It seems that everywhere you turn, marketers are talking about leads, leads and more leads. It’s true, to grow your business you need to bring in new clients and so you need to attract leads in order to be able to convert them into paying customers. Social media, specifically Facebook Lead Ads, is an excellent way to achieve this.
If you’re new to strategic lead generation, or if you’ve tried various strategies and tools with no success, then you may want to try a Facebook Lead Ad.
Essentially, a Facebook Lead Ad is a way to be able to capture someone’s details within the Facebook platform. Users click on an ad, they are then taken to a form which is prepopulated with the data Facebook has for them, then the details are held in the Ads Manager. You can then go and download a CSV file of your captured leads whenever you like.
If you want to have a look at some examples, you can look here.
Advantages of Facebook Lead Ads
They are inexpensive and easy to set up
You do not need a landing page or lead capture programs
The data will be viable, as it’s prepopulated
Great for mobile user experience
Disadvantages of Facebook Lead Ads
You are not sending people to you own website
There is limited space for you to craft your message
Not all CRM systems integrate into Facebook, so you may need to manually move data
If you’re not careful, you can generate a lot of low quality leads as the experience is so easy for users
Facebook Lead Ads are great if you are just starting out or don’t have the budget to create your own landing pages. With every tool, the better you plan, the better chance you will have of being able to generate leads for your business.
Have you used Facebook Lead Ads before? Will you use them to generate leads?
Since changes to Facebook’s news feed have impacted on the organic reach of a lot of pages, more and more publishers are turning to Facebook Advertising to supplement their current efforts. And if lead generation is part of the strategy, there will typically be a funnel of some sort involved.
Usually, this funnel would involve created a cold (sometimes icy cold) interest-based audience, creating a couple of ads and sending them straight to a landing page. This might not be the best solution for you. Instead, why not have a look at a funnel that engages people with some educational content in Facebook first before you send them to a landing page?
Here is an example of what you can do within Facebook to create warmth and engagement in an audience before you send them to a landing page.
Step 1
Take your existing email list and upload it into Facebook to create a Custom Audience (making sure your list is compliant).
Step 2
Use this to create a ‘Look alike’ audience. This is who you will target in your campaign.
Step 3
Set up an ad campaign with an ‘Video views’ objective
Step 4
Set up your Ad set to target the look alike audience you created earlier
Step 5
Create a video-based ad and publish it!
Step 6
After a few days, see if you have people watching your video for more than 10 seconds. If you do, then create a custom audience of those people.
Step 7
Set up a new campaign for your landing page
Step 8
Target the ad to the people who watch your video
And the best thing about the above is that you can use this strategy for any campaign not matter the industry or subject area. You can even add additional videos or other types of educational content at any point during the campaign if you want to have more engagement.
Also, the video can be one you upload or even a Facebook Live. Lastly, you can create a look alike audience of those who engaged with your video and start a new campaign!
One of the most popular questions I get asked is “So how do I know if social media is working for me?”. The obvious answer is in the increased sales and customers coming your way, but there are other metrics that can help you understand what’s working and what’s not, and how to use them to change up your strategy.
Now a small word of warning to point out here, you do not want end up in analysis paralysis, that is, with so much data that you have no idea what it is telling you, or how to even know what to stick with or change. So, try and use a maximum of 2 to 3 key metrics that are the most relevant to you and measure those at regular intervals (either fortnightly or monthly, which ever you can resource).
Additionally, you will use different metrics based on what your objectives are, and where you are in the marketing funnel.
Let’s look at what data you can use, depending on where you are in your online marketing.
Metrics for awareness
Here, you’ll be using social media channels to grow awareness of your brand, and let prospective clients know that you are available to help them. We also call this the ‘know me’ phase.
Examples of metrics you can use to see how your awareness is increasing:
Increase (or decrease) in Facebook fans, Twitter followers or Youtube subscribers
How much traffic you drive to your website from your social media content
Video views on your Facebook or Youtube videos
Metrics for engagement
Once you start to gain a following, you’ll be looking to engage with them to create a relationship and warmth towards your brand. This is also known as the ‘like me’ phase.
Examples of metrics you can use to see how your engagement is increasing:
Likes, share and comments on your Facebook posts
Retweets and replies to your tweets
Comments on and sharing of your blog content
Metrics for conversion
This, as the name indicates, is where your marketing efforts converts to financial opportunities in the form of sales, whether its repeat business or brand-new customers to you business. This represents dollars in the bank, and an easy way to measure your return on investment (ROI).
But, there are other conversion points you can be measuring. For example, if you are running a campaign where you are building your email database, having someone fill out a form and give you an email address (or even a phone number) is also a conversion.
Define what conversion means for you within a specific circumstance and then measure that.
Over to you
Now that you know what to measure, how will you know if your marketing is adding value to your business?
With all the controversy surrounding Facebook recently, the one thing it has highlighted for many businesses, is not to put all of your marketing budgets and resources in just one platform. In this article we’ll look at 5 ways you can use LinkedIn to grow your business.
As at February 2018, there are approximately 4.2 million Australians using LinkedIn, so the opportunity to meet new people and do business are significant. However, not everyone uses the platform properly and there is some bad behaviour that has popped up. If, like me, you’ve accepted a connection request, then immediately been bombarded with sales messages in your Inbox and email, then you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Let’s look at 4 ways you can use LinkedIn that is going to add value to your brand (and not annoy people along the way!)
Staying connected with your existing connections
Before you go off and find new people to connect with, have you looked at your current list of connections? When was the last time you engaged with their content, or reached out to them privately?
Start small – commit to 5 to 10 minutes a day where you like and comment on content, and even send a InMail or two sharing information that is of value. What I also like to do is use InMails to invite someone out for a coffee to catch up (or even a quick phone call) and see how I can help them.
How can you help your existing connections and be of service to them?
Stay connected after a networking event
So, you go to a networking event and meet some great people. What do you do next?
What you don’t want to do is add them to your email database straight away (unless you actually asked the if you could, then you have consent) and start blasting them with sales messages. Not only will you do some serious damage to your reputation and your brand, you’re likely to get reported for spam which has serious impacts on your online reputation with email marketing providers.
Instead, consider sending a connection request (personalised of course!) thanking them for their time at the networking event, and you look forward to connecting with them. At this time, do not send or push any sales messages, or even
Remember, this is not a race. Building solid business relationships takes time.
Use your LinkedIn company page to educate your audience
Your LinkedIn company page is a great channel to educate your audience about what you do and how you help. Share interesting content that helps your followers from a variety of sources (similar to how you would for your Facebook page). And use video to really help engage and connect with potential new audiences.
Sponsored posts can be used to amplify your own created content, to reach a greater audience. Make sure you are using this tool to drive traffic to your website, either to a blog article (just like this one!) or to a lead capture page).
Post interesting content from your personal profile
Just like you share content on your company page, it’s a great idea to share interesting and engaging content through your personal profile. This is an opportunity to showcase your expertise and demonstrate thought leadership in your industry.
Some tips on creating content:
Understand your audience and talk to them appropriately
Don’t be afraid to express an opinion
Use video natively as it will play automatically in the newsfeed
Test different lengths of content
Use the ‘Write an article too’ for long form content
One of the strongest ways for companies to engage and to communicate with their customers is through email marketing. By using email, they can keep in touch with their clients and inform them about their services and new products. The use of email marketing can amplify a businesses’ marketing strategy through nurturing existing contacts.
So how often do you need to send out your emails to your clients?
Based on Australian research, one possible reason why customers unsubscribe is because you send too many emails with not enough valuable content. Some people consider these emails as spam. Companies should be careful in sending emails to avoid their accounts from being reported. In Australia, there are strict rules that need to be followed to comply with the Australian spam laws. The following are the three simple steps that will help you do responsible email marketing and abide with Australia’s legislation.
Make sure that you ask for the person’s consent before you send this type of marketing. This is mostly done through Opt-in mailing lists.
In any email marketing, you should always remember to identify the organisation which is responsible for the sent emails.
The customers must have an option to unsubscribe with the emails sent to them.
Although there is really no hard and fast rule on how many times you should email your database because it depends on what you are trying to accomplish, you should always err on the side of caution. Regarding on how often you should send emails, there are some guidelines that you can follow in order to make sure that you’re still on track when it comes to updating your database.
Send email a minimum of once per month. If you blog once a month, or have monthly offers for your customers, this is the perfect frequency for you. Make sure you commit to once a month, and no less, as you still want to remain front of mind for your database
Send email a maximum of once per week. We recommend sending emails a maximum of once per week, unless you have breaking news or something urgent or compelling to say. When you send out emails in a daily manner, your customers will simply unsubscribe you or even report the emails as spam.
Clearly, there is really no perfect answer on how often you need to email your database. But one thing is for sure, whether how many times you send out, daily, weekly, or monthly, you have to remember that the content is the key to make your email marketing strategy effective. Always make it a point that your email provides quality, valuable content.
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
