Here’s the irony. We’ve all heard how foreign governments have used Facebook advertising to swing presidential elections and political campaigns, not just in the US, but in other countries, including Brexit votes, and countless other political affairs. There’s an ongoing debate about how social media algorithms have become so powerful, that are now able to persuade people and influence our decisions too easily. Yet many of the same people that throw their arms up in the air about the power of social media, don’t believe that Facebook marketing would work for their company’s advertising campaigns.
The fact is, the vast majority of businesses are not good at Facebook marketing. And because they’re not good, they claim it doesn’t work for them. It does, and the ones who put in the time to master what is the single greatest advertising platform in the history of mankind will become wildly successful.
So, let’s talk about tactics that most companies aren’t using but absolutely should.
Competitor Campaigns
If you’re not directly creating specially crafted ads to target your competitor’s customers, just know that there’s a very good chance they’re doing that exact thing to you. The power of a campaign like this (it’s #1 for a reason) is that you have to do very little selling. You’re not educating and convincing the target audience why they need or should want what you have to offer. You’re telling them that they could upgrade to a better version of something they already have.
This will bring in higher conversion rates like you’ve never seen before because the people you are targeting are already familiar with what you sell and the normal price. So, when you come in with a better price and great content, then those people will be very likely to buy.
Quick example:
Say you’re selling a (Software as a Service) SaaS product, and it’s a data and file transfer service that’s faster and easier to use than your competitors’ similar product. The closest competitor offers 50 GB of file transfers for $15/mo. If you come in and advertise directly to those customers who are already paying that but with a special offer of only $10/mo., many customers will likely switch. Not all, but enough to where the conversion rate will be easily double or triple that of the regular ad you make to reach a more broad audience.
This strategy works in every industry that has competition, which is everyone.
*Side note: obviously in products that have lock-in contracts, or have an inherent disincentive to switch, like having to move all of your files to from one platform to another, it works less-so. But it still works.
Cross-site behavior targeting and look-a-like audiences
I’m bundling these two together because their execution goes very much hand in hand.
This is where your email list, after it is uploaded to Facebook, will become a very powerful marketing tool for your business. These are a few options to consider:
- Target all of your current customers through ads on Facebook and Instagram. Since they’re already on your email list you can create specific ads that only show them non-sales/ value content, building up your reputation their trust of you. You can also split your list into two categories of converted and non-converted customers and give specific ads for each as well.
- The second strategy this allows you to do is create look-a-like audiences. In simple terms, Facebook analyzes the demographics, behaviors, and interests of the people on your email list, and finds other people on Facebook who are very similar to them, hence those people are very likely to buy your stuff too. I think the power of this speaks for itself, that’s why it’s one of the most used features on Facebook by advertisers.
- Finally, one tactic that very few people know about, and even less so know how to execute. And that is cross-site targeting. Meaning, Facebook can tell you the websites people visit, the things they buy, and other behaviors that aren’t actually done on Facebook. How Facebook does this is complicated, but it’s not always 100% accurate either. So, to double down on this you can cross-reference your leads with Google Adwords, meaning you can get SUPER detailed insights on your customer’s behavior and buying patterns. And once you have that data you can go back into Facebook and target new people who have those similar traits. How to do this is a bit complicated to explain and beyond the scope of this article, but suffice it to say that we’re currently working on an entire other article about it that will go up this week. So, give us a follow ;).
The above are some of the most effective marketing strategies on Facebook, and there are plenty more that you can learn. But what matters most is the actual execution. Knowledge alone doesn’t guarantee instant success, it takes a lot of learning and a lot of testing to get it right. You must be patient in the beginning. You can and will figure it if you put in the time.
Conclusion
With great data, comes great power. That’s why Facebook marketing is the single biggest opportunity for businesses right now.
It gives you:
- More post-purchase tracking than any other platform.
- More top of the funnel awareness than any other platform.
- A better ability to split you’re your customers into different groups based on where they are in the sales cycle which allowing to create specific ads for them.
- And it helps you understand exactly who your customer is.
It does all of that, at lower CPM than almost anywhere else. But it won’t last forever. Just like Google, Facebook Advertising operates in an auction-based platform. That’s why Google Adwords has gotten more and more expensive every year. Because the more bidders join the game (some refer to it as “pay to play”), and the more advertisers are willing to spend, the more expensive placing your ads will get. It’s hard to tell when exactly the prices will get high enough to make Facebook advertising less advantageous. But I’d say within 2-4 years this mass underpricing will be mostly over. That’s why the time to act is now, it’s a gold rush, and every day you wait is one less day of gold mining for your business. So, stop reading this and execute.
Thank you for reading. Until next time, this is David Gil. And remember for short and quick MGR marketing updates, be sure to subscribe to our Podcast at www.MGREdge.com
Photo by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash
