Once upon a time, a winning sales strategy involved creating a generic ad and posting it in a few high profile places. You hoped people would see value in what you’re selling to come calling for it.
Think billboards, phone book ads, mailbox flyers, etc.
That might have worked back in the 1960’s when people drank Scotch at work and watched Leave It To Beaver, but today, that’s a recipe for low ROI and even lower revenue.
See, here’s the thing…
You don’t just need leads in your marketing funnel. Anybody can generate leads, but that doesn’t mean those leads are any good.
You need quality leads.
People that really need what you’re selling. People who would love to work with you. People who can pay you what you’re worth.
But where can you find these fantastic leads that will feed your funnel and in turn increase your sales?
Facebook, of course.
Be Where Everyone Else Is
Yes, that Facebook, where roughly a quarter of the planet hangs out, connecting with family, keeping up with friends, and looking at ads.
Yes, Facebook can be a huge time suck, but it’s hard to overstate the marketing power of the social media behemoth.
Here are some current stats to drive home the point:
- Over 2 BILLION active monthly users.
- On average, almost 1.5 billion log into Facebook on a daily basis.
- Over 1 billion active daily mobile users.
You can be absolutely sure that your customers – your ideal, perfect customers – are hanging out on Facebook. A lot. As in, all the time.
But it’s not just about the number of people on Facebook.
It’s about the data.
The data gathered from all those users is a treasure trove of in-depth marketing information that goes way beyond the typical age, gender, location, and income qualifiers that you’re accustomed to targeting.
And here’s the crazy part: Facebook lets YOU use all their data to promote your offer.
With Facebook’s ad platform, you can tap into a rich, and deeply detailed level of data including interests, behaviors, and likes and dislikes that will transform the way you market and sell your products or services.
In other words, you can get your ad and offer in front of EXACTLY the right people.
The Power of Precision
But before you can tap into the power of Facebook, you need to know PRECISELY who your ideal client is. In other words, you need to know who you want to work with. You need to know what they like, hate, what TV shows they watch, who they look up to, and their hobbies.
Because once you nail this information down, you can get really, really specific with your advertising. You tap into the billions of data points Facebook has so that your ads are seen by people who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer.
For example:
- Are you selling advanced software that improves upon old coding methods? You can target young men (25-35) living in Silicon Valley who work in web development and design and who also adapt to newer tech earlier than others.
- Do you run a print shop specializing in unique greeting cards? You can target married couples and those in a relationship, those with an upcoming anniversary, or those who are celebrating a unique life event, like starting a new job.
- Do you run an online travel store and want to push a new line of adolescent luggage? You can ensure your ads land in front of frequent travelers that have one or more children between the ages of 3 and 12.
- Perhaps you created a study aid app for college students, and it’s only available for the iPhone. You can set your advertising to exclude those with Androids (until you’ve built that version too, of course)
The purpose is to dial into the audience that is going to be the most receptive to whatever it is you’re offering.
This dramatically maximizes your ad dollars and saves you time from sorting through useless leads that ultimately would have gone nowhere.
It’s all about getting the right ad in front of the right people.
Quality Over Quantity
Now it’s time to further qualify the leads that come in and then stuff your marketing funnel with a ton of high-quality prospects.
The first step in qualifying leads is offering some sort of freebie in exchange for their contact information.
It can be a free training webinar, a demo, simple giveaway, or any other small enticement that generates a click through and their info in return for the freebie. You get the point. You give something away, they give their email address.
This serves two purposes.
First, it narrows that initial target audience down to those with the most serious interest in what you offer, effectively serving as a second level of qualification.
Once these people hit your landing page or website and exchange their info for the chance to hear or see more, you’ve got them in your marketing funnel.
Now you have a highly qualified, highly motivated prospect that you can educate, further build a relationship with, and ultimately finalize a sale. Instead of wasting time and money on people that really don’t want to buy from you, you’re talking to red-hot prospects.
The other purpose of your Facebook ad (and the freebie) is that it identifies a second set of leads that you can continue to target through the Facebook ad platform.
You’re probably saying, “But that individual didn’t opt for the carrot and didn’t leave their info.”
True.
But they did click your ad, and Facebook can help you keep those fence sitters onto your side of the fence.
Play Along With Those Playing Hard to Get
Unfortunately, you can’t close every lead on the first try. You’re not Alec Baldwin from Glengarry Glen Ross (“Coffee is for closers!!”).
It would be pretty cool if you could, but the world is full of people who love to play hard to get.
Thankfully, there’s this little thing called remarketing that helps you keep these undecided buyers close at hand.
Remarketing (or retargeting) lets you target those individuals that showed some early interest but bailed out before making any commitment or providing you their contact info.
Chances are you’ve seen this in action before. When you view a product on Amazon and then begin seeing ads for that product everywhere else on the web, THAT is remarketing.
It’s a genius tool that helps keep you front and center with those interested leads who weren’t quite ready to commit the first time around.
Feed The Funnel, Feed Your Business
Your business is hungry.
Hungry for leads.
Hungry for clients.
Hungry for sales.
The Facebook ad platform gives you the perfect recipe to satisfy the appetite of your growing business.
It helps you create that perfect advertisement that cuts through a lot of noisy marketing and meets your perfect client head-on.
It then closes the back door by reaching out to those who liked what they saw but weren’t quite ready to come to the table.
The good news is that unlike the advertising of old, the targeted and high-quality approach taken by the Facebook advertising platform will never leave a bad taste in your mouth.