Nowadays, marketing strategies for most businesses follow a pretty standard pattern. The days of print are well behind us, TV advertisements are largely unobtainable, and businesses are left with only a few affordable options.
The reliance on platforms like Facebook & Google exists due to the simple fact that they’re actively used by an incredible number of people. With Google processing over 5 billion searches a day and more than 2 billion people logging into Facebook every month, it’s clear to see why this is where people want their ads to be.
But despite the dominance of these two platforms, every now and then something new emerges that gives people a chance to expand their strategies outwards, to look beyond the big two and take advantage of an entirely new means of marketing.
The newest of these opportunities, in Australia, has come about thanks to Snapchat, who despite often flying under the radar, has had little trouble maintaining its place on the global social media stage.
But how can Snapchat, the video sharing social media platform, be of any use to your business? Well, while it might not seem like it, the new Snapchat For Business provides quite an opportunity-laden platform, one that’s likely to fit very comfortably into your marketing strategy. Let’s explore just what Snapchat advertising can do for you.
Snapchat For Business
Snapchat’s business platform is not too dissimilar to Facebook Business Manager, making it less alien to the majority of marketers.
You can set up a business account without any hassle, and once you get a few extra administrative steps out of the way, like billing and pixel installation, you’re ready to get into it.
Don’t overlook the importance of setting up your Snapchat Pixel – without it, you’ll struggle getting the long-term results you deserve.
The pixel allows Snapchat to record and store the data of people who engage with your website & ads, which forms the basis of your future advertising campaigns. Once set up, you’re just about ready to get started!
The platform is very easy to use, and surprisingly user friendly. Anyone who’s spent much time playing around with Facebook Business/Ads Manager knows how infuriating the daily bugs and errors can be, so it’s nice to open Snapchat’s platform and instantly have a clear idea of what to do.
You can create your ads using a mixture of your own content and pre-made templates, and once ready, create a campaign the same way you would any other.
Once everything is set up, properly linked and ready to go, you’re able to begin pushing your ads out to a whole new audience!
How Can Snapchat Improve Your Marketing?
Plenty of people don’t consider Snapchat worthy of a spot at the table with the bigger platforms. Compared to Instagram, Facebook & Google, Snapchat is often passed off as the scrappy younger brother that isn’t worth the trouble. But this is an outlook that Snapchat is working hard to change.
Determined to prove itself, Snapchat is constantly striving to find ways of improving its success as a marketing platform. It might not have the mountains of audience data sat on by Facebook & Google or the fiercely loyal users of Instagram, but that will only improve over time.
Snapchat is different, but there’s more to it than that. When it comes to marketing it has certain unique qualities that offer consistent opportunities for any strategy.
Connect With A Different Audience
Everyone uses Facebook & Google. You, your parents, kids, friends, grandparents (although likely with some difficulty) – almost everyone you can think of. Because of this, targeting the audience you’re looking for can be a complicated process.
Telling Facebook to target rough age groups or basic demographics often isn’t enough to get your ads in front of the right people, and the process of listing the 950 personality traits of your ideal audience can be a pain.
Snapchat on the other hand presents a different system. The average age of Snapchat’s 238 million users ranges between 15-24, and only a minuscule portion of their frequent users are older than 35.
Everyone uses Facebook, but if you want a chance to engage with a large, relatively untapped audience, Snapchat is the place to be. Its user base is young, digitally active, and constantly growing, and striving to connect with this audience can be of huge benefit to your business.
Create New Opportunities
This pool of new potential targets means lots of different things. Snapchat offers an opportunity to find, connect & build relationships with a younger audience, while also creating opportunities for you to test and experiment with new ideas that you might be too cautious of trying otherwise.
You can experiment with different styles of ads, a wide range of targeting criteria, different messages, offers, products & content, and as a result, extend the reach and influence of your business beyond the traditional platforms.
Diversify Your Strategy
The importance of diversification in your marketing strategy can’t be overlooked. Much like in the stock market, putting all your eggs in one basket might feel safe & secure, but it holds you back from exploring this big wide world full of opportunities.
Snapchat injects something different into the classic marketing formula, giving those who are willing to test it out a chance to develop a more consistent, well-rounded strategy.
Due to less advertisers using the platforms, CPM’s (cost per 1000 impressions) are often down in the $3 range, compared to Facebook’s $7-12, and an average cost per swipe up will only set you back $0.30.
Whilst Facebook’s platforms are running out of space to cram in more ads, meaning CPM’s will keep rising, Snapchat’s costs hark back to pre-2015 Facebook pricing.
A diverse strategy and marketing approach is one ripe with opportunities, and Snapchat undeniably presents the newest, safest opportunity to test out diversification with next to no risk. So what are you waiting for?
Summary – A New Horizon
While it’s far from being an industry-shakeup innovation like Uber or Tesla, this doesn’t make Snapchat any less worthy of our attention.
It won’t be the platform that strikes down the unstoppable force of Facebook or Google, but with cheap CPM’s and a captive millennial audience ready to spend their hard earned pocket money, it would be criminal not to dip your toes in.
The beauty of Snapchat’s ad platform is not how it operates as an individual entity, but rather the potential it brings to the accessibility and expansion of multi-platform marketing strategies.
Snap has found a way to connect you with an audience that often sits just out of reach, doing so in a way that not only promises individual success, but a significant boost to your universal marketing activities as well.
If you’re looking to build the strongest possible strategy, enlisting the help of an agency can turn a painful job into a smooth, painless process – that’s where we can help!
Drop an enquiry today to see how we can help you make the most of Snapchat’s new horizons.
