As serial entrepreneur, CEO and founder of Vayner Media, Gary Vaynerchuck says –“If you’re a practitioner, if you really had to sell to survive, you would realise that the most under-priced ad product right now is Facebook Advertising. If you had to sell to feed your children, you would put your money there.” When executed properly, Facebook advertising is an extremely powerful tool for selling your products or services and growing your online presence. One of the biggest complaints I hear from businesses is that they’ve tried running Facebook ads but they just never seem to get significant results. There is so much more to running Facebook ads than simply posting about your product/service, giving it a boost and then hoping for the best. Facebook ads are a real art form and require proper planning and consideration. With the right strategies, Facebook ads can be extremely profitable and an incredibly valuable marketing tool for your business. In this blog post, I outline 3 Facebook ad mistakes you’re probably making and how you can avoid these so you can finally run ads that get you REAL results.
1. The message is wrong
The main reason why so many businesses fail at running successful Facebook ad campaigns is that they don’t get this crucial element right. Your copy, images and overall tone of voice needs to resonate with the audience that you’re trying to target. It’s really important that you take the time to think about who your ideal customer is and then properly plan your messaging around this person. Your ideal customer is that person who is an absolute pleasure to do business with. If you could have 100 customers just like this, who would they be? Take the time to write out who this person is along with what their struggles are and how your product/service can help them. Then, when planning out your message, answer the following questions. What is it that you want your audience to connect with? How are you going to present a solution to a problem that they have? How are you going to position and package your products or services in a way that solves these problems? Take the time to properly plan out your message and you’ll be on your way to running profitable Facebook ads in no time!
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2. You’re targeting the wrong audience
The next big mistake that most people make when running Facebook ads is that they don’t target the right audience. Again, this is where taking the time to properly research your ideal customer will pay off for you. Once you have a clear understanding of who this person is, it will be it will be SO much easier for you to target the right people. From here, don’t just boost your ad through your Facebook page. Actually take the time to set up an appropriate audience for your campaign, using the Facebook Ad Manager platform. In ads manager you can create custom audiences that target people who specifically interact with your Facebook/Instagram pages as well as people who visit your website. You can also set up interest based audiences and target people in specific demographics with niche interests. For example, if I were to run Facebook ads to promote this blog post, I could choose to target men and women, aged 25 – 55 who own their own business, are interested in entrepreneurship, online business and digital marketing and are fans of Amy Porterfield, Marie Forleo and Tony Robbins. Yes, you can get that specific! So take the time to do your research, set up the right audiences for your campaign and then watch as the sales roll in.
3. Terrible timing!
The next big mistake commonly made when running Facebook ads is that the timing of the campaign is completely wrong! Consider the following. What stage of the buying journey is your customer in? Have they heard of your business before or are they completely new? Maybe they have interacted with you but not yet made a purchase? Or, are they customers who know you well and have bought from you already? These questions need to be carefully considered before running a Facebook ad campaign. Different types of content need to be shared at different times depending on what stage of the buying process your customer is in. For example, we’ve all had that awkward experience where your walking through a shopping centre only to get stopped by Tim the personal training who tries to sweet talk you into signing up for a 12 month gym membership (that you know you’re not going to use) so you try to avoid him at all costs, even if that means pretending you just got an important phone call that can’t wait til later. You need to give people a reason to know, like and trust you before you go shoving offers down their throats. This is called warming up your audience. The best way to warm up your audience is to give them loads of value. Whether that be through a video tutorial showing how to use your products or maybe a blog post addressing one of your frequently asked questions. The more value you can provide them with the better. Then, once they get to know you, like you and trust you, only then should you present them with an irresistible offer on your product/service. The right timing is key. Get this element right and watch the magic happen.
Running Facebook ads doesn’t have to be a complicated and money wasting exercise. With the right planning and keeping in mind the above three components, Facebook ads can be a powerful tool that will sky rocket your business’ success.
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