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If you’re going to utilize paid advertising, you need to create powerful visuals to stand out in a crowded online space. Even if you have a great story to tell, or plenty of important information to provide, if your book doesn't look appealing it's probably not getting noticed the way you want it to. That can mean lagging sales and a struggle to keep up with the competition in your genre.
Fortunately, choosing the right visuals means you can attract reader attention and increase interest in your book. Once you know your target market and what they're looking for, it becomes easier than ever to give them what they want to see from you. That will help improve your sales, but it can also lead to great reviews and testimonials you can use in future ad campaigns. Seeing how visuals can change your book's trajectory is an important way to decide what to do next.
You need the right kinds of visuals, though, and an understanding of how to determine what types of ads will interest readers. Going beyond your book's cover can feel daunting, but it doesn't have to be that way. There are excellent ways to create visuals and advertise your book to capture a reader's attention. Here's what you need to know about the power of visual representation in paid advertising.
Finding the right visuals is a big part of having success in paid online advertising for your book. High-quality visuals are key, and you'll want to choose professional photography or design elements when you can. It may cost a little bit more to work with a pro, but that can translate to a better outcome and more sales. It's generally worth the cost to hire a graphic designer or a professional photographer for your ads, instead of trying to create them on your own.
Another way you can offer visuals to your audience is through captivating video snippets in your ad campaigns. Whether you should do that will depend on the platform where the ads will be shown as well as your budget, but it's worth considering. Video catches the attention of potential readers and can encourage them to learn more about your book. While you don't see book trailers on TV much anymore, you can still use them with success on social media. Here again, unless you’ve got the skills necessary, enlisting the help of a professional can dramatically increase the success of your ads.
Choosing the right visuals should include consideration for the genre, the book cover design, and the emotional tone you're trying to convey. All of those areas matter, and when you take them into account you have a much higher chance of putting together something great. Staying within the normal conventions of the book's genre, for example, can help ensure that people identify your book for what it is as easily as possible, so you can attract the right kinds of readers.
The book's cover matters when considering the power of visuals, but there's more to advertising your book through visual means than just providing a quality cover. Taking the time to explore what your readers are interested in and looking for will help you decide on the kinds of visuals that will give you the best return. You don't have to just provide pictures, either. You can use visuals to showcase reader testimonials, quotes, from the book, and more.
You may also want to create visuals through appealing settings that are related to the story. These are good at invoking feeling and helping readers more clearly picture where the story takes place and what the characters are feeling as they move through the story. Animations or motion graphics can be excellent choices, as well, because they can improve the ad experience and make it more dynamic. Just be sure to consider any platform limitations.
Sometimes, you might not be sure which of two ideas for advertising will be the best for your needs. That's where A/B testing comes in. You can try out different ad variations and visuals to see what your audience likes best. There are various ways to monitor ad performed and adjust how you're advertising your book based on data insights. If you test two ads and one is much more powerful for increasing readership, making more ads like that one is often the right choice.
Before you begin your test, though, consider which metrics you want to look at. Logically, you're probably interested in sales. However, that's not the only metric that matters. If readers are telling people about your book, sharing your ads with others, and saying positive things, those are the kinds of ads you want to keep running. Of course, ads should also be converting enough viewers into readers to make the advertising worth your while, so that metric also matters.
Determining your metrics is the first step when testing and comparing the success of different ads. Once you know what you're testing for, you can create ads that are different in specific ways and measure which one performs the way you want it to. The ads that get closest to the level of success you're looking for are the ads your readers are relating to, so making more of them can help increase readership and get more people focused on the value your book has to offer.
Visuals are extremely powerful when it comes to paid advertising, and you want to make sure you're offering readers what they want and need, so they'll check out your book. It's not possible to please everyone, but the goal is to show readers why they would like your book and the value they'll get from buying and reading it. You also want people who see your ads to share them and talk about that, because that can get them in front of a lot more potential readers.
Overall, the visuals you create and use in your advertising should help readers make the choice to read your book. Whether you do that through testimonials, quotes, pictures, graphics, animations, video, or a combination of several methods, you can develop ads that increase readership and get people talking. There's no reason to settle for anything less, especially when you want to stay competitive in the market and keep your book's sales strong.
