Facebook adverts are an extremely effective way of advertising your company/services as long as the adverts are carefully put together to receive maximum impact from the money you are spending. Many small businesses are starting to embrace the benefits of Facebook advertising, but they need strict plan of action. So, let’s look at 7 must dos when you advertise your small business on Facebook.
Being something to somebody
Yes, it is common for small businesses to advertise via Facebook marketing as the platform has over 1 billion users who logon hourly in many cases. The beauty of Facebook ads is that you can target your ad and its delivery to a very specific audience. Don’t create one ad to reach the masses. To get the best return on your advertising investment, create messages and images that appeal to a highly-targeted audience. Yes, that will mean you have multiple ads running, but the bonus is those ads will more likely get the results you want. Click through rate is higher in such ads.
Facebook even provides a relevance score for your ads through its analytics. This rates how pertinent your ad is to an audience. The higher the score the better chance Facebook will deliver it to your target audience. It’s the platform’s goal to deliver ads that matter to its users. If your message is not relevant to your target audience, they won’t see it in their feeds. When structuring your advert, use the Facebook demographic selector to make sure you are reaching people who fit the age/interests/usage targets you are looking for then work on building a highly visual advert with attention grabbing headlines and include keywords related to the product you are advertising.
Don’t give up if your first attempt at an ad isn’t successful. Creating and managing Facebook ads is more art than science, and it takes time to understand what resonates best with your target audience. Facebook gives you the ability to advertise to a relevant target audience at a very inexpensive price point. Hence why every small business should consider Facebook advertising. Revitalize your campaigns.
You have to approach small businesses from a position of logic and proof. If you haven’t tested the waters yourself and you don’t have direct experience and proven methods on how Facebook ads could directly benefit them, then you are wasting both yours and their time. Test some PPC advertising via Facebook and Google’s Display Ad Network (not AdWords initially) - both of these offer pretty good targeting.
Note: Facebook has just announced targeting via status updates which has been in the works for a year or so and is pretty cool. When you don’t test your ads and continue to tweak them after they’ve gone live, you’re losing out on valuable learning experiences and better performance. You should alter the image, the calls to action, and the headlines to see which ads perform better before launching your full campaign. This not only saves you money, it will improve your results. Keep in mind that even if ads for certain audiences cost more, if they convert better, you are actually getting more for your ad spend than a low-cost ad with no conversions.
Facebook is a social media channel and as such building a community is priority number one. Think about ways to ensure you’re coming across as authentic and approachable, even in your advertising. Do some viral marketing - offer member’s of your community some reward for referring friends to your site for deals. You can leverage these via Twitter and Facebook.
Effective calls to action
Build a coupon offer right on your Facebook page that is integrated with a “Like” component - driving deals and perceived value of your brand. Every ad should include a call to action. This is non-negotiable. If you don’t tell your audience what you want them to do – like your page, register for your Webinar, download your eBook – they won’t take action.
What’s next
Before you sell a small business on Facebook ads, you have to sell them your value and trust. Without that, you’re nothing. The old marketing adage, the Rule of Seven, means a potential customer needs to hear your marketing message at least seven times before they will be ready to make a purchase from you. So, that requires that your Facebook ads need to be followed by a follow-up strategy to nurture them along the sales process.
Facebook is a powerful promotional platform for any small business.
