Facebook: Everybody is using this social media platform, and where your business is concerned, so must you. With Facebook advertising, you will:
- Reach the people who matter to your business
- Build better brand awareness
- Acquire new customers
- Start to increase your revenue
What’s not to love? Now, you can market your business on Facebook without paid social ads. You can set up a business page, post news of your products and services, and interact with current and potential customers. You can also encourage your loyal followers to share news of your business to their networks.
But to increase your reach on this social media platform, you should consider paid social ads, as should see a sizable return on your investment.
The Benefits Of Facebook Advertising
Facebook advertising will cost you (although you can specify your budget), but the benefits are undeniable. These are just a few of them.
#1: You will reach a large number of people quickly
Facebook has billions of users, and most of them check their Facebook page multiple times each day. Your business will benefit from this, because who knows how many people will get to see your ad. The number is almost countless! You can’t reach the masses in many other ways, so for increased visibility, it is clear that Facebook advertising is the way to go. As will be discussed later, you can also target your key demographic, so you can make sure that your social ad is seen by the right people.
#2: Facebook advertising is relatively cheap
You don’t need to blow the entirety of your marketing budget on Facebook advertising. By spending as little as £2 you could reach more than 1,000 people. If you’re trying to cut costs, this type of marketing makes perfect sense. Of course, you can spend more if you have the money available, but how much you pay depends on your budget.
#3: You can track Facebook advertising
You can measure results by the number of clicks, impressions, and conversions your ads are receiving. When it comes to conversions, you will need to install Facebook Pixel onto your website, but a website developer can help you in this regard if you are not au fait with web code.
Because you can measure how well your ad is doing, you will have the incentive to make any changes if you aren’t getting as many conversions as you would like. You can also decide to spend more if your ad is bringing in the bacon.
#4: You can gain more email contacts
Facebook’s ‘lead ad’ forms give you the ability to capture email contacts through your Facebook ads. You can then utilise this within your email marketing campaign, as the people you contact should form the basis of your key demographic.
#5: You can stand up against the competition
Your nearest competitors will be using Facebook advertising to grow their businesses, so if you’re slow to catch up, they could quickly overtake you. By using the same service, and by making the effort to create better ads than your rivals, you might overtake them in sales. You can also stand toe to toe with larger businesses, as you don’t need to have their marketing budget when advertising in this way. Your ads are just as likely to be seen online as theirs are, although you might want to use my expertise when creating your ad to ensure you outshine them.
#6: Facebook advertising can increase your conversion rate
The more times people see your ads, the more familiar they will get with your brand. If the ads are of interest to them, the more likely they are to click on them and visit your website. Assuming your website looks good and runs well, you might see more conversions.
Getting Started With Facebook Advertising
Now that you have an idea of some of the benefits of Facebook advertising, let’s go through the process of getting started.
Step #1: Think about your goals
You already know that goal-setting is important for your marketing. When you have established what your goals are, you will be able to measure the success of your efforts. And the same applies to Facebook advertising. Before creating your advert, you should list your goals, as they will help you choose the right objective for your ad campaign.
Examples of goals include:
- Generate new leads
- Increase traffic to your website
- Increase attendance at your marketing event
- Boost engagement for your Facebook page
These are only a few examples; you can probably think of more.
Step 2: Go to Facebook Ads Manager
Facebook Ads Manager is where you can get started with your first ad. You can manage when and where they run, and you can track how well your campaign is performing. To get started, you simply need to click the ‘Create an ad’ button on the top right of the page, although there are a few steps you will need to go through when trying to create the perfect social ad for your business. We will detail these steps below, but if you’re uncertain about anything, you can get specific help with my consultancy service.
Step 3: Choose an objective for your ad campaign
There are 15 options available to you, and these fall under 3 categories.
AWARENESS: These are the objectives that will generate interest in your business.
Choose from: Boost your posts, promote your page, reach people near your business, increase brand awareness, increase your reach
CONSIDERATION: These are the objectives that will get people to think about your business.
Choose from: Send people to a destination on or off Facebook, get installs of your app, get video views, raise attendance at your event, collect leads for your business.
CONVERSION: Objectives that will encourage people to use your business.
Choose from: Increase conversions on your website, get people to claim your offer, get people to visit your shop, promote a product, increase engagement with your app.
When choosing from the options available to you, focus on those that are directly connected to the goals you have set.
Step 4: Choose your target audience
You will already be familiar with this when marketing your business, as you know that it’s important to hone in on the people who are more likely to use your product or service.
You can customise your targeting using the feature available on the Facebook Ads page. You can find your audience using the following demographics:
- Location
- Age
- Gender
- Language
- Interests
- Behaviours
- Connections
The Facebook ad you place will be seen by the people who fall into the demographics you have chosen, so it’s important to get these right. After defining your audience, Facebook will let you know an estimate of the number of people likely to see your ad on a daily basis.
Step 5: Set your budget
You can set your own budget on Facebook, from as little as £1 and scaling upwards. The longer you want your ads to run for, the more you will pay, but there’s no harm in experimenting with a short time period to see how well your paid social ads are working for you If you are pleased with the conversion rate, you might want to spend a little more. The tool on Facebook’s ad manager will let you know how much you pay, depending on the schedule you set.
Step 6: Create an advert
You can use an existing ad post when creating your social ad, or you can start something from scratch.
Using Ad Manager, you can choose the text, video, and images for your ad. You will want these to stand out because people are unlikely to click on your ads if your text is boring or if your images are dull. Facebook offers some guidance in this area, but to create something that truly shines, you might decide to draw on my expertise when creating your ad.
You can also choose where your ad will be displayed on Facebook. You can choose from their default placements if you like, and they do recommend these to you, but customisation is possible. Again, draw on my consultancy service for help in this area.
Step 7: Place your order
After creating your ad, you simply need to click ‘place order’ on the page. Facebook will then review the ad, and they will let you know when it goes live. Hopefully, you will achieve the goals you set out at the beginning, but if not, you can always make changes to your ad in the future. It can be tricky to get it right, especially if you’re not au fait with this aspect of social media marketing, but with the expert advice I can offer, you will find the success you are looking for.
Finally
If you haven’t considered Facebook advertising for your business, perhaps now is the time to do so. There are many cost-effective benefits to your business, and it is easier to measure than some other marketing techniques. With the ability to reach a large number of people, it shouldn’t be overlooked, so get in touch if you would like to learn more and receive support with this aspect of your marketing campaign.
Photo by Alex Haney on Unsplash
