Talking to Prospects: With your sub-headlines, social media marketing, and even ad scheduling

This article was published in the MarketingSherpa email newsletter.

“Remember the prospect is a person. Do not talk AT them; talk TO them,” Flint McGlaughlin taught in Above-the-Fold Psychology: How to optimize the top 4 inches of your webpage.

To help you shift the way you communicate with potential customers, we bring you three marketing examples with results in this article.

First, an ID photo app that changed the focus of a sub-headline to increase landing page clickthrough rate. Then, a custom apparel company that grew its TikTok following by answering customer questions. And finally, a document processing company that adjusts ad spend based on customer demand seasonality.

Quick Case Study #1: Improved sub-headline increases CTR 18% for photo ID app

In the first version of its landing page, the team at PhotoAiD used the sub-headline “Prepare a perfect document photo with guaranteed acceptance.”

Creative Sample #1: Previous landing page sub-headline

“After a while, I realized that we should improve our copy. The word ‘prepare’ is too general and suggests that you have to put in effort to get what you want,” said Natalia Brzezinska, Marketing and Outreach Manager, PhotoAiD.

Instead of focusing on what the customer could do, the team tried a sub-headline the told the customer what they would receive – “Get your perfect biometric photo (compliance guaranteed).”

Creative Sample #2: Optimized landing page sub-headline

This simple change helped improve landing page clickthrough rate (CTR) by 18%.

Quick Case Study #2: Custom apparel company gets 6.2 million likes on TikTok by answering customer questions

Rush Order Tees sought to create marketing focused on customers and boost engagement by creating content around customer questions.

The goal was to create a two-way conversation where followers ask more questions about printing techniques or anything they want to know and the team responds with video content making it not only fun, but interactive.

When the team posts content answering customer questions, it encourages other followers to ask and gives the team ideas for the kind of content users are interested in.

“In fact, we’ve managed to really grow our TikTok to over 142,000 followers and 6.2 million likes just because of how engaging and interactive our content marketing has become,” said Mike Nemeroff, CEO and co-founder, Rush Order Tees.

Creative Sample #3: Tik Tok video answering the question “What do you do with the extra ink afterwards?”

Quick Case Study #3: Document processing company gets 28% more leads by quickly increasing ad bid

“In Google Ads, you can influence the visibility of your ads and traffic to your website by adjusting cost-per-click (CPC) bids,” said Rick Nieters, Marketing Manager, Klippa. If you suddenly need more or less traffic – for example, customers are entering a season of increased demand for your product – you can choose to raise all CPC bids in your account. “However, in accounts with thousands or even millions of keywords, this is a heavy request and may take some time to carry out in the Google Ads interface,” he said.

Nieters discovered a faster alternative – the campaigns ad schedule. An ad schedule allows you to display ads or change bids during certain times. You can, for example, raise the bids 10% on a certain day. If you do that for all campaigns by just copy-pasting the ad schedule of one campaign to the others, you raise the CPC bids for all keywords with just a few mouse clicks. “Pro tip: use the Google Ads Editor for this task!” Nieters said.

He found it took way less time (a few minutes instead of a few hours) and was very easy to go back to the old situation if needed – just put the old ad schedule back in place.

The team raised bids by 30% through the ad schedule in a period of high conversion rates. It led to 24% extra traffic to its website and an increase of 28% in conversions (leads).

Related resource

A Webpage is a Conversation: How to improve the thought-sequence of your value proposition

Ask MarketingSherpa: Mapping the prospect conclusion funnel [includes free PDF example]

Do Your Pages Talk TO Customers or AT Customers? Why the subtle shift in message makes all the difference