Using Facebook Advertising to Find New Leads

Facebook has over 1.2 billion monthly active users and it have become a great way to gain leads for your business. Facebook advertising is still relatively cheap compared to other methods.

Since Facebook’s introduction to the World Wide Web, we have seen Facebook evolve from a platform that was used by University/College students to keep in touch their friends to a marketing platform where users can interact with each other.

Facebook allows businesses to build strong customer relations through sharing content which generates discussion with their target audience and thanks to Facebook Advertising, businesses can now target their ads to their target market too.

So how can businesses use Facebook Advertising to gain new leads?

Create a Facebook Business Page

Before you can begin your Facebook Advertising campaign, you need to create a Facebook Business Page.

When you create you Facebook Business Page, there are six categories to choose from, which are:

• Local Business or Places
• Companies, Organisation or Institution
• Brand/Product
• Artist, Bands or Public Figure
• Entertainment
• Causes

When you have chosen your category, you will be given an option to specify the type of business you are in, this is by means of subcategory followed with an option of adding a short description of your business. Inputting this sort of information will help your Facebook Business Page be found on Facebook’s search results.

The two most important elements that you need to get right when you make your Facebook Business Page is your Profile Picture and your Cover Photo.
These visual images are the first thing your target audience sees, so make sure that both of these images are visually appealing to your target audience.

Create an Advertisement for Your Facebook Business Page

Facebook can give you access to two different tools which you can use to create your ads.

They are Ad Creator and Power Editor. The Ad Creator is great for beginners who have never been exposed to the advertising platform. The Power Editor has more advance features like creating bulk advertising and targeting your advert to “lookalike” audiences.

The “lookalike” audience feature allows you to share your advert with profiles who are similar to your target audience.

Choosing Your Facebook Advertising Campaign Objective

Depending on the nature of your business, Facebook offers a number of campaign objectives which are shown below:

• Page Post Engagement
• Page Likes
• Click to Website
• Website Conversions
• App Install
• App Engagement
• Event Response

Each of these campaigns offer their own unique advantages of helping your business gain new leads.

Set Your Budget

Similar to a PPC campaign, the way Facebook Advertising works is whenever your customer completes your campaign objective, e.g. they like your page, your business will pay Facebook each time that objective has been achieved.

Obviously, if your advert has managed to hit its objective at a high rate, then your business will owe a lot of money to Facebook. In order to control how much you spend on your advertising campaign, set aside a budget.
By setting a budget, you can control how much you spend on a daily, monthly or yearly basis.

Choosing Your Audience

This step is very important! There is no point investing so much time and effort on creating the perfect ad if it is not being seen by your ideal customer.
If you have an email list, then this is great. This is because Facebook Advertising gives your business the option of uploading your email list. This enables your advert to reach out to your current subscribers.

But what if your business doesn’t have an email list? Luckily, there is another way.

With Facebook, you can segment Facebook’s entire user base so that your advert reaches out to the right perspective customer. You can segment Facebook’s entire user base through a number of categories. Here’s a list of some the categories that you can choose:

• Location
• Age
• Interest
• Gender
• Language
• Educational
• Relationship Status
• Political Views

Placement of Your Ad

There are three options where you can place your ad:

Newsfeed

Facebook’s newsfeed is the prominent advertising platform on Facebook. The newsfeed is the first thing Facebook users see whenever they log on to Facebook.

Mobile Users

Facebook has reported that they have nearly 1.01 billion monthly active users on their mobile app (March 2014). Since mobile marketing is the future of digital advertising, then it is good idea to place your ads on Facebook’s mobile app. The mobile platform is a very effective medium if you are trying to promote an app.

Right-hand column

When choosing this option, the placement of your ad will be placed on the right-hand column of Facebook’s webpage. The advantage of this option is that your advert will remain static on one part of Facebook’s webpage, unlike the newsfeed option where your advert could be missed if your target audience is quickly scrolling through their newsfeed.

Content Is King

Perhaps the most important aspect of getting your Facebook Advertising campaign off the mark, is making sure you deliver the right content. By investing time and effort in delivering the right content, your brand will appear very attractive to your target audience.

It is important to keep in mind that whenever you promote your business page, your business page has good content.

You can achieve this by regularly posting relevant articles and YouTube videos. They don’t have to be made by you but if you have seen an article that you think will benefit your target market then you should share it on your Facebook Business Page.

Many Facebook Business Pages make the mistake of posting updates which simply sell their brand. Customers tend to get annoyed with that. So give your customers something that will benefit them.