Do you own an up-and-coming local business? And are you considering whether you should advertise it on Facebook or not?
Well, you should.
Why?
Because It’s a great way of attracting potential customers online.
That said, there are many “beginner” mistakes that people commit when they start running their own Facebook ads for business(es).
This article will show you how to avoid making said mistakes, but before that, we’ll highlight some of the key advantages of running Facebook ads for businesses first.
5 Advantages of Facebook Ads for Businesses (Small or Big)
There are numerous recommended marketing channels out there through which you can advertise for your business. They include:
- Sponsorships
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
- Brochures
- Social media posts
Surely you have noticed that big brands continuously advertise their products and services on Facebook.
So, the question is, do Facebook ads work for small, local businesses?
Yes, a big yes!
Here are some of the advantages of Facebook ads for businesses:
As a business, you simply cannot ignore Facebook. It’s huge. Millions upon millions of users flock to the website/app on a daily basis. These people spend an average of 145 minutes a day surfing their socials (according to Statistica), and Facebook takes a big chunk of that.
That’s why for starters, you need to create a well-designed Facebook page for your business. Then, you can start running ads through it.
We are simply way past the days where “the Internet is the future.” This is more of a “the future is now, old man” situation, and you need to keep up with the tide to make it.
#2 – Excellent Analytics
Facebook has one of the greatest analytics online. They continuously feed you with information about how your ads are performing. In other words, you will never find yourself having to make any guesses or assumptions about what is currently working in your favour and what isn’t.
Instead of having to determine how many people you reached and such, you’ll have everything of importance laid out in front of you using the Ads Manager (if you need to grant access, see here). Your sole task is to analyse them and decide what to do next.
You get access to your weekly reach, page likes, which posts performed best, and the engagement of each and every one of them. You can also get an idea of the number of clicks, conversions, and even online sales.
Analysing this data will help you to properly plan for what to do in the future in order to improve your online presence instead of playing a game of guesses.
#3 – Micro-Targeting
The targeting capabilities of Facebook are simply brilliant. You can literally target people based on something general like their locations, languages, age ranges, demographics, or something as specific as to their personal behaviours and interests.
In other words, if you manage to narrow down what your competitors’ fans are into, for example, you target them too, something that is perhaps unique to Facebook ads for businesses.
You will be able to eliminate people who don’t belong in your target audience. Effective advertising is about quality more than quantity. You want to get people who are highly likely to purchase whatever you are offering and not some random people.
Facebook’s great targeting capabilities are perhaps why it’s one of the most popular platforms for advertising online. You simply cannot find anything better.
They also give you the option to customise your ad based on what you want to achieve. Facebook dubs these as “objectives.” You can choose whether you want more page likes, website clicks, post engagement, etc.
This helps you to create a complete ad and helps the people (and robots) over at Facebook to better understand how to deliver your ads.
All this customisability helps you to create an ad that properly fits what your brand is going for, regardless of how small or big of a target audience you already have.
#4 – Cheap Leads and Conversions Through Proper Targeting
Facebook’s click-through rate or CTR is steadily increasing in comparison to the competition due to their ever-improving advertising tools. Business owners such as yourself are able to reach their target audiences more effectively than ever before, for a lower than usual cost.
You can literally pay the least possible amount to Facebook and still have access to all the features that can help you reach the people you want to reach, eventually making money off of your ad(s).
However, don’t think of it as this magical one-time thing. In fact, it’s the total opposite of that. Facebook ads hardly ever work properly the first time around. So, you will have to go through tests and trials to properly tweak them to your needs which will cost more money. But sooner than later, you’ll find that sweet spot, and you will hopefully start making a lot more money than you spend.
#5 – You Will Reach a Lot of People With Organic Posts
We simply cannot talk about Facebook ads for businesses without talking about organic reach.
Let’s say you have 10,000 likes on your business page. This does not mean that all of those 10 thousand people will see your post. In reality, only a tiny fraction of them will. I know it sounds illogical, but that’s the sad truth.
For the last five years or so, Facebook has been continuously updating how their website deals with business pages in a way that makes their visibility and reach lower each time. Mark Zuckerberg himself confirmed that Facebook aims to prioritise posts from family and friends over business pages.
So, if you plan to use Facebook for marketing in any capacity, you must first properly set up your ads and also set up a proper budget to support these ads. I’m not saying that you are going to need a lot of money, but it won’t be cheap as some people might say it is.
At the end of the day, you will get every penny you spent on those ads back and more if you utilise them properly.
We also recommend that you remarket. This is simply due to the fact that users who are already familiar with your brand or website will more likely see your ad and be interested in its content.
The first time people see an ad of your business on Facebook, they would probably just glance at it and continue scrolling unless they are by some chance extremely interested in whatever you are offering at the time, which is rare to come by in the first place.
Anyway, even if you manage to grab their interest a little, they still wouldn’t nudge for a lot of reasons, be it not knowing your brand, not trusting it, etc. However, if they see your ad again, they will most likely feel reassured, which means they might check your website out.
In conclusion, reaching people once isn’t enough. They should see your ad more than three times at least for them to check what it is about.
5 Rookie Mistakes to Avoid When Running Facebook Ads for Businesses
A lot of people end up making numerous newbie mistakes when they first set up an ad campaign for their businesses, and they end up generating many potential leads but with no conversions whatsoever.
There is no shame if you are one of these people; we live and learn. However, if you haven’t started it up yet, here are five rookie mistakes to avoid making when running Facebook ads for your business.
#1 – No Clear Objectives
The first and probably most important step to achieve success in any online marketing campaign is to have clear, reasonable, and measurable goals that you can base your strategy on.
Why do you want to run ads on Facebook?
Is it to:
- Generate more traffic on your Facebook page or website?
- Get more leads or conversions?
- Sell as many products as possible through a one-off promotion?
Having clear objectives before even starting your ad campaign can help you to accurately measure whether you are getting the desired results or not. If things aren’t working out, you can either pause the campaign or change its parameters instead of letting your marketing budget go to waste.
#2 – No Clear Value Proposition
Another common mistake is overlooking the campaign’s value proposition. You should clearly demonstrate why someone should bother doing business with you and not your competition.
Without a proper value proposition, you will miss out on the “Aha!” moment that your potential clients might go through.
Here are a few steps to follow in order to have a clear one:
- Describe the benefits or results that someone would get from clicking on your ad. Be short and precise.
- Make great use of visuals.
- Write something that is easy to understand.
- Create different versions of your value proposition and test-run them to see which one works best.
#3 – The Dreaded Set-and-Forget Mindset
This is among the most common mistakes that people commit when running Facebook ads. They set up an ad, let’s say for a month, and abandon it for weeks. Like we have said before, it’s critical that you closely follow and analyse how your ads are performing.
You also want to ensure that your target audience doesn’t keep seeing the same Ad over and over again. Once you get a good grasp of who are your potential customers, all you have to do is to monitor the ad closely then change things up.
When checking the progress for your Facebook ad, here are some key elements that you should keep an eye out for:
- Click-through rate
- Conversion rate
- Number of generated leads
- Ad performance
- Clicks by interest
Keeping an eye on your ads is the key to a successful marketing campaign. You need all the data that you can get, which will help you improve your productivity as a whole.
#4 – Limiting Ads to Sales Funnel Only
Another common mistake that people commit in regard to Facebook ads for businesses is utilising said ads solely to sell their services or products. I’m sure you know that no one likes a salesperson who continuously flashes their product in everyone’s faces.
Instead, you should try to create a connection with as many people as humanely possible. Yes, you do eventually want them to buy whatever product or service you are offering. But that should be your endgame.
One example of this is by creating ads that talk about the benefits of doing business with you, client testimonials, success stories, etc.
#5 – Poorly Matched Facebook Lookalike Audiences
When running Facebook ads for businesses, you should make use of a lookalike audience. It will help you find new potential customers who are similar to an audience that you yourself can control, such as website traffic, a customer list, etc.
People get easily confused when creating a lookalike audience which can lead to many problems once their ads are up.
One easy way of avoiding this is by creating a lookalike audience based on past customers. The recommended number of people that you need to create a decent lookalike audience is around 1,000 customers.
Get in Touch with a Facebook Ads Specialist
Although Facebook does make it easy to create ads, you still need to master targeting, copywriting, design, and other aspects to start seeing real results. Worry not, though, as we’re here to help. If you don’t feel like running your own Facebook ads, check out our services!
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