Facebook is the #1 online advertising platform.
There are so many reasons why Facebook is great…
First and foremost, Facebook has more than 2 billion monthly users. That is a HUGE audience base that cannot be ignored! Zephoria.com reports several reasons why:
- 510,000 comments and 293,000 statuses are posted on Facebook every minute.
- Every day, 4.75 billion pieces of content are shared.
- 50% of people ages 18-24 go on Facebook as soon as they wake up in the morning.
- One out of every five page-views in the U.S. is on Facebook.
- Every second, five new Facebook profiles are created.
- 42% of marketers says Facebook is important to their business.
Just think about the significance of these statistics. There is real power behind them.
Yet even though it is so big, Facebook makes it incredibly easy to target advertising so it reaches the right people. And all for a very small budget—as little as $5 a day!
Facebook really does provide the ideal opportunity to advertise ANY online business. Plus, it’s easy to get started.
Facebook Ads 101
Facebook has collected an incredible amount of consumer data. This is data that just 15 or 20 years ago companies would have paid BIG money to purchase. It’s a marketer’s dream.
And this is data people willingly provide!
Whenever someone fills out a Facebook profile, they provide all sorts of information, such as their name, relationship status, career, and where they live. On top of that, they join groups, like pages, and post status updates and comments that provide insight into their interests.
Facebook also collects data related to people’s shopping and purchasing habits whenever they click on a Facebook ad. Marketers can target everyone on Facebook, but we all know that targeting a specific, relevant niche is the way to go.
And it’s not hard at all…
Facebook actually makes it super easy to create a custom target audience.
In fact, marketers can get super specific by targeting people who like particular pages or have certain interests.
Facebook advertising also provides the ability to re-market to potential customers. A tracking pixel can tag people who have already visited a website. They can then be shown a certain ad again and again until they take action or be targeted with a new ad based on a certain action they already took.
These Facebook ads are insanely easy to create. It literally takes five minutes. Combine that with how inexpensive they are and the result is a recipe for massive online marketing success.
Facebook Advertising offers the best environment for any small business or entrepreneur to grow and thrive.
The key is to know how to use it! To leverage the power of Facebook Ads and grow any business, some specific strategies are needed.
And there are seven ways to do this…
(NOTE: If you're new to Facebook advertising, you need to know exactly how the platform works. Join us in our FREE FB Bootcamp to learn more about email marketing. You can sign up here.)
7 Ways to Grow Any Business With Facebook Ads
It doesn’t matter what type of online business a person is running…
Facebook is a critical tool to help grow that business.
The key is to know how to approach Facebook advertising. Because growing a business on Facebook is about more than sticking up an advertisement and waiting for the clicks to roll in.
It is important to define the business for the consumer, to learn how to reach out to the right people, draw them in, and bring them past the Facebook threshold.
And there are seven ways to use Facebook to achieve these goals and grow ANY type of online business imaginable.
Let’s take a look…
1. Create A Brand
A brand is the personality of the product, the business, and the person behind the business.
This brand is the mechanism through which the consumer can connect with the business and its products.
And anyone can create a brand! But that wasn’t always the case…
There was a time when only the big players could create a brand. Think of big brands like Coca Cola, Apple, and Walmart. Think of the marketing initiatives these companies invest in. Think of the Super Bowl Halftime ads they buy. Think about the investment they make to developing ads that speak to the right people. Think about the targeted ads they create.
This used to cost millions of dollars and years of effort!
For example, Coca Cola will show a different ad in Canada than they show in the U.S. and another completely different ad in India. Apple will create a certain ad to target back-to-school students, but will create a completely different ad to target Holiday shoppers.
To put the money into research, marketing, the creation of a logo, and advertisements used to be something only big companies could afford to do. And they still do it because it works, but…
There was no room for small companies.
And there definitely wasn’t any room for the average person to jump on the branding bandwagon. It just cost too much money and took too much time.
But things are different today. Thanks to the power of the internet…
The playing field has been leveled!
Anyone who has an internet connection can create a brand.
No matter where they live or what kind of business they’re growing, they can create a brand for just a few dollars a day! That’s a breath of fresh air compared to the millions of dollars companies had to spend in the old days.
Running an advertising campaign is NOT expensive anymore. Creating content to reach the target audience is NOT expensive anymore. Determining who the target audience is NOT expensive anymore.
It’s all inexpensive and a lot easier now!
And we also now have the advantage of providing free content.
A brand can be built simply by delivering great content to the consumer. This content can come in the form of:
- Written content—such as blog posts, newsletters, reports, and eBooks
- Audio content—such as interviews, podcasts, and audio books
- Video content—such as product demonstrations, news highlights, webinars, and product reviews
Over time, people begin to associate the brand with the content.
This is how relationships develop.
The key is to deliver awesome content consistently. Use any combination of content types too. Mix it up and keep it fresh. But use the same voice, which will become the “brand voice.”
And it’s also important to publish content with consistent timing. For example, publishing one blog post per week or an engaging Facebook post every day.
Great content + consistency = success.
Just think about the big companies. They put out amazing content and they do it A LOT. They put out a lot of commercials on a regular basis. And this allows people to become familiar with the brand.
Encourage people to interact with the content.
When they do this, they are interacting with the brand! And then the brand can respond, creating a two-way street of interaction and communication. This is how to build a loyal tribe of followers.
It’s all about getting the brand in front of people as often and consistently as possible—until brand-status is achieved in the niche of choice.
That is how people notice and become loyal to a brand.
But even if the brand has a core group of loyal fans from the beginning, there’s always room to grow by reaching new customers…
2. Discover New Customers
For a business to succeed, it needs to expand beyond its small group of initial customers.
And Facebook makes this insanely easy to do!
Facebook has a huge pool of people. This means there are A LOT of potential new customers.
Remember, there are over 2 billion monthly Facebook users. That’s nearly a third of the world’s population!
And Facebook reaches every niche imaginable. Whether someone is interested in weight loss or poodles, they are on Facebook and willing to connect with a brand they like. The key is to find them.
And to do this, use Facebook’s powerful tool—Audience Insights.
Audience Insights is an incredible tool Facebook developed to provide detailed statistics. It breaks down the numbers and makes it possible for marketers to discover customers they didn’t even know were out there.
Audience Insights is THE most cutting-edge tool for market research. It’s better than the most expensive tools any company had access to even 10 years ago.
Now, when I say it’s possible to find any niche imaginable on Facebook—I mean ANY NICHE IMAGINABLE!
And it is possible to search Everyone on Facebook or People connected to your page.
Here is an example. When I go into Everyone on Facebook and type “Poodle” into the Interest field, I get the following Top 10 Page Likes:
- Bob The Wonder Poodle
- R2P Pet
- Viral Today
- The Pets Page
- I Love Rescue Dogs
- Of Great Interest
- Pets Add Life (PAL)
- Daily Smile
- Nationwide Pet
- Norbert
The demographics show that the target audience is mostly women at 84%, who are married (58%) and have a college education (61%). Also, a lot of them tend to prefer a country or rural lifestyle.
Now, let’s go with something a little more common—weight loss. The top 10 results for Page Likes include:
- Beyond Diet
- Eat – Fit – Fuel
- The Paleo Secret
- Traditional Medicals
- Udi’s Gluten Free
- Cleafoodcrush
- Josh Axe
- Blue Apron
- Rebel Dietician
- Medical Medium
The people who like these pages include slightly more women than men (54% vs. 46%). BUT more men than women are looking at weight loss in the younger age categories and more women than men are looking at weight loss in the older age categories.
In addition, 63% of them are married and 63% of them have a college education.
There is so much detailed information here and an advertising campaign can be shaped based on these statistics. This helps business owners reach the right people.
So, if the poodle business is related to finding homes for poodles, then it would be good to also target people who like I Love Rescue Dogs.
With the weight loss example, the product might be related to the Paleo Diet. In this case, the marketer can target the keyword (weight loss) AND can also target people who frequently visit The Paleo Secret website.
The possibilities of who can be found on Facebook are nearly endless. Any business that wants to grow needs to leverage this power. But the key isn’t just to find these people.
The key is to drive traffic and turn visitors into customers.
(NOTE: If you're new to Facebook advertising, you need to know exactly how the platform works. Join us in our FREE FB Bootcamp to learn more about email marketing. You can sign up here.)
3. Turn Visitors Into Customers
To truly grow a business through Facebook, visitors MUST become customers.
Having 100,000 likes on Facebook means nothing if it results in no paying customers.
For this to happen, prospects have to be brought into a sales funnel.
Essentially, a Facebook ad is a great initial introduction to a brand.
It gets people in the door. If the ad copy is really good it will convince people to click on the link—which is the sole purpose of the ad. But then what?
Once the person has clicked through to the destination page, they might take action and they might not. There is no way to truly control that except to make the copy as good as possible.
But most people don’t take action the first time they visit a page. And if they don’t take action, this means we need to provide them with another opportunity to do so.
That is what the Facebook pixel is for!
The Facebook pixel makes it possible to retarget people who visit a specific page.
The power of retargeting CANNOT be overstated. Retargeting gets the ad, the message, in front of the target audience many times. And people are more likely to take action after they see something or someone multiple times.
This is exactly why big brands constantly run ads. They know that the more times someone sees the brand, the more likely they are to take action.
Here’s how retargeting with the Facebook pixel works. For example, say a person visits an opt-in page, but doesn’t opt in.
The pixel will track that person. This person will be included in a custom audience, where they’re shown the ad again. Chances are, they will click on the ad again. And this time, when they click on the ad, there is a much better chance they will opt in.
And the best part is that this is all automated!
Get the pixel, put it on the desired page, choose the action to track, and let Facebook do all the hard work! Really, once an ad is set up, everything is completely automated. In fact, there is no substitute for the incredible automation Facebook advertising provides.
But Facebook does so much more. Marketers can create Custom Audiences based upon all kinds of targeting features and specific actions people take.
Facebook can also create Lookalike Audiences, which are people who are similar to a brand’s core audience. These are the people that Facebook calculates as the most likely to take action.
All marketers have to do is tell Facebook how much they want the Lookalike Audience to deviate from the source audience—1%, 2%, or 3%. Then Facebook finds those people and puts the ads in front of them.
And that is just the beginning of the power of retargeting…
4. Turn Buyers Into Fans
Say a person visits an opt-in page and DOES choose to opt in. They don’t need to see that opt-in ad again. So, then what?
Well, this is where it gets really exciting.
The Facebook pixel allows marketers to create custom events for those people. The pixel can still be used, this time to retarget that person with a different offer.
This takes them another step along the sales funnel.
A person who chose to opt-in can be shown an ad for a low-ticket product related to the opt-in offer. Or a person who has made a low-ticket purchase can be shown an ad for a more expensive, mid-ticket offer.
This way, bringing people into the sales funnel is done through baby steps. They keep making micro-commitments along the way.
Retargeting also allows marketers to follow up with customers. It lets these customers know they haven’t been forgotten, that they are valued. This is a great way to both create and nurture relationships with customers. And when that relationship is nurtured, it builds trust.
And trust makes people diehard fans of the brand!
The key is to make people fans of the brand for life. And to do that, it is important to go the extra mile. When brands go out of their way to thank customers, customers become raving fans.
Aside from retargeting, there is another powerful way to build customer relationships…
5. Connect With People Via Facebook Messenger
Make use of Facebook Messenger!
Messenger is no longer simply for keeping in touch with family and friends.
It is an incredibly powerful tool that makes it possible to directly connect with customers and potential customers.
In fact, more people now use messaging apps than social media. That’s mind-blowing!
And Facebook Messenger is quickly becoming the new way to advertise!
Anyone who has experienced being a customer—which is all of us—knows how important the customer experience is. Customer experience is everything!
This is where Facebook Messenger shines.
Using Messenger to connect directly with customers enhances the customer experience. That is one-on-one connection with a customer. And one-on-one connection is GOLD for a brand. People love it when brands interact with them directly.
Let’s say a customer sees a post on a weight loss page and they comment on the post. Maybe they have been having trouble with consistency in weight loss. Or maybe they have a health problem that is contributing to the weight challenge.
The marketer can respond to the post where everyone can see it, giving general information. But if they feel it is worth going deeper with that customer, they can also direct message them via Facebook Messenger simply by clicking Message in the options beneath the post.
It’s important to note that pages can only send direct messages to people who comment on one of their posts. This ensures that brands don’t spam people through Facebook Messenger.
Here is another example.
Let’s say a user comments that they missed the live stream of an email marketing webinar. They state they were really looking forward to getting some guidance on how to use segmented email lists to improve marketing results.
It is easy to reply to the post, letting everyone know there will be a recorded version of the webinar available soon. And this should be done.
However, the marketer can—and should—also message the customer directly and can ask them what specifically they want to know about email segmentation. Sure, the answer might be in the webinar. BUT the direct connection with the customer makes them feel valued and builds trust and relationship in a way nothing else can.
But no matter what, don’t be spammy when sending a message.
Keep it conversational. This should be just like two friends talking—because this customer is a new friend! Treat them that way.
Honestly, this conversational aspect of business has been the traditional way of doing business since commerce was born. But it has been incredibly difficult to achieve online—until now.
Direct messaging using Facebook Messenger is the future of brand communication!
There is no better way to nurture a customer relationship and turn that customer into a lifetime fan of the brand than to have a conversation with that customer.
6. Start Small And Scale
There is no need to rush out and spend hundreds of dollars on Facebook ads right away.
Start small. For as little as $5 per day an ad campaign can be up and running! Compare that to the tens of thousands that companies used to spend on advertising. There IS no comparison.
With such a small investment and the speed at which an ad can be placed, it is easy to test different ad copy.
Take the time to figure out what works. Once things are running smoothly and results are flowing in, scale the campaign. This way, no money is lost.
Scaling an advertising campaign can be done in a couple of ways. First, by scaling the budget. Once you get a positive ROI (Return On Investment), put the budget up to $7 or $10 per day.
Go at a comfortable pace based on available budget and results.
For example, maybe an ad campaign is set to target people in all English-speaking countries. As the results start flowing in, it is clear that people in Ireland are particularly responsive. Simply target them specifically with a duplicate ad and increase the budget for that target group.
Or say mobile ads are performing well. Leverage that! If that’s where the customers are, that’s where the ads need to be. Expand the mobile budget. Expand mobile targeting. Get that ad in front of mobile users.
It is also possible to start scaling horizontally as an ad campaign grows. Move into wider targeting. Target different interests and pages. Get those feelers out there to see who else might be interested in the offer.
Facebook ads are incredibly dynamic!
They make testing and scaling very easy. It is all measured and tracked. And just a few clicks of the mouse button is all it takes to expand the audience, increase the budget, and even duplicate and adjust ads and ad campaigns.
And this makes it possible to leverage immediate opportunities. For example, a marketer has a Facebook ad out for an easy system for building muscle mass. The ad has been targeted to people in their 20s and 30s.
Then a new study is released that reveals how important it is that seniors build muscle mass.
News articles are everywhere, talking about how building muscle mass helps increase health and longevity in seniors.
In the old days, that advertising campaign would have to be totally redone to target the right age group. But with Facebook, the ad can be duplicated, the copy tweaked to appeal to the older consumer, and the ad targeted to that age group.
And all this with a few clicks of the mouse and all within a few short minutes.
Now, that’s powerful!
7. Confident Return On Investment
All businesses should be concerned with Return On Investment (ROI). And online businesses are no different.
ROI is the amount of money that comes in vs. the amount of money spent to make that money.
If more money is being spent than is being made, the ROI is negative. If more money is being made than spent, the ROI is positive.
But how can ROI be determined on Facebook?
Facebook Advertising might be affordable, but it still costs money. To run and grow a successful business, it is important to know that the ads are bringing in a good ROI.
Fortunately, Facebook has also made this easy to measure and optimize ads.
Facebook gives full control to the marketer to measure and scale ads. Remember…
Specific measures = knowing exact ROI
There are a number of metrics that can easily be tracked. Each of these offers critical information that helps determine whether the ad is working. However, there are some metrics that absolutely MUST be tracked. These essential metrics include:
Relevance Score—This is a rating from 1 to 10 that estimates how well people are responding to an ad. The higher the relevance score, the better.
Frequency—This is the average number of times the ad was served to each person. As a general rule, this should be kept lower than 5. After all, you don’t want the same people to be seeing the ad too many times. Ideally, they will click on it long before they see it five times.
Positive Feedback—This is an indicator that people are responding well to the ad. People who have seen the ad have taken the desired action.
Negative Feedback—This is an indicator that people are not responding well to the ad. The ad has been hidden or people have somehow indicated they don’t like it.
Click-through Rate (CTR)—The higher this number is the better. This is a good indicator of how effective an ad is.
Cost per Thousand (CPM)—This is how much is being spent for every 1,000 clicks.
Cost per Click (CPC)—The goal here is to have the lowest cost per click possible. You can measure the CPC and know how much you are spending vs. how much money those clicks have generated.
These metrics are so important to an ad campaign’s overall success. It is critical to keep an eye on the metrics of ads and TEST, TEST, TEST.
Always test ads.
Create a duplicate of an ad and then change one variable to test exactly what is working and what isn’t. Then test another variable. But only test one variable at a time. If more than one thing is changed and the new ad performs better, there is no way to know which change made it batter.
This is how to optimize Facebook ads. This is how to achieve the best results.
Once the metrics have been studied and the ads have been tested and optimized, the ROI can be easily calculated. If the ROI is positive, then the ad campaign can be scaled to reach more consumers.
And ultimately, this will bring in better results and more money.
Grow Your Business With Facebook Ads
No other method of online advertising is more powerful than Facebook Advertising.
Let me say it again…
No other method of online advertising is more powerful than Facebook Advertising.
Facebook has such a HUGE audience at its disposal and an incredible amount of data for each and every person in that audience.
Imagine having personal data, willingly provided, for over 2 billion people! That’s what Facebook provides.
The key is to know how to take advantage of what Facebook has to offer. What we have gone through here is seven ways to grow a business with Facebook. And these apply to ANY online business. They are:
- Create A Brand
- Discover New Customers
- Turn Visitors Into Customers
- Turn Buyers Into Fans
- Connect With People Via Facebook Messenger
- Start Small And Scale
- Confident Return On Investment
There is absolutely no limit to what can be achieved through Facebook Advertising. The opportunity is HUGE and the timing has never been better. Facebook is constantly looking for new ways to help businesses reach their target audiences.
We have really just scratched the surface of what can be done with the power of Facebook.
This is an opportunity for anyone who is serious about growing their online business to learn from the experts, from people who have already done it—successfully!
(NOTE: If you're new to Facebook advertising, you need to know exactly how the platform works. Join us in our FREE FB Bootcamp to learn more about email marketing. You can sign up here.)
