Unless you’ve been stuck down a hole for the past couple of years you probably know that Facebook advertising has become huge. Yet many businesses are not taking advantage of it and have either tried it and given up because it didn’t work or they are scared to try it.
We took time out from a recent Internet marketing event to sit down with Jen Sheahan, who is considered one of the leading lights of Facebook marketing and runs www.fbadlabs.com.
We asked her what small businesses could be doing to get some “quick wins” by advertising on Facebook and we share her five suggestions below:
1. Provide A Reason To Click NOW
For a successful Facebook advertising campaign you must provide a reason for people to click on your ad now. That means an offer, event or conference that incentivises your audience to click now, before a certain date. Without an incentive people will generally not click through.
2. Create The Image
Make sure you choose your image carefully – keep it positive, engaging and attention-grabbing. Don’t make your ad too fancy; keep it neat and clean; you can even use your own image snapped on your iPhone.
3. Clear Targeting
One of the things that separates a successful campaign from the rest is the use of targeting. When you design your Facebook ad you can clearly target specific groups of people –by age, gender, occupation, marital status, location and so on.
This allows your ad to be seen only by the people you want it to be – your target audience – so you don’t waste money on others clicking through who are not really interested in what you are offering.
4. Set A Budget
Establish a budget for your campaign and also have a daily budget.
When you first create your ad it’s best to pause the campaign until Facebook comes back to verify that your ad has been approved – otherwise you don’t have control over when your campaign starts and you may over-spend without even knowing about it.
For a local campaign setting a budget of $20 a day may be enough and you can switch this ad on and off – maybe you only want it running a couple of days a week because you run promotions those days; for a national campaign a budget of $50 a day will be more realistic.
5. Recommended Duration
For either type of campaign, 15 days should be long enough to see whether it is working or not. If it’s not working then consider how you can change things around for the next one. If it is working, keep it going until you need to change it, obviously.
For any small service or retail business there is the potential to win “low hanging fruit” by running targeted Facebook advertising following the above guidelines.
Of course this is just the start for Facebook marketing – and everything’s changing rapidly; stay tuned into the Melbourne SEO Services blog for more great tips and guidelines every week. Why not let us know what you think below?
Now is the time to pay attention to Facebook ads.