SmallBusiness.co.uk reveals why it's worth paying attention to the finer details in your online campaign.

SmallBusiness.co.uk reveals why it's worth paying attention to the finer details in your online campaign.

Social media is not only important for marketing in the sense of having a company profile to share material with customers, but also as an arena for advertising, where campaigns can be fine-tuned to suit the target audience.

Nick Leech, managing partner at internet marketing company Euston Digital says that the key for SMEs to get the best results from their social media advertising campaigns is segmenting those campaigns to very small target markets.

‘This allows you to test which target markets performs best,’ he adds. ‘Let’s say you have a dieting product and you think you’re going to sell it to women who like dieting. Don’t launch a campaign that just targets women who diet. In the first instance divide your target group into different ages, and possibly use five-year age gaps, and then you would get a clear idea of the age group you might want to target with a follow-up campaign. You may get good results from the 30-35 bracket but not so good from 40-45 so it allows you to refine what you do next time.’

Using a range of images is also recommended. ‘Also, test each image against each age group,’ says Leech. ‘Users respond well to head shots, particularly of young women, and those tend to get clicks. But using, say, three different images which are contrasting allows you to learn which image users respond best to.’

Costume manufacturer Morphsuits exclusively used social media marketing and advertising to grow the company from a 2009 start-up to a profitable business with a turnover of £10.5 million. The company drives awareness and engagement by promoting its Facebook page in addition to a little Google advertising.

Founder Ali Smeaton says that the benefit of using social media for advertising is in the reach it can generate. ‘Social media is better value than traditional advertising because of sharing. You could just buy adverts on social media and use them to sell your product. However, this is no better value than buying adverts anywhere.

‘What makes social media powerful is that if the people you talk to are suitably inspired, encouraged or incentivised to do so, they can easily share your message with all their contacts at no extra cost to you.’

Smeaton adds that there is real value is in the finer detail. ‘You can target people down to their job title or even their favourite footballer. This means you can focus right in on the people that will engage with and respond to your ads.’

See also: SMEs tune in to social media