It makes sense to advertise your business on Facebook. With over 1.19 billion users it has created the most highly-engaged audience on earth with a huge percentage of the world’s population logging on the site daily.
Despite people predicting the death of Facebook with the newcomers like Instagram and Pinterest, the numbers joining Facebook are still growing each month. Not only that but users are logging on and spending more time on Facebook than ever before. According to Facebook’s own earnings report, daily active users increased by 25% over the past 12 months.
This is excellent news for you and your business because it gives you the perfect opportunity to build brand awareness and generate more revenue easier than any other marketing strategy in history. Your company needs to reach out to consumers by promoting your brand at the very places they spend a large amount of time and as you can see, Facebook fits that criteria.
However, simply saying that Facebook has over 1.19 million users is all very well and good but let’s be realistic; just because you make a post, no matter how good it is, not all 1.19 billion users are going to see it.
However it is now possible to reach highly targeted sections of Facebook, customers who will love your product or service, using Facebook advertising. This allows you and your business to reach the right consumers, with the right message and build long-lasting engagement with loyal customers.
Facebook Advertising and Smartphone’s
There is no doubt about it; consumers have embraced Smartphone and mobiles devices more than any other consumer technology in history.
This has had a huge impact on Facebook as more and more users are now accessing the site via their Smartphone’s and mobile devices. Facebook’s own figures confirm that 74% of its users now access the site using the Facebook mobile app. Many of them are now accessing Facebook exclusively through their phones and tablets. This has created even more marketing opportunities for businesses.
Based on these figures, as an advertiser on Facebook it is vital that you try to target user’s mobile devices when you place your ad.
Here are our strategic Facebook advertising recommendations to help you to reach out to this huge potential customer base:
Manage your mobile campaigns separately from your desktop campaigns:
Mobile users tend to behave differently to desktop users. They research information and purchase products differently so it makes perfect sense to split your advertising approach to help you manage, budget and optimise your campaigns more efficiently.
Make use of mobile app ads:
Mobile app ads allow advertisers to promote their mobile apps and encourage downloads on platforms like iTunes. Facebook mobile app ads have ten times higher download rates which in itself is outstanding. However, it gets even better. Despite performing so well, the ads cost 20% less than web-based ads. That means that as an advertiser, if you have a mobile app, Facebook mobile app install ad solution has the potential to significantly boost your downloads.
Match your mobile-targeted campaigns to mobile user behaviour:
What we mean is this: if you want your ad to be successful on mobile, as an advertiser your need to think about how your target audience uses the Facebook mobile app.
For example, are your customers using it while they are at home or when they are commuting and out and about?
This matters very much. If they are mostly at home, you as an advertiser have the option to only target Wi-Fi only users at a time when they are most like to be at home.
However, if your target users are more likely to be logging on during peak commute times you can time your ads to run only during those times of day when they will be more likely to read them. There are advertisement management systems that will help you to do that.
Keep your Facebook ads fresh.
The average “life expectancy” for most ads is 3 to 5 days. After that they lose their impact and stop working. Running the same campaigns for your products and services over and over again will quickly get old to your Facebook audience, and that could make them hide your ads from their newsfeed. Keep customers interested by updating pictures and copy for your ads. Keep them fresh so that you can continue driving traffic to your sales marketing funnel regularly.
The easiest way to come up with a constant stream of wining ads do this is to take your images that work (the images that have had the best click-through rate for you) and create various versions of those. For example you can create some with borders and backgrounds and varying the colours, shading, focus and sizes. You can add text to the top of it or a logo. Take the one image that seems to convert really well for you and transform it. Make various versions of it and see if you can out-perform the previous advertisements.
Remember that customers don't come to Facebook to buy.
When people Google a specific product or service, it's generally because they intend to purchase that item. They are actively searching in order to buy or find out more information about the product or service.
But when people log on to Facebook, they are not there for the ads; they want to connect with their friends. For most Facebook users, Facebook ads are just those annoying things you ignore on the right side of the page.
That is the challenge for all businesses who advertise on Facebook. The goal of any successful Facebook ad campaign is to grab potential customers' attention enough that they will either go back and Google your product later or, better yet, click through to your website right from Facebook.
You have to make sure that your ad stands out and attracts their attention. This doesn’t mean that you have to use flashy images and huge fonts. Think about where you are advertising and what types of ads will stand out in relation to that page. A Facebook page has a very distinct layout full of lots of different elements, so it’s important to take that into consideration.
With that in mind stay away from blue and white images. The thing you have to take into consideration when you create Facebook ads is the colours of the image. This is true whatever type of ad you’re making and whatever product you’re advertising. Since everything on Facebook is white and blue, an ad with a white and blue image is not a good idea. It will just blend into the background. Instead you should go for colours that stand out – bright red and green have proven to be good attention grabbers.
If you want to use your company’s logo in the ad and it isn’t blue and white, consider putting a border around it or change the colours. If your logo is blue and white and you can’t change the design of the logo, it is probably a good idea to use another image instead. When designing and spending money on Facebook ads, the colours are just too important to ruin the campaign with an invisible ad or one that does not stand out and convert.
Don’t be afraid to be creative with your images in order to make people notice them. People are usually on Facebook to be entertained and to escape for a few minutes. They aren’t necessarily in a business environment or have professionalism on the brain, so it’s completely appropriate to get a little bit crazy with your ads. Use funny pictures that make people think and use colours that will stand out against the blue and white tones of Facebook.
Use People in Your Ads
When you log on to your Facebook page and look at the ads, you’ll see that most of them have pictures of people. The reason is very simple. Pictures of people give your ad “personality,” which in turn attracts clicks.
There is a lot of debate about what sort of people to use in your ads. A lot of advertisers say that you should use images of women when advertising for men and vice versa, but it’s really not that simple. The key is to test it for yourself. Think about what you’re advertising – your product or service – and what signals you want to send out. It might well work with a smiling, attractive woman but a serious old man could also win over the visitor if it represents your brand and target audience.
A rule of thumb is this: when you create Facebook ads try to stay away from too generic, stock photo people (we are thinking of images like the blonde lady with the headset on her head ready to take your call. She is featured on sites all around the world). They look fake and won’t attract as much attention as “real” people.
Think about it, Facebook is a social network where you connect with friends. A stock-photo character looks nothing like your friends, right?
How to Help Your Facebook Ad Convert
Once you have created your ad, it’s time to figure out if it’s actually working. Just because some people have clicked on it means that it converting. There are a few different things you should do to help make sure your ads are successful and doing their job:
- Testing – It makes sense to have several different ads and then decide which ads have the highest conversion rate. This does not necessarily mean the highest click through rate. There are other factors that you need to consider such as making sure that you calculate how much money you spend on the ad and then how much you actually make back.
- Max Bid – Both Facebook and the majority of advertisers agree that choosing the max bid when advertising is the best option. The reason why is because ads with high bids are shown to an audience that spends a long time on Facebook per session as opposed to those who quickly check in to their Facebook account and then off again each day. Even though these ads are shown to people less often, the conversion rate is often highest so it makes more sense for your business.
- Timing – Again, you are in complete control as Facebook allows you to decide what time you want your ads to run. Think about not only when your target audience is using Facebook, but when that audience will be more likely to buy your product. For example, if you run a pizza restaurant, don’t advertise in the morning. Advertise when your target audience or more likely to want to use your services or buy your product.
Once you have done your testing you will have a much better idea about what works and what doesn’t.
Create a Clear Call to Action
The best Facebook ads are often clickable even without the body text. The image and the title combined should explain what the ad is all about and give your visitor a reason to click through.
Therefore you should try to include your offer in the title. Make it a clear call to action.
Do you have a 70% sale? Tell them. Do you have a buy one get one free offer? Tell them. Do you offer free downloads? Tell them. It is vital that you give them a reason to click on your ad.
Be Informative but Don’t Be a Show Off or Exaggerate
One of the key pieces of advice in the Facebook advertising guidelines is to “keep it simple” and this really applies to the body text of an ad.
Be informative and explain what’s good about your product and why people should click but don’t write empty phrases about you being “world leaders” and “a great company.” Most Facebook users are immune to these clichés – especially when it is the company itself making the claims.
You should also stick to the truth. You might get a lot of clicks if you bend the truth a little, but you’ll have a hard time turning clicks into likes or sales when the landing page can’t live up to the visitors’ expectations.
Stick to explaining the benefits of your products and tell them your unique selling point but don’t brag and try not to sound like everybody else out there.
Managing your Facebook Ad Campaign
Facebook advertising is extremely effective and a very powerful marketing tool so it is important that you get it right from the very start. We understand that managing your Facebook ad campaign, as well as all social networking, including Twitter & Google+ pages, takes time & a strong understanding of how to achieve and reach your business goals. That's why we offer to manage it for you.
We are experts on running social media campaigns like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. We know how social media marketing works.
It's not about the number of likes of how popular your page seems – it’s about achieving an overall goal, connecting with your customers, potential customers and industry. It is important to remember that people will not always click ‘like’, tweet, comment or make a visible connection on social media with you. However, don’t let this fool you as they are there watching what you are doing and judging your business on how you interact.
That is where we can help you. We will create a professional image, attract more visitors, turn visitors into fans, and advertise on Facebook more effectively just as we have done for lots of other clients.
Contact us today. Your business and Facebook ad campaign will be in safe and capable hands.
