Do you want to validate your business idea?

Is it a new strategy for your new business, a new product or service?

Want to learn how to avoid wasting your time and money to a business idea where nobody wants?

In this post, I’m going to share four ways to help you assess if your business idea has a potential market.

Before diving straight to our topic proper, let me give you a little bit background of a new business idea we’ve validated using Google AdWords.

Background of the New Idea

Mobidock wanted to confirm if their motorcycle docking station has a market potential.

Mobidock docking station is a collection of six interlocking parts for motorcycle. It has Docking Port cradle that clamps the front wheel of motorcycle to docked securely upright.

They wanted to attract motorcycle enthusiasts and big bike riders to pre-order the Mobidock docking station.

Their main objective is to find out if their target market are willing to purchase their product.

Now, let’s take a look at the ways Mobidock has applied to validate their business idea.

4 Ways How to Validate Business Idea

Know your customers

Many small business owners get too excited to promote and produce their new product without knowing and understanding their audience better.
Taking time to validate your product and market assumptions will save you a lot of time, money, and energy.

Try to imagine this.

You’re in a meeting and suddenly the big boss enters the room and asks

“What’s your business idea about?”.

How will you respond?

You only have 60 seconds to make a powerful first impression to deliver your elevator pitch in a targeted, clear and concise way.

In that 60 seconds, you need to answer these questions:

What is your client’s problem?

How are you going to solve the problem?

What is the solution?

Who are your ideal clients?

Where are they located?

Asking these questions to Mobidock’s business idea, here are the answers:
What is your client’s problem? Answer: It’s space-consuming and unsafe to dock big bike motorcycle.

How are you going to solve their problem?

Answer: The product will dock the motorcycle conveniently and safely.

What is the solution?

Answer: Roll the bike into the Mobidock Docking Port until the front wheel touches the cradle and the motorcycle remains docked securely upright.

Who are your ideal clients?

Answer: Motorcycle Enthusiasts and Hardcore Riders

Where are they located?

Answer: Lives in the Philippines

This simple market-centric approach will help you better understand what your potential customer wants, rather than telling yourself, “Okay, I have a product, let’s sell this right away”.

Now that you know exactly who your customers are, next is to build a landing page.

Validate Business Idea by Building a Landing Page

Let’s define what landing page is for those who don’t know it’s purpose and importance yet.

Landing page is the URL where it contains the details about the product or service you are offering and a clear call to action.

When you build a market-centric landing page, I strongly suggest to give your visitors what you are expecting them to find.

Check out the Mobidock’s landing page below.

You’ll see a video that shows how to use the docking station. There’s also a visible call to action button that says ‘Pre-Order Now’. The message is clear to their target market.

Protip: Write a copy that speaks to your ideal client while addressing their problem and convincing them why your product/service is the best solution. Review your copy and remove any redundant or confusing words.

In creating landing page, I’d recommend you to try ontrapages. This is easy to use and doesn’t require technical knowledge.

I’ve created a landing page using ontrapages while writing this blog post. Check out the screenshot below.

Protip: Do NOT create a landing page that gives visitors a lot of options and multiple call to actions.

Drive Traffic

Once you’re done with the landing page, it’s time to drive traffic to it to test if there are people who actually want to buy your product.

In this case, I used Google AdWords particularly the Google Search.

I tried the Display and Remarketing networks but for the sake of this blog post, I will only discuss the Google Search.

Google AdWords captures your potential customers who are actively searching on Google Search for products or services that your new business has to offer.

You have the opportunity to only drive visitors to those who have interest and intent on your business.

To start driving traffic, I launched campaigns and set a comfortable budget to run on search network.

But before that, I’ve created a Google AdWords Account Plan for Mobidock. It contains the entire structure – from campaigns to landing pages.

To give you more idea on the step by step process of launching the campaigns, here they are:

Create a keyword list

Create a small groups of keywords that your ideal client would use to find your business online.

Protip: Think like your customer and speak their language when building your keyword lists.

Here’s what I came up for Mobidock keyword list:

• motorcycle dock
• motorcycle stand
• motorcycle docking station
• sport bike wheel chock
• motorcycle docking part
• motorcycle rear stand
• motorcycle center stand
• wheel chock motorcycle
• wheel chocks

Let’s say you have the keyword list ready. Next is group and organize your keywords according to a common theme. The image below shows you an example of the organized keywords used for Mobidock.

Protip: To help you create your keyword list, you may check out the Google AdWords Keyword Planner here. It is a tool for researching keyword ideas and their traffic forecasts.

After grouping your keywords, let’s proceed to creating text ads.

Create a text ad

A single text ad is consists of Headline, Description 1 & 2 and Display URL.

The example below are three ad texts created for Mobidock.

To help you get started in creating text ads, here are the tips to make them appealing to your potential customers.

• Highlight what makes you unique – Include text such as Free shipping, 24/7 Support or Free trial.
• Include prices, promotions, and exclusives – These are limited-time discount or product sales.
• Tell customers to take action – Include call to action such as pre-order now, purchase, call today, order, browse.
• Include at least one of your keywords – For example, if you’ve included motorcycle dock as a keyword, your ad headline could be “Order Motorcycle Dock.”

Test and measure results

This is the final verdict of all your efforts to validate your business idea.

Driving traffic is great but if your visitors are not taking action on your landing page, then you are wasting your time, money and effort to test your product.

If no one is taking action then you’ll need to work on refining your headlines, landing page copy, text ad copy or even testing different features and buttons colors.

After or while running your tests, you’ll get inquiries, leads, or pre-orders. That’s the time you’ll get a validation. The validation will give you confidence whether to move forward with your business idea or simply forget it.

Let us know how this is working for you. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Are you looking for tools to create stunning images for social media?
Fact: Social media gone visual. To make your social media posts appealing, you need new design tools that will streamline your design process.
Part of our work as an advertising agency is to create such amazing visuals for our clients, whether those are Google Display banners, Facebook covers, Facebook ad images, and Instagram images.
We are always on the hunt for user-friendly design tools to create multiple graphics for social media. Maybe you are too.
In this article, you’ll discover three new design tools that will help you quickly create amazing visuals for social media.
Before we proceed to our topic proper, let’s discuss first the advantages of a design tool.
What are the Advantages of a User-Friendly Design Tool?

Business owners do not get time to develop high-quality graphics for their businesses. In order to help these entrepreneurs, user-friendly design tools are considered to be of great help. These tools are especially created for people who lack the knowledge of creating a graphic. Here are the top advantages of using an online design tool.
Ease of Use
Most of the design tools come with a drag and drop facility. It provides the user with the ability to make changes easily.
Ready-made Templates
Graphic designing also includes learning a design software like Adobe Photoshop. But when the user picks an online design tool, he does not have to worry about any of these as it comes along with readymade templates. The user has thousands of templates to choose from and create a stunning image.
Price
Cost is one of the most attractive features of an online design tool. By using this tool the user can immensely cut the cost of designing a graphic. When the user actually gets down to build a graphic the main cost he incurs is of hiring a graphic designer.
So, with that in mind, here are 3 tools we currently use in our work.
3 Tools To Create Stunning Social Media Visuals

Relay

Relay’s user interface is straightforward. You’ll see the layouts and the preview for each platform.
To start, choose a template based on platform, image style, or shape.

Edit the image by clicking the ‘wrench’ icon. For a quote image, add the text as well as the website address. You can change the background or add you logo for the branding.

For a hashtag image, simply add the text and the website address.

The image below shows that assets such as photos and logos can be entered into the system to create your image. It doesn’t automatically pull in images like the other design tools available.

To preview your work, just click the ‘wrench’ icon and you’ll see your work for a variety of social formats.

If you want to change the photo, simply upload a new one.

To show the resize layouts, just click the Russian doll icon.

The change is now reflected in dozens of different graphics.

If you’re satisfied with the preview, simply download the graphics by clicking the cloud icon.

Relay has tools where you can use for cropping, putting watermarks, and creating images to make a good Instagram feed.

But the downside of Relay is it doesn’t allow you to edit the overall structure of the template, like where the title, subtitle, or photo is positioned on the image.

Relay is ideal for creating bulk sets of images which saves you time and effort and give you more time to focus on executing strategies.

You can use Relay’s free trial without inputting your credit card details. To create images without Relay’s branding, you can pay for 8 USD per month.

Snappa

Snappa’s user interface is clean and simple (we’re not a fan of cluttered workspace).

You can create graphics basically for various formats.

Social media posts

Blog graphics

Header graphics

And various social media and display ads

In Snappa, you could start with a custom size graphic.

The image below shows your workspace.

You can create more appealing images using the 5 elements:

• Background – You can upload a new background image, pattern, color or use one of their stored images.
• Effects – You can add spice to your graphic by putting up effects like blur, hue, brightness, contrast, and more.
• Text – You can add text in various sizes.
• Graphics – It’s the element we think that’s so cool. Plus, graphics are modern looking.
• Shapes – You can add shapes, resize them and adjust to your liking.

If you love putting up a lot of graphics to your image, Snappa is perfect. The site is dead-easy to use and robust.

You can take advantage of Snappa’s free use for up to 5 downloads and shares per month and with access to limited templates. To use all the features, simply pay 10 USD per month.

Recite

Recite is like your one click design tool.

The process in creating a graphic in Recite is very easy.

Simply add your text, choose the template you want and BAM you have the image ready to download or share with your social media profiles.

Let’s try creating one while I’m writing this post.

First off, add your text.

Next, choose from the templates below.

Finally, click the create button. Wait for the image to render. Once done, you’re ready to download it or post to your social media profiles. If you change your mind, you can always go back to the first step.

Recite is ideal if you want to create those funky looking images with quotes you see all over the social media.

Plus, it’s free to use.

What do you think?

Have you used any of these tools to create professional-looking images with ease? Share you experience in the comment section below.

Hannah dela Cruz, Account Manager at EmergeLocal joins the EmergeLocal TV this week, to discuss the top 5 questions she encounters during pitching of digital marketing solutions.
When it comes to online marketing, business owners especially the small and medium enterprises are skeptical with going digital. They question the value of our digital marketing services.
In this blog post, we compiled five common skeptical questions our account manager encounters when she’s pitching digital marketing solutions to business owners and marketers.

So, here they are:

Q1: What if there are two competing companies who want to advertise on Google with your agency, should there be an issue?

A1: There’s no issue in that at all. We are just an instrument who would deliver your message to your target market online. Two companies might have different marketing approach – the way they deliver their own messages to their target market. So we are just here to help you put those marketing messages online. At the end of the day, the most outstanding message will be heard.

Well this is actually on point. Being a digital advertising agency, we offer other channels that business owners can take advantage of to promote their products and services. The treatment on all our clients are equal because at the end of the day, it depends on your marketing message and objectives.

Q2: What if there are a lot of companies who want to advertise with the same time, location, demographics, and websites, how will our ads appear?

A2: Your ads will still appear according to Google’s criteria. Google will place your ads according to how much you’re willing to pay per click and how relevant your business is to a particular user’s keywords.

Quite a clever question right? Well apparently businesses who advertise on Google and still manage to show ads.

Since Google has their own measurement called quality score (which includes how relevant the ad is to the user’s search or interest) and bid (how much an advertiser is willing to pay per click), then your ads will definitely appear as long as it meets all the criteria.

Q3: Why should I avail Google AdWords if I can be seen on the organic results already?

A3: There is a huge difference between the organic results and Google Ads. One of them is you only pay whenever someone clicks on the ad. In SEO, only Google knows the algorithm on how you can put your website on the first page of search results.  On the other hand, AdWords is easy to launch and you can set a specific budget. The ads are also placed at the right place at the right time.

And as I have said, appearing on the organic results isn’t always a guarantee to be shown at the top or first page. Being on Google Adwords provides an advantage since its paid and it’s like an upgrade to your message or ads. Organic results are millions thus being on paid advertising can somehow uplift your position and of course gives you an opportunity to improve your ads along the way to be on the position whenever a potential customer is looking for your products or services.

As an agency who focuses in Pay Per Click advertising, we don’t ditch the SEO. SEO is very important. If you’re looking for a long term result, it is the way to go. The thing is only Google knows the algorithm. If you want an instant results, you should go for Pay Per Click advertising.

Q4: My sales is doing well, how would I know Google AdWords would make any difference?

A4: “Who wouldn’t want to have more sales? Google AdWords can let you reach people who are really searching for you. According to Association of Digital Marketing Agencies or ADMA, 6.8M Filipino internet users are searching. 84% is engaging in search/navigation activities. 63% is searching on mobile everyday. Would you miss those?”

You don’t want to miss those opportunities. With Google Adwords you will reach your target customers who searches online.

Q5: The Internet in the Philippines is very slow, how can you say that digital advertising is helpful?

A5: According to wearesocial, we are ranked 15th worldwide in terms of internet usage with 46% internet penetration and 47% in social media. These stats show that Filipinos are online. How much more when the Internet connection becomes faster?

Well admittedly internet in the Philippines is slow but it doesn’t stop Filipinos to search online. Those Filipinos can be reach through digital advertising.

Conclusion

Just like any other marketing platform, online advertising is another way to improve sales and promote your business. Since we are now in the digital age, being online is one way to get ahead of the competition towards the future of marketing.

Do you have any questions in mind about digital marketing? Let us know!

EmergeLocal TV is our official YouTube channel where we share digital marketing strategies, tips and tricks for business owners or marketers who want to get their next customer online. Stay tuned!

Are you looking for inspiration to create your next Facebook Ads?

Facebook Ads is a great tool for consumer sales and branding, whether it’s to sell a new car, a new smartphone, or a new app.

B2C marketers’ end goal in using Facebook Ads is to direct followers over to their website, community engagement and involvement. They want to get plenty of likes, comments or shares on their ads. They mainly use Facebook marketing to promote brand awareness and get people talking about the brand.

Whether you’re a small business or global brand, you’ll learn how others achieved real results with Facebook marketing.

In this blog post, you’ll find the 25 ads aiming for different audiences and objectives, from Mobile App Promotion, to Brand Awareness to Increase Local Sales. You’ll get inspired by compelling creative ads on Facebook from small, local businesses.

Let these B2C Facebook Ads examples help you create quality ads for your business.

So without further ado, let’s get started.

25 Great B2C Facebook Ads Example That Will Inspire you to be More Creative

Promote Mobile App

Facebook aims to help companies to grow their audience and increase sales for their apps. Whatever your goal is – to drive mobile app installs, conversion and engagement, Facebook marketing will help you achieve them.
The Facebook ad examples below will give you idea how to execute your ad in terms of creative side.
Every Day! Rewards
Every Day! Rewards is a campaign of 7-Eleven. They make it clear that when you download the app, you’ll get exciting rewards at your fingertips. The urgency of receiving what you get from the app is a great idea.
Lamudi: Real Estate for Sale & Rent

Lamudi, a property search portal launched a mobile app that helps you find the best properties available in the market. The ad image, with a shot of their dashboard in action, shows you exactly what sort of interface you’ll be working with when you sign up.

Foodpanda

Who doesn’t want to have their favorite food delivered at their doorsteps? Foodpandadoes that for you. They partnered with 160+ restaurants across all the Philippines for you to order amazing meals.

SanMig Light On All Night

If you are a certified partygoer, then this SanMig On All Night is worth to download. SanMig, a liquor brand created an app to spot the hottest party scenes.

Monterey Meat Master

It’s the first time we see a meat shop to have an app. Good move Monterey! Their ad is directed clearly to people who love to cook meat. The image ad showcases the recipes you can try in your own kitchen.

Brand Awareness

Facebook brand awareness objective focuses on maximizing the amount of people who will recall your brand after viewing your ad. It is best aligned with goals to increase the recall of your brand, a specific product or service with your audience.

Check out the ad examples below to find out how the creative elements of online ads impact brand awareness.

TRESemmé

Eden Cheese

In this Facebook Ads example, Eden Cheese keeps things super simple with this ad for a delicious holiday recipe. Their text tells you exactly what is coming up. This ad gathered over 100 comments, showing the power of a clear, straightforward value proposition.

Cadbury

Facebook ads are a great platform to provide sneak peek of your product. Cadbury’s ad image stands out to your newsfeed because of the background color – purple which is a cool tone and stimulates appetite.

Enfalearn

Enfalearn Philippines will definitely get your attention with this ad. The image ad features a mom and a kid taking a picture of a plant. They do a nice job with the headline of a “Watch our new story” to grab your attention.

Chevrolet Philippines

Chevrolet knows exactly who they want to target: people who love cars, especially Chevrolet cars. They put a #BeChevyStrong which encourages people to participate. You’ll see that they value their dealers with their call-to-action.

Nestle Fruit Selection Yogurt

As Beyonce’s lyric of her popular song, women run the world. It’s how Nestle wants people to perceive that women are super. The image ad encourages women to participate in the Q & A. The headline is straightforward and incorporates the #Superwomen.

Shopify

Who doesn’t know Facebook? Shopify leverages their reputation to draw your interest in their ecommerce shop technology. Even though the image doesn’t really reinforces the idea – it sparks interest. There’s no magic here, just a busy street.

Lady’s Choice

In the popular book of Gary Vaynerchuk, ‘Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook’, he emphasizes the importance of giving more value than getting benefits. This ad of Lady’s Choice Philippines shows you how to do that.

Malayan High School of Science

Malayan High School of Science does a great job making it crystal clear what you’re getting. Their headline ‘Enroll now at MHSS!’ gives you an idea of what you need to do next without much effort. The image does a nice job of fitting a picture of happy students and call-to-action while still being aesthetically pleasing and simple.

Belo Essentials

Let’s be real – you’re going to stop and look at this Belo Essentials’ ad because it has a girly image featuring their famous celebrity endorser, Anne Curtis. The ad gives you a great reason to click it – a chance to win a Boracay trip.

Century Tuna Superbods

Kudos to Century Tuna Superbods for addressing a complaint through a Facebook ad. Their image and text are totally in sync. They show that Facebook is not just for direct response advertising but also for customer service.

Increase Local Sales

B2C ads get to the point – they have a product to sell, and they’d like to get you to try it. Having the right audience, strong value proposition with a great image, you’ll be able to drive sales to your product.

Head and Shoulders

Facebook ad doesn’t have to be a direct brand promotion. You can also advertise a piece of content. Head and Shoulders features a Cosmopolitan’s article to promote their product. You’ll get a content jampacked with awesome hair tips.

Microsoft Lumia Philippines

Microsoft Lumia Philippines doesn’t need to settle with just one format of Facebook ad. They use a carousel ad format to showcase the benefits of the new Lumia phone. It’s one thing for a company to tell their new product in a different perspective.

Ambipur Philippines

Want your car smells fresh when you’re stuck in traffic? Ambipur is the right product for you. Their ad showing an image of a person stuck in traffic is quite cool. It’s a slick, attractive image that’s enough to get you to click and learn more.

Dove

What Dove liquid soap can bring to you? It’s purely pampering. Meanwhile, they’re using a video ad which undoubtedly effective because they have over 45 thousand likes, 171 comments and 34 thousand views.

Manila Wine

Manila Wine, an online wine delivery shop, drives home two key values in their ad: affordability and free delivery. “Buy French Wines. From as low as P399. Free Delivery.” and with a well-chosen call-to-action, you’ll probably be tempted to find out what those amazing things are.

Tide 

Tide goes friendly and personalized with this ad. They also use a local language in the ad image to tell you the benefit you’ll get with their product – “todo puti”.

Oral-B

It’s not hard to figure out what Oral-B Philippines offers. Their ad image shows the product and the benefit you’ll get. It’s a great image that’s definitely going to make you stop and take notice.

Cheeze Whiz 

Cheeze Whiz does a nice job of demonstrating the emotional effect of getting their product. They also emphasize the improved Cheeze Whiz within their ad. It would be great if they have a call-to-action to cap off this super-actionable ad.

Converge ICT Solutions Inc.

Do you think you can experience extremely fast fiber optic internet connection with DSL? Converge, an internet service provider, agrees.

They designed their product precisely for audience who don’t want to experience bad internet connection. In this ad, they feature a friendly cartoon of woman in front of computer who probably a business owner, aiming squarely at a particular buyer persona.

Did you get your dose of inspiration from these Facebook Ads Examples? Which one did you like the most? Do you know any other inspiring and remarkable Facebook campaigns? Let us know!

Are you struggling on how to stay on top of mind with your customers?

Is your goal to educate leads and guide them through the buyer’s journey?

After prospects have visited your website, called, or emailed you, they’ve converted into leads. But these leads might not ready to make a purchasing decision.

That’s why you need to find ways to convert them to influence to make a purchase decision.

HubSpot highlights the 5 stages of the customer buying cycle and shows you exactly how to leverage each stage.

InboundWorks grouped the 5 stages to 3 stages for a simpler and more meaningful model.

Awareness stage is the first opportunity to connect with your audience. The impression you will make in this stage will make a whole lot difference when moves to the second (evaluation) stage.

If you win the second stage, your target audience will finally make purchase (final stage).

But what if your leads did not make a purchase? Are you just going to sit and do nothing?

Your leads have expressed initial interest in your company so the next thing to do is you need you need to continue to stay top of mind with them throughout their purchase process.

That way when the time does come for them to make a decision, you’re the company they choose.

So let’s look at three smart ways to attract and stay top of mind with your leads:

Bring Them Back With Retargeting

In definition, retargeting also known as remarketing, is a form of online advertising that can help you keep your brand in front of bounced traffic after they leave your website.

It happens after leads have visited your website. Retargeting ads are ads that follow you everywhere. It reminds your leads of your business so they return to your website.

Let’s have a good example here.

Let’s say you’re a real estate broker in Angeles City, Pampanga and a prospective new home buyer visits your website.

After reading several pages on your site, he leaves your website and visits other potentially unrelated sites across the web. Because he has already visited your site, the retargeting technology can identify him as an interested shopper and show your display ad to him as he continues to surf the web.

It’s a perfect opportunity to re-engage him with a promotional offer like “10% Discount on Equity” and a strong call to action like “Book Your Free Site Tripping Today” so he will click the ad and return to your website.

By staying top of mind with your lead while he was in the consideration phase, you can encourage him take another step toward becoming a customer.

Call Your Leads Back Quickly Before They Lose Interest

Did you know that most consumers buy from the businesses that respond back to them first?

Your audience becomes a lead when they act on what you want them to do.

For example, you’re a real estate broker and you advertise an open house. When a potential customer clicks your ad, it will be redirected to a landing page where there’s an obvious contact form to capture pertinent information such as name, email address, and contact number.

After you receive the information, the next thing to do is follow up on them as soon as possible by calling them and asking more questions.

For instance, did they want to set an appointment for a free site tripping?

Do they need pricing information, etc.? This information not only enables you to help your lead, it also gives you background information you can use in follow-up communications.

Nurture Them With Emails

Do you know that the first email was sent 45 years ago?

Email serves a purpose until now when it comes to marketing and closing sales leads.

They are a great way to stay top of mind with your leads and previous customers.

Here are the reasons why email is great for nurturing your leads:
Cost effective

Most of us have email addresses,
It’s something personal,
You can go back to an email every now and then Emails can be customized.

Follow up your consumers with great stuff about your business.

To give you an idea what type of follow-up emails you can send to your leads, here they are:

• Links to relevant industry articles
• Alerts about upcoming sales and special promotions
• News about your products and services
• Testimonials from happy customers
• Updates about your company’s culture

That’s it

By providing timely, personal, and helpful information, chances are you can convert your prospects into sales.

A comprehensive CRM software would be a big help to keep you updated about each of your lead.

How do you stay top of mind with your leads?

What’s your current process in keeping your leads warm?

Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Are you reluctant to dip your toes into pay-per-click marketing?

Do you always ask yourself if the investment may be worth your while?

Digital marketing is in full swing and businesses are doing their best to be in front of their potential customers online. It becomes critical and essential for them to keep up with the current marketing playing field.

Pay Per Click marketing, also known as PPC marketing, Cost Per Click marketing, Sponsored Advertising or Paid Advertising is a form of digital marketing. It gives you an opportunity to get searched online (more easily) because you will be placed by Google on the top of the Search Engine Results Page.

Your business could be in front of your potential customers at the time they’re looking for your products or services .

This type of digital marketing is one of the effective ways to help your business get traffic from relevant search results and other related websites.

Let me give you a gist of how pay per click works.

Take a look at the image below.

The potential customer searches for keyword “culinary school quezon city”. Google gives you search results which consist of paid and organic.

Paid ads are highlighted with green ‘Ad’ bar while the organic results are located under the paid ads.

The most relevant paid ad will be shown on top of the search results. Once the ad is being clicked, the potential customer is taken to a landing page which contains more information about the ad.

Then, the advertiser will be charged per click. That’s why it’s called Pay Per Click.

The good thing about pay per click is you are not being charged when your ad shows up but when it’s being clicked.

Now let’s move on to what I want to share with you which are the five practical reasons why you should start doing Pay Per Click marketing to get your business in front of your potential customers.

5 Practical Reasons You Should Do Pay Per Click Marketing

Transparency in budget

Every business owner wants to know every penny spent on advertising. With pay per click, this is definitely possible. You’ll know how much you are being charged for a click. You’ll also know which platform is giving you a great return on investment. This transparency on budget will help you or your team decide in terms of budget allocation.

Exposing your business for free

The benefit of only paying when someone clicks on your ad is that you get all the additional views of your ad and brand for free.

This applies to Youtube skippable video ads, wherein if the video ad is not played by the customer for a minimum of 30 seconds, the advertiser will not be charged.

Caveat though, there’s a strategy behind here. In the video, to get a free exposure, I suggest you show your brand logo or tagline within 5 seconds.

Below is an example of a youtube video ad.

In the screenshot of the video ad below, the brand ‘Panni Carlo’ is already exposed to the users of YouTube while the ‘Skip Ad’ button is still there.

Complete control of the ads

With the pay per click marketing, the ads that are displayed in the paid search results can be changed, edited, tested, optimized and tracked to maximize effectiveness. This feature allows advertisers to know which exact combination of ad text, key phrases, and images work best. You can also control the targeting of your ads such as physical location of searcher, time or day of the week, device type, ads position, website placements, demographics and more.

Consistent traffic

As an advertiser, one of your ultimate goals could be driving consistent traffic to your website. If you don’t have any people visiting your website, how would you be able to convert them into sales. With paid advertising, the amount of traffic can be controlled as they are tied directly to the allocated budget on how much the advertiser is willing to pay per click, per day and per month.

Tracking of performance

With pay per click, campaign results can be tracked extensively. From the number of clicks, how many times the ad appeared (impressions), to the number of conversions, all these are being tracked. These data you’ll collect will help you make wise decisions to achieve your business’ goals and return on investment.

Wrapping up

Pay per click marketing works!

​The bottom line is that pay per click works well for every type of business as long as it is DONE right.

According to Statista, this year, the revenue in the “Digital Advertising” market in the Philippines amounts to mUSD 244.8. That’s huge. And it’s increasing every year which means there’s a BIG opportunity for you as a business owner, marketer, or advertiser.

Businesses are now realizing the importance of incorporating pay per click to their current marketing strategies. So start using the power of pay per click and be on the right track on getting good results and return on your investment.

Have you incorporated pay per click in your current marketing? What business’ goal pay per click marketing has helped you achieve? Share them in the comment box below.

Key takeaways

You’ll get consistent influx of traffic through Pay Per Click Marketing. (click to tweet)

Expose your business for free with Pay Per Click Marketing. (click to tweet)

You’ll only pay when your ad is being clicked. (click to tweet)

Statista says in 2016, the revenue in the “Digital Advertising” market in the Philippines amounts to USD 244.8. (click to tweet)

Did you know that you can use principles of persuasion in Facebook Advertising?

There’s no magic involved, but actually scientific knowledge. Based on the book called “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” written by Dr. Robert Cialdini, the decision of an individual can be influenced by these six principles which were reciprocity, commitment/consistency, social proof, authority, liking and scarcity.

Before I go through each principles of persuasion, let me give you a brief background of Dr. Robert Cialdini.

Dr. Robert Cialdini is a marketing and sales persuasion expert.

Some call him “The Godfather of Persuasion” due to his involvement in extensive research and scholarly training in the study of psychology of influence.

He is best known for his popular book on principles of persuasion and marketing, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

The main objective when implementing these principles in your Facebook Ads is to achieve your marketing goals which can be the following:

• Get more sales
• Increase newsletters subscriptions
• Drive more visits to your website
• Get more app downloads

In this article, I’ll elaborate on each of these principles and show you how other businesses are applying them in their Facebook Ads.

If you’re a marketer, social media manager, or simply want to make your project work better, be sure to read these 6 principles of persuasion:

Applying the Principles of Persuasion to Facebook Ads

1. Reciprocity

When was the last time you pay back someone because you feel a sense of indebtedness?

Social norms compel us to respond to a favor with another favor, in order to not be considered ungrateful.

Based on the idea of reciprocity, marketers often use this principle by offering “free samples” or “discounts” to others if they’ve received favors from those others.

It is important to understand that the principle of Reciprocity is only applied if you’ve already given value to someone before you ask for something in return.

Though this principle is very popular, you can still make it more effective by using these three factors:

Principle of Reciprocity: Example of Execution

For example, Drop Ship Lifestyle offers FREE step-by-step training modules to their target audience which are eCommerce newbies.

These modules are offered WITHOUT asking for anything in return (and if they do, it’s only communicated as a method of delivering that modules to them).

Don’t get confused with the ads you see that offer something, like a bonus, in return of buying something.

They’re not giving the value first hand which is the actually the essence of reciprocity.

2. Commitment and Consistency

Quoting Cialdini,

Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment.  Those pressures will cause us to respond in ways that justify our earlier decision.

In this principle, retargeting is very important because of these two reasons:

• You want to stay top of the mind of your target audience
• Customers trust you because they’ve accepted your previous offer

A good marketer knows how to influence the buyer by offering a lead magnet and tripwire before the premium offer comes in.

Principle of Commitment and Consistency: Example of Execution

For example, the ad of ISCAHM is retargeted at website visitors who did not sign up for their course.

In our experience here in Emerge, retargeting website visitors who were going to purchase the product earlier but did not do for some reason is highly effective in generating sales or achieving the marketing goal.

3. Social Proof

Imagine, you’re shopping for a hair care product and there are two brands in front of you.

One is endorsed by celebrities and has rave reviews online why the other is barely new in the market.

Which should you use?

The answer is obvious.

In the principle of social proof, the decision is based on the rate of collective approval.

I will explain more of this later. In addition, Dr. Robert Cialdini defines social proof as,

It’s a principle of persuasion. It says the people want to follow the lead of those individuals around them, like them so in any given situation will look to see what the people around us like us our doing and follow soon.

Principle of Social Proof: Example of Execution

In the example above, HubSpot mentioned “500,000+ fellow marketers” in the Ad’s body copy to show that others are already subscribed to their newsletter.

The 500,000 fellow marketers is an example of collective approval which I’ve mentioned before.

It’s not only the decision of ONE but MORE which gives high impact to a person.

Furthermore, Cialdini’s principle of social proof works great when you include testimonials because you can have a grasp of the what a product and service can do to you as a customer.

4. Liking

Now let’s proceed with principle of liking. Cialdini said,

We’re more likely to be influenced by the people who we like.

In social situations, if you like someone, you’re more likely to do something they want or ask.

That’s why we have what we call fans.

And if the people you like including your relatives, friends, families liked a product or service, tell you that it’s awesome, you will immediately trust them.

That’s what you call word-of-mouth recommendations.

This principle can be applied to your Facebook Ads in the following way – use an object or person who your audience likes and promote your product in association with it.

Let’s take a look at the example below.

Principle of Liking: Example of Execution

In the ad above, Sunsilk, one of the leading hair expert companies in the world, associate their new product to a well-known celebrity.

If you are an avid fan or you simply like the celebrity, you’re going to like the product too.

5. Authority

It’s human nature that people follow who look like they know what they’re doing.

They are the authority figures. Authority is not just based in the positions of power or experience.

It can be superficial too. For example, clothing is one factor that help you perceive authority.

If you dress like a boss, you’ll get respect from others.

To illustrate the principle of authority, check out the examples below.

Principle of Authority: Example of Execution

In the ad above, Neil Patel, a famous online marketer and an authority figure in an internet marketing advertises his FREE webinar.

Let’s take another example.

In the ad example above, Leading Social featured Gary Vaynerchuk in one of their events.

Gary Vaynerchuk walk the talk that’s why he has a huge social media followers.

His approach is no BS. By featuring authority figures, Neil Patel and Leading Social apply the principle of authority to achieve their marketing goals.

6. Scarcity

Do you agree that scarcity creates urgency.

Scarcity is one of the most popular principles that companies are using over and over again in order to generate sales.

Scarcity is defined as the perception of products seeming to become more attractive when their perceived availability is rather limited. Quoting Cialdini,

Scarcity (whether actual or merely perceived) generates demand and thus compels customers to act quickly.

In this case, by incorporating “limited time offers”, “act fast, only 2 tickets left”, “hurry!

Limited slots only” and the inclusion of expiration dates on vouchers and coupon codes are ways to apply the principle of Scarcity.

To illustrate this principle, check out the example below.

Principle of Scarcity: Example of Execution

In the ad example above, the phrase “until March 31, 2016” implies high demand and urgency, which then creates the illusion of scarcity.

Conclusion

These 6 Principles of Persuasion have been used for decades by businesses and marketers to, all to get you, the consumer, to take a slice of your hard-earned money.

The goal of the business is to always generate sales which is equivalent to money.

So I hope these principles will help you achieve that.

Think about them and apply them properly.

Don’t be afraid to include testimonials, get endorsed by a celebrity, offer free samples or discounts, or tell your customers that if they don’t act fast, prices might change.

Try to apply these principles to your Facebook Ads one at a time to find out what works for you.

Your Turn

Do you have any other examples of Cialdini’s six principles being used? Share them in the comments section!

P.S. Grab the checklist here: http://goo.gl/FsRzIK

Are you looking for effective ways to generate new leads?

Every business owner knows the importance of leads. Whether you’re a small business owner or you own a huge company, you must generate leads in order to survive. The more leads, the more potential clients.

Have you tried using Facebook ads for driving traffic to your website, promoting your services and getting new clients?

In this blog post, we will cover the Facebook ad types that every marketer or business owner can use to generate leads.

Facebook has different ad types based on your business’ objectives. So if your goal is to get new customers, generate leads is your first step.

Are you ready to take the first step? Let’s do it.

Facebook Ads That Will Help You Drive New Customers

Lead Ad for acquiring customers within Facebook

With this type of Facebook ad, your potential customers can provide their details without going to a certain page. Once the ad is being clicked, a form will appear asking them to type in some details.

Sounds great right?

This type of ad is available through mobile and Newsfeed placement only.

The first image shown below is an example of a Lead Ad and what will appear when your potential customer click on the ad.

To help you get started in creating a Lead Ad, here’s the step by step process:

Note: Before you start creating the ad, you need a Power Editor. Power Editor is a browser plugin created by Facebook as a way to manage and bulk edit ads. It can be accessed only via Google Chrome.To go to Power Editor, copy and paste this URL – www.facebook.com/ads/manage/powereditor.

How To Create A Lead Ad

1. Click ‘create campaign’ on the campaign level of the Power Editor located at the left side of the screen.

2. Then choose ‘Create New’.3. Under Objective, choose ‘Lead Generation’.

4. After you create a Lead Generation campaign, next is you need to create an ad set. After the ad set, you need to create the ad.5. In the ad level, scroll down and fill out other details, you’ll see this one. Just click ‘create new form7.  Tick the new form option then click ‘next’.

8. Name your form. In naming the form, we suggest that you put your call to action. For example, sign up now, book now, setup an appointment, etc.

9. Next, this is where you choose your necessary questions that you want to ask from your potential customer. If you want more details click ‘show more options’. To customize your questions, click ‘+Add a question’.

10. Paste the link of your company’s privacy policy. Click ‘Next’.11. Preview for your form. Once you’re done, click ‘Create Form’.

Page post link ad for driving traffic to website

​Commonly known as Newsfeed ad, this type of facebook ad lets you become visible to your potential customers. It is similar with a usual Facebook post. When a potential customer click the ad, it will be redirected to a specific web page.

Anatomy of a Facebook ad

1. Body Copy
2. Image
3. Headline
4. Link Description
5. Link Display URL
6. Call to action

This ad type can be placed on mobile, newsfeed, or in the right column.

Below is an example of a page post link ad.

Curious on how to create this type of ad? Continue reading below.

How To Create A Page Post Link Ad

1. Launch Power Editor.
2. Click create campaign.

2. Choose ‘Create New’.

3. Under Objective, choose ‘Clicks to Website’.

4. After you create a Clicks to Website campaign, next is you need to create an ad set. After the ad set, you need to create the ad. In the next steps, we’ll show you where you will create the clicks to website ad.

5. On the ad level, fill out the text, headline, and the newsfeed link description. Scroll down and then upload the image you want to post.

Protip: Showcase what you advertise by using catchy words that speak to your audience. In terms of the images you’re going to use, follow the image guidelines set by Facebook to avoid disapproval of your images.

Carousel ads for multiple photos or videos

Multi-product or carousel ad is one of the most exciting ad types facebook offers. Imagine that you can show up to five images or videos in one ad.

Let me give you one example. If you are an eCommerce company selling different products, you can lever on this kind of ad type by uploading 5 different products. Each product has its own website URL, headline, link description, and call to action. Using this ad type, you save time, effort and money because instead of creating 5 ads for each product, you can put them in single ad.

This type of ad is not just great for an eCommerce company but also for companies in tourism and retail industries. It is available through Newsfeed and mobile placement. Carousel ad can be created if your objectives are driving traffic to website (clicks to website) and acquiring leads (website conversions).

Below is an example of a carousel ad.

To use the carousel ad type, follow the instructions below.

How to Create a Carousel Ad

1. Launch Power Editor
2. Click ‘Create Campaign’.

3. Click ‘Create New’.

4. Under Objective, you can choose between Clicks to Website or Website Conversions.5. In the ad level, choose the option ‘ad with multiple images or videos in a carousel’. Under ‘select cards from previous ads, click the ‘ +’ button to add 2 more cards if you want more space. You can also add a card entitled for your profile picture for branding purposes.

That’s a wrap

Facebook offers broad choices of ad types. We recommend to check it out and test which one suits best for your business. Choosing the right ad type is very important. Make sure you consider the ad type that matches your message, target market and offer.

Your Turn

Have you tried one of the ad types we tackled in this blog post? If not, what do you think the ad type that would give you the best result for your business’ goals? If you have tried at least one, what were the results? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Share them in the comment box below.

Are you wasting countless hours just thinking what to post on social networks?

Or you don’t even know where to start.

That’s why planning is the key.

With so many outlets like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn, you may be spending 50% of your time to put every action you take on social media. Not cool, right?

So what you need right now is a social media marketing plan.

First off, let’s define social media marketing plan.

A social media marketing plan is a template that is something you can refer to and adjust as you forge ahead towards meeting desired goals.

In this article, you’ll learn what a social media marketing plan should be and build the ultimate social media calendar that will save you time and stress in just 5 simple steps.

How To Create A Social Media Marketing Plan in 5 Easy Steps

Plan your social networks

Most business owners proceed to the second step but I believe knowing which networks should you be on is the first step to any social media marketing plan.

Should you create an account for every social media networks? Let’s find out.

Know where your audience is.

You should be on the same networks as your audience. It cliché but it’s true.

Write down two to three networks that are clearly popular with your audience. Start small because remember you have to maintain content on these.

Plan your goals

Having objectives in place allow you to gauge your success and prove your return on investment. Without these goals, you won’t be able to execute your strategy.

Here are the examples goals you might want to achieve:

• Drive more traffic to your blog
• Increase social followers
• Increase sales
• Grow email subscribers

Write down at least three social media goals to start with.

For example

For Instagram, we will share photos that communicate our product values. We will do this by posting 2 photos a week that will achieve 20 likes plus 5 comment each.

Plan what you will create

I think this is the most exciting part of the planning. This is where you can get creative.

In this step, you’ll plan and create the actual pieces of content. It could be visuals, videos or longer text posts depending on the social network.

To help you with planning, here are the following content ideas you could come up with:

Images

A picture is worth a thousand words. According to a study, 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text and 40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text.

In that case, images are worth it to post.

So you need to plan to include some. If you don’t have someone who can create great images, or you’ve determine that you cannot create imagery by yourself, you can use Canva.

Season-themed campaign

Events, holidays, and promotions are part of our daily lives. You can incorporate these to your social media campaigns too.

Curated content

Content curation is the process of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a particular theme. What you’re going to do is to regularly share outside from publications and influencers. Caveat though, you must stick to your topic!

Plan when you will publish

Once your content is in place, you can set up a social media publishing plan to fit your desired outcome. You can use the most popular social media scheduling tool like Emerge Postmany.

There’s no standard frequency of publishing you should follow. But for Twitter, posting more than once a day is the best approach. For the other social networks, observe the engagement (comments, likes, or shares).

Plan what you need to evaluate and measure

Do you have idea what to evaluate and measure after you scheduled the posts?

Measuring the performance of your posts is as critical as finding the social networks that will best work for your business.

If you’re managing a Facebook page, you can track the following metrics:

• Page Likes
• Page Comments
• Post Shares

If you have a Twitter account, you can measure the following metrics:

• Mentions
• Followers
• Retweets

These metrics you’re going to measure depend on your goal and the social network.

There are analytics tools available on each platform to gauge user reactions and continually develop your strategy. To measure the performance of Facebook posts, take a look at Insights.  Twitter Analytics offers summary and detailed report about tweet impression, followers, mention and profile visits. With Pinterest Analytics, you can see what people like from your profile and what they save from your website.

Conclusion

As new social networks emerge, there’s an adjustments needed on your existing social media plan.

The key point I hope you take from this is you ask yourself about what you want, how you think you should get there and what success you want to achieve. Write it down. Plan it out. Good luck on your social media journey!

Bonus: Free Social Media Template

There’s tons of social media templates out there in the internet but ours includes the basic structure you need to build up your own strategy document.

You’ll notice that each platform is separated from each other. The reason here is your Facebook strategy is different from Twitter.

One of the most important features of this template is the ‘topic’ column. If you are in the real estate industry, you can have topics including Monday Motivation, Featured Model House, Curated Content, Featured Community, TGIF quotes, and many more.

You should come up with new and exciting things to post so by making your template organized can cut down on the amount of time wasted.

Remember that this template is not final. Feel free to add your own columns or remove in which you think is not necessary. Don’t worry, it’s okay with us!

Are you looking for ways more than traditional technique to help increase your company’s online visibility?

Do you want to reinforce your offline marketing efforts?

Business owners invest in different traditional marketing strategies including flyers, tarpaulins, radio, TV, direct mailers and business cards.

With the use of internet, mobile or commonly referred to as Digital Media, businesses take advantage of this new media to find alternative source of prospects that can give you customers eventually.

There are a lot of ways to do that. I will show it to you later.

In this blog post, I’m going to present to you four online marketing platforms you can lever on to promote your products and services. Here they are:

Google Adwords

Who doesn’t know Google?

According to the research conducted by Return On Now, as of 2015, search engine market share in the Philippines sees Google in the lead with 89%.

Google has an advertising platform. It is called Google AdWords. Google Adwords is a pay-per-click advertising platform where advertisers pay only when a potential customer clicked the ad. Google Adwords lets you create ads in text, image, or video forms.

In Google AdWords, you can choose what network you want your ad to appear. Hence, I will only introduce the most popular networks used by advertisers or marketers. So, let’s start.

Search Network

These are the ads that show when someone performs a search on Google. These ads are triggered by the keywords set in Google AdWords. The great thing about this Google Search is you will reach a potential customer that is actually searching for the products or services that you offer, making it easier for you to achieve your goal.

Please check the image below showing the ad of Converge ICT Solutions when you typed the keywords “cable and internet”.

Display Network

Do you want more people to become aware of your product and services?

Google partnered with third party websites across internet where you can place your ads while potential customers are browsing them.

In the image below, OMNI Aviation Corporation ad appears on abscbnnews.com.

 Display Remarketing

In simple words, these are the ads that follow you.

Google automatically show your ads to the people who recently visited your website whenever they visit another site. Isn’t it great? You can watch the video below to know more about remarketing.

 YouTube Advertising

Another site where people mostly engaged is in YouTube.  According to Rappler, 85% of Filipino Digital users are reported watching online video content weekly.

Are you familiar with skip ad?

In Youtube ads, you will only pay for the ad once it reaches 30 seconds. You don’t pay a single cent if it was skipped before 30 seconds or towards the end. What does that mean to you as a marketer or business owner? It means your ad still gained exposure. Think about it.

In the image below, Panni Carlo runs a YouTube video ad with a companion banner on the side.

Facebook Ads

According to We Are Social Report, Filipinos spent an average time of 4.3 hours per day on Facebook. That’s huge!

While, Statista says that the amount of facebook users in the Philippines is expected to reach 46.6 million in 2017.

Advertising on Facebook is now becoming a trend on different entities. Just like Google Adwords, it’s also a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platform. You target people based on how they behave on Facebook, interests, or what’s on your target user’s profile.

In the image below, Converge ICT Solutions Inc’s Facebook ad appears on News Feed.

Instagram Ads

One of the largest mobile ads platforms, Instagram also offers a competitive network to place your ads and achieve your business goals whether it’s for brand exposure, drive sales, clicks to websites, or mobile app installs. With different formats like images, videos, and carousel ads (multiple images), businesses can showcase ads with enhanced quality and assurance of exposure to targeted audience.

In the image, Passion by Gerard Dubois is advertising a video on Instagram.

Conclusion

Whatever platform you’re going to choose to advertise your products or services, you can maximize your budget because of specific targeting methods, you only pay when someone clicks your ad, and you can track every penny you spent.

One of our case studies used both Google and Facebook Advertising and was able to get 505 conversions and 17 closed deals within 6 months. That’s possible in your business.

So I suggest to take your time in choosing the best platform and get your business ready to be present online at the moment your customer is looking for you.