Tag: Budget

Facebook Ads Manager 101

by adventureadagency, posted in Advertising, Blog, Social Media

A majority of the population is on Facebook, or is at least familiar with how the Facebook interface works. If you’re reading this blog, you may have even posted an advertisement for your business on Facebook.

Facebook Ads Manager is part of Facebook for Business, and it allows you to easily view, change, and manage your Facebook ads. Ads Manager gives you many valuable tools you can’t access through a regular Facebook account. It allows you to create custom audiences, view audience insights, gather information about your pages, and access more support for your advertising campaigns. Ads Manager gives you faster editing, powerful insights, and customized reporting. It allows you to quickly and efficiently edit every aspect of your ads in one place. You can change the target audience, budget, duration, etc. of each ad in the same place without having to scroll through your feed to find each individual ad. You can also view your page and ad insights with Ad Managers custom graphs and data. This will allow you to measure the success of your ad and gauge predicted performance of future ads. Facebook Ad Manager’s reporting tool will break down the data and give you all the details you need about every ad you’ve created.

So why do you need Facebook Ads Manager? Our advice is that if you rarely plan to post a Facebook ad, you don’t. It would be more time consuming to learn the interface of Ads Manager than it would be to create and manage each ad manually. However, if you plan to post Facebook ads frequently Ads Manager can be life changing. It will ensure you respond to every like, comment, and message on your page by notifying you through your ads manager account so the notifications don’t get lost in your personal account. It will let you quickly change your promoted posts out so you don’t have to worry about promoting outdated content.

Another great reason to utilize Facebook Ads Manager is because it helps you optimize your budget. Ads Manager allows you to set your budget to distribute in the best way for your ad campaign. You could evenly distribute it for the duration of the ad or vary the budget over time to reach more people on strategic days or at strategic times. Ads Manager allows you to customize your budget to get the most bang for your buck.

Other customizable options in Facebook Ads Manager are editing audience, ad placements, schedule, and bids. Ads Manager gives you the most customization for your Facebook ads and allows you to have the most control over various aspects within each ad and over every campaign. Although Ads Manager can be overwhelming at first, we think it is a very useful tool if you are going to be managing multiple ads. If you need help setting up a Facebook Ads campaign or starting your Ads Manager account, please contact us today.

10 Things Every Marketing Plan Should Have

by adventureadagency, posted in Advertising, Blog, Marketing

The first step in developing any marketing strategy is to start with a plan. Developing a plan for your marketing strategy may seem overwhelming. Plans can range from super simple to extremely advanced and complex. However, all marketing plans, big or small, have a few things in common. We will go over ten necessary elements that all marketing plans must contain in order to be successful.

1. The Product

Possibly the most important aspect of your marketing plan is the product. What makes your product superior to others in your industry? Why would someone choose you over someone else? Find what makes your product unique and go with it. Emphasize what you can offer that others can’t.

2. The Research

Okay, so now you know why your product is the best, but whose going to buy it? You need to conduct market research to analyze buying trends in your industry. Collect, organize, and analyze data regarding the demographics of customers, your competition, current sales in your industry, suppliers, and market patterns. This valuable knowledge can help you successfully market to the right people in the right ways.

3. Define

Once you understand the market, you need to define the target audience. Instead of trying to please everybody, zone in on a specific group of people who will be more likely to purchase your product. Describe you ideal customer in detail. Be sure to get more specific than women in their 30s-60s. Really dig deep to decide who your ideal customer will be.

4. Goals

Don’t just keep your goals in your head. Writing them down can help you more clearly define them and set realistic, but ambitious goals. Write full sentences that state what you want to accomplish in your business overall and through your marketing strategy specifically. You can break up your goals into specific mission statements, and it may be helpful to make them quantifiable. For example, a mission statement could be to gain two new clients a month.

5. The Medium

Where is you marketing strategy going to take place? Will your company benefit most from social media or a more traditional approach? Think about which mediums appeal to your target audience and how your product will best be displayed.

6. The Promotion

Putting your product on social media or on television is not enough; you must also promote it. Promotion could be consistent branding on social media, events, giveaways, etc. There is no right or wrong way to promote your product. You just need to make sure you are consistent with your brand and reaching the right audience.

7. The Positioning

Where your product will be positioned in the market? You must decide if you are going to be top-of-the-line or if you want to seem more casual and appeal to the masses. Decide a position for your product and make all of your advertisements surround it.

8. The Schedule

Once you have all of your ideas mapped out, you need to place them on a schedule. Keep the schedule brief and organized, as it will likely need to be changed frequently. Having a schedule can help you keep yourself on track and better monitor how your strategies are doing.

9. The Budget

Of course, in running any business budget is important. See what strategies you can afford and which may be better saved for a later date.

10. The Analytics

How are you going to monitor your results? You need to ensure you can test and analyze to identify the strategies that are working. You can use tools such as surveys, database management tools, and number of engagements to measure your success.

Now you are ready to begin your marketing plan! Be sure to consistently compare your actual marketing strategy to your plan and make sure you are reaching your goals.

How to Manage Your Marketing Budget

by adventureadagency, posted in Blog, Marketing

It can be difficult to allocate the funds for a proper marketing program. It may seem more logical to spend that money on inventory or product development, but marketing is a very important part of your business model. What good is having an awesome product if no one knows about it?

So now that you understand the importance of having a marketing budget, how much should you allocate for you marketing and advertising needs? This all depends on the size of your business, the industry you’re in, and the stage of business development. You may need to look up the average percentage of sales spent on marketing for businesses in your industry. You can then cater this number based on your business’ individual needs. For example, if your business is just starting out, you will need to spend a bit more on marketing to establish your brand. A general rule for small businesses is to spend between 5-8 percent of revenue on marketing and advertising.

What should be included in your marketing budget? Your marketing budget should cover paid advertising, promotional materials, production costs, and technology costs. Your paid advertising will include any ads you have to pay to run, such as TV, radio, PPC (pay-per-click), banner ads, Facebook boosts, etc. Promotional materials are brochures, flyers, magnets, etc. you would need to have printed to give away. Production costs will be used to pay your advertising coordinator, social media manager, graphic designer, event coordinator, etc. Technology costs will cover your website and any other technologies that help promote your business.

Now that you know how much your budget should be and what you should spend it on, let’s look at how to spend it. You need to have a marketing plan. Your plan should include your goals, how you plan to reach those goals, how you will implement the plan, and how you will track your results. In your plan, you should outline the costs of fulfilling each objective and exactly how you should do it.

This seems a little complicated. We recommend hiring an experienced marketing professional to help you fulfill your marketing needs. It can be confusing to figure out how to correctly budget and implement your budget if you are new to the marketing arena. A marketing consultant can help tailor a plan and budget to your business’ individual needs. This person can also help you to track your results and tailor your actions based on what is effective for your business.

We understand that it can be difficult to know how to reach your marketing goals. Although marketing may not have direct, tangible results like business aspects such as product development, it is a very important aspect of your business strategy. We hope our tips have helped you determine how to plan your marketing budget. If you would like a marketing plan tailored specifically for your business, please feel free to contact us today.