The single most important thing that you can do to make a creative that converts is to understand your target market. It doesn’t matter how slick and fun your ad is if it doesn’t speak to your prospective client. In addition to targeting, you need to think about the type of creative you are making, images, taglines, calls-to-action and more. Up next we’re going to tell you about the 9 key things you can do to make a creative that converts.
1) Identify Your Audience
As strange as it may seem, many brands don’t have a clear picture of who their target market is. For example, if you sell pillows, you could say that everyone is your target market. However, if you think everyone is your target market, you will have a mighty difficult time creating a creative that converts.
You’ve got to think about what specific problem you’re solving and who would benefit from it. So if you sell pillows, then you need to identify what is unique about your pillow. Does it have a special filling? Is it hypoallergenic? Is it extra fluffy? Is it flat? Is it long? Is it recycled?
Whatever makes your product unique is what is going to lead you to your target market. A person that is looking for a body pillow is going to have a different profile than someone who is looking for a hypoallergenic pillow. Spend time and research to properly identify your target market. Otherwise your creative will have as much success as an ice cream truck does in winter.
2) What Problem Does Your Target Market Have
Once you’ve identified your target market, you can move on to getting the nuts and bolts together for your creative. A key piece of the nuts and bolts for your creative is figuring out what problem you are solving for your target customer. To figure that out, you need to figure out what problem your target market is having.
Sure, you can get a general idea like in the case of weight loss. You know your target market needs to lose weight and you have a product or service that will help them. However, you need to understand the specific challenges your prospective clients face when it comes to weight loss. It could be something like all of the existing programs are too restrictive or too expensive.
A great way to do your research is to visit online forums where your clients may be. For example, if your niche is weight loss, you can visit weight loss Reddits and read exactly what is on the mind of your target market.
Besides Reddit, there are numerous other forums for online discussion like Facebook groups and even Instagram comments. Learning about your target market this way provides you with real organic information you can use in your creative to address their immediate problems. Nothing makes people want to click on an ad more than when they find the answer or solution they need.
3) Address the Pain Point
Once you figure out what the problems are, you’ve got to figure out which ones your product or service helps solve. With that information in hand, it’s time to figure out how to include it in your creative. You can weave your product/service solution into your creative by alluding to the following things in your creative.
- How you are addressing their problem
- Why they need to use your product or service
- How they can use your product or service
- What makes your product or service solution unique
4) Say More With Less
Have you ever had the experience of scrolling through one of your feeds and coming across a slide with a whole bunch of text? What do you do when you see it? What most people do is scroll right past it. That’s because we are used to short snappy headlines and images that speak to us. The audience is not prepared to work to understand you, you need to be able to help them understand within a few blinks.
That means you need to deliver your message within a handful of words, an emotional image or a short video that delivers impact within a few seconds. Brevity is power online, but getting that brevity into your creative takes time, but is necessary if you want to see conversions.
5) Use Testimonials and Reviews
Most people trust fellow consumers over brands, that’s why review sites have become so popular. That’s also why reviews are such an integral part of modern sites like Airbnb, Uber and food delivery services like DoorDash. If you want your creative to convert, use a testimonial or review.
If you’ve received a review from someone well known in your niche, your community or a celebrity, you’ve got a winning creative right there. If you don’t have accolades from well-known people, use one from a customer that addresses the pain point you helped then find a solution for. If you can include their photo and full name, that is creative gold right there.
6) Try the Before and After Creative
We’ve all seen the before and after ads that weight loss brands put out and they definitely make an impact. However, this type of creative is not just for weight loss brands, you can also use it for any other product or service that solves a problem.
You need to be able to identify the problem and the solution you provide. Then you need to be able to translate the problem and solution into imagery. For example, if you are selling an appliance that saves the user time, you can illustrate that with a creative showing how much time is wasted when you don't use the appliance versus all the things you can do with your time when you use the appliance.
The image needs to instantly show the benefit without the viewer having to think about the mechanics. If you’re able to do that, you’ve got yourself an effective before and after ad.
7) Focus on Visuals Over Sound
Most online users have their sound off when they’re scrolling through social media or visiting sites. As users ourselves, we know that’s often because we don’t want to be bombarded with loud pop-ops, it also can be because we’re in a quiet place.
That means if you are designing a creative for most websites and social media - besides YouTube - you need to design it in a way that the message still gets across even when the sound is off. That means your images and text have to be on point and the audio is more of a garnish than anything else.
8) Make Your Creative Look Native
If your creative will be shown on social media, your creative needs to look native to the site. You don’t need to use fancy studios and models to get the perfect creative for social media. What you need is the appearance of user-generated content. These are the types of creatives that perform the best on social media networks like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
9) Test Your Creative
Sometimes a simple change in the text can make the difference between users clicking or not. It is a good idea to make several variations of your ad and test them out to see which one gets the most response.
The following are the most popular ad types you can play around with. You might even be able to use all three if you have the time and budget to do so.
Single Image Creative
- When you have a single product
- Your brand has a single message
Video Creative
- Good for demonstrating product or experience
- Great if you want to tell a story and increase shareability.
- Video can be used as a prospecting tool
Carousel Creative
- Great for multiple products or multiple messages
- You can combine video and still images
- Ability to share more content within single creative
You can not only test out different types of creatives but also test out the nuances of a single creative. For example, Google Ads lets you create ad variations so you get the opportunity to try several different ones within the platform. You can test out your ad copy with different messages like BUY NOW or LIMITED TIME OFFER to see which one gets the best result.
Testing is an important part of honing on the creative that converts. Once you see where you’re getting your click-throughs, you can focus your dollars and energy. The best way to ensure your creative converts is to make sure you’ve got the right one out there for your audience. Sometimes something as simple as a word change or moving your video start point in a second or two can make the difference between 10 clicks and 1000 clicks.