Are you spending money on social, but would like to get even better Facebook advertising results? If you have launched into the world of social advertising, you have witnessed why it’s so exciting.

For literally a fraction of what we spent in the past on print advertising, you can achieve much more affordable, measurable and speedy results with Facebook advertising. While you can save money on print marketing by investing in your own slitters cutters creasers machine and creating your marketing materials in-house, if you are trying to reach a younger, tech-savvy audience then Facebook advertising is the way to go.

Why is Facebook Advertising So Effective for Small Businesses?

Facebook has a ton of information that allows it to “know the people” better than you can. You know your business, but Facebook knows the preferences, interests and demographic details of the buyers.

Also, Facebook is non-interruptive. A well-created ad feels like part of the stream and is interesting to the reader.

Finally, Facebook is very visual, which allows it to compete as a compelling platform more effectively. When people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later. (Source)

To ramp up the effectiveness of your Facebook advertising, here are some tips to optimize your results.

Know Your Goal

To be effective, you should start with the end goal in mind. Know what is it that you’d like to accomplish with your ad before you do anything. You also need to know your Facebook Budget before you do anything so you are not spending too much or too little on your ads. This will affect how you write the copy, select an image to use, and of course, chose the target demographics that will receive the ad in their streams. Goals could include any of the following:

• Increase your number of followers.
• Drive foot traffic to your location.
• Promote sales.
• Sell tickets to an event.
• Get people to your website.
• Gain market name recognition.

Visualize Your Target

Knowing to whom you are advertising for this purpose is key. This “to whom” is called a persona. A clean detailed persona is one of the most important things you can do for effective advertising.

For example, writing a letter to your mom is very different than writing one to your nephew. This explains why there are so many different “categories” of birthday cards at the drug store. You simply will lose effectiveness if you try to write ads that are for “everybody.”

Before you get going, answer some basic questions about your target profile, such as:

• Gender: Male or female?
• Age: Milennial? Baby boomer?
• Neighborhood: Suburbs? High-rise? City? Suburban?
• Interests: Music? Fashion? Kids? Health?
• Parents: Does this person have kids? If so, how many? What ages?
• Misc: What type of car does he/she drive? What are his/her politics? Educational background? Income? Typical day?

The more detailed you are, the more effective you can be with your advertising.

Have Something to Offer

Once you’ve determined your goals and know to whom you are selling, you need to determine how you’ll motivate these targets to take your desired action. So think about that audience and what they’ll find interesting or helpful. You may offer them:

• Interesting “behind the scenes” information to build page likes
• A coupon to promote sales
• Information about an upcoming event to sell tickets
• Photos or videos of recent work or products of yours that inspires page likes
• A complimentary e-book or infographic to gather contacts
• An expert interview to position yourself as knowledgeable
• An update in services to bring back old customers

Your ads don’t always have to feel like the print ads of yester-year. Sometimes an indirect approach works just as well as a direct approach. But if you truly want to entice your target audience with a better approach, sometimes hiring a professional, like an Affordable PPC Expert, can be a huge difference-maker in your marketing campaign. For more info on advertising options go online.

Find an Engaging Photo

The use of photography has become increasingly important for getting better engagement of Facebook adverts. It’s why people are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to take interesting pictures which is why gadgets such as the GoPro and DR Drones (found at drdrone.ca) have become so popular. Everybody wants to find a new perspective, however, if you’re not confident in taking your own photographs, you may want to select stock images instead. Using all of your information above, selecting photography that both tells your story and appeals to your audience is a must. This company, Cowboy Up Men’s Salon, uses a dark-tinted photography approach to appeal to men. This one image gives you a pretty great idea of what they are selling and to whom.

Alternatively, Kiddie Academy uses photos of kids to appeal to parents. It’s bright, colorful and cute!

When considering imagery for your ad, you are not only limited to a photograph. Perhaps you have a cool statistic that you’d like to share and can display that with an image. Or maybe you’re offering an infographic – that would certainly serve as a useful image to use. If you struggle with creative images that showcase what you are offering, it can be worth seeking the advice of an ad agency jacksonville, or wherever you are based, as they will be able to point you in the right direction.

Summary

Marketing is all about testing and tweaking. Run through this exercise periodically, evaluating and changing your target, approach, or even your goal as you strive to increase your results. There is no magic bullet or one size fits all. If you’d like to get some complimentary help building your first ad, we’d be happy to help!