How To Talk To The Right Prospect, At The Right Time, With The Right Message.

In this post. I’d like to show you exactly how to, step-by-step, create an Ad Campaign that converts.

Many marketing experts and blog posts over-complicate the process of creating great ad campaigns, selling you tactics that rarely (if ever) generate results.

In the end, an Ad converts if you:

1. Talk to the right person.
2. At the right time.
3. With the right message.

It’s that simple.

And you can follow this playbook to learn exactly how to do it. Let’s dive in.

1 - Talking To The Right Person…

The first step to make sure you talk to the right person is to identify who they are and shape your Ideal Customer Persona (ICP).

Having a clear customer persona is essential to ensure that your advertising efforts are focused on the right audience and that your messaging speaks directly to their needs and interests.

To do so, there are 3 practices that have proven to be effective with all of Hubgen’s clients, and that I figured I’d share here:

1.1 - Use an existing client as a starting point.

It’s easy to get lost in creating an ICP that doesn’t exist or that isn’t really the one you want. That’s why, when you can, using an existing client as a starting point and visualizing them can be extremely useful. Think about a recent client of yours that gave you an awesome review, and ask yourself what the thing you talked about with them last time was. What were their problems? How did they describe them? What’s the one thing they really wished for, and why did your solution suited their needs perfectly?

1.2 - Focus on their mindset.

At this stage, you really should focus on getting into their mindset and spend the bulk of your time thinking about the emotional connection your potential buyer could have with your product or service. Don’t go too detailed into their demographic information. This would be a waste of time and would just put you on the wrong track. The focus is on WHO they are, not WHERE they are.

1.3 - Find details about their daily habits.

Finally, try to discover what their hobbies and interests are. Ask yourself what websites they visit. How do they keep themselves updated with the latest trends? What are their buying habits and preferences? By thinking thoroughly about their daily habits, you’ll have a clear idea of what a day in their life looks like, making it easier to define and understand your ICP.

2 - …At The Right Time..

Once you’ve defined your Ideal Customer Persona, it’s time to get deep into the mind of your potential customers and understand their buying journey.

Because if there’s one lesson I learned over the years is that there’s no “perfect ad,” only ads that resonate with your customers because of the right messaging at the right time.

No matter the way you say things, a message is only efficient if told at the right time in the customer’s journey. As someone who’d like to return to sport after a year off, it’s very different to think about buying running shoes, starting to look online at the different options, and actually comparing two models on a website with your credit card in your right hand.

Most companies have a hard time understanding this and target ONLY people at the bottom of the funnel.

This is, of course, high-quality, high-intent traffic, but it is very competitive and, therefore, very expensive.

By being smart and targeting your customers with the right message at a different stage of their buying journey, you can get (almost) the same results as those companies, with a fraction of their marketing budget.

To do so, you should follow the AIDA Framework and know when your potential future customer is in their awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action phase.

This is particularly important when using platforms such as LinkedIn or Facebook, as people aren't there specifically to buy something but can become aware and even interested in a new product in minutes if done well.

Some prospects will fly through each stage quickly, within minutes. Great.

Others, particularly with high ticket B2B sales, will take much longer. That's fine too.

As long as you understand where they are in their journey and with the right tools, you'll be able to retarget them, making them slowly go through each step of our sale funnel.

If you want to learn more about the AIDA framework, we wrote extensively about it here [ADD LINK]

3 - …With the right message.

Finally, you need to deliver the right message.

The right message, more than a catchy tagline, is often in the form of content that provides direct value to future customers.

If you've well defined your Ideal Customer Persona and understand their buying journey in the previous steps, you should have a clear idea of which kind of content to put in front of which readers.

Start by writing content to create awareness, such as success stories in your sector. Then continue writing actionable step-by-step guides to help readers achieve something they struggle to achieve alone.

If someone reads your article, even leaves a comment, but doesn't go on your website to find out further about your offering, then retarget them with another article that you think would interest them.

It is important to note that, no matter your content's quality, the funnel's awareness layer typically yields limited meetings.

It is only through retargeting that significant results can be achieved.

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