It’s already halfway through January and it is looking to be a great year ahead!

One thing I have been spending quite a bit of time with my clients is in their Facebook marketing.

Not the fan pages and business pages.

We love the power of the ads we run there… and the results we get.

3 years ago I ran some ads on Facebook for a seminar I was doing.

$15 in… $2,500 out in ticket sales.

Not a bad return.

That was loooong before Facebook advertising was the ‘in’ thing to do. If I remember right, there was not much for competition on Facebook for eyeballs.

While it is much more popular to do, it seems to me that the opportunity for all kinds of businesses is extensive.

One client I am working with on Facebook advertising is in a retail furniture environment. Custom made, specialized furniture.

We found that for our Google ads, we can easily target the people searching for specific types of furniture. And for every $1 in Google ads, we get 2 qualified visitors to their website. There is no such thing as website sales here – these are custom pieces and cannot be sold through a site.

So we drive them from their search term (obviously they are looking to buy with the words we use), to the ad, to the page, then into the store. We track in the store where they come from and lots of them do, and buy.

No discounts or special coupons needed.

But on Facebook, we cannot target buying keywords. People don’t go to Facebook to buy furniture – not yet anyhow.

So how do we target on Facebook?

At first, we know we can and should be targeting a very specific demographic (gender, age, and within a specific city, or at least near to it).

We test some ads and see what kind of traffic we can drive to the site.

Impressive!

What impresses me the most about Facebook ads for this client?

They are new to the city they are in. So their name is not commonplace, few people have ever even heard of them before.

They have been there for ~ 3 months or so now.

We have been testing the paid Facebook side for about 1 month of that.

But we have had their business name in front of 1 MILLION Facebook users (their business name is unique and memorable – definitely different than anything else in this city of 1.2 million people).

I will share why this is so important later.

I realize most of these people aren’t at all interested in buying furniture.

But many of them are clicking through the ad to the site, and coming in to the store.

So… we are getting qualified people into the store, AND getting our company name and message in front of 1 million Facebook users a month (yes, I know that some people are much more active on Facebook than others – but we are still getting in front of 1 million ‘people’ a month).

The best part?

Our Facebook ads are driving the same amount for traffic as Google – for HALF THE PRICE.

The next best thing?

Since we started running Facebook Ads, our local name awareness has skyrocketed.

How do we know? In 30 days, their main business name has now become one of the TOP search terms in our Google campaigns!

They are a new business to the area and 3 months into their existence – the top keyword this week was their business name.

Got to love it.

Facebook advertising has become a must-do for me and my clients.

Where else can you get in front of 550,000,000 users?(!)

Some tips for you to get going on Facebook ads
(again – we are only talking about the paid ads here – the non-paid is an entirely different discussion)

Some of the Pros:

Heavy useage by fb users – massive exposure of your ad to some incredibly targeted people (more on targeting below)

Graphics to draw attention – FB is ALL about the pictures. You can use wacky graphics (recommended) to draw eyes to your copy.

On Google (non display network) you can’t do this – Facebook you can.

Some of the Cons:

Facebook users are not there to shop… but they still do shop. Get their attention with a relevant ad, and they WILL shop.

Harder to target (if you were selling furniture on Google, you can target specific words they are looking for – can’t do that on FB as they aren’t searching to shop). You can target on other criteria, but it is not a platform like Google for exact keyword searches.

Some of the tools of Facebook advertising:

Who you are marketing to…

* 550 million people
* 57% women
* 43% men
* Those over 35 yrs of age are the fastest growing demographic

How you can target them…

* Location based targeting – country, state/prov, city, radius from locations
* Likes and interests
* Languages
* Age, Birthday (big opportunity for birthday based campaigns), Gender, Relationship Status (targeting newly married or newly divorced – easy to do on Facebook, not so on Google)
* Education
* Work or industry related
* Favourite movies, books, TV shows, music, extra curricular activities, hobbies and other interests. It also includes religion, political views and job titles.
* Those who are part of groups or communities
* Sports interests
* Target people who are friends with your connections.

Reporting shows you demographic breakdowns of who actually is clicking your ads – by age, sex, top tv shows, likes, interests – makes it VERY simple to further target your future ads based on the demographics of those who are actively clicking on your ads – or, alternatively, filtering out the clickers that aren’t buyers

How you can write effective ads on Facebook…

* Calls to action are very important here as well
* Headline is v important – and needs to match a Facebook style of headline
* Women AND men click more on ads with women in them
* 25 characters for title (same as Google)
* Can send them inside facebook or outside of it (your own page)
* Body copy 135 characters (far more than Google – which is a great thing for us writers)
* Target the graphics you use (new ads) to segments of your list who like certain tv shows – use the tv characters in your ads
* Use the ability to use graphics to your advantage – split test all kinds of wacky pictures and see which ones work best (Facebook is heavy on pictures – make sure you put more emphasis on this as it can easily get you more ‘eyeballs’.

Lessons learned…

* Get it all working with cpc then move (carefully) to cpm (cost per click will usually cost you more in the long run than cost per impression – but be careful and watch your reports carefully to make sure this strategy continues to work in your advantage)
* Again, powerful graphics work exceptionally well to get more eyeballs and ultimately more targeted clickers
* Cheaper than Google and up and running in very little time
* Facebook is helpful if you need to ask for their help

TEST IT… the numbers speak for themselves and my results have been exceptional

To your success,

Troy White

PS: There is no better tool out there for coming up with unusual marketing ideas for your Facebook marketing initiatives than the 2011 Cash Flow Calendar. The ultimate marketing plan for motivated entrepreneurs. Over 1,200 marketing ideas you can use to stand out on Facebook, or anywhere else you are doing lead generation and customer bonding.

PPS: I originally wrote this post yesterday for my regular article for the Makepeace Total Package

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