People are spending more time on social media platforms than ever before; from approximately 90 minutes in 2012 to over 150 minutes today (Broadcast Search). This steady rise can be attributed to greater amounts of content, more platforms, in addition to higher levels of interactivity and functionality.
Despite more time being spent on social media, studies have shown that our attention spans are actually decreasing. According to a Microsoft study, the average person now has an attention span of eight seconds, down from 12 seconds 10 years ago.
Your life as a digital marketer just keeps getting more difficult. You have under eight seconds to grab your target’s attention, motivate them enough to take action and inquire about your product or service. Here are three steps to help you make the most of your next lead generation campaign.
STEP 1: SIMPLE CREATIVE & CONTENT
When it comes to social media, don’t rely on your caption alone to sell your product. Let the image be the hero with your call to action and have the caption as a backup dancer. The image should stand out from other social media content in a smart way as well; figure out what other pages your target audience follows and set your creative designs apart from them. Just because the image is the hero, doesn’t mean you should overload it with information either. Your best bet is to simplify both the caption and the image or video too.
STEP 2: KEEP IT LOOSE
Our best performing campaigns were the ones that didn’t direct users to any external sources like a website or landing page. Whether it was B2B or B2C, we tracked a significantly higher percentage of leads when people were never asked to go to a link, call, or take any other action but on that platform itself. For example, we ran a car insurance campaign whereby all users had to do was comment with their car’s make and model on a Facebook/Instagram post. We then got their number through a private message and our client’s salespeople immediately actioned those leads. They reached out to each customer and gave them quotes directly and took down all their information as well for their CRM system. There is also the ‘Lead Form’ feature on many of these social media platforms. These lead forms can be implemented on LinkedIn for example for B2B solutions. You can collect more data from potential customers, segment leads for more complicated products, and start building your database in a more streamlined manner through this feature.
The trick is to make the form short and non-intrusive as well. You should keep the entire process quick and easy. Furthermore, you should look at integrating WhatsApp into your ads to give your customers easy access to you.
STEP 3: REPEAT
When your audience’s attention span is so low and they are bombarded by thousands of advertisements a day, you should determine a repetition schedule for your promoted posts. The decision-making process may require several nudges on your part for them to finally inquire. Keep in mind there is a chance that they scrolled down too quickly and never really saw the ad. However, do not get too greedy with the frequency and repetition of your ads, because at some point it will turn off your audience as they will think your ads are too intrusive. In most cases, a customer needs to see your ad approximately seven times before they make a decision, but if you go beyond 15 times you may start annoying your customers online.
The Takeaway
Your target audience is constantly bombarded with ads. They are usually impatient and do not want to fill out too much information to get more info about your product. Some may even be hesitant to click on a link and leave the current platform they are browsing. Keep it simple from the idea to execution and watch your social media advertising ROI increase significantly.