Why Facebook? – A look at the stats
Facebook is the largest social media platform in New Zealand with over 3 million active users, that’s 90% of kiwis over 15. What’s more, kiwi Facebook users visit the site an average of 17 times per day!
With stats like this, your business cannot afford to ignore Facebook as a viable advertising platform. It’s a great way to reach a large amount of people in a short time. Facebook ads can be used to create brand awareness, educate your audience, increase conversions and enquiries, launch new products and engage with your loyal customers.-
Unfortunately, with the decline in organic reach on Facebook, your posts will usually only reach around 15% of your followers. Therefore, you cannot rely solely on posting organic content to reach your intended audience.
This is where effective Facebook advertising becomes a must to help you achieve your goals.
Do Facebook Ads work?
The straight answer is YES, they do! With a huge audience, advanced targeting tools, the ability to create custom audiences, and detailed reporting insights, Facebook advertising is a hugely valuable online marketing tool.
It is no longer realistic to just post content on your Facebook page and expect great results. Businesses need to be taking advantage of effective Facebook advertising to increase exposure, traffic, leads, sales & loyal customers.
To get the most out of your Facebook advertising however, you do need to do your homework. It is recommended to develop a sound strategy with clear goals, and invest in taking the time to learn more about how to use effective Facebook advertising to get a positive return on investment.
How To Create Effective Facebook Ads
Define your objective
When creating Facebook ads, the first thing to determine is your real-life business goals you are wanting to achieve. This helps to give your ads purpose and direction, and ensures your budget is used wisely. Facebook ads allow for a large number of objectives, including website visits, in-store visits, messages, online leads, online followers, event responses, online engagement and more. Depending on your immediate business goals, you’ll need to make sure you are using a corresponding ad objective.
Target the right audience
The targeting available exclusively through Facebook advertising means you can target just about anyone you want! On a basic level, Facebook allows you to target people based on location, age and gender. On top of that though, you can also target by more advanced demographics and interests. Wanting to target parents or those interested in the outdoors? Done! On a more advanced level, you can set up custom audiences, which may include remarketing (people who have previously visited your website) or lookalike (people who are similar to your existing followers).
We understand that the multitude of targeting options may be exciting at first. However, don’t fall into the trap of trying to reach as many people as possible. You should always make sure you define your audience, so that you have the ability to tailor your message. This will increase your ad’s relevance, and increase conversions from your key target demographics or those already interested in your brand. An ad that is targeted to a relevant audience will always produce more results than one that is spread thinly over an irrelevant audience.
Get the landing page right
If you’re running Facebook ads to drive more traffic to your website or increase conversions, you need to ensure you get the landing page right. You don’t want to put all that effort into getting clicks, only to have potential customers abandon their journey once they reach their destination. Think critically about where you are sending your customers, and revisit your strategy to ensure you meet your goals. The landing page could be a specific page on your website, a lead generation form, or even Facebook messenger.
With the right landing page set up, you will likely see your return on investment (ROI) increase. If you are directing people to your website, put yourself in the mind of the customer, and go through the journey yourself. If I had just clicked on my ad, what would I would I want to see or do next? For further insights it is a good idea to set up custom campaign URLs for tracking the effectiveness of your ads.
Use high quality visuals and content
To get the most out of your advertising it is essential that you are using good visuals. Professional images or high quality (short) videos are much more likely to produce engagement. While it is recommended that you use your own images, Facebook also gives you the option of using stock images from Shutterstock at no extra cost. One more thing to keep in mind is that images should contain limited to no text (20% max). Facebook will penalise ads that use too much text in images by intentionally limiting reach and results.
A great image will really help you convey your message. Remember to make sure the ad copy and image are well thought out to entice a user to click on your ad. If you’re struggling to create images for Facebook ads, you can use image tools like Canva.
Build a proper sales funnel
Once you have identified your audience and targeting, ensure you are building a proper sales funnel. You want to capture users’ interests, nurture them until they’re ready to purchase and then continue to build relationships to promote long-time loyalty.
Create content that appeals to new audiences, and don’t neglect lookalike audiences. Build trust and ensure you have a strong remarketing campaigns set up. This will all work towards improving the effectiveness of your Facebook advertising campaigns.
Review and adjust
Each business has a unique combination of objectives and audiences, so your Facebook advertising adventure is bound to look a little bit different to other businesses. Once you have run your first ad, take a look at the results and review what worked and what didn’t. This will help you to further refine your strategy, and bring in even more results with your next campaign.
If you would like help to learn more about effective Facebook advertising, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Dubzz offer both Facebook advertising management solutions, and one-on-one training courses.
