Facebook Marketing Works, with a Small Investment

 

The idea that any marketing tactic can be obtained completely organically shouldn’t apply to digital strategy any more than it should out of home.  The local fried chicken restaurant pays a guy minimum wage to stand on the corner dancing in a chicken suit to promote their deal of the day rather than just putting a sign on the corner because a guy looking like a fool attracts more eyes and attention than a sign does. Why should advertising on Facebook be any different? A lot of high up execs at some companies believe that Facebook is an organic tool that should be used to achieve great amount of sales at absolutely 0 cost. This is false. If you are in a situation dealing with someone like that I feel for you. Half of your job will be explaining the strategy behind Facebook marketing and just how powerful their pay-per-click/reach platform really is.  Yes Facebook acquires a lot of organic reach if your strategy is there, No, you cannot rely on it for organic conversions on a consistent basis. But, if you utilize a well thought out content strategy you can achieve a healthy balance of paid reach and organic reach that both will lead to more conversions.

It all comes down to targeting. Facebook knows everything about everyone on their platform. A lot of conspiracy theorist, big brother haters, etc… despise that, but the truth is, it’s better for both the end user and the marketer. You are going to be served advertisements on the platform regardless, someone has to pay Facebook’s hosting bill and employees. If you were a vegan would you prefer to see burger ads or vegan food tips? Think about it…

Let’s say you are a small mom and pet training school. You work with dog owners and dogs to train them so that they can pass an exclusion test that prevents the dog from having to wear a muzzle in specific cities where legislation says if they don’t have a passing grade on the government approved test, they have to wear one when in public (depending on the breed).

I’ll run you through a very simple and broad content marketing strategy to promote your services. You will need to read between some lines, but it would be fairly easy to achieve some social acquisition (facebook likes) and a lot of engagement + clicks through to your website on this topic.

Step 1: Write a blog on your website called “Why Muzzles are horrible for your dog” and make the feature image something that triggers emotion.

Like this

In your blog post write about the scientific reasoning and studies that have proven that muzzles are unhealthy for your dog.

At the end of the blog post make a link to your contact page, or even to your ecommerce site where people can pay for your services (or sign up).

 

Step 2: Use the image above as a Facebook image post and link to your blog post on your website. Above the link to your website write something like “Muzzle legislation is here, find out why it’s unhealthy to put one on your dog.”

Notice that the topic has nothing to do with your services. It’s simply a trigger. You want to emotionally trigger someone who has a dog that might be under the new legislation to take action. And that action is clicking on your link.

The post would look something like this:

 

Step 3: Create a Facebook advertisement to promote this post. (Facebook refers to this term as “boost” or “boosting”).  Target all of the demographics of the typical dog owner in your city, including their age and location. Location is very important. Then also expand the targeting to specific interests. Type in things like “Dog lovers” “Dog Owners” “Anti Muzzle” “NO Muzzles” “Don’t Bully My Breed”, etc etc… Anything you can imagine.

 

Run the ad on a minimal budget. Even $15-25 over 5-10 days will get you some engagement.

 

Do you honestly think that someone who lives in a city with breed muzzling legislation will be able to see that image on Facebook and not interact with it? The chances of them not interacting with the post are very minimal. You will acquire something from them, whether that’s a facebook like (can be used to target them later organically or with very inexpensive ads), a visit to your website (retargeting possibilities) or potentially even the main objective! A conversion! A sale!

So there it is.

 

The trick to Facebook advertising is quite simple. Very limited targeting with very specific content. It’s a simple formula that will guarantee results.

 

Interested in running advertisements like this on very minimal budgets? Contact me. (See what I did here??)