Digital Advertising is a growing industry with businesses investing more each year. That means more advertisers are fighting for the eye of the consumer. The average consumer has an 8 second attention span, down from 12 seconds in 2000. According to Inc. the average person now has a lower attention span than a goldfish, meaning your ad needs to be more engaging than ever before.
In a space where competition is fiercer than ever, how do you make sure your ads are getting noticed? Keep reading for our tips on making sure your grabbing consumer attention.
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Consider The Medium
As an advertiser it’s important to tailor creative to the medium it will be shown on. For example, when launching a TV commercial, the viewer typically doesn’t have the option to skip the ad at any point. However, with YouTube advertisements viewers often have the option to skip after the 5 second mark making it more important to place your most attention grabbing imaging within the first 5 seconds.
Similarly, on Facebook image ads require no more than 20% text. In this instance it is important to choose a powerful image as well as to select text that carefully focuses on information that is most valuable to your target consumer.
Keep in mind not all advertising mediums are created equal, each require their own considerations to ensure you are getting the most out of your advertising spend.
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Target Emotion
While it can take 250 milliseconds for the brain to absorb visuals, it takes just 13 milliseconds for those images to create an emotion. Psychology Today reports that emotion has a larger impact on the customer than ad content.
What does this mean for the advertiser? Create imagery that connects to your audience. For example, a car dealer promoting their new minivan might show an ad promoting a family outing. Perhaps they’re heading on vacation, providing an opportunity to promote the memory of family trips while advertising the easy storage for typical family travel gear.
Bonus: When an ad makes a consumer feel good they are more likely to act on that emotion.
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Provide Consistency
With most advertisers utilizing cross-channel marketing strategies, consumers are seeing your ads across multiple mediums. Keeping creative themes consistent for each channel is important to avoid confusion on the part of the consumer.
As mentioned above, while the medium dictates how your message is presented, the message itself should remain the same. Presenting a consistent theme creates an experience and a connection for your target consumer to your brand. Consistent themes across channels help to evoke the emotion discussed in step two to drive the conversions you’re looking for.
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Be Unique
Once you’ve got the attention of your audience providing a unique message is extremely important. Do your competitive research and position your creative to stand out. What does your service or product offer that competitors do not? Do you provide a unique experience for the consumer?
One example of a unique experience is a hassle free return policy or for car dealers providing an extended warranty or coverage options. Brand loyalty has been in decline as consumers have more and more options at their fingertips. Create messaging conveying what makes your brand stand out from the competition.
Stream’s Kick-Start Step
Knowing who your target consumer is, is the starting point for any creative strategy. Utilize the data at your fingertips to analyze who your best customers are and build your strategy to reach them.
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—Robin Tarleton is a Paid Search Specialist at Stream Companies, a full-service Philadelphia-area advertising agency.