This is me

Hopefully you’ve read Part 1…and if you haven’t please do so.  Once again, I gotta thank my buddy Walt for helping me think of this blog idea whether he meant it or not!

So now you know why you want to create an online ad and who you want to reach.  Now the key is to decide what the content of the ad should be.

• The Illustration/Picture (applies to Facebook, but NOT Google) – This is the first thing that most people are drawn to, so they should feel like they know you and your music just by looking at the illustration.  The illustration must be clear.  It can be a picture of the band, a flyer for a concert, the logo for the band (if the band is unknown include the name of the band in the illustration).  Don’t confuse people, but arouse their curiosity especially if you’re an unknown band.  Make your targeted demographic identify with your imagery of the band.  Make them want to read the headline, which will hopefully make them read the copy if they haven’t made up their mind to click on the ad.

• The Headline – It should convey the reason for which you are taking out the ad.  However, if you’re a known band, telling them about an upcoming album won’t be enough for most fans.  People are always looking for an incentive or benefit.  Potential offers:  free track off upcoming album,  raffle for meet and greet after a show with ticket purchase, promo code for discount on band’s online store…you get the idea. Getting their attention with a killer headline can convert the fans into consumers of your goods and services making your ad investment completely worth it.

• The copy – It’s your last chance to get people to click on the ad.  If they’ve gotten this far, they’re obviously interested or curiously confused, but not yet convinced.  This is the time for you to be brief, but specific.  You don’t need to use all the characters.  Short and snappy may be good for some, but using all the allotted characters might be better for others.  That depends on what your goals are from the ad and how much your demographics are willing to read in order to get the point.  Also, Google has been kind enough to create this devote splash page on optimizing ad text.

• Destination page – People are expecting to be taken to EXACTLY where you promised them:  store, video, ticketing, homepage, tour dates, blog…wherever.  Don’t assume they will go the extra steps because they most likely WON’T…and that’s all I have to say, about that.

• Keywords – Remember what I said about tagging in videos?  Well keywords are the same deal.  If you don’t spend the time adding the right keywords than it almost negates the time you spent on writing that killer headline.  Think about what your demographic is into:  similar bands, hobbies, movies, books, niche styles of music, or song names (yours and other bands’).  For your reference, see what Facebook and Google have to say.

Basically, see the content of your ad as the portal to serve your band’s content, goods, or services to your demographic.  For an unknown band, ads help people uncover your band and allow them to make the choice to click and find out more.  The hope is to convince them to be your fans and convert your value to them in the form of $$$, which isn’t the only form of ROI.  Getting 100 more emails for a newsletter or 500 downloads of your free single is just a precious to someone thinking in the long term.

So that’s all for Part 2…Part 3 will be on tracking the progress and deciding whether it was $$$ well spent.