These athletes command immense reach across the globe. Their talent, charisma, and cultural influence have made millions of fans worldwide follow their matches, stake on NBA lines and picks, and follow their lives on social media.

The Early Years and Michael Jordan

When asked who the G.O.A.T. of basketball is, most fans will say Michael Jordan. In the 1980s and 1990s, Michael Jordan was the undisputed king of the NBA. Not only was he talented, but the man was also a whole brand. M.J. was immensely marketable. Sooner than later, he became one of the most sought-after celebrity spokespeople in the world.

Before 1984, Converse and Adidas were the major players in the sneakers industry. However, Jordan partnering with Nike, producing the unforgettable “Air Jordan” sneakers line, created a major upset in the industry. This partnership is easily one of history’s most successful and influential marketing campaigns.

Other notable NBA spokespeople during this era included Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Shaquille O’Neal. They also successfully partnered with brands like Converse, Pepsi, and Reebok.

Kobe Bryant’s New Millennium

Before Lebron James was the “chosen one,” Kobe Bryant was the “crown prince” of the NBA. He is widely known as the player that came the closest to Michael Jordan’s legacy on the court. Kobe was known for his immense work ethic and dedication to the game. His talent and work ethic easily positioned him in the marketing industry.

Bryant’s partnership with Nike produced some of the most memorable ads of the decade, including the “Kobe System” campaign that showcased his drive and determination.

The LeBron James Era

The early 2010s was the era of the chosen one. Lebron James came into the league with several expectations heaped on him, and boy, did he deliver. In fact, it is still a major bone of contention whether LeBron or Jordan is the G.O.A.T. of basketball.

Over the years, LeBron partnered with Nike on various marketing campaigns, but 2018’s More Than an Athlete was remarkable in a different way. Asides from being one of Nike’s most successful marketing campaigns, it celebrated the power of athletes to effect change.

The Future of NBA Spokespeople in Marketing Campaigns

The NBA has grown immensely over the decade. Beyond familiar names, there has been an influx of foreign talents. This has immensely expanded the NBA’s and their athletes’ reach to international shores. Players like Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Joel Embiid are making waves.

The increased usage of social media by athletes and fans has also incredibly increased reach and, in turn, created a large platform for brands to reach fans of the sport. However, this direct access means athletes can now be held accountable for their online and offline actions.

This has made it important for brands to work with socially responsible athletes. An athlete getting canceled on social media can significantly impact a brand’s image and sales.

Conclusion

NBA spokespeople have come a long way since the early days of Michael Jordan. Over the years, these athletes have become some of the most powerful influences in the industry, thanks to their talent, charisma, and cultural influence.

From Kobe Bryant and LeBron James to the likes of Giannis and Luka Doncic in this social media era, NBA spokespeople have left an indelible mark on the marketing world. It’s clear that they will continue to be instrumental in helping brands reach their audience on a global scale.

Instagram has proven to be one of the largest and fastest-growing social networks. The rate at which it’s growing is astounding and in 2021, Instagram boasts of over 1.074 billion users worldwide.

Instagram promotion allows you to create unique audiences and by telling visual stories through various ad formats, it helps you grow your brand exposure, the website traffic and generate new leads.

In this guide, we discuss Instagram advertising and how to create successful ad campaigns.

Set Specific Objectives

When you’re about to create an Instagram ad campaign, first you need to choose the objective behind it. A campaign cannot obtain the proper promotion if you fail at setting clearly defined goals. This is essential and you need to match the budget, draw up the right plan to achieve campaign success.

Brand awareness: Perfect for reaching users who would like to engage with your ad and bring brand awareness.

Reach: This is ideal for brands that are doing their best to get ads before more people.

Engagement: If you wish to see users like, comment, or chare your ad, setting your objective to engagement is important.

App installs: This is used by brands to direct users to the app store to download and purchase apps.

Video views: Ads play in feeds of users and show product launches, footage, production to visually entice users into watching.

Lead Generation: By setting a lead generation objective, you will have an easier time finding people curious about your brand.

Messages: This will serve as a way to encourage users to interact with your brand to answer questions about the product, offer support, or complete purchases.

Conversions: If you want to achieve direct sales actions on your ads, conversions are an excellent objective for you.

Catalog sales: This will promote sales from your online store catalog.

Traffic: For those who promote multiple business locations, this is an excellent choice for driving in-store visits and supports all Instagram ad types.

Be wise when picking your objectives as they’re crucial when developing a good plan.

If, for instance, you create a messages ad for an Instagram placement, chances are that your ad will be denied. In addition, you don’t want to waste your ad budget by choosing one that makes no sense with the ad’s content.

Name Your Instagram Ad Campaign

After selecting your ad objective, go to the campaign’s name section and name your campaign with an intention as the best way to keep track of your ads within the Instagram ads manager. There’s also an option to use the default name that appears.

You can include elements such as target location, or creative type, as it will make it easier to identify different campaigns and track their performance.

Choose Your Ad Placements

Image: forbes.com

Two options for placing ads are provided by the Facebook Ads Manager. The first is the automatic one where ads are displayed across multiple properties whereas the second one is the manual option which allows the properties to be chosen individually where they’ll appear. Regarding Instagram ads, the Instagram-only properties ought to be checked in the manual placement sections.

Set A Reasonable Budget

At first, it’s difficult to know exactly how much you need to spend on an Instagram ad campaign. You learn gradually, but it is best to move carefully. Run a few less expensive ads in the beginning to get a feel for what works for your business. You can always spend more in the future while benefiting from your past lessons.

You can set a specific cost for each ad and not exceed the amount. This makes it the most accessible advertising platform, no matter how small or large your budget is.

Test Campaign and Measure

Unsplash

Test how effective your Instagram ad is before running it. Conduct a test and observe one element at a time as it can be costly, time-consuming, and confusing if you try to run too many tests at once.

As with everything, the key to long-term success is to analyze the results. Identify measurement points for the Instagram campaign, start measuring, and then evaluate how the advertisement presents based on the purpose of the campaign.

Final Thoughts

Today, it’s more important than ever to be seen on social media. It’s not enough to regularly post status updates to reach your target group – the organic spread needs to be supplemented with proper advertising to achieve full effect.

Instagram is therefore perfect for advertising as it holds great potential and helps brands and businesses reach new heights.

Various strategies exist on Amazon to ensure that shoppers see what they want to see, And it’s up to you on how to optimize your listings in order to capture attention. Fortunately, there are many resources that discuss how to grow your brand on Amazon.

What some of you may not know is that keywords act as the glue between you and the products. With the use of keywords, you reach out to your customers easily as they search for the products that they need. Some keywords yield unique searches however others may just give you generic views. But the most important thing to remember about keywords is that when you use the right ones for your business, you ensure that your listings will be visible to more customers giving your business a higher chance of succeeding.

Defining Amazon advertising

Think of advertising on Amazon similarly to advertising on Google and even on Facebook.

When your customers search for particular products, they include certain keywords. When they click “Search”, they’ll see results which may include sponsored posts. These sponsored listings are Amazon ads, and you’ll easily distinguish them from organic listings because of “Sponsored” or “Ad” in the label.

As much as possible, sellers who want to gain more visibility bid on certain keywords that are relevant to their items for Amazon Search Engine Results pages (SERP). You’ll then be charged depending on how many customers click on the ads you’ve posted.

Types of Amazon ad campaigns

Marketing your products on the eCommerce giant seems beneficial especially if you’re looking to expand your branding. Fortunately, Amazon gives a variety of options for you to choose from. Different kinds of Amazon ad campaigns will help you figure out which works best for your products.

Sponsored ads

Formerly known as Headline Search Ads, these are now known as Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands. Sponsored posts let you reach Amazon customers as they search for and discover new products. These kinds of ads help you promote your listings and target them to customers who are actively looking for a specific item.

How to get started?

• Choose the products you want to advertise
• Decide on a budget
• Pick the keywords that will fit your products and choose the categories you want to target

When you start creating your campaigns, you’ll discover why these ads can help your business. Some of the benefits are:

• Cost-efficient marketing – you only pay for ad clicks and you have full control of your budget.
• Stability – if you feel the keywords don’t work, Amazon will show you suggestions for you to choose from and bid on. This way, you’ll easily target items that are very similar to yours.
• Insights – as you work with Sponsored Ads, you get access to data and insights to check on how your ad campaigns have been performing. You’ll be able to optimize the keywords to see if they still are relevant. Moreover, you may adjust your bids depending on how the campaign is going.

Display ads

With display ads, you get to deliver straightforward messages to your customers through creative output and actionable insights. These appear on Amazon sites, Amazon gadgets, apps, and even third-party websites. What’s useful about this type of ad is that you have the option to work on the campaigns alone, or to work with a team of experts.

Where will these ads be placed?

• Amazon devices (e.g., Kindle)
• The Amazon Network
• Amazon-owned and operated websites

What are the benefits of display ads?

• Wider reach to customers
• Diversity in the format
• Ability to target desired customers based on insights from their shopping behaviors
• Searchers are led to specific pages on Amazon via Headline Search Ads

Video ads

The younger demographic today requires engagement on a different level. As technology evolves, more and more people prefer watching videos over reading or looking at ads. Videos can make brands seem relatable: they allow you to share stories and even empathize with your customers while enticing them to buy your products.

What benefits do you get from video ads?

• Raises and boosts your brand awareness since they may be shown on various Amazon sites
• Widens your reach as it goes beyond traditional ads such as tv commercials and print ads, and thus has no geographical boundaries
• Connects your brand to the customer on a more personal level

How do you find relevant keywords for your Amazon ad campaigns?

Now that you know the different kinds of ads that you can put on Amazon, let’s move on to discovering how you can find relevant keywords for your Amazon ad campaigns.

When you set up sponsored ads on Amazon, a few features will be made available to you such as prompts about targeting preferences. When you choose keyword targeting for your Amazon sponsored ads, you will see these choices:

• Broad
  • This encompasses all keywords regardless of order or position in the phrase.

Example: The keywords “girls shirt”. When a user searches for a “red shirt for girls”, your product will be displayed.

• Phrase
  • The search contains the correct sequence of keywords, including any additional keywords in the mix.

Example: The keywords “girls shirt”. When a user searches for a “red girls shirt”, your product will be displayed.

• Exact
  • The phrase must be the exact same as the keywords, although whether your phrasing is singular or plural is also considered.

Example: The keywords “girls shirt”. When a user searches for anything but “girls shirt”, your product won’t be displayed.

When using keywords for your ad campaigns, you need to find helpful keywords that will lead your customers to your product listings.

Remember to use negative keywords. This helps your customers search more efficiently as they can avoid irrelevant clicks.

Likewise, check and observe the keywords your competitors are using. This way, you can find ideas on how to improve your reach and even the keywords you implement. If you want to find your competitors you can always search with common and generic keywords and see the brands that appear on the results.

Some other tips to try

If those mentioned above aren’t sufficient, here are more Amazon SEO guide from experts:

Search for blogs or websites that use your keywords

Promoting your Amazon products on your own website widens your reach. It also helps you discover other blogs that relate to your products and that use the same keywords. A tool like Buzzsumo can help you find your competitors, conduct research on content curation, and even with brand monitoring.

Run search campaigns on a budget

In order to find relevant keywords for your Amazon ad campaigns, first decide on a small budget and try creating automatic campaigns. Pay attention to the keywords that Amazon automatically chooses. These keywords that they suggest are based on the product category, description, and other similar products.

With the continued use of automatic campaigns, you’ll discover long-tail keywords that may not have entered your mind but are useful and relevant to your products.

Takeaway

In a nutshell, Amazon has programs and features that can help your business grow to increase your income on the platform. Ensure that you’re doing your part by discovering the keywords that will improve your performance on Amazon. Though it may be tempting to grow your business quickly through unsavory practices, follow these tips and Amazon’s guidelines in order to prevent your account from undergoing an Amazon suspension, and you’ll eventually find success.

Now what are you waiting for? Search for those keywords and start optimizing your listings today!

Author’s Bio: Jayce is the managing director of Seller Interactive, an Amazon marketing agency that offers Amazon SEO services to brands built on Amazon. With content marketing skills that have taken him to top brands such as GoDaddy and Toyota, he’s cemented his knowledge and expertise in helping brands reach new heights.