The 3 essentials steps you need to know when planning your small business Facebook ads strategy
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As much as we might want to just cut to the chase when we advertise inside Facebook, we can't. This is most likely why your past attempts at advertising inside Facebook have failed. You haven't thought strategically about what you are doing or you have no idea what you should be doing.
In each instance, you are missing the key steps that will help you get the outcomes you want - sales.
Facebook is a social network, so people are inside Facebook to mix with others first so we always need to bear that in mind when we plan our Ad campaigns. We need to walk our target audience along the path to our business and we do this via 3 stages. Which Facebook has very helpfully set up for you! (Google too if you have used the Google Ad Network platform when advertising online)
So how do we choose what ad type to create?
It depends on the purpose of our ads. Facebook has 3 ad groups that match with the process of bringing people ever closer to a sale.
Awareness
Consideration
Conversion
Awareness
You would choose an awareness when you very new, looking to build brand awareness or in particular local awareness. A local awareness campaign is excellent if your a bricks and mortar business wanting local people to start be aware of you.
Consideration
A Consideration campaign would be if you are looking to drive traffic to your website, inspire engagement ( ie likes and comments ) on your Facebook posts or videos, increased video views of a video your post, actual lead generation campaigns using the Facebook form process and installations of an app you may have. As the name implies, all of these ad types are grouped into Consideration as we are nudging our prospect ever so closer to a sale, we want them to see our content, start to experience our products of simply find out more about what we do.
Conversion.
These kinds of ads are best used when you are choosing a custom audiences, ( or a lookalike one) because you want to get your ad in front of your warmest leads as they are the most likely to be in a buying mood. These are normally the last kind of ad that you will run during an marketing campaign. You normally would introduce yourself (Awareness ad type or Consideration), education your market (Consideration Ad Type) and only then can a conversion type ad work for you. So don't use these kinds of ads on a fishing or prospecting ad to build up your audience, ie don't use them with a cold audience who know nothing about you.
All of the above are actual ad types that you can select when you start a new ad campaign. Can you think about what you might have selected in the recent past?
Sound familiar?
If you are aware of or familiar with sales funnels, then you will see what is happening here immediately. Even if you are not familiar with sales funnels, reflect on the above - it should make complete sense to you.
We need to make people aware of us as a business first and the best way to do this is to provide FREE value to them. Something we know they are most likely to be interested in, without any sales pitch at all.
Something like this, if you here a fitness guru, you might post an article on great running tracks to keep your mind focussed when hitting the treadmill for example. This just brings people into your world. It could be something like - 10 great smoothy recipes the whole family will love. This is purely information that is more general, related to your product or service that you know will appeal to your audience.
This is where understanding how to target your ideal client first comes into play as you are likely to be looking for new people here.
Then we need to establish ourselves as an expert, an authority figure in our field. Again with our fitness example, it might be something like this, 5 ways to cool down to avoid hamstring injuries, or 3 ways to boost your metabolism post workout. Most people will probably find this part easier, remember you are an expert in what you do - just share it!
Again, we are likely to be targeting cold people here as well as using our custom audiences and retargeting as well.
and then finally we can pitch our business. This is where you actually outline your offer. It might be with our fitness guru - Signup for my free Fat Loss course, Shred with Cred (something like that). We can only pitch at the end.
These pitching posts will work best when you have built up a relationship and so you can retarget people inside Facebook.
These are people who have visited your website and have gone into a retargeting pool inside Facebook, they may be on your email list, they may have watched a video, however they have come into your sphere of influence, there is a relationship with them. These kinds of custom audiences allow you to have a lower cost per click spend - so these are the most appealing audiences for small business owners.
So we need to work through the process above and be patient. Facebook advertising works best when you aim to build a relationship with your customers first and not just come in with the hammer.
If you want to learn more about how you can apply these 3 steps for Facebook advertising in your business, the Facebook Frontier advertising ecourse is the place to do it.
But first, why not check out my FREE webinar - Facebook Advertising for beginners where I will be demonstrating how to use these ad types, plus so much more - LIVE!
My next round of the Facebook Frontier kicks off on the 19/6. Find out more about the program here and secure your spot. Registrations open SOON!
