Advertising on Facebook is one of the most powerful forms of online marketing now available.
Unfortunately, many people approach it in a way that loses rather than makes them money. They then reject Facebook advertising as a source of new leads and customers. This also means they lose out on revenue that’s otherwise sitting there waiting for them to take advantage of.
But with a slight shift in approach, they could run ads with a positive ROI (Return on Investment). By doing so, they can claim a new and often very profitable revenue stream for their business.
Here’s How To Make Advertising On Facebook Work
It all starts with your Facebook Page, or fan page.
Your fan page needs to be updated regularly with new content. This keeps it fresh and alive, enhances your business’s credibility, and connects with your audience.
In terms of advertising, truth is, it’s difficult to advertise on Facebook effectively for the long term without ensuring your fan page is regularly updated.
It’s been designed to work like that.
Facebook doesn’t just want a bunch of advertisers. They need those advertisers to be posting other content too. Otherwise they lose their user base and their whole business model starts to fall apart. Facebook users will simply go elsewhere to find content that interests them.
You start by running ads for the fan page itself.
(You’ll see how this ties in with running external ads soon. In other words, ads that link to your own web site for example.)
Here’s How It Works
Start A ‘Like’ Campaign For Your Page
Start by running a campaign for people on Facebook to Like your fan page.
Why do you need people to Like your page?
It means:
– You start building a profile of people on Facebook who are interested in your business and what you offer. When you do start running ads direct to your website for example, you can show them to people who have already Liked your page. As a result the ads are far better targeted and more cost effective.
– Your Likes are effectively leads for your business. They are an audience of people who you can continue to communicate with. Those who Like your page will continue to see your posts and updates to that page. This helps keep your business front-of-mind, and is key to increasing sales.
– Social proof is a vital part of the sales process. Your Likes help establish your credibility as a business.
In terms of social proof, think about this.
Which one of the following types of business would you be more likely to purchase from or want to connect with?
– A business with a handful of Likes, and the odd sporadic update every now and again if at all. The last post may have been some weeks or months ago, in fact; or
– A business with a few thousand Likes to their page, and regular timely updates. It also has obvious signs of engagement and interaction with their audience.
Obviously, most would pick the latter. All that social proof gives it far more credibility and trustworthiness.
Likes can also have a direct impact on sales and thereby your levels of profitability. Like it or not (excuse the pun), the Likes on your page have a direct impact on your sales conversion rates.
Furthermore, Likes positively impact your ad click-through rates. This makes advertising on Facebook more cost effective and profitable over time. Here’s how:
– Facebook users can hover over the profile pic on your ad. In doing so, they see the number of Likes your page has had. This helps them determine whether clicking through is worth their while.
– In your ads, users are not just able to click on the ad itself. They can also click through to your Facebook Page to find out more about you. The number of fans you have, and how regularly you post, form a key part of the overall impression they make about your business. This can again impact on whether they click on the ad itself or not.
– Once you have run a campaign, you can ask Facebook to create a ‘lookalike audience’ of people similar to those who have Liked your page. You can then run your ads to this new audience. This gives you better targeting, higher click-through and cheaper ads.
So you have your Like campaign up and running. This rewards you with a growing community of fans. These are all prospects who have raised their hand and said they’re interested in what you do.
You now have a couple of key advantages when you start advertising your business directly on Facebook.
Hopefully you can now see the importance of starting with an effective Like campaign when you begin advertising on Facebook. To ensure this is effective, as described above, this goes hand in had with regular updates on your fan page.
Start ‘tagging’ people who purchase from you and identify them as buyers. You do this by putting some Facebook conversion tracking code on your site.
This basically tells Facebook who has purchased from you. You can then ask Facebook, once again, to find you a lookalike audience who you can advertise to.
This has the potential to be incredibly powerful and valuable for your business. The more buyers you have ‘tagged’ in this way, the more effective and accurate the process becomes. Over time, your ads become increasingly targeted, cost-effective and profitable.
As you can see, by using Facebook advertising, finding a market for your business consisting of interested prospects and potential buyers becomes a largely automated process. When approached in the way described here, it can be very profitable.
Steve Shaw is the founder of vWriter.com. Get your copy of his Be Everywhere Online Marketing Blueprint, and find out how to create your own Google-friendly authority site that will stand the test of time and come to dominate its niche – vWriter.com/blueprint