Your Target Customers Are on Facebook
Speaking of active users, there are over 1.86 billion monthly active Facebook users as of 02/01/17. (Source: Facebook) That’s a seriously important pool of potential customers no business can afford to ignore.Since almost everyone uses Facebook, it’s easy to see why it’s such an important avenue to reach your target customers. In fact, 1.23 billion people log onto Facebook every single day.* Facebook targeting is extremely powerful. You can hone in on who you want to see your ad according to their location, profession, personal habits, age, gender, interests and hobbies… you name it, you can target it. (Not to mention the amazing power of Facebook pixel tracking… but that’s a subject for a whole other blog post.)Facebook and Brand Awareness
One of the most important marketing goals for any business should be to establish brand awareness.You want to make sure that your current followers hear from your business regularly as to remind them of your existence (“hey, remember us?”), but you also want to reach new people who may have never heard about your business. All of these people might not be ready to buy from you today, but when they are ready to buy – tomorrow, next month, or next year – you want to make sure that they know about you and think of you first.I’d argue that today, in 2017, there is no better tool available for creating brand awareness than Facebook ads.And guess what?It’s completely affordable.Cost Comparison
At Merged Media, we start out our A/B testing of Facebook ads at as little as $25-$50 per ad, in order to gauge the response. Does the ad resonate with our target customers? Is the image and language engaging the people we want to reach? With Facebook ads, you can apply just a small budget to two ads to test the response and make sure that your ad is doing what you want it to do. Then, once you know what’s working, you can increase your budget.Depending on your goals, the size of your business, and your marketing budget, your monthly Facebook budget might be $100, $250, $500, $1000… that’s up to you. Your goal should be to be to pay a maximum of $0.99 per click. We consider $0.15 to $0.99 to be a good CPC (cost per click) rate, depending on the industry. Doing A/B testing first will help to ensure that you’re on target, and from there, you can check on your ad and continue to tweak the target audience as you go.What About Other Digital Marketing Ads?
Another great thing about Facebook ads is that they’re synonymous with Instagram ads. Facebook owns Instagram and all of the advertising is run through the Facebook dashboard, so when you create a Facebook ad, it will reach users on either platform, based on the target audience attributes that you select.No other platform even comes close to producing Facebook’s results when it comes to advertisements.In almost every case, Twitter ads are not nearly as successful as Facebook.Even LinkedIn is advertising on Facebook! How hilarious is that? The irony is not lost on us. 🙂
And Google Adwords? That’s a whole different animal. Google Adwords targets people who are already actively searching for specific keywords. That’s great if people are looking for your service or product right now, but it does very little to help build your brand awareness. Plus, Adwords is a lot more expensive.The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that Facebook advertising works. You can reach people who you never would have been able to reach before, and the costs are nominal. Of course, maximizing the effectiveness of your Facebook ads does take some expertise. If you need help with your Facebook ads, get in touch. We offer a free marketing consultation and we’d be happy to take a look at your business and make some recommendations about what would work best.*** *Source: https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/Why Choose Facebook for Marketing
Facebook marketing costs less than radio or television and, done well, has a measurable effect on sales. It reaches the widest audience of any social network, from teenagers to seniors, and most of that audience is on mobile, so ads reach people on the go. The more often a targeted audience sees and interacts with a business, the more likely they are to buy.
Range of ad formats
Facebook offers more ad formats than any other platform, with text, image and video options for every stage of the funnel, from building awareness to driving a direct call to action.
Content and responses
Strong organic content can work as well as an ad because it is less obvious and more useful, and it gives you another way to engage your audience. Responding to comments takes effort but builds credibility and often converts a question into a customer.
Improving ROI with Facebook Ads
Return depends on three things you control. First, targeting: narrow audiences by location, interests and behaviour, and use custom audiences built from your website visitors and customer list. Second, the landing page: an ad that points to your homepage wastes budget, so build a page that matches the ad. Third, measurement: install the pixel, define a conversion, and judge campaigns on cost per lead rather than reach. Test one variable at a time, cut the losers weekly and move budget to what works. Our Facebook advertising service covers all three.
