How to Use Facebook Ads for Local Business
Are you on the lookout for an easy, cost-effective means of promoting your local business while not having to deal with the hassles of print ads? Have you ever given Google or Facebook advertising a thought or has it felt like a mere dumping of money into the bin? If so, you are in need of help and we are the right people who can help you out with some valuable tips on social media marketing.
If you wish to drive new customers to your business through Facebook Ads then you need to focus on offering them some value addition for free. Unlike Google AdWords, there is no active search for your products so they are unlikely to buy anything from your Ad even though they may be interested. The power of AdWords lies in showing interested people your product immediately, something Facebook marketing does not allow with the same intent. When people are on Facebook, whatever it is that they are thinking of it is not remotely connected to you! So, you need to provide them with something that can really catch their attention, something of significant value addition in their opinion.
Now let us take a look at how you can put in place an effective social media marketing strategy and get your promotion campaigns right online.
Target the Right Audience
As far as local businesses are concerned, Facebook offers an important targeting option where people in your direct geographical location can be targeted with ease. Second to that, you can also target people taking an interest in your products while matching their age and gender necessary for using the products.
Ensure that your audience size stays at around 50,000-100,000. Another easy means of targeting you can employ in this social media marketing is Custom and Look-A-Like Audience targeting. In Custom Audience targeting, specific people can be targeted with your Facebook ads. This can be done by simply uploading a list of email addresses to Facebook which will be matched to their Facebook accounts to find similar interests and demographic relations between them. Facebook will subsequently find and target Ads to others who match this synthesized information set.
Your Audience Should Have a Reason to Click
As already indicated, Facebook marketing requires that the audience have an incentive for clicking on your Ads because they are unlikely to have any intention of buying your products when they see your promotions on Facebook.
So, what sort of social media marketing strategy can you adopt that will not only have people clicking on your ads but also draw attention from those who are actually interested in buying your products?
The best and simplest answer to this query is a coupon!
You don’t need to give some crazy offer like an 80% Off because something as small as 15% Off will pique the interest and generate a click from someone provided you are a local business near to them that they intend to buy from.
Track your Facebook Ads
Now that you have your Ad and coupon landing pages setup, it is time that you start tracking the ad statistics. The number you really need to lend focus to is the cost per conversion which will give you an exact picture of how much your business is spending for generating one sales lead. So long as the value of one sales lead is higher than the amount being paid for it, your Facebook marketing will be profitable and you can continue focusing on them.
Optimize the Facebook Ads
Most businesses find it rather difficult to be satisfied with the kind of Return on Investment their social media marketing strategy typically generates. The aim is always to find ways in which these can be tweaked to boost the results. Optimizing the ads can be done best by running multiple tests with the A/B Test being the most effective of the lot. This is a marketing strategy where two versions are tested against each other with the sole goal being to identify the changes that increase the probability of the intended action actually taking place.
Run a Follow-Up Email Campaign for the Entrants
A person claiming your coupon is by no means a guarantee of a sale. He/she may have plans of using it later and then completely forget about it so, as the business owner, it is your responsibility to drive reminders. Follow-up with the person so that they remain interested in your business and push them to either make that first purchase or repeat purchases once the coupon has been used. Automated drip email campaigns will help your cause in this regard with a series of timed emails being sent out to the target email addresses.
A simple email campaign such as this “drip” method will prove to be effective for social media marketing by staying top-of-the-mind for customers the next time they wish to make a similar purchase.
