Facebook Advertising Gives You Unprecedented Marketing Opportunity
You have a beautiful Facebook business page for your up-and-coming, fast-growing enterprise.
Congratulations!
Now: How’s that working for you?
Are people seeing your page, and all the wonderful things you post to it?
Specifically, is your Facebook business page helping you grow your relationships with customers, suppliers, current employees, people who’ve written online reviews of your business, or those potential super-star teammates (or even business partners) who are out there, somewhere, hoping to get to know a business just like yours?
Most importantly, are your ideal prospective customers finding your Facebook page? Are they learning about what makes you and your enterprise different… special… awesome?
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No matter how great your Facebook business presence is, if people (and especially the right people, in large numbers) don’t find it, it can’t help your business.
People do business with people they know, like, and trust. And your Facebook business page can do a lot to help you and your business get known, get liked, and get trusted.
But not if it can’t get found.
How Do People Find Your Business On Facebook?
Basically, two different ways.
Yes, you can use either of two different “methods” to get your Facebook business presence in front of the right eyeballs.
The “Luck” Method. You can rely on luck, hoping people (and the right people – ideal prospective customers) will stumble upon your Facebook business page. Someone may have heard about you, and might do a search for your business name, and, hey, who knows? They might find your page. Or you can tell people about your page, and hope they remember to look it up. People can search for the type of product or service you provide, and they might find you that way (though Facebook – not you – controls that). Yes, that type of happy accident could happen (and occasionally does). Prospects might find you by accident. If you’re lucky.
The “Strategy” Method. If you’re not feeling all that lucky… or, perhaps, if your patience isn’t endless (and your reserve capital isn’t bottomless), you’ll probably want to take strategic action to drive eyeballs to your beautiful Facebook business page (and to your beautiful website, for that matter). You want strangers to find you… strangers who might be the ideal prospective customers for your business. The Strategy Method doesn’t rely on chance. It puts you back in control of getting visitors to your online presence, where you have the best chance to start building that know-like-trust type of relationship with them.
Paid Facebook Advertising: Your Winning Strategy
Getting that control over the online relationship-building process costs a little money.
But not a lot.
And, given the degree of control paid advertising gives you, the investment is generally very well worth it.
You’ve invested a lot in your business’ offerings, its image, and its Unique Selling Proposition. Now invest a little more in paid advertising, to make sure those things get in front of the right prospects who otherwise probably won’t just stumble upon you by accident.
And if you hear the word “advertising” and think about the old-school methods of running ads in newspapers or on radio, you’ll be happily surprised to learn that Facebook advertising is nothing like that.
Radio and newspaper ads do “reach” a lot of people. Potentially. But again, there’s a lot of The Luck Method going on with those traditional advertising media. You have to hope the right people are listening or reading at the right time or place to even be exposed to your ad… and if that happens, it’s likely by accident.
What’s more, people usually need several exposures to your message in traditional media before they would be inclined to take action, such as picking up the phone and calling your business.
For those media, you need a pretty big advertising budget. And for some businesses (especially larger businesses), traditional advertising is still a good buy. But for a small business with a limited budget… maybe a very limited budget… traditional advertising might seem a bit risky.
Facebook advertising isn’t like traditional advertising,
You don’t need a huge budget to get a great deal of control over how the right kind of traffic is driven to your online presence with Facebook advertising.
You could find prospects with a dollar a day.
Spend, say, $25 a day for, say, five days… and your message could reach thousands.
But that’s not the good news. The good news is that those thousands are exactly the folks you’re looking for. You can target them precisely with Facebook ads, in a way traditional media can’t come close to matching.
You’ve Got More Control Than Ever Before
That’s right. With Facebook advertising, you can get the right message in front of exactly the people you’re looking for.
Whatever your business offers for sale, you can put your message in front of exactly the people who are in the market for it… and not waste time (or money) trying to convince people who will never be your customers.
If you’re a web developer, you’re looking for people who are starting businesses. With Facebook ads, you can reach out just to those people… even people starting certain kinds of businesses… of a certain age and demographic profile… and within a certain geographic area.
It’s the same for any small business. Realtors can target people looking to sell their home in the next several months (they’ll be selling and buying). Wedding photographers can target folks who’ll soon be tying the knot. Roofing companies can target people in areas that’ve been recently hit by hail storms.
Know… Like… Trust… Purchase
And you don’t have to target these strangers by immediately asking for the sale.
You can romance ‘em a little!
Your messages might simply ask folks to “like” your Facebook business page, and essentially “sign up” to keep receiving helpful information they will welcome. That’s a win-win. The prospects get helpful info, and you get the chance to keep building relationships with them.
Your Facebook campaign can offer freebies, or reduced-price goodies… a free trial… a fact-packed special report on the industry… even an eBook which establishes you as THE expert in your field, for a great discount (or even as a give-away). Once people know and like you, a good percentage will start to trust you, and think about you when they have a need arise with which your business can help.
And, of course, you can attach a “call to action” button to your Facebook message: “Learn More,” or “Contact Us”… even “Buy Now.” Even in the early stages of the relationship, when you’re just trying to introduce yourself to new qualified prospects, this can be extremely powerful.
If thousands of people see your ad, some percentage will click on your call-to-action button. And that can mean dozens, or even hundreds, of exactly the targeted type of people you want to get to know.
You Can Keep Score And Make “Halftime Adjustments”
If you run ads on the radio, the media company from which you bought those ads can tell you when your ad aired, and maybe even how many listeners they likely had at that hour.
But they can’t tell you how many married couples, aged 35-55, who are planning to sell their home in the next six months heard your ad.
Run that campaign on Facebook, and you’ll know.
Facebook tracks everything. You can gather tons of data on how well every campaign you run is working… and you can adjust your campaigns accordingly. Even in mid-campaign! Once the “deadline for camera-ready art” has passed, you can’t change your newspaper ad. But you can make adjustments to your Facebook campaign as often as you like.
Some companies “optimize” their social media campaigns hourly.
Yes, the days of the old “shotgun” approach to small business advertising – heavily reliant on The Luck Method – are over. Every dollar you spend on social media advertising (especially on Facebook, which is still the king) is highly targeted and thoroughly tracked.
The best of the traditional media companies can make a decent case for the ROI (Return On Investment) to their high-dollar, big-business advertisers.
But Facebook can give YOU, the small business owner, the same control the big companies have.
A great Facebook advertising investment might be $25 or $30 a day for five days. That might sound like a chunk of change to a young, growing business… and it is an important investment decision… but consider the lifetime value of a single customer. If that value is greater than about $150, and you get that customer, your campaign paid for itself. With one customer.
And you may well get that customer, and perhaps a couple more, directly from that first targeted Facebook campaign. Your digital marketing advisor can help you design a campaign that maximizes your chances of doing so.
But here’s the best part: You got one or two great customers from a $150 investment… and that’s great… but your campaign planted hundreds or thousands of seeds… and some percentage of those plantings will, over time, bear even more fruit for your business.
Over time, your ROI will grow and grow!
(And that’s just your return from Facebook… one great outlet for your business… but there’s a LOT more out there, available to help you grow your bottom line. Stay tuned for great information on other outlets, like Google Adwords!)
Get into paid Facebook advertising. Contact Max Height Web Solutions, and we’ll help you start small, analyze and decipher the data you get from your first campaign and every subsequent campaign, and ensure your Facebook advertising campaigns are always run smoothly and professionally FOR you. You don’t have to rely on luck. We’ll help you develop the right strategy to help your business win.