Why do Facebook ads work for small businesses?
By Cathy Wassell
Due to changes in Facebook’s algorithms, designed to deliver more relevant content that its users will enjoy the most, organic Facebook posts are less effective than they once were. But the news isn't all bad on this front - Facebook ads are ideal for small businesses wanting to drive relevant traffic to their website or to generate leads or sales enquiries.
Here are some of the reasons that Facebook ads work for small businesses;
1: The Low Cost of Facebook Ads
Facebook ads can be incredibly cost effective, especially compared to other forms of online advertising. Not only can you achieve results with a relatively small budget, you have complete control over your budget and are able to define exactly how much you want to spend. There are options to set either daily or lifetime budgets and you can also tell Facebook how much you are prepared to spend per result which is a great tool for anyone who already knows how much a lead is worth to their business.
There is a staggering amount of real time data available - and not only can you tell very quickly whether or not an ad is performing well, you are also able to react to that data and improve your accuracy which ultimately will result in a lower cost per action.
2: Targeting Options with Facebook Ads
Facebook makes a lot of money from users sponsoring their page posts using the 'Boost Post' function, without a real understanding of how to select a relevant audience. Learning how to target your ad spend will give you a much better return on your investment.
What if you were a dog groomer who wanted promotional leaflets delivered in the local area and I told you that I could guarantee to only deliver the leaflets to the houses of dog owners, saving you paying to print and deliver the leaflets which were less likely to be read?
Ad targeting on Facebook allows you to do just that. That's to say that Facebook allows you as an advertiser to drill down to exactly the target audience your business would want to reach. If your target audience comprises of people who are predominantly 25-35 years old, yoga enthusiasts, living in a particular area then you can use an interest-based audience to target exactly those people, focusing your ad spend on the people most likely to produce the desired end results.
3: Facebook Ads Work Because of The Ability to Test
Facebook allows you to split test your ad campaigns, serving different versions of your ad to your target audience to see which they react to more favourably. You can choose different images for example, alter your caption or test a single image against a carousel or video creative. Where there is a clear winner, you can choose to allocate the remainder of your budget to that version of the ad. If you've ever run advertising campaigns based on gut instinct before, as many small businesses do, this is a revelation - both in terms of how painless it is to set up and in terms of ensuring your advertising really does work.
4: Custom Audiences and the Facebook Pixel
If you're not familiar with it already, the Facebook Pixel is a clever piece of code which you add to your website. It will then help you to re-market to warm leads such as previous visitors to your website or even those who have abandoned the checkout process without completing their transaction. This ramps up the conversion rate you achieve from all your website traffic, regardless of its origin, plus it works across a wide variety of scenarios. Whether you want to encourage more candidates to register their resume on your site, executives to sign up for your training course, potential clients to book in for a call or a whole host of other highly desirable business outcomes, the Facebook Pixel will help those goals to be achieved.
In case that's not exciting enough by itself, did I also mention you can use the pixel data to create lookalike audiences based on the attributes of existing website visitors who are completing the actions you'd want your prospects to take?! Imagine attracting more of your ideal customers to your business on demand - well that's the power of exploiting the Facebook Pixel to the full.
I hope this has given you an insight into whether advertising on Facebook might work for your small business. If you're like to ramp your social media marketing results up further, you're welcome to join some free training calls we're running or to check out our packages for managing your social media marketing entirely.
Learn more about Social Hire
We won't just do social media strategies. Social Hire will work with you to ensure your business gets genuine value from us and that your team gets the most out of the service. Our experienced social media managers are motivated to make a enhancements to your social media marketing and reaching targets in a way that realistically makes a difference to your business goals.
What the Social Hire gang loves is making a difference for our clients, and we don't want to waste your, or our resources on marketing for marketing's sake, if it doesn't get your organisation the impression you need - we take a different approach. When your business utilises social media management, Social Hire improve the presence of your company online and offer your business the lift it needs to improve.
The social media marketers in our company are the best in the business at helping our partners enhance their online marketing. We outline and implement cutting-edge social media marketing plans that help our customers realise their organisational objectives and further their social media presence. Our experienced team of digital experts do your social media strategy creation and management in an uncomplicated monthly plan that is cost-effective and is genuinely useful, whatever results you demand from your marketing team.
Our team of managers are a team that assists our partners improve their presence online by producing online marketing services on a regular basis. Our service is transparent and economical, which ensures that you get a great service and results that make a difference when you utilise our services. We arrange many different marketing services for enterprises from small businesses to large corporations to help make the most of of your company's social media marketing.
You might like these blog posts How to Maximise Your Social Media Efforts as a Small Business, Common Mistakes of Social Media Marketing and How You Can Fix Them, Nine Proper Ways to Utilize Hashtags, and Case Study Reveals How a Management Consulting Business Can Use Social Media To Generate Leads.
