Imran Tariq
Picture the drive to work you used to make every day before the COVID-19 pandemic struck — the same route, the same time and the same old billboards on the side of the freeway. Your drive to work isn’t about discovering new products or services, so in theory, you wouldn’t care about the dental offices, lawyers or whatever else that billboard is promoting.
But when there comes a day when your tooth aches and your insurance no longer covers your old provider, you might end up calling the number on that billboard after seeing it hundreds of times. That’s the billboard effect.
Digital marketing has largely left billboards in the dust, making it far easier to reach any of the billions of people online. But that doesn’t mean brands should be ignoring the principles that made billboards work in the first place.
Over the last five years, I’ve helped clients implement those principles by running video ads and have, for instance, helped a family lawyer in Joliet, Illinois book 130 phone calls with $1,000 in advertising spend with the strategy. Here’s how it works from start to finish.
The key to optimizing phone calls: Don’t link your website
While many brands already see the value in video marketing, most still don’t know how to go about making an effective video without having to hire an expensive video production company. Remember, the video doesn’t have to be a high-production project; it just has to get the message across to the right audience and give people a way to learn more.
Videos generally have three components:
- Engaging visuals (no text), usually footage from the work being done at your company, but depending on the circumstances stock videos may suffice
- A voice-over to guide your audience through the introduction of their problem, how your brand solves it and how to reach out
- A top and bottom banner, which includes your brand’s name and website, respectively
For specs, I recommend that a brand’s first video be somewhere between 60 and 90 seconds and target dimensions of around 1080×1080, the maximum screen space for social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. As for the time breakdown, I recommend spending about 20% of the video’s time asking leading questions about the problem, 20% of the video’s time summarizing the problem, 20% of the video’s time presenting positive reviews and testimonials and the last 40% going over products or services.
Once the video is done, I spend about $10 a day on Facebook ads, $200 a month on Gemini ads, an ad platform run by Verizon and $200 a month on YouTube ads to promote it. (Depending on your niche and budget, you may also look into LinkedIn ads.)
The unique twist is that not linking to your brand’s website when running video ads can actually help you get more phone calls. Because viewers already see your brand’s name at the top banner, those interested in your offer would Google your brand, find your Google My Business listing (make an account if you don’t have one already) on the right panel along with its phone number, and make a call in a matter of seconds. Also, make it easy to call your business from your home page in case your audience wants to check out your website beforehand.
In this video I recommend avoiding sales-y messaging of any kind; just use it to gain brand visibility and that first touchpoint. Use another video to sell once you establish some rapport with your prospective customer.
Retargeting and implementing a video sequence
Now that you’ve had your video go live, you don’t just want to let your ad keep running with new people without following up with those you’ve already reached. Here’s where segmentation and retargeting comes into play.
In many advertising platforms, you’ll be able to load a custom audience — a subset of your total audience — including people who have watched your video for certain durations. In my experience, if someone watches an ad for more than 10 seconds, there’s at least a surface level of interest there. And they’d be a decent candidate for retargeting.
You can use whatever ad platform that has retargeting built-in. Platforms like these allow you to upload custom audience data from social sites like Facebook. Then, you can run a second video — one that focuses more on building social proof, which relies on the presentation of even more testimonials and reviews.
Remember, your audience won’t trust you right off the bat. And the main hesitation that prevents them from interacting with your brand is that they don’t know how legitimate your offerings are. So, here, the least you can do is show them that you have other satisfied customers.
If you can get a video testimonial from your customers, that would be best here. Don’t sweat it if your client is recording from their phone; it could leave a more personal impression on your audience and help you win their trust.
Target local markets, especially for service-based businesses
This last piece has to do with location-based targeting — and targeting locally is a strategy I see a lot of brands losing out on. Again, think back to our drives to work. Why do we care to make that phone call to that dental office listed on that billboard?
Chances are it’s that they’re local, which introduces a crucial element of convenience to us as the customer. Fortunately, brands can replicate this with location-based targeting on social media, which would make the video even more relevant to your audience.
This tactic is especially important for service-based companies, which are built on personal interactions with their customers. To customers, it can be a powerful sell to know that they can pay a physical visit to your office when they need assistance. But it can also be a great strategy for product-based businesses — even software. After all, 94% of consumers find it important to do business with small companies in their communities.
If your local customers find your video relevant, chances are they will engage with the ad (for instance, they might ask you a question or leave a comment). By doing so, their friends, who may also be locals, will also see your ad. And this network effect can help you significantly reduce advertising spend while simultaneously reaching your local audience.
Comment