The days of spending millions of dollars on ginormous billboards and bus stop ads are slowly becoming a thing of the past for many companies. During a time when most of us are glued to our smartphone screens, digital advertising is an ideal strategy for most when it comes to increasing visibility and driving sales traffic to your product or brand online. However, in order to stay afloat in today’s competitive digital environment, startups must figure out the most effective way to do this in a way that captures their audiences while still remaining within their financial budget.

 This month, Sage Co-founder and COO Dave Gorodetski and Model B Agency’s Ashtan Moore shared their top tips and tools on how to get the most out of creating a personal digital advertising plan during this year’s DC Start Up Week. From developing a brand identity that helps achieve your business goals to choosing the right message and channels, the following tips shared are sure to help more start-ups differentiate the way their consumers see them online while taking their brands to the next level.

Tip #1: Create the persona

Solidifying the persona of your brand or product is the starting point of any digital advertising plan and overall business. This is where you gather as much information as possible to create direction for your ads. There are multiple ways to gather this information through tools, such as methodologies and research that have been developed over time. Those with smaller budgets are suggested to prioritize methodologies and brainstorming, starting with a simple-logic based approach by asking questions like, “What problem are we solving and for whom?”. It is possible to end up with multiple personas, in this case, it is suggested to break them down into primary and secondary groups to essentially better define the who, what, where, and why when creating your target audiences.

Tip #2: Set the position

Once you have created your persona, it’s then time to create your ads starting by first creating your message then testing what resonates and drives people to want to interact with you. Once you have formulated the correct message for your audiences, then comes the fun part when tapping into your creative component.

Tip #3: Choose your platforms

Once deciding on the perfect ad, many companies get lost in the sauce when deciding where to place them. While it is important to have a mix of various platforms and channels, you also need to find out where your customers are so that you can meet them on the sites they are already visiting regularly. To discover this, most brands conduct thorough research to better define the mindset and psychographics of their key audience members.

For smaller brands without a large budget  

Search: Leveraging search when necessary helps you to find people that are already looking for you, think of this as when you are looking for a plumber and you head to Google to search for the best plumbing service in your area. Brands take advantage of this method by bidding on specific keyword phrases so that when their audiences use the platform to search for specific needs using these same terms, they’ll be led to their websites.

Tip: It is best to keep track of the results that populate during specific Google searches as too many brands using the same designated keywords could lead you to get lost in the shuffle.

Social: Utilizing social media channels can also be helpful when delivering a message to your customers. This can range from targeting a specific age group, demographic, or even segmented audiences with various areas of interest to convey your message and get your product seen by the audiences that matter.

• Facebook has mountains of data and is connected directly to Instagram which allows for more seamless sharing of your message across both platforms, in most cases consumer-based products work best on these platforms.

• LinkedIn and Twitter are ideal channels for the B2B market. Incorporating these platforms as channels for your advertising campaign can get expensive due to more in-depth capabilities, allowing you to target key executives within the market based on a specific title.

If you are ready to give your business the boost in visibility it needs to gain a more competitive edge in the market, then being fearless and able to think outside the box when it comes to traditional advertising strategies is key! In an ever-changing digital landscape where there are so many innovative ways to capture your audiences’ attention, companies don’t need to spend millions of dollars on billboards and bus stop ads the way they once did before. Keeping things simple when exploring various channels is the best tip to have in mind when aiming to achieve your company’s advertising goals.

 Andrea Ortega is a PR Assistant Account Coordinator at Sage Communications.

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