It’s no surprise that social media ads have become indispensable tools for reaching potential blood donors and increasing exposure regarding the need for blood donations. However, as powerful as these platforms can be, there are common mistakes that blood centers often make when running social media ads for donor recruitment. In this blog post, we'll share these mistakes and how to fix or avoid them.
Focusing On One Front-End KPI
It’s easy to assume that driving donors to your website is the best indication of creating an appointment and ultimately a donation connected to your campaign. However, clicks are not the only indicator of campaign performance/success. There are a significant number of donors that only need to receive a series of social media impressions in order to drive them to make an appointment and/or walk in to donate.
We discussed this with our marketing team and if we think about how we personally consume sponsored content, we’re more similar to the second example – get served a series of ads by a company and then if we’re interested, go to Google the product or service rather than click on the ad. This is typical of donors too!
Not Targeting Your Audiences Properly
One of the most critical aspects of a successful social media ad campaign is proper audience targeting. Failing to define and target exactly who you want to reach to encourage them to donate blood can result in wasted resources and a lackluster response. Blood centers should take advantage of the detailed targeting options offered by social media platforms to reach individuals who are more likely to donate.
While demographic/awareness campaigns are a great way to reach a new donor base, we see many blood centers missing the mark by not utilizing custom audiences to re-engage previous donors. You’ve probably heard time and time again that it’s more expensive to acquire a new customer (about five times as much!) than it is to retain current clients. This applies to blood donors as well. Using custom audiences allows your blood center to re-engage those familiar with your brand when they’re scrolling social media, making it easier to encourage them to donate again.
Not Paying Attention to Ad Fatigue
Ad fatigue occurs when your audience sees the same ad too many times, leading to decreased engagement and potential annoyance. This leaves your social media campaigns less effective, resulting in less donors walking through the door.
To avoid ad fatigue, we recommend regularly refreshing your ad creative and copy. This could be as simple as adjusting the colors of an ad to switch up the look. We also suggest adding a variety of ads to your campaign to ensure there’s enough to cycle through without showing the same ad too often. Regularly monitoring your campaign to keep your content fresh and engaging will help maintain enthusiasm and drive interest in donating blood.
Which sets us up for the next mistake to avoid…
Failure to Continuously and Regularly Monitor Your Campaign
A successful social media ad campaign requires continuous monitoring and adjustment. Failure to routinely check in on your campaigns can leave you disconnected from how your campaign is performing, resulting in wasted resources.
Set aside time to analyze performance metrics such as click-through rates and engagement. You can easily use this data to identify trends and make educated decisions about adjusting your targeting, creative elements, and budget. Regular monitoring ensures that your campaign stays on track and you don’t miss out on valuable audience exposure and engagement.
Running Too Many Tests At Once
Remember back in middle school science class when you learned about the need for a control group and not changing too many variables at once? The same rules apply now with your social media campaigns!
While A/B testing is a valuable tool for optimizing your campaign, running too many tests simultaneously can lead to confusion and inaccurate results. Focus on testing one or two elements at a time, such as different ad creatives or audience segments. This approach allows you to isolate variables and draw meaningful conclusions, leading to more informed decisions and improved campaign performance.
Failing to respond to comments
Just like you should be prioritizing responding to comments on your organic page, your team should also ensure they are promptly responding to comments on your paid ads. Since paid ads have the ability to be pushed out to more people than would see your organic content, we would argue that responding to comments on paid ads is even more important to build trust and reduce hesitancy around donating blood. Social media is a two-way communication channel, and failing to engage with your audience can hinder the success of your campaign.
Not tailoring ad design to each platform
Different social media platforms have distinct audiences and design specifications requiring you to adjust creative and messaging. Failing to tailor your ads to each platform can result in a disjointed and ineffective campaign.
We recommend customizing your visuals, copy, and call-to-action to match the user experience and demographic of each platform. For example, the user demographic on Snapchat skews younger so creating ads that speak to them with design and copy can increase their likelihood of engaging with the ad and potentially scheduling a blood donation appointment. This approach ensures that your message resonates seamlessly with users on various social media channels.
Ads will be most successful when a donor feels like what you’re sharing resonates with them. Using ad copy and creative that considers time since last donation, blood type, last donation location, etc., will lead to a much more successful campaign.
Conclusion
In conclusion, effective social media advertising for blood donor recruitment involves strategic planning, continuous monitoring, and thoughtful engagement. By avoiding these common mistakes, blood centers can optimize their campaigns, maximize impact, and inspire more individuals to become active blood donors.