as that’s the more limiting medium. It’s also the most used medium for video watching, according to Business 2 Community. That comes with a big caveat though: Though desktop viewers might watch less videos, they do watch their videos for longer and stay on linked sites for longer.
If not for turnover, the chief aim then is for brand awareness. Brand awareness rises to 67% when the video is properly optimized for mobile (Jeff Bullas), and gives you a clear advantage against unoptimized videos – in a recent Facebook study, only 24% of ads were optimized for mobile.
What does mobile optimization mean?
- Make sure the message can be understood without sound.
- When videos are unmuted, the do need smashing sound content, like from Smartsound Cloud.
- Use captions if a linguistic element is needed.
- You have a 30-second window, and the advertised product should be visible for most of that.
- The brand must be easy to identify and appear within the first 10 seconds.
- The message needs to be clear and simple.
Is your audience using mobiles or laptops/desktops?
Make it short and sweet
Your brand needs to stand out in the very first frame. People move and scroll quickly, and they’ve got very short attention spans. Even if you have a longer story board for your ad, make sure that your message (and brand) is visible within 10 seconds.
Be a first adapter to new formats
People like new things. Facebook research shows: “People’s eyes cannot resist new, immersive and moving formats, with participants in our lab experiment gazing 5x longer at video than static content and 40% longer at 360 video than standard video.”
Experiment with new formats and adapt quickly when new formats are released. When you’re the only advertiser on the new format, then people are going to see more of your ads. If your competitors haven’t caught up yet, then it’s literally ALL YOU.
Coordinate your messaging across channels
Make sure that your images on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter all coordinate with each other. Whether they’re the same post and reformatted between medium, or they are different posts that refer to each other. Or perhaps they’re different posts for different audiences, but they maintain a strong sense of brand identification.
The more visual cues and brand links that work together, the more the impression of your brand is solidified. If someone sees your brand one place, then another place, then another, they’ll begin to develop associations with your brand and service (as long as the two are closely related in your advertising).
Be creative – Experiment, learn, repeat
This goes hand-in-hand with first adoption. Also try to be the forerunner in fads. Be adventurous, try new ideas and maybe you’ll start a fad of your own. Facebook and other apps have the ability to create A/B marketing testing, targeting different populations or switching ads with the same populations to see what works better for whom. Use them! When you find the right group, repeat your marketing formula.
Live broadcasts
1 in 5 FB videos are live broadcasts. There is a 4 times higher probability of watching a live stream (Yans Media) than a regular video. Live videos rank higher in the newsfeed and receive six times higher interactions (Jeff Bullas). If you’re able to do a livestream, definitely do a livestream. People will more likely interact with you, and develop positive brand associations.
Wrap Up
There are many ways you can create more engaging content, definitely not limited to this list. Following these ideas, you’ll build that much needed brand recognition and positive association. Get your audience engagement up and think hard about how your brand is associated with your services and customers.
