Does your business have a Facebook page?
If you do and you are only using it to interact with your customers, you aren’t utilizing the most powerful lead generation tool today. Although there are several sizable social media platforms today, Facebook is still the largest with 1.47 billion active daily users. A record 74% of Facebook users in America visit the site daily and spend approximately 58 minutes. (Source)
These statistics clearly show Facebook’s potential to boost the growth of any business. Other social media sites may be growing fast, but Facebook is still the largest and most viable for business. Given the platform’s 2.38 billion users as of May 31st, 2019 represent every single demographic imaginable; Facebook should be an obvious choice for any business looking to generate new leads. Here are some useful Facebook lead generation tips to consider.
Understand your target market
To get valuable Facebook leads, you need to do targeted marketing. You can’t possibly target all the 2.3 billion+ users on the platform since not everyone will be interested in your products or services. Facebook is such an effective online marketing tool because you can make ads based on demographics like gender, geographical location, age, and psychographics like hobbies and buying habits. The importance of knowing your ideal customer can’t, therefore, be overemphasized.
If you sell software, for instance, you should ask yourself questions like; how old is my ideal patient, what problem are they trying to solve with my software, how much money are they making, what are their hobbies/interests? Etc. Asking yourself these questions is important in creating the ideal customer who you can then find with Facebook ad tools. Remember, there is no need to place an ad in front of someone who wouldn’t be interested in your product or service.
Pick a Goal
Before placing an ad on Facebook, you must pick a goal for that ad. For instance, you may be advertising to get more “likes”, a larger following, more traffic to your site, etc. Choosing a goal is important for guiding your target audience to take the desired action. You can use information about your target market to pick a goal. If you are advertising to sell a product or service, the goal should be making your audience make a purchasing decision. If you want more followers, your goal should be signing up people.
Facebook has an advanced ad feature that “tells” you the average size of an audience based on the demographics you select. As you set up your ad, such features will guide you accordingly. You’ll notice that your audience size decreases as your target audience becomes more specific. Remember, it is better to have several thousand people who are highly interested in your product/service than to have a large untargeted audience.
Create a Great Ad
Although targeting is crucial, you don’t want to forget about the aesthetics of an ad. Great ads must have text and/or images that are irresistible to your ideal customers. Remember to differentiate your service or product from your competitors or have something enticing to convince your target customer to take the desired action.
A monetary reward (unbelievable discount) is a good place to start. If you are a doctor looking to attract new patients in your area, you can offer a free consultation for a day. In a nutshell, the ad you decide to put up must stand out. Since it will be appearing alongside your competitors’ ads, you must compete and win the attention of your audience if you want to generate sizable Facebook leads.
A general rule is to make sure you select an appealing image and text that is 20% of the image or less. Facebook has researched over the years and discovered that people tend to click on ads which have less text. Facebook also has video ad guidelines. Follow these guidelines to the letter since they are based on actual research.
Match Your Ad to Your Landing Page
This tip is particularly important to advertisers who would like to drive Facebook leads to their website. Your landing page must be consistent with your ad. If your ad is about special discounts to first-time buyers, your landing page should have the same offer. Your target audience shouldn’t land on your website and have to search for your offer. Such a disconnect will make most potential customers navigate away. You should have a clean, consistent, and easy to read landing page if you want a high ad conversion rate.
Have a seamless conversion process
You can get everything right from understanding your audience to having the perfect ad; however, if you don’t have a simple conversion process, your ad won’t be effective. Seamless conversion processes are about making it easy for potential customers to become actual customers. If your ad is meant to sell something, make the buying process as easy and frictionless as possible.
For instance, you can include all the popular payment options instead of restricting payment to a few options. If your ad is meant to sign up new customers for future offers, make a form that is brief and concise and place it on the landing page. If you want customers to call you, put your phone number clearly where a site visitor can’t miss it. You should also use a toll-free line if possible as potential customers are more likely to call if they won’t be charged.
Remember to make your landing page and entire website responsive. Since 2015, there are more people surfing the web via mobile devices than desktop computers. To guarantee seamless conversion processes, your website must be displayed perfectly on any device. It should also function correctly. If you have a “Call Now” button as the preferred action, it should be able to call directly instead of navigating users to your site and forcing them to dial numbers manually.
In a nutshell, Facebook is the most popular and powerful social media marketing platform, currently making it perfect for any business. If you use the above tips, you shouldn’t have problems creating ads that capture the exact audience you want and make them take desired actions. Once you generate Facebook leads, keep them engaged by offering useful content on your Facebook page.
