My 4 Step Method To High Performing Ad Creative Video transcript

[Music] foreign [Music] podcast thanks so much for joining me for another episode of the show today I'm going to follow up on the episode I did with Jess Bachmann a couple weeks ago I got really good at feedback about that episode and I want to follow up and talk a little bit more about a ground up approach to the content in an ad so how do you generate an ad I'm gonna I'm Gonna Give You My Method for generating an ad in four steps I've seen this work great for multiple clients and and hopefully this will be a method that you can put your hands on and use as your own to create high performing ad creative on meta let's jump in all right there's a lot to say about what makes great creative and there's all kinds of stuff out there about like what I would say are sometimes sort of gimmicks and and what I mean by that is is like there are all kinds of little things that people will say that you have to do to make good quality ads and some of those are formed by loads of data and they work well and all of that others of them I think are just sort of like I saw this work in one account maybe you should try it also and all of those can be useful as inspiration for what ads are but what I think a lot of people are lacking is a top to bottom methodology for the actual content in your ads and what I mean is like the message itself because here's the core grounding principle that I believe is the most important thing about meta ads and it says more than anything else what works best is not any particular gimmick or visual hook or visual style or you know whatever thing is hot right now in various ad approaches what I think really matters more than anything else is the message itself is the content itself and by message what I mean is like the content of the thing that you are saying and by saying just to be clear I don't necessarily mean like a voiceover with somebody saying it but I mean the actual message being communicated in the ad the message itself about your product and about your customer about the brand and about the offer all that stuff is the thing that drives the most value and as I have said elsewhere I've pointed out that this is why all kinds of AD Styles can work well because the ad style whether that's highly produced or poorly produced whether that's vo or sort of text on screen or still image with a bunch of text versus not all of these different things can accentuate and can support the message of an ad in all kinds of different ways and they can be effective or ineffective in all kind kinds of different ways But ultimately those Styles visually are all secondary to the message itself and to doing a great job with the message itself this is part of the thing I actually really loved about my conversation with Jess Bachman that I referenced in the intro you can go back and find that episode it's just a few weeks ago it's called just Bachmann lights creative strategy on fire and Jess in his breakdown of his approach to ads into creative strategy just talked about sort of breaking up ads from you know thumb stop into hold rate into sort of different parts of the ad well what those things all do together by analyzing those metrics is they all as you look at the details of how people are in are are working through your ads if insofar as that strategy works it works because what it's really showing is how much people are engaging with the message itself that you are promoting and and so sort of thinking front to back top to bottom about an ad like that can be really really useful because ultimately what that's doing is thinking about the message itself and what I think is the problem for a lot of people is they have a million ideas about what work for ads but they don't have like a central way to think about organizing the message organizing the communication itself this is also why by the way I think that the people who are often best at ads are copywriters first and designers and editors second or they can lead a designer and editor in the direction they should go but they're thinkers first they're communicators first not really visual editors first and believe me I love highly excellent visual creators people who can do a great job with design and editing and can can do all kinds of you know all the all the stuff that makes things look cool whether that's highly produced or not very highly produced I love those kinds of people I find I have very little skill set in that and when used well they can be hugely additive to all kinds of parts of creating a great brand and and creating ads that sell product but what ultimately drives the ad that you are the success of the ad you're creating is the message and therefore it is a communicator that you need first and foremost and you need to be thinking about the message first and foremost not anything else I'm okay so with that out of the way let me tell you how I tend to organize the message of my ads and I want to just be clear this approach that I'm about to lay out actually works regardless of the length of the ad regardless of the style of the ad any of those things you can do what I'm about to do and make a six minute long super long you could do a 15 second ad that totally fit what I'm about to say there's all kinds of ways to do it and wear truly creative people are going to be effective here is in taking this sort of organization of communicating methodology and and maybe if it's not this exact one it's something like it and they're going to be able to apply it to a lot of different styles and structures okay but here it is okay I'm going to break the ad down into four parts the first is the hook and when I am developing an ad this is often the hardest thing ultimately to create I often start with number two which I'll get to in a second but the hook is really crucial because it is going to be the thing that is going to stop not just anyone but the right person on their feed the goal of a hook should be to get the correct person to stop on your ad at as high of a rate as possible so as many of the correct people as possible what I mean by that is it's you can the sort of counter example to the correct person and the reason I'm making a big deal out of them is because it's very possible to use a click bait type hook to get lots and lots of people to stop on your ad but it's also very possible those people are not actually interested in buying your product all you've done is gotten them to stop and notice something but that's not actually what you're trying to do what you're trying to do is sell a product to the right person and therefore the most effective hooks are built around your ability 2. communicate to your potential customer for your potential brand and this this by the way implies that you have some idea of who that is okay so you know who you're trying to talk to and that you try to get that person to pause and notice and pay attention to the message that follows that point of a hook is and if you can think about that well one of the things that implies what I just said is that often it's not actually rocket science to do a great job people get stuck on hooks because they think that they have to do something really creative and fascinating and interesting but actually if all I'm trying to do is make sure to Target the right person and communicate to the right person so that my potential customer is the person who stops on my ad if I can do that then that actually is a simpler task than doing something really creative and super interesting okay I think the place to start here is really simple which is to basically say exactly what the message is to that right person so for example you know if I'm working with Curie my clean deodorant aluminum free deodorant client for sure anytime I develop a new ad one of the hooks I am going to develop is going to say something like this this aluminum free deodorant actually works that's so simple it's so simple it is not rocket science at all and that may or may not be the best performing ad that I ever launch but it is very clear it's very clear about what the message is and some subset of people who want to switch to aluminum-free deodorant and have not been able to find one that works are going to pay attention to that because they're going to go maybe this is the one now my ad has a lot of work to do after that but that basic Point can be really effective now I can also do all kinds of other things in my hook for example we've worked on an ad where we've sent the founder out to get strangers to sniff her armpits that's much more of an attempt to create an ad that is sort of doing something visually interesting and compelling and strange that is going to make you stop on the ad and notice that as well right so that's not so clear and direct but it is attempting to the same thing which is to get people to notice this product in this environment and to think about how they might relate to it differently than other products like that okay but it's ultimately that even whether it's that ad or that more creative approach or a simple one both are trying to do the same thing which is get the right person to stop on the ad notice the ad and pay attention to the rest of the message the other big point I want to make about hooks is that often when I am creating an ad version one of the ad everything I'm going to say for sections number two three and four of an ad are going to be the same across every version of the ad that I make at least when I first create the first ad but normally when I have a fresh concept A New Concept one of the ways I relieve the pressure of trying to create an incredible Hook is I will go and create you know five to ten Hooks and attach those all to one ad what this allows me to do is if I'm creating video content and I'm creating a bunch of hooks I can then have an editor go and create version one of an ad where the entire sort of like I don't know seconds five through the end of the ad are all the same for five different ads 10 different ads and that means it's one edit for them so the lift isn't too big they have one edit for the main you know body and all that from the ad again all that stuff I'll talk about more in a second but the beginning of the ad the very first couple of seconds of it I can then go change as many times as I want and then when I go to build the ad I've got one concept with five to ten different hooks it's not too big of a lift for the editor too big of a lift for the designer and now I can go and sort of relieve the pressure of having to create the greatest hook in the world instead of just test multiple versions of them because I find it's very hard to predict which hooks are actually going to work best okay so that's the way I'm thinking about one other little point there sometimes a question I will ask myself when I'm generating a hook is what thought or feeling am I trying to get my potential customer to have with this hook that can help you to get people to stop in the notice thing so I've got a baseball client where one of my hooks is about something like here is the point of Youth Baseball training or so much youth baseball training is poorly organized here's why and that idea is to get people to go wait a minute is the youth baseball training that I'm sending my kid to actually actually well thought through like I need to pay attention to what this person says to know why they're saying that a lot of Youth Baseball training or I might say in that case most youth baseball training is poorly thought through or whatever in order to get people to say like oh am I in that most group am I doing a bad job of uh giving my kid the best opportunity to get good at baseball if that's what they want you know that kind of idea so in some way if you can get somebody to have a thought or a feeling and you can actually locate a name not thought or that feeling that you want them to have especially the stronger the feeling the better as long as you don't get into the clickbait world the stronger the feeling the better then you can stop that person get them to think and lock in for what the rest of the message is you know in that case that I just cited it would be here's the right way to do youth baseball training and and the whole rest of the ad would be aimed around and centered around that okay so there's number one Hook when in doubt test it give me five to ten versions of it that can work well that's not not shocking you've heard about Hooks and ads before okay if your e-commerce company is ready to grow ready to add team members ready it out help you should be thinking about doing it with Incredible virtual Professionals in the Philippines and you should get help from my friends at more Staffing to find recruit train on board and Coach those incredible virtual professionals the Philippines is an e-commerce hotbed in the world I don't know if you know this but there's incredible talent in the Philippines and that Talent is significantly cheaper than hiring that same talent in the U.S while at the same time being above Market in value in the Philippines so it is a win-win for everybody and all you need is to be able to access that incredible talent and to find who those people are which my friends and more Staffing can help you do you should if you are considering growing your team you should at least take a call with them to see if that option is available to you it is a great setup for all parties involved great English speaking like there's just really no reason this point to not consider working with more Staffing to add virtual professionals from the Philippines if you are growing your team I really don't know why you wouldn't at least start there at least take a call go do that today by going to morenow.co you've heard me talk about them before I just re-upped my relationship with more Staffing because I love them so much I love what they're doing so much and I'm so happy to have them as my number one sponsor on this show go check them out if you're adding Talent at all in your business go to morenow.co to work with my friends at more staff and go do it today number two and this I think typically is the easiest part of the ad to write though it takes a little bit of time I I find this information come quickly and that's what I always call the body or the education section okay the next thing I want to do after I hook somebody is go right into all of the stuff about the product that they need to know to make a purchase decision short of the price and I'll get to the prices and short of the offer okay but all the stuff about the product that's appealing so if I've gotten that right person to stop on my ad and now what I want to do is tell that right person here's why this product is right for you here is all the here are all the things about this that make it a good product and that could be all kinds of things like I said if it's a training program it could be all the things that make the training program different than other training programs like it that people might be engaging with if it's clean deodorant it might have something to do with all of the things that we have done to figure out to make sure that it works you know how long it took to develop it and what scents are available and what we do to make sure that even if you've tried other aluminum free deodorants and they haven't worked ours works better for you and well it could be all kinds of things and it could be long and it could be short it could be really direct it could be it could be really clear but that body section can sometimes take multiple minutes because you're giving people so much information that they need again I've got another one for for my baseball client that is outlining detailing all of the things about this very particular training tool for training hitting that says like here's why you can use it for this and here's why you can use it for that and here's all the things that it does for you and it just goes through detail for detail for detail in this respect I'm using the body of the ad very much the same way a lot of what you think about a landing page and if you think about sort of the listicle style landing page what people are normally doing there is they're saying here's five reasons this product is great and they're going through all this information and the logic there is that you need to give up people give people a whole bunch of information about the ad to warm them to the idea about the product to warm them to the idea that this product is for them and this is another thing I've noticed that a lot of entrepreneurs have made a whole bunch of decisions along the way to make sure they're product as good as possible most entrepreneurs I know of care a lot that their product is good they want their product to be good they want their product to serve their customer well and therefore they have gone to great detail to listen to customer feedback and engineer it just right and what I'm saying is in that body section instead of putting it on a landing page where it's a whole separate experience I think one of the key things you can do to make this whole thing work really well is just take that information take all the decisions that you've been thinking that you've made to make your your product as good as possible all the things you know make this product good for your customer and tell them about it tell them about it with as much clarity as possible use for both The Hook and the body use a mixture of words and visuals to communicate the message you want to communicate the visuals work in service to the words so the words are driving it but the visuals are helping to communicate that message cut to b-roll anytime you need to or again if it's you know text on screen just move people through different things animate things that you need to now use callouts on screen caption it of course like all of the different things that you can do to draw attention to the ways in which this product is great and just communicate that is clearly concisely and directly as possible and do not worry about whether or not it gets too long now this is not an ad I'm not advocating for length per se I'm just saying I don't really care if it's too long as long as the information is good that's the most important thing so communicate as clearly as possible about the ways in which but your product will serve the customer and do that honestly and you don't have to do you don't have to be you know one of the greatest advertisers of all time at that point you don't have to create the most clever ad of all time you just have to tell them what makes the product that's it and if you can do that that's the body section okay so number one hook number two body number three validation and guarantee there's one thing working really directly against you with meta ads and it's this that very likely especially if you're a newer brand the customer doesn't actually know your brand and your product very well they don't understand why they should trust you they know that you are trying to sell them something and you are making a bunch of claims about why this product is good for them and so finding some way to validate all of the claims that you are making is a very useful thing to put straight into the ad itself people do this on pdps on websites in all kinds of different ways you know that they have a money back guarantee and they have five star reviews and all of those things and all I'm really saying here like all I'm saying here is put that into the ad just like make that the next section of the ad after the body here's all the reasons you can trust me here's all the pr that we've gotten here's a great comments from significant Publications and here are the YouTube videos saying this is good you're the Doctor Who believes what I believe about this and here's why there got anything you can do to build that trust and to validate that is effective now again the doctor reference I just made this approach here may actually just be use a doctor in your ad so that it's validated from the beginning and that's the person actually doing the whole ad so in that case it wouldn't even be a separate section but you're still thinking about how do I make a point of validating the information in this app right think about athletic greens and just like the endless number of Health influencers that they've had and you know promoting their product all right that's kind of what I'm thinking about here I was just talking with a client about that approach today that allows people who can't tell the difference between the ingredients and supplements whether or not that allows those people to make a decision because they trust the person endorsing the product and there's a lot of ways to approach that but in some way or another finding some way to do this and the ultimate validation of guarantee I think is that guarantee portion just tell people look if you're interested if you're on the fence don't worry buy it from us we will give you your money back no questions asked whatsoever if you don't like it and that is so effective and also I have never one time I've never one time seen a brand have tons of people take them up on that in a way that actually creates a problem for the Brand This is what people are afraid of somebody in customer service will go oh my gosh please don't say that because you're just going to make it so that we get a bajillion return requests well like I said I've actually never seen that and so just tell people give people the guarantee tell them you can do that and just tell them here's why you can trust us and anything else you could do you can screen record the number of reviews I think referencing the number of reviews can be often more useful than anything else like we have 30 000 five-star reviews that goes really far for people they can then trust a lot of other people have bought this this is not um some scammy thing and also you know a lot of other people have said it's worth it's five stars I don't suppress your reviews don't lie about any of those kinds of things of course you are setting yourself up to get sued for a lot of money if you do all of that but just be honest about all the good reviews that you've gotten put that in there like I said screen record that Etc some way to validate as powerfully as you possibly can and whatever that looks like in your industry with your product all of the claims you just made in that body section okay so hook body validation guarantee and that leaves one last section which I'll call the offer and CTA okay so I'm gonna put these together just like I do with validation and guarantee because the validation guarantee is aimed to sort of build trust those two two elements of it but it's it's they're coming together to do one thing offering CTA is now aimed at getting somebody to take an action okay this is another thing that people often don't do in their ads which is like if you're gonna offer 20 off for customers first orders put that in the ad tell them here's why you should act now you get this discount exactly right now essentially that sentence is the key thing why should they act now why should they not walk away and think about it a little more what are they going to miss out on if they don't take you up on the offer right now tell them it's going to be very easy you're going to get it very fast here's what the offer is here's why this is a great price here's the free thing we're giving you with it here's the discount we're giving you Etc and then CTA go order yours today right this is where by the way sometimes I really like a quiz I referenced a couple weeks ago in an episode that people should consider using quizzes because it's actually a step people can take without having to take the final step yet it's sort of a micro yes so you can say go take your quiz and get a customer recommendation that doesn't commit them to anything it just tells them to go take another step and you can even say and there go take a quiz get a customer recommendation and at the end of that quiz when you get that recommendation we'll give you a discount you're going to get a special offer just for you and that's going to do that that's the whole idea okay so hook body use multiple hooks one body make sure that you get the information that you need in there don't worry about if it's too long validate guarantee that that approach to building trust with the customer and then a clear offer and a clear CTA as to why somebody should act now use that to organize the actual content of your ad and then create as many iterations as you can in short or long still or video Whatever format you can if you can do that you can communicate very effectively while communicating very clearly without having to like lie or pen the truth or do anything tricky or do anything snake oily you just tell people what makes this product good for them because the truth is the thing that's so amazing about meta ads is that it's really really good at finding the right customer that's what it's really really good at it's helping it it's really good at locating who the right person is to hear that message and if your product if you've done all the work required to make it so that your product really serves your customer well so they get something that's great and that they're going to be really pleased with and they're happy to exchange their hard-earned money for your product all I'm really asking you to do here is to get that person to stop tell them what's great about it once they've stopped to pay attention to your message tell them why they can trust you and give them a good offer as to why they should act now put another way I'm just telling telling you to tell them here's why this is actually a great product for you and if you've done the hard work of actually doing that and making it a great product well then just communicate that as clearly as possible that's really at the core of the message there's no magic here it's just about communicating clearly and if you can do that effectively you can do everything that's needed to build a really really good foundationally strong ad account I am amazed over and over again at how many ad accounts I see that do a lot of other things and have all kinds of ads doing all kinds of different stuff but don't just clearly communicate to people what makes the product good for the customer do that and you will get very very far [Music] all right hope that episode was helpful for you I have been really dialing in that sort of approach to organizing the message that I have been putting out for clients recently and it has been really really helpful for me and really really helpful for my clients I've seen really good success doing exactly that across a whole bunch of products across a whole bunch of different brands thinking about that across a whole bunch of different categories and and seeing that really really work well so hopefully that is helpful to you I would love to hear about it if you try and Implement what I just said and it works would you email me at podcast ajfgrowth.com or reach out to me on Twitter at Andrew J Ferris I would just love to hear about that and by the way if you want to work with me or get some more resources but I've always got kind of on my website now you can go to ajfgrowth.com and go get all those don't forget that if you're growing your team you should be doing it while maintaining a low offbacks by working with great incredible virtual Professionals in the Philippines being my friend at more Staffing who I absolutely love and love to send people to make sure to go follow up with more Staffing by going to more now dot Co next we week on the show I have an incredible interview for you that you are not going to want to miss it is with Sarah Moray from Curie which has been the wildest eCommerce ride that I have been on in my time we're talking from a couple million bucks in Revenue last year to probably 20 this year selling into every Walmart it's an incredible story of uh success that happened to an awesome entrepreneur you are going to want to listen to that episode to watch that episode so make sure to subscribe wherever you are and I would love it of course if you would rate me that's all the usual stuff reach out to me if you have any questions you have any thoughts I will see you next time [Music]