Maybe you’re launching a new vegan superfood or adding online fitness coaching. Maybe your store is ready to scale a weight loss product or you’d like to increase gym memberships. You need to get in front of health-conscious people, get them excited, and help them take action.

The world of e-commerce is noisy right now. Plenty of campaigns with ads that fell flat… because they didn’t genuinely speak to their audience.

Your qualified customers are smart people who will take action in their best interest. Your job is to understand their wants, their needs, the specific words they use when they talk to themselves, and the images that are already in their mind. To do that is an exercise in marketing research, and putting the right message in front of the right people at the right time… plus understanding the industry trends.

1)  Target Market

It’s much more difficult to identify which market segments to remove from a large campaign that’s not working than to add new segments to a campaign that’s working.

Here’s what you need to define:

  • Location
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Language

Gyms and fitness studios are best to target at most a 7-mile radius.

Another way to think about age is what stage of life is your target customer in. Are they college students, young professionals, middle-aged parents, or older?

2)Interests

The most important part of audience targeting is Interest. Facebook and Instagram know what people Like, Share, and Comment about. Demographics are fine to leave more open when you’re unsure, letting the algorithms find and optimize towards the people who respond, but interest targeting is the key to identifying what is unique about these people. Social Media knows what Groups these people belong to, Events they attend, Pages and Profiles they visit… and what they chat about in messages.

When selecting interests, it’s also best to choose a single interest to target. Put just one interest in each ad set audience (if they’re large enough) so it will be clear which are the best performing.

3)Search Ads

If your product or service is in a well-established industry that people know and are actively searching for, then you want to make sure your business can be found when people are looking for you. The easiest way to do that is Google Search.

Start by doing some Google searches of your own to see what keywords are being bid on (which display ads when you search), and what those ads say.

4)Health & Fitness Groups

Social media helps people organize around their interests and passions, and people interested in health & fitness are often highly engaged. Your target market likely has a Facebook Group.

Groups are an awesome way to directly connect with your target market. Find these groups and participate in the discussions.

And if there are not many groups, or none at all, for your niche… create one!

5)Speaking To Your Audience

Fitness goals can be a very personal conversation.  Health is a very important aspect of life for your target audience and keeping that in mind, the best content is direct, clear, and realistic. Use specific numbers and examples when you can. You can now make amazing Ads with the Video Maker that has several template options that help to create fitness advertisements easily.

Ads that over-promise or make claims which are too good to be true don’t resonate with people. If you do have a world-changing product – awesome, use video testimonials, and share case studies to build trust.

6)Choosing Visuals & Creative

Your prospect either has an active need or a latent want in the back of their mind. Associated with this they also have a series of images in their head of what this looks like to them.

As people scroll through their Instagram feeds, reflecting this image to them is the most effective way to catch their attention. People process visuals first, the headline second, and then post text third. An image of something they’ve already been thinking about is the most likely to stop them in their tracks and then gives you an opportunity to speak to them in the rest of your post. You can choose InVideo’s Ad Maker for this.

Get specific in your product photography, show images of guys to male audiences, and for female audiences feature a woman using a product.

7)Convert & Sell

You’ve identified your audience and have started designing your ads and your message.

If you’re selling a low-to-midrange price point product, you probably want them to buy online.               

Display advertising, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, is interrupt-driven. You’re injecting your ad into someone’s day that may have a million things going on. They might be opening Facebook just to send a message or get the address of an event. Or the viewer may only have 5 minutes in line at the grocery store, where they see your ad.

These people are also likely on their mobile phones.

The most common scenario is that visitors hit your website and check out your product. They were interested enough to click through, but they’re on the go and suddenly their busy day calls them away from their phone.

As an online retailer, you must deal with this reality, and depending on which step in the funnel you’re seeing that drop-off, that’s the point at which you must capture your prospects so that you can help them through the rest of the checkout process.

8)Lead Magnets

A lead magnet – a small piece of value that you can offer your audience in exchange for their email address, contact information, or a quick visit to your site which will enable your Pixel to track them.

This is key for both you and them to be able to follow-up at a more convenient time. Plus, once you have their email address or phone number, sending a message is direct and free. Your email list is an asset.

Some common lead magnets are:

  • Guides, PDFs (cookbooks, exercise guides, blogs)
  • Image Galleries
  • Case Studies & Interviews
  • Request More Info
  • Add to Wish List
  • Save For Later
  • Call Now

9)Retargeting

If you already have followers, store visitors, and past customers, then retargeting will likely be the most profitable piece of your digital marketing machine. It’s typically much cheaper to sell again to someone who has already purchased from you than it is to acquire a brand new customer.