“That pie is delicious, but it’s still not as good as my mom’s“.
You’ve been exposed to retargeting in one form or another since you were a child, but you probably never noticed.
People are intrinsically hardwired to prefer what’s familiar. As a small business owner, you just can’t afford to miss out on the magic of retargeting.
There are several places you can implement retargeting (sometimes also called remarketing) as a small business owner, such as:
- old-fashioned in-person conversations.
- billboards, bench seats, and other physical signs.
- phones, via calls, texts or app notifications.
- emails.
- radios and podcasts.
- the internet.
We’re focusing on digital retargeting though, so let’s jump into it.
What is retargeting?
Retargeting is online advertising that puts your ad back in the faces of those who are already familiar with your general product, service or brand.
Rather than casting a broad net in a new pond, you’re instead fishing from a proven pool of clients who’ve already shown an interest in what you’ve got to offer.
Why you should be retargeting your online audience.
Potential clients need to see your brand an average seven times before conversion happens. Don’t expect your potentials to come looking for you more than once, you have to keep putting your brand in front of them.
Impeccable Timing.
While other forms of advertising may pop up at an inopportune time, digital retargeting does not. Your future customer or client is already in the right mindset to buy from you. They’ve already been exploring your website or scoping out your competitor’s.
The thought has already been planted that they need your product or service. Retargeting puts that nagging little thought front and center. And at the end of the day, you need your prospects to be thinking about you 24-7.
It makes your brand trustworthy, authoritative, and notable.
The average person doesn’t know how cheap digital ads are, so seeing your repeat ads makes your brand a big deal.
When you retarget the same specific people, you can create a custom storyline. Over a set period of time, you can tell potentials about your brand, share industry insider tips, show testimonials, offer discounts, flash your ‘as seen on’ brags, talk about your charity work, and paint yourself as THE brand that potentials want to work with.
As time and your retargeting campaign marches on, prospects will recognize your brand, see you as a familiar face, and feel more inclined to trust you above your competitors (because very few of them are running retargeting ads).
It’s stupid cheap.
If you run your retargeting ads correctly, you’re showing various ads one or two times and that’s it. By doing that instead of showing a single promo repeatedly, you keep your costs per thousand impressions significantly lower.
I retargeted 5,000 people for a month, showing each person dozens of ads, and it cost me less than $150.
Retargeting is proven highly effective!
I don’t care what other advertising tactics you’ve used and screwed up before, well-planned retargeting ads do not fucking fail.
You’re not doing cold campaigns, these are warm leads that are already interested.
Plant your pixel and start your retargeting campaign, there’s no special formula or insider information you need to be uber successful.
How to Use It
Show up repeatedly.
You want your future clients to see you a lot. If they keep seeing you, eventually they won’t be able to stop thinking about you. If you keep staying in front of Stacy, you’re eventually gonna get the deal (and for very little invested for the ad impressions).
Show up everywhere.
Put your ads across all the channels, not just one or two. You want your targeted customer to see you all over the place. You should be using:
- gmail,
- youtube,
- google ads,
- facebook,
- twitter, and
Switch Up Your Ads and Drop the Frequency
I am not a fan of seeing the same annoying ads over and over and over, and neither are your potentials. They should only see your videos 1-2 times a day at the most, any more than that and there’s a 100 percent chance you’re going to seriously irritate them. Text and picture ads shouldn’t pop up more than four times a day, but I really like to keep that at two or less a day too.
On top of dropping your frequency, you should also be switching up your actual ads. Instead of showing one advert 30 times to 500 people, you should be showing those 500 people 30 various adverts one time each. Avoid the banner blindness altogether; change it up. It’s damn simple.
Retargeting campaigns are excellent tools that snag up those harder-to-convince-but-still-interested clients. As a small business owner, you’re presented with the unique opportunity to be a big fish in a small pond, and that’s not something you should be passing up.
