When I was creating digital marketing ads for my fitness studio, I tried every exercise-related image in the book. I tried action shots, still shots, fitness statistics, pictures of the outside of the studio, pictures of retail, pictures with women, pictures with men, and the list goes on. Yet I still wasn’t getting the click rate that I wanted. The ad agencies simply said that “that’s just marketing in the fitness industry”.
Meanwhile, in my personal social media feeds, I started paying more attention to what actually made ME stop scrolling to read an ad. One ad had a guy in a suit suiting in a hot tub, another ad had a guy doing a hair-raising bungee jump, another ad was disguised in the form of a meme.
What’s the takeaway here? You HAVE to get someone to read your ad before you have any chance at pitching them. This means, you HAVE to get them to stop scrolling on their social media feeds. How do you do that? By creating an ad so outrageous that it shocks the prospect into reading it. Here’s the kicker – the mechanism that stops the prospect in their tracks may have nothing to do with your business. This is exactly the premise of the book The Purple Cow by marketing genius, Seth Godin.
That’s when I changed my own marketing strategy. I started getting away from pictures of people working out. I started incorporating ads with pictures of puppies, memes, and comedy. What was the result? The highest click-rates I had received from any of my prior campaigns. Is that surprising? I don’t think it should be – this is simply the reality of human psychology. It shouldn’t surprise us that click-rates are low for ads that look and feel similar to your competition (especially in a crowded space such as fitness).
People care when their emotions get triggered. It could come from laughter, anger, inspiration, and other shiny objects. Your job is to trigger emotion in your writing, through whatever means possible.
The moral of the story? When you want to stand out, just be different to get attention. Once you have your prospect’s attention, then proceed to building value for your product/service (a topic for another time!).
Drop a comment with any creative “scroll stopping” ads you’ve seen in the past. And if you’re looking for ways to stand out in your business, let’s chat!
