Here are some easy tips for improving your social media ads and boosting your return on investment in advertising.

Advertising isn’t what it was fifty years ago. That’s good news for small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) in 2019 since they don’t have to have the budget for a billboard ad or a full page spread in a magazine to compete. These days, digital ads, especially social media ads, are just as important as radio and television promotion. Businesses of all sizes have more advertising reach than ever before if they leverage online advertising properly.

Social media advertising is cost-effective for SMBs, but it’s also easy to waste your time and money if you don’t design your campaigns thoughtfully. Here are some easy tips for improving your social media ads and boosting your return on investment in advertising.

Use Templates to Create Bold Visuals

Culturally, we’re becoming more visual all the time and you need to be able to catch your consumers’ eye in order to compete with other advertisers. Not a designer? No worries. It’s never been easier to create bold visuals for your ads without any prior design knowledge. The secret? Templates.

Sites like Venngage or Canva offer templates for social media advertising that will make your ads look professional, polished, and appealing. It’s important to note that it’s still important for branding to create a consistent visual “voice” and use templates that are in the same style, which can include similar colors, fonts, or visuals.

Does Your Ad Copy Need a Boost? Then Mix Up Your Style!

What we’re taught to write in school isn’t the language of advertising. If your copy comes off as boring, bland, or too formal, it probably won’t engage your audience and entice them to buy. Channel your brand’s authenticity and communicate to your audience like they’re real people! Don’t use stodgy words, mix it up. Try to create a brand voice that reflects your company’s goals and values–a voice that speaks directly to your audience.

Automate for 24-Hour Presence

No one expects you to be up at 2 AM working on your social media posts (and if you are, it may be time to get some sleep!), but automation has come a long way and can help you distribute your advertising on a consistent schedule. Scheduling tools, virtual assistants, and other solutions can allow you to work on your social media advertising strategy when it’s most convenient for you (even if that does happen to be at 2 AM) but also maintain the schedule your customers expect.

Do You Understand & Speak to Your Target Audience?

Speaking of communicating directly with your audience, how well do you really know them? Do you understand different “segments” of your customer base and how to speak to each one of them?

If not, it’s time to do some in-depth research and fully utilize all of the online social media marketing resources out there. Find out which platforms your audience uses, what time they use them, and what they’re looking for in your product or service. From there, you can start to build out more targeted ad campaigns.

Targeting specific segments of your audience with tailored ads will help you save money and boost conversions because you’ll be more intentional with what you’re saying and who sees those ads.

Get Local: Geo-Targeting for Profits

When it comes to SMBs, local advertising is a cash cow. Smaller businesses can’t always compete with giant corporations when it comes to online presence, advertising, and e-commerce, but small businesses with brick-and-mortar locations can do very well in the world of mobile, local search and community engagement.

You can use social media to get involved in the local community and boost your online presence. Use local hashtags and location tagging in your posts and ads, and think about ways you can speak directly to the community. Get involved with local events! Large corporations can’t compete when it comes to catering to community needs because they have so many locations.

Remember: You Can Compete!

SMBs are the backbone of the American economy. Without them, we’d lose many of our jobs, unique communities, and cultural identity. Social media advertising helps level the playing field and can help small businesses succeed. You can compete with corporations!

Don’t worry if you feel somewhat overwhelmed or nervous about launching your first social media advertising campaign. It won’t be perfect, but you’ll learn a lot and feel much more confident during subsequent campaigns. The beauty of advertising online is that there’s little risk involved but the potential for big rewards.

Article written by: Ryan Ayers