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With Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg lighting up the news with on-going privacy concerns, Facebook suffers only slightly from some negative press and a few account deletions.

Then there’s Facebook’s January announcement that they were making changes to their algorithm (again), causing some to overreact by suggesting that Facebook advertising is dead.

I prefer to think of Facebook ads like temporarily depressed blue chip stock ready to rally and out perform all expectations. Like blue chip stocks, Facebook and Facebook advertising aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Advertisers needn’t worry. Facebook reports 2.13 billion monthly active users for Q4 2017 and 1.40 billion people logging in daily. That’s billion with a ‘b.’ Usage has been growing steadily (some might say ‘aggressively’) every year.

When you factor the lifetime value of a customer with Facebook’s ability to help businesses nurture customers, resolve customer service issues and respond to changes in public perception quickly, no small businesses can afford to ignore Facebook anymore.

Simply put, changes to Facebook’s algorithm should reduce noise and clutter in a user’s content feed. This is good. But it also means that not everyone who has ‘Liked’ your business page will see it in their regular feed. That’s still okay. Soon, you’ll see why.

All that data that Zuckerberg promises to do a better job of managing and protecting? This data unlocks every marketer’s dream: highly targeted customers on-demand. It’s the best advertising buy in today’s crowded marketplace for a reason.

To borrow a misquote attributed to Mark Twain, “The reports of Facebook advertising’s death are greatly exaggerated.”

Yet there does seems to be a serious disconnect among small business owners and their Facebook advertising.

Citing research done last year, smallbizmarketing.com reports 80% of small businesses use Facebook for marketing. Yet inc.com, also referencing 2017, reported that 62% of small business owners say Facebook ads don’t work.

Let me repeat: 62% say their Facebook ads don’t work. Another 20% of small businesses aren’t even trying.

What do successful Facebook advertisers know – the 18% – that the majority do not?

They know how to marry Facebook’s tools with good advertising campaigns written specifically for the nuances of Facebook.

Trite but true: Knowledge is power.

Who do you want your ads to reach?

We know the following about Facebooks’ current demographics, which you should slice and dice into smaller sub-groups to fit your target market:

Slightly more women use Facebook than men, 83% to 75%, according to sproutsocial.com. The geographical split is quite interesting with 81% of both urban and rural people being on Facebook compared to 77% of their suburban counterparts.

The youngest Baby Boomers are now over 50 and the oldest are 70-ish. Facebook organizes their demographic age groupings a little differently, counting those ’65 and older’ as part of their smallest demographic group. But you can still use Facebook ads to reach an amazing 62% of these older consumers.

If the oldest users make the smallest demographic block on Facebook, there’s no surprise the youngest users, people within the ages 18 to 29 years and within 30 to 49 years, make up the largest two blocks. If these age groups reflect your idea customers, Facebook ads have the potential to reach 88% and 84% of them, respectively.

The bottom line for any small business owner is:
Facebook is the 600-lb gorilla within social media
Every advertising dollar must pay for itself and much more.
If an ad doesn’t produce leads or revenue, cut it or fix it quickly.
Good Facebook ads and ad campaigns differ from traditional ads and campaigns.

Facebook helps you as a small business owner address those bottom-line advertising facts with an analytics tool called the Facebook Pixel. Simply install it in the header of your website. The Pixel tracks who is coming to your site and what they are doing when they get there.

Knowing who is attracted to your website, what pages they are visiting, and what your visitors are doing while allows you to tweak an underperforming web page, beef up or change your marketing message, spot opportunities for new products and services, and recapture business that otherwise might have just faded away…

You may be familiar with Google analytics for measuring the effectiveness of your web pages. Facebook Pixel tracks and provides even more nuanced information about your visitors, then allows you to stay connected with them with follow-up advertising.

This is targeted and responsive advertising on a whole different, interactive level.

Let’s look at advertising differences on Facebook and Google for a moment.

Google guards their actual calculations behind their Google Adwords valuations like uranium. Whatever the formula of the day is, they base their pay-per-click (ppc) prices on number of views for a specific keyword search.

A selling point for Google ppc campaigns is that people searching a keyword or keyphrase are assumed to be at least mildly interested in the subject. Your ad gets exposed to a percentage of these people and you pay only when they click on your ad. That’s all the control you get.

See how you stack up against your competition and see what it is like to work with us for free. Let us do a free assessment of your website, web presence and marketing campaigns. We will show you how you can generate more leads without spending any more money.

Facebook doesn’t have anything like ‘keyword’ searches. Therefore, some point out you can’t assume any interest – even mild interest – in your Facebook ad.

But on Facebook, you are able to put your ad in front of people with the same demographics, same interests and needs, same income and potential discretionary income as your best customers. You can do this with scalpel-like precision.

We already know the psychology of people and their buying habits are very similar among like-minded and like-advantaged people. That beats potential ‘mild’ interest in my book, but as they say on late-night infomercials: “But wait, there’s more!”

Remember the old marketing Rule of Seven? It says that a prospect needs to see or hear a marketing message at least seven times before they take action and buy.

Once you have created the perfect Facebook ad, one that fits into the Facebook culture, then the Facebook Pixel gives you ultimate control to reach out to that same person again. Try that with Google Adwords.

There’s only one downside I know to the Facebook Pixel. You get one pixel to install per Facebook account. That means you have to choose where and when to use it. (Yes, you can move it to a different page later to track and follow different visitors depending on your marketing strategy.)

For example, let’s say you have chosen to place the pixel on your sales page. When a visitor comes to your site and makes a purchase, the Facebook Pixel takes notice and records the action. Now you can automatically send follow-up Facebook ads for complimentary products and services.

But what if your visitor comes and doesn’t make a purchase, book an appointment, or take whatever action you want? Happens all too frequently, right? The Facebook Pixel records that as well. You can set those customers to be retargeted with specific Facebook ads.

Retargeting is one of the genius concepts behind Amazon’s massive success. While your business can’t compete with all of Amazon, it doesn’t have to. You can use the same strategies to keep your products and services front-of-mind during your customers’ buy cycles.You’ve experienced retargeting yourself. Say you are on-line researching which vitamins or minerals might stop those pesky leg cramps which have started waking you up at night. Now for days or weeks afterwards, ads for magnesium, potassium or B-1 start appearing on the right-hand side of your browser’s pages.

This is retargeting. The Facebook Pixel allows you to choose to which visitors you want to automatically retarget your ads. You can have your ads repeat to people who have visited your website or those who actually visited your opt-in page but stopped short of providing their emails.

You can retarget people who put products in a shopping cart but had second thoughts and abandoned the cart and site altogether.

You can also create a customer audience for your ads using specific parameters.

For example, use Facebook data to create ‘look alike’ audiences— those people who are similar or have many traits in common with your best customers. Just like the popular CBS television program Bull uses ‘mirror juries’ to help them understand the thought processes of the courtroom jury, you can use the demographics, interests and behaviors of your best customers to find and connect with people similar to them.

It makes sense that others who share the same demographics, traits and interests as your best customers probably have similar needs for your products and services. Facebook helps you find them and gets your business in front of them.

The pixel itself provides you with the information you need to decide what advertising strategies to employ and when. The more you learn about your customers, the easier it is to craft effective ads and a good marketing plan to capture business and serve more people.

No other social medium comes even close to providing the exposure nor the targeted flexibility of advertising on Facebook. Soon, your business can be among the successful 18% and we’ll see this number grow.

Chris Field

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Why You Should Reconsider Facebook Ads

If you find yourself agreeing with the 62% of small businesses surveyed by inc.com last year who said Facebook advertising doesn’t work, listen up. Facebook advertising is too nuanced to simply say ‘Facebook ads don’t work.’

What is true: The ‘same ol same ol’ generalized ad won’t work for Facebook because social media is dynamic. That’s like using a hammer and chisel when you should be using a laser. You must understand how to create a successful social media ad, which differs from a regular print ad. Otherwise, yes, Facebook ads ‘won’t work.’

First, let’s talk about the ONE area where traditional rules do not necessarily apply. Facebook is all about images…it’s the FACE in Facebook. You need a great visual that attracts attention, first and foremost. Untypical of usual ad rules, your image doesn’t have to relate directly to your text. But it does have to be good.

Consumer Acquisition reports that 75% to 90% of your ad’s success rests on your selected graphic. That’s a huge percentage, but it makes sense.

If your image doesn’t draw the attention of your prospects, they won’t read your awesome ad copy. But if your graphic delivers attention, then your terrific headline, text and offer can seal the deal.

Go for a clean image so the eye can see at a glance just what you want to communicate. Ideally, your entire ad should instantly communicate to your reader:

Your distinct offer
Benefits they’ll receive
What they should do next

Alternatively, your artwork can be cute or humorous or even unusual so the brain does a ‘double take’ to verify what it sees. But these are riskier strategies (albeit there are ways to reduce your risk that we’ll address in a moment.) The style of image you chose must fit your brand. If your brand isn’t edgy, don’t try it. Go for something that visually arrests or appeals, even if it’s not fine art.

Back in the days when direct marketing was king, no successful advertiser would even consider rolling out a big campaign to his entire mailing list without testing the heck out of his package. Printing costs, premiums, postage – it was much too expensive to make such a gamble.

So why would you gamble your campaign on an untested image? It took direct mail companies weeks before they knew which package beat their control. With the speed of the Internet, you’ll know right away what adjustments to make.

Use the same type of A-B split testing to identify which image resonates best with your audience. Test a dozen or so images with a portion of your audience, keeping every word of your headline, text and layout the same except for the image. You’ll determine fairly quickly which image out performs the others.

Once you have identified the best image for your purpose, split test other components of your ad. Test heads, test layouts, test copy or colors until your ad performs the way you want.

Do all this work and you still can’t expect a winning Facebook ad campaign if you don’t have a great offer, one that can’t be ignored. So let’s talk about that.

Copywriters make their living using the ‘power of one.’ Simply put, they look for one big idea for their ad’s appeal. They don’t want two ideas, only one.

Why? Two ideas — however great — dilute focus and confuse your audience. Confused people don’t buy. Nor do they give their email addresses or book appointments. They click away.

You can advertise price. You can advertise convenience. You can advertise function. But you shouldn’t advertise price, convenience and function together. Pick one.

When you are excited about your product, it’s natural to explain its features. But people don’t buy products for features. Rather, they buy benefits they expect to receive from those features.

Good copywriters know we make decisions with our hearts, with our emotions. We then use ‘logic’ to reinforce our decisions, causing many people think their decisions are logical. They are not. They are still emotional. Try to write your ads with both in mind.

Speak to the emotional need then provide enough details for the head to agree with the ‘click’ the heart wants to make.

Think this is hogwash because you sell industrial equipment not jewelry?

All the decision makers in a company – The fleet manager, division manager, CEO – these are all people first who have deeply-seated emotional needs to make good decisions, and to not look foolish by making poor ones. Buying industrial equipment involves a lot of money. It can feel risky. Risk registers as emotion.

So how do you uncover those emotional needs? The old rule is to come up with all the benefits you can think of for every special ‘feature’ your product/service has. But don’t stop there. For every benefit you list, ask yourself SO WHAT?

Imagine you sell used motorcycles. Your Suzuki VStrom 650 has a gas tank that holds 5.8 gallons of fuel. That’s a feature. What is the benefit of that feature? As your prospective buyer, the benefit is that I won’t have to stop as often for fuel. “So what?” Well, I can ride my motorcycle to more ‘out of the way’ places without risk of running out of gas. “So what?” So, the adventurer in me has no restraints… See? Now you are getting down to something that resonates emotionally with me, your would-be buyer.

When you know what your customers really care about, you’ll know the emotional words to pack into your ad.

Now let’s think about your offer. Facebook ads are brief by definition. You aren’t going to be selling an actual car through a Facebook ad but you can gather leads, pique interest, build familiarity with your dealership, announce sales and special events and even book appointments for test drives. But that’s all about your business needs.

To write a successful ad that speaks to your potential customer, ask yourself:

How will my offer improve my reader’s life? You’ll know because you’ve drilled down every benefit to get to the underlying benefit and the emotions it evokes.

The copywriter’s ‘power of one’ secret is also a reminder to write your ad with just one client in mind. Don’t speak to the world. Speak to the one. Know all you can about your ideal customer and what action you want him or her to take.

The magic of this ‘power of one’ is that many ‘ones’ will feel as if you understand them personally, and they’ll respond to this uniqueness in droves.

Whatever your amazing offer is, write it with ‘the click’ in mind. In any sales copy, the purpose of the headline is to get your prospect to read your lead. The purpose of the lead is to get them to read more. Every sentence must deliver the reader to the next sentence. If it doesn’t, you fail.

Facebook ads must do the same, just with far fewer words. Every word counts and every word must propel your reader to the next.

The sweet spot is about 40 words of text. Facebook limits you to 90. Make every word count. You may have 90 words but don’t be tempted to use your allotment. Remember, your ideal ad communicates your message at a glance. Fewer words, the better.

Facebook has also been known to cut text short of 90 words when screens are small. Make sure you use your preview feature to make sure everything is just as you want before you publish.

The ad itself has but one job: to get the click. A simple flick of the thumb or forefinger doesn’t sound like much. We think that if we write a compelling ad and have a great offer, people will automatically exert this little bit of effort. They don’t. You can improve your results by telling people what you want them to do next. If it’s click through to a landing page, then tell them to click.

If it’s to call for an appointment, tell them (in no uncertain terms and with urgency) to call. Remember to make it easy for them by providing your number. Ads without the appropriate mobilizing information are wasted spaces.

For the most part, everything we’ve discussed today is solid advertising gold. No other media platform offers the kind of targeted exposure that Facebook does. Rightly so, it remains the darling of small businesses and entrepreneurs who learn to take the creative steps to make Facebook ads work for them.

Chris Field

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Why You Should Reconsider Facebook Ads

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