By Eli Martin
Today’s public relations firms know it takes more than crafting a great news release to gain exposure for their clients.
To achieve a more complete marketing interaction, they must combine PR with pay per click advertising.
With PPC ads, every time a consumer clicks on your ad, you pay a small fee.
Unlike earned media placement topics, which provide exposure and credibility, PPC creates media amplification with a direct call-to-action.
Using PPC, here are three ways your clients can use their placed editorial topics to reach their target audience, at the right place and right time, and positively influencing their sales funnel.
Reach the Right Audience With PPC Demographic Targeting
Your clients provide services or sell products designed with a specific audience in mind. It doesn’t make sense, nor is it cost effective to show their ads to everyone.
Demographic targeting enables your clients to filter who sees their ads.
Based on audience relevant criteria, your clients can create a target market profile to tailor their ad reach.
Typical profile info includes: Age, gender, marital status, level of education, and income.
Let’s say your client is selling $300,000 Maseratis, and the newest model is hitting the market.
Their Maserati ads need to be seen by customers who are not only interested, but can afford the car, too.
By choosing specific demographic constraints, your client’s ads will only reach relevant consumers, the ones more likely to buy their product.
Deliver Ads at the Right Time With Dayparting
Once you’ve determined your demographic constraints, the next step is getting your clients’ ads in front of consumers.
If your clients’ display ads are running when customers aren’t online or business isn’t open, what’s the point?
Your clients might as well be throwing money right down the drain.
Dayparting allows your clients to schedule their ads to mirror their:
- Consumers’ behaviors.
- Business hours.
- Seasonal/special events.
Here, Wendy’s uses dayparting to target their consumers with a tempting offer, conveniently timed to appear in newsfeeds around lunchtime.
Coincidence?
No, Wendy’s is simply using dayparting to target when consumers are hungry, and when business is open.
Your clients need to strike while the iron is hot, and deliver their ads at the right time.
Dayparting is a PPC optimization must-have.
Refine Location Targeting With Geotargeting
When it comes to running ads, location is everything.
If your East Coast client—a pizza parlor—has a brick-and-mortar location, it doesn’t make sense for them to run their ads on the West Coast.
Odds are no customer is going to hop on a plane for a slice of pizza.
In addition to demographic targeting and dayparting, your clients will benefit from using geotargeting, too.
With geotargeting, they can select the country, state, city/town, and even the geographical radius (e.g. 25 miles within New York City).
And like dayparting, geotargeting can also be modified as needed (e.g. adjusting the radius for when college kids are in town).
Perhaps your client is a salon who has a big upcoming event they want to promote (e.g. “Kathy’s Cuts”).
To draw in customers, they can use geotargeting to target those who live and work within a 25-mile radius of their salon.
If your client is a restaurant looking to target nearby hungry customers, they can take a cue from Sally’s Cupcakes, who uses geotargeting to reach on-the-go consumers within their area.
Here, they geotarget mobile users on smartphones and tables.
Pretty savvy.
Conclusion
PPC is a valuable tool that’ll help your clients reach their target audience.
Through optimization, your clients can not only fine-tune who their ads will reach, but when.
In turn, by delivering ads to the right people at the right time and place, they’ll hopefully boost not only brand awareness, but clicks, too.
image credit: shutterstock
