It might seem like a no-brainer to say that advertisements play a big role when it comes to sales. However, have you ever really thought about what goes into the creative side of advertising? Countless hours of research, brainstorming, writing, creating, and editing just to see if you can hit your mark and gain conversions in the process. However, what are the creative elements that go into advertisements? How do you create eye-catching campaigns? What’s the best way to get conversions? Let’s take a deeper dive!
In Simple Terms, What’s a Conversion?
A conversion is a marketing term that just means that someone interacted with your post or ad. Did they click on it? Did they buy something? Basically, did they respond to your call to action? A conversion is a measure of the result.
What Are The Creative Elements That Go Into An Ad?
Every advertisement is a bit different. You might need more than one element to make it attention-grabbing for consumers. Generally, though, you’ll need one or all of these elements to create an eye-catching, conversion-getting advertisement:
- Pictures
- Graphics
- Video
- Copy
- Music
Consider The Creative Process
When it comes to the creative process, everyone approaches it a bit differently. Our designers typically start by reviewing brand guidelines or a brand book for the company they are doing the design work for. Designers will pay special attention to the colors they can use as well as the rules behind logo usage. If a company doesn’t have a brand guide, our designers will look at their website for fonts, colors, and overall style. If the client doesn’t know their exact fonts and colors, designers have a few sneaky ways of figuring out what the names are so we get an exact match. The designer will sometimes create a brand guide to work from, as well.
The designers will then look at the strategy and goals and start creating. The main things a designer really needs to hone in on are making sure you’re educating and entertaining the audience as well as designing according to the goals and guidelines. They’ll incorporate graphics, photos, Calls to Action, and verbiage. They bring everything together to create ads that will grab attention and get you conversions.
The Science of Color
Have you ever thought about how color affects you and your perception of things? A few weeks ago, someone on our team did a great presentation about how there is science behind colors used in advertising and marketing. For example, when you see the colors black and white, what comes to mind? Maybe police cars, referees, the lines that show you where to park in a parking lot? Inadvertently, that color combination reminds you of rules. All three of those examples have to do with rules and following them. When you think of the colors yellow and black, what do you think of then? Perhaps bees, caution tape, and hard hats? Black and yellow make us think of warnings or precautions.
You can use the science of color to your advantage when it comes to marketing. Choosing colors that convey and remind your customers of your message can help them better relate to what you’re saying. Here’s a really cool chart from the Laughing Squid blog that helps visualize this.
How To Get More Conversions
This is an age-old question. There’s no one answer, but you want your ad to stop someone from scrolling and make them click on your ad. What is going to stick with them? What will they find relevant and persuasive so they take action? These are all important things to ask yourself as you’re creating.
The Bidding Process
What you may not know is about the auction that happens when it comes to things like Facebook ads. So, Facebook will take a bunch of ads, and the software looks at each ad. The ads bid against each other to end up on your feed. The more people have stopped and looked at or clicked on it, the more often you’ll win the auction. This means you won’t have to pay as much to get your ad placed. If you are lacking creative elements in your ad, or it’s just plain boring, it will not show up as much and it will cost you more to get it placed leading to fewer conversions.
Things You Might Not Have Thought About
We all know that the goal of advertising is to make sales, ultimately. We get that, but slow down for just a minute. If someone walked up to you while you were out shopping, and told you to buy something for $1,000 right there on the spot without introducing themselves or their product, would you buy it? Probably not. You’d probably think they were nuts and run in the other direction.
The same thing applies to your creative in your ads. You need to use your advertisements to introduce yourself and your products (especially if you’re a small company.) People won’t want to buy from you until they understand you and your products. So, keep this in mind as you’re creating your ads. You need to create brand awareness before sales will come!
Also, keep in mind that you need to understand basic design principles and how to actually create the ads or you need to hire someone who does know how to do it. In addition, you need to pinpoint your goals and objectives to create ads that work and grab attention.
Where To Start If You’re a Beginner
If you’ve never created an ad, there is a bit of a learning curve. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
For Design
If you’re looking for top-of-the-line design software, most designers will recommend the Adobe Creative Suite. It includes Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and more. These programs are powerful and can help you create some truly amazing things. However, they can be a bit complicated. If you’d like to use the Creative Suite, consider signing up for a course that teaches you how to use it. If you don’t have the time for that, you can Google your questions and use YouTube tutorials about the software. It might take a bit longer to get the hang of it this way, but it still works. In fact, many new designers are taught by their professors to use Google and YouTube tutorials.
If you’re looking for something a little more quick and simple, Canva can be a good solution too. Some people in the design world think Canva is the easy way out, but truthfully, it has great templates and helps you create beautiful designs right from your phone or tablet in a much faster and easier manner. You can learn more about Canva and other ecommerce marketing tools in our post here.
For Writing
The best advice for writing ad copy is to read all of the ad copy you can find. Read all of the examples on social media and note what captures your attention, and what you glaze over. Check how many words are in the copy that attracts your attention, and make a note. The more examples you can read, the better off you will be at writing your own ad copy.
Where To Post Ads
You’ll also need to learn where and how to post your ads. You can post them on social media, as well as on various websites. There are business sides and procedures to each of these places, so you’ll need to research where you want to post the ad, what it costs, and how to do it. Also, many platforms require different sizes for ads, so you’ll need to find that out and be able to resize as needed.
While you can do so much with research, determination, and hard work, we can make it a lot easier for you. At Stryde, we have a team of experts that have been writing and designing ads that get results for many years. So, if you’re looking for a marketing agency that knows its stuff and can be your partner when it comes to getting those conversions, let’s talk! We’d love to help.
Anthony Christie is the paid media strategiest at Stryde. He is responsible for working with our clients on strategy and overseeing the execution of high performing campaigns.
