The quickest way to go from zero to a hero in starting a local business is driving sales with Facebook Ads.
Yes, you read it right, Facebook ads are great for small business marketing. No matter what kind of business you are dealing with or what kind of products and services that you are selling.
It only takes you to structure the right ad that drives traffic to the right funnel and targets the right prospect..
Table of Contents
What You Should Think about in Regards to Facebook Ads
This is what most local businesses have no idea. Time spent in tweaking and optimizing things around Facebook Ads turned into a wasted time.
They usually end up never able to establish why things are not working.
No Clicks – No Conversion
That is true, without clicks, you cannot convert. Your ad has to catch the eye of the audience long enough for them to read. Your copy needs to be compelling enough to get them to click. Without clicks on your ad, you can’t convert anyone.
That’s where you have to start! You have to get your ads to actually produce the results you want, be it an engagement; click to view a video, redirecting them to a landing or messenger platform.
Test Ads Before Destination
Ads traffic is important whatever the goal of your business or the destination is you can’t convert without them. It is best to test those outs before worrying about testing your destination such as landing page or form.
Where And Why: Creating a Sales Process
It is best to think about where you’re gonna send them and why. Moreover, there are different kinds of audiences that react better to different destinations. Thus this is something you have to take into consideration as well.
You can send people to messenger, a landing page, a Facebook group, and more. It’s important to put a process together.
Read: The Ultimate Guide To Building Multiple Income Streams
Messenger Forms
There are some markets that love messenger and some that don’t. Why is that? Perhaps, they’re a little confused on how to use it or maybe it’s not as commonplace in that market. How would you know about it then? Of course, by testing the ads. You won’t know without testing.
Read: Facebook Bot and Business: What You Need to Know
Booking Link – Set An Appointment
Send them a booking link if this is something where you feel like you can get that actual commitment either for a call or for an appointment, you could absolutely send them directly to that link.
A Free Option is to use Calendly. We’ve used this platform and it’s a good way to get people’s contact information and remind people about their appointment.
Test lead forms so they can generate more leads, but sometimes the information is not always accurate. You should also take note that there are definitely some do’s and don’ts with lead forms;
Lead forms can sometimes be a little lower quality. However there are ways to absolutely maximize them and increase the quality. If you don’t have strong follow-up systems, lead forms may not be the best option for you.
This is something you have to think about. You should think about why you’re sending them to the place you’re sending them. Then, figure out how you’re gonna optimize that when you start to generate traffic.
How to Think About Your Facebook Ads:
- First, the ad offer
- Then, the audience
- Next, the creative copy
- Finally the destination
- Then tweaking to follow up
Many marketing platforms out there offer a great marketing ad strategy for small local businesses.
They even offer sponsorships, brochures, email marketing, content marketing and social media posts. But why are Facebook ads dubbed as the powerful tool for content marketing by small local business owners?
Facebook Ads makes the small business owners worth their time, and it usually works for every scale of business.
Targeting Your Audience
There’s an audience out there looking for your specific products and services and all you have to do is find a way to reach them. No need to magnetize hundreds or thousands of customers but instead targeting the right audience for your market and dealing with them.
Small businesses aren’t about the quantity of customers but actually sustainability and of getting engagement with your customers. This Is where Facebook ads come in to help you narrowcasting the right audience for your business.
Facebook ads for small business can target people based on:
- Language: The languages they speak
- Age: Their age
- Location: Based on country, city, state, or zip code
- Interests: Listed interests, pages they like, topics related to interests, even pages their friends like
- Retargeting: Using a tracking pixel to target people you have taken activity on your website
- Device: The device they access Facebook from, including mobile, tablet, and desktop
- Custom Audiences: Email addresses that you upload to use for targeting
This kind of targeting is cutting through the noise and delivering content only to the highly-targeted people who care about what you have to say. That also means that you are not wasting your time, money and effort to people who will never be interested in what you have to offer.
Clear Reporting – Measure and Track Your Ads
Facebook delivers a variety of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) metrics that can help every small business assess the engagement rates of their ad campaigns.
- Reach: The number of people shown your promoted ads in their news feed
- Cost per click: Cost per page like, website click, or other goal you choose
- Total spend: The total amount you spend on an ad campaign
- Click through rate (CTR): The percentage of people who clicked after seeing your B2C marketing ad
- By very clearly showing you the cost of each action, Facebook makes it easy for you to figure out if your campaigns are getting good KPIs with these engagement benchmarks.
- If you know reach, click through rate, and cost per action, you can easily figure out how expensive it is to increase website traffic to your landing page, or to sign up for your email list.
- Customer acquisition costs are relatively easy to calculate, and the low cost of Facebook ads means it’s easy to A/B test copy and image combinations to find the best conversion rates before you go all in with your ad spend.
Staying Relevant
Small local businesses need to be marketing belligerent in order to stay relevant. Small local businesses are also in a local community where building relationships are very important.
There’s no better way than social media. It is significant to develop that trust, that sense of credibility and build a connection with your audience on a different level.
How Does This Work For Small Local Business Owners?
You should have a clear picture of what you can do to succeed. Avoid being irrelevant in your community, being active in the Facebook platform is the key.
Make sure that you’re going to be for years to come that you are front and center in the minds of the consumers in your community. Maybe what you’re doing right now is working just fine. But you feel like it could be working better potentially what you’re doing is working really well now. But it could stop working so well in the future.
Be aware of the competition in your marketplace. You’re also competing against online or e-commerce businesses in many industries.
There are big corporations that have massive marketing budgets. You’ve got to find a way to stand out. A lot of those big businesses are not doing this type of marketing so it becomes an amazing way to really set yourself apart.
Things to Focus on Improving ROI on Social Media or Any Marketing Platform:
- You should have an accurate game plan and strategy that will guide you at every step.
- You should deliver the precise offer to make your audience excited to convert.
- You should be providing them the exact content that they need in order to build connection with your audience.
- You should know the tricks in following up in converting your leads into a customer.
Once these four things are done rightfully, it is guaranteed that you’re gonna see the results that you’re looking for with your Facebook Ads or even in any marketing platforms.
Does your business have each of these clearly defined?
That is great and you are already one step forward to achieving success. If not, you’re already missing out before you ever get started. You need to ensure that you’re focusing on not just marketing your local business, but marketing it the RIGHT way, otherwise, you’re destined to waste time and money.
When shouldn’t you use Facebook ads for small business?
While it may be true that Facebook ads are a powerful content marketing tool, there are situations where paid promotions aren’t the best fit. Here are some of the few reasons that you should not use facebook ads.
- You don’t know your audience!
- Audience is not on Facebook!
- Scaling up in a big way!
There are small local businesses that don’t need Facebook ads strategy. So what happens a lot of times is that businesses will do it partially and when things aren’t working the way, they will stop.
Businesses can be inconsistent. It’s important to test and try things out for sometime.
Many small local businesses are simply providing offers, but have no audience-building strategy. Everyone sees their offer but is really unfamiliar with who they are. It’s important to build rapport quickly. Otherwise, it will be hard sell to get them to take that next step.
Overall, Facebook advertising for small business is not a one way process. It calls for a commitment to analyze, to strategize, and to connect with your audience.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Should I use a video ad or a picture ad?
It depends on the niche. In general, it will be better to do a video. A video will have more rapport.
Should I focus on Facebook Ads or Another Platform?
It depends on your product and service. If people aren’t searching for your term, use Facebook Ads and other social media platforms. If it is searchable, consider Google Ads.
How Much Money will I need to get Started?
You should have a budget of at least a couple hundred dollars per month. This gives you room to test and see different results.
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