Some swear by it, some are turned off by it and others are just quietly making a killing with it.
There’s no doubt the lure of social media marketing has at least crossed your mind.
The lofty claims of success, the promise of low cost ads and the fact that everyone and their family seems to have an account… where they spend on average 40 minutes a day, is enough to get everyone’s attention.
Yet many have tried it and come up… let’s just say short. So what’s the key? Why do some strike it rich while others never see a positive ROI?
What is the key to marketing with social media?
There are a few common threads with those who’ve found their success and while there are many different social media platforms I could highlight, the buzz and all the glitter seems to be with Facebook.
So for today’s blog, I’m going to focus on marketing your business through Facebook, and I’m also going to focus on the key’s to running positive ROI paid ads. (Don’t worry! You can run paid ads for as little as just $5 a day. You won’t break the bank to do some testing).
It just makes sense, if you can spend $8 in marketing costs and make a $49 sale, would you do it? All day long, right?
I know of one business in the health and wellness industry that is doing just that. Specifically, the campaign breaks down to a $200 a day ad budget, which in turn brings in approximately $1,225 a day in revenue. Not bad for a days work, eh?
to a successful Facebook ad? First, I need to let you know, the key points I’m getting ready to list here, are exactly what I use and also the commonalities I’ve found with others, who’re having success advertising on Facebook to generate leads and sales.
While I’m using Facebook as an example, these keys apply to any social media platform where you choose to place ads. In fact, they also work incredibly well with offline ads as well. Ready? Great, let’s get going.
The first key is to narrow your market, no matter what you’re selling, the whole world or even your whole city is never going to be a good target market, it’s just to broad.
Know who your best prospects are, separate them from the herd using Facebook’s audience insights tool and focus your ads specifically on them.
Chances are, you’ll not only generate more leads and sales, but you’re also very likely to lower your ad costs too.
Secondly, don’t try to sell them on your first contact. I know this sounds a little counter productive, but it’s just how it has to be done nowadays.
People always have their BS meter on full alert and if they detect you’re trying to sell them to quickly, you’re ad’s not only going to be a flop, you may also get your ad flagged and put under the scrutiny of Facebook, with the harshest of penalties being your account getting shut down.
To put this in perspective, think about this. You’ve been to networking events and you’ve met that person who introduces themselves and immediately wants to sell you their stuff.
You can’t get away from them fast enough can you? There’s a guy that comes to mind immediately to me and I know even today, when I see him out, I do my best to hide. He’s just always pushing his latest and greatest thing and it’s annoying.
The truth is, his product may be the best thing on the planet, but I’ll never know, because of his approach. All I can think about is “how do I get away from this guy?”. Don’t be that guy.
The trick here is to actually give the people you’re marketing to, some great content, content they’re interested in, makes their life better and leads them into a sale softly.
I’ll give you an example of the exact steps we’re using to do this for a client in just a minute. But first I want to share the rest of the formula with you.
Third, be sure you’re pixeling the people who click your ad. You do this with a small piece of code from Facebook, that get’s placed on your website. (If you’re not comfortable placing the code on your website or don’t know where to put it. Ask any website designer, it’ll only take them a couple minutes to do it for you.)
Now, with the pixel in place, you can create what Facebook refers to as custom audiences. Here you can get very creative, but some of the common audiences you should be focused on are:
- People that clicked your ad.
- People who clicked your ad but didn’t take your desired action.
- And, people who clicked your ad and did take your desired action.
Now with your custom audience in place, you can remarket to them. This is nothing more than placing ads that will only run to this group of people. You know at the very least they had an interest in you and what you’re talking about and now they know who you are. The first step in the sales process is now complete.
Fourth, remarketing, is how you take them to the next step in your sales funnel. Maybe you’ll get them to download a booklet or remind them about an offer you have. Whatever it is, remarketing works and if you’re not using it, you’re losing money.
Real Life Example:
So I told you I’d give you a real life example of how we’re using this for a client. Here you’ll see the flow of how it works.
Our client is a butcher shop that sells high quality meats that are cut fresh each day.
First we narrow the market. Showing the ads only to people who have shown an interest in grilling and are within a 5 mile radius of the clients store.
We now drive them to an article about steaks and how some stores are prepping their steaks with junk that’s only there to add weight and runs down quality and taste.
In case you’re wondering, it tells them how many stores (some high end) leave a chunk of a fairly gristled piece of meat on the steak and call it the grillers bite.
In truth the piece of meat isn’t much fun to eat because of poor quality, it’s really just there to add weight to the steak. With this tactic, the store can sell the steak for a seemingly lower price per pound because they’re selling what our client cuts off and discards.
While reading the article, the prospect is offered the chance to sign up for weekly discounts on steaks and other items. If they sign up to get the discounts, they’re added to an email list where we reach out to them with various discounts and offers, bringing them into the store and making a sale.
And now that we can email them, it costs just a few pennies to advertise to as often as we want.
If you use this strategy, you could also offer an upsell when they buy and increase profits even more. This strategy works whether you’re selling in a product or service, in a store or online.
So what about the people who didn’t take the offer? That’s where the custom audience comes in. Facebook actually tracks who clicks the ad but doesn’t take the offer.
What we wind up with, is a group of people we know are meat eaters, they like to grill, they live within five miles of the store and they now know who our client is.
We’ve started the relationship, our next step is to advertise to them with a downloadable coupon. Which again is claimed in return for their email address.
All of this is done without being pushy or salesy at all. In fact, whether or not the prospect ever shops with us, they’re life is better because now they know, how to choose a better steak and experience a better meal.
The nice part for us is that we grow our customer list and sales are going up.
In 2015 this was the only marketing method our client used and it was a record sales year!
While I’d never recommend you put all your eggs in one basket, the fact is, this method works. If you aren’t currently using it, give it a try. I think you’ll love it.
Until next time, Cheers!
David
Have an experience with Facebook ads you’d like to share? I’d love to hear it, just leave a comment below.
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