Small Business Marketing Online – Text Ad Tips

In marketing, graphics are an important part of the many different areas of promotion for your company and products. Images provide additional information and there are key methods to show and tell your brand story where graphics are essential. However, you can get excellent results with text-only ads for your small-business marketing. Online options abound for low-cost alternatives to place an ad where your audience is and intrigue them enough so they visit your website. 

There are various venues that offer text ads, but you may be most familiar with Google text ads that will show up in many places online. Writing quality text copy is also good for social media, push notifications, and inbox marketing, which targets a large industry-specific audience like we have for our weekly eNews, The Homeschool Minute.

What to Write and How to Write It

To make an impact with your text, you need to make the most of the limited word count. Follow these six text-writing tips to get the click-through rate that will grow your business and connect you with customers who are looking for what you offer. 

1. Outline your text ad first by writing out some key words and phrases that your ideal audience relates to. No need to get specific on what you name your products or what your company offers (that’s good stuff for the landing page; read below). Use the words that your customer would use to describe the reason they spend money on your products and company. 
2. Make your first 4–5 words about the solution or positive experience you provide. This may be the perfect spot to put your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).
3. Fill up the word count with benefit-driven words. How do your products and services benefit your customers? Work in those words and phrases your target market would relate to. 
4. Be very concise with your wording and make your sentences simple. You want someone to be able to grasp the concept of your message quickly and easily. 
5. Use direct command words to tell the viewer what to do when they get to the landing page from the ad: browse, download, sign up, explore, review, etc.
6. The message shared in your ad should be consistent with the message viewers will get when they go to the link provided. The landing page is where you want to expand on the message in the text ad, share a few highlights about your products, and ideally offer them something for free in exchange for their email address. There’s nothing wrong with offering them a good price on your products either, when that fits with the message of your ad. 

Record the results of your ad impressions and reach along with the number of clicks to get a better understanding of what works for different types of audiences you market to. Using a tracking link from bitly.com or Linktrack.info will give you even more data that you can use to monitor the effectiveness of your ads. Learn more about tracking links and how to use them.