Facebook Ads 101 : Use these strategies to gain new prospects.
Updated: Oct 22, 2021
The Rule of 7 - ever heard of it? The Rule of 7 is an old marketing principle that states that “your prospects need to come across your offer at least seven times before they really notice it and start to take action.” Lucky number 7 they say. But in todays online plethora of information, someone can come across your brand 861 times before deciding on you. Oh, you thought that you could just create an ad on Facebook, and a prospect would immediately engage or buy after one click? Oh, you thought that to advertise on Facebook it would cost you loads of mula? Think again my friends.
I want to make something very clear - you do not need to spend tons of money to run successful ads on Facebook. Try only $1 a day. Yes, that is right - and you can stop that ad at any time. It is all about how you set up and drive your customer funnel combined with a strong content strategy to implement.
If you are not advertising on Facebook and not taking advantage of that avenue, your FOMO should be real because yes, you are missing out. There is so much opportunity! So much possibility for reach, all thanks to Facebook’s very complex algorithms.
In this post, we will dive in Facebook ads, talk about setting up your funnel the right way to drive new business, and the importance of tailoring your content per audience.
What does Facebook tell us?
Facebook literally tells you best practices on how to get the most bang for your buck. Well, not necessarily bang for buck, but more so how to run ads successfully on their platform. Here’s what they tell us to do:
Adopt a full funnel strategy using different campaign objectives and formats to preferably reach differentiated profiles within an audience
Benefit from our platforms targeting potential by leveraging all our three targeting options: core audiences, custom audiences, lookalike audiences
Drive reached audience down the funnel by retargeting video viewers and website visitors
Ah ha! Thanks Facebook! This is an important to think about: how different people prefer to engage with your brand, and how do certain people prefer to get their information? Some people prefer to read long written posts, others prefer to watch short 15 second videos, others prefer to watch videos for 60 minutes or more, others get captivated by a photo with a link to an article or to your website...the list goes on. Gearing up content in different formats is essential.
You can then apply these different formats to Facebook’s 3 targeting options. Your core audience is your tailored general audience - for example women interested in Luxury, age 20-60. Your custom and lookalike audiences are more personalized than your core audiences. For example your custom audiences are from your CRM or your website visitors. Your lookalike audiences come from your custom audience and are people who are similar to your website visitors. They could also come from your emails, or people who watched 95% of your videos...etc. You are specifying your target more with each tier of audience, which gears you up to tailor your ads based on where they are down the funnel.
THE FUNNEL
“The biggest profitability comes from the ToFu” said Curt Mally in his online course (which I highly recommend taking) at the CXL Institute. And no, he was not referring to that block of condensed soy milk that’s high in protein, we are talking about the marketing funnel.
He breaks down the funnel into three sections:
ToFu | TOP OF FUNNEL | The Cold Market: prospects who have never seen your brand before and have no idea who you are or what you do.
MoFu | MIDDLE OF FUNNEL | The Warm Market: prospects who maybe have seen your brand before. Maybe they have engaged with your brand, or watched a video, etc.
BoFu | BOTTOM OF FUNNEL | The Hot Market: prospects know your brand - they have clicked on an offer.
ToFu: AWARENESS
When prospects are in the ToFu phase, they are typically aware they have a problem they are trying to solve and are looking for ways to solve it. They could also have no idea they have a problem, come across your ad, and then that ignites some curiosity.
During this phase, your M.O. is to start to build trust by helping the prospect with any questions they may have regarding an issue you can solve. Keep it informal, not salesy, and informative. The content does not have to talk about the exact problem your product or service solves. You are simply building trust and basically dropping easter eggs like Taylor Swift (if you don’t know that reference, google it).
MoFu: CONSIDERATION
This audience knows there are options for solving their problem, and they are looking to find the best possible option for them. They are more intrigued than TOFU but they still need to be gently nurtured before making a buying decision. Mally explains “Content for the MoFu should be educational and entertaining, and also introduce more information about your brand’s solutions.”
BoFu: CONVERSION
The prospects have enough information to make a decision, but want to know which solution is best. BoFu content is for people who have seen all their options and they are ready to make a buying decision. This content should encourage clicks to your sales or cart page. You want them to choose you over another solution so make it happen!
How to get ToFu to BoFu?
Curt Mally then relates Eugene Schwartz’s “Five Levels of Awareness” to the funnel:
So how do you get someone from the top of the funnel, to the bottom? It all comes down to The B.E.L.T Method. The B.E.L.T. Method builds brand awareness and authority. This method “indoctrinates the audience to the problem that your product/service solves, provides them with a logical solution or next step to move forward, and ultimately gets customers to invest in you.”
Here are the 4 steps to get strangers to customers using Facebook ads:
Each step of this strategy moves the prospect along the customer journey. When the prospect is in the Belief stage, your goal is awareness. You want to make them aware of the problem, product or service without being pushy. There should never be a “click here to see how great we are and why we’re the best” during this phase. During Engage, your goal is to nurture and engage with the prospect. Your goal during the Lead strategy is to lead your prospect to your solution (generate traffic & leads). This is where you can start to talk about how you’re great but don’t over do it. Once you are in the Transact phase, your goal is to get the prospect to convert with you, and choose your products or service over others so yes, you finally can brag about how great you.
Summary
We looked at how to target different audiences based on the customer journey using Facebook ads. You can run an ad for $1 a day with Facebook and the algorithm is so smart it will find those people who can become your future prospects. It is up to you to drive them down the funnel, and make them convert. The only way this can happen is by having ample content, in different formats, geared towards the right audience at the right time. The content has to be curated and relative to what stage they are in. If you are not running ads on Facebook, you’re leaving your money on the table. Go get your money, and start coming up with a Facebook ad content strategy today. As Yoda once said, “Do or do not. There is no try.”
Need help building your Facebook Ad strategy? No need to fear! M&P is here! Reach out today
and our team of experts will get your content created, and ads up and running.