Native Advertising

We recently began a native advertising campaign for a client.  So far it is doing great… better at driving people to our Website than any other digital marketing we do.

Native advertisements are online ads that look and read like editorial content (in the print world they are called advertorials).  They provide information of value to the reader, as opposed to blatantly promoting products or services.  Much like print advertorials are labeled as advertisements, native ads may be listed as “sponsored links.”  You might also consider native ads “content marketing” (another buzzword) that is paid for.  Here are some advantages of native advertising:

·         It provides the content provider/advertiser with a way to establish credibility by communicating something of value.

·         Since the native ad adopts the appearance of other content on the Website, it looks like regular content.

·         It can help your SEO efforts.

·         It can drive people to your Website.

·         It can provide reasons for people to engage with you.

·         It is easy to track clickthroughs from your native ad program to your Website.

Marketers investing in native advertising include P&G, Unilever, Coca-Cola, JetBlue and Porsche.  But you do not have to be a big boy to play.  Our client is Ravinia Plumbing & Heating (www.RaviniaPlumbing.com), a local plumbing and HVAC company.  Some of the native ads they have done are:

·         What to do if your pipes freeze

·         How to tell if your furnace is about to fail

·         Preventing floods

Here is a link to one of them.  http://rankommend.com/businesses/148916-ravinia-plumbing-heating/posts/791-would-you-know-if-your-furnace-was-about-to-quit

You undoubtedly can think of numerous topics for your business.

So here are some tips to help get started.

1.     Determine your objectives.  For Ravinia Plumbing, the main objective is getting people to the Website.   But your objective might be to generate engagement via phone calls, to sign up for an event online, or just to increase awareness.

2.     Identify your target market.  Then identify ad channels that can most efficiently deliver your message to that target.  If you have a specific geographic or demographic target, focus only on those people.

3.     Negotiate.  As with any form of advertising, make sure you know how much you are paying to reach just your target market, not the entire market of people who will see your ad.  Also, try to get the sources to package your native ad with other digital ads, and even print ads.

4.     Have your ad professionally written.  Many media sources have writers that will write the articles for you at no charge.  But you are the content expert; make sure you proof the articles.

5.     No hard selling in the content.  Do not promote your features and benefits.   A soft sell will work much better than a hard sell.

6.     Have a strong call to action.  You do want the readers to engage with you.  So at the end of the article, provide the reader with a reason to contact you.  As you can see in the Ravinia Plumbing native ad, the call to action is to call if the reader has a home heating emergency.

7.     Leverage your investment.  Once the native ad is posted online, Tweet it, post it on your Facebook page, send it to your LinkedIn network, etc.

8.     Track and measure.  Make sure your media source provides you with clickthroughs to your Website so you can track how effective the program is working relative to other programs.  If your objective is more than Website hits, make sure you measure that as well.