Posted by The following excerpt is from Perry Marshall, Keith Krance and Thomas Meloche’s book Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising. Buy it now fromAmazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | IndieBound When it comes to Facebookmarketing, there’s NO one-size-fits-all solution. Yet most businesses advertising on Facebook are trying to follow a marketing model that was created and designed specifically for information marketers.
The good news is, the vast majority of businesses advertising on Facebook fall into one or more of the three following Business Categories . . .
- Ecommerce and physical products
- Digital and information products (including software-as-a-service companies)
- Retail, local and service businesses
These three different Business Categories are very different in terms of what they offer, inventory requirements, pricing strategies, profit margins, frequency of purchase, competition and costs of business — including rent, manufacturing, shipping and handling, etc.
Now we’ll share with you the three bestselling systems for generating leads and customers on Facebook in each of the three different business categories.
Related: 14 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Page Engagement
Ecommerce and physical products
There are two funnels that work well in this category. The first is a Facebook ad to a lead magnet to a product sales page to an order form. The second is a Facebook ad to a product sales page to an order form. There may not seem to be much of a difference between the two, but the second is one step further down the sales funnel.
The first funnel will take your target to a basic squeeze page lead magnet. A traditional link post ad works here because the goal is to just get a lead. At this point in the funnel, you want to transition into why your product is the absolute next best step. One way to do that is with a video ad. Video ads attract quality leads — people whom you’ve most likely built brand awareness with — which makes the transition to the sale easier since these type of prospects are more likely to pull out their wallet after they’ve opted in.
The second funnel will take your target right from Facebook to a sales page. Most people will try to run a regular link post ad and send the user right to a catalog of all their products or a coupon without any effort to build rapport. They won’t have messaging to build interest or desire in the product. It’s very important to raise awareness to your audience’s frustrations, challenges and deep desires. If you do that and get the messaging right, you can effectively take cold audiences from Facebook directly to a sales page. If you have several products, pick your best product and create a great message around it.
Related: Top Tips to Create Facebook Videos to Market Your Business (Infographic)
Digital and information products
There are also two funnels that work well in this category. The first is a Facebook ad that leads to a lead magnet opt-in. After your targets opt-in, they’re presented with a tripwire offer, then on to the core offer and finally an upsell. If you’re unfamiliar with some of these marketing terms, “tripwire” was coined by Digital Marketer and refers to a low-priced impulse-buy product. The core offer is the product or service you’re trying to sell.
This funnel works really well in big B2C businesses like fitness and passionate niches and for B2B businesses.
The second funnel takes a potential customer from a Facebook ad to a webinar or live event registration page, then on to a thank-you page. The thank-you page can just say, “Hey, thanks for registering,” or you can give them information to get them excited about joining the webinar.
Webinars are great at warming your audience up if you have a high-priced product because you have a lot more time with your potential customers. Focus on their deep desire or biggest frustration. During the webinar, demonstrate that you can help them and then transition into how your product can help them even more and ultimately solve their problem.
Something you want to keep in mind is if you’re asking the user to do something very minor, you don’t need to provide as much value in your ad, but if you’re asking them for a bigger commitment, e.g., giving up some of their time to show up and attend a webinar, you need to build a lot more trust and add value in your ad and messaging.
Related: 10 Hidden Facebook Marketing Hacks You Can Try Today
Local, retail and service business funnels
The top two funnels in this section are really the same funnel — they’re both website conversion campaigns driving Facebook traffic to a landing page with a coupon or giveaway. The only difference is one uses a video ad and the other a link post ad.
If you own a local business like a restaurant, salon or gym, where people have to walk in the door, a great offer to use is a coupon or a giveaway. You can do a lot of different offers with coupons. Offer seven days free at your gym, buy one get one free, a free consultation, etc. People like to share coupons, which broadens the reach of your ad as well.
For either of these funnels, be sure you create a thank-you page with some sort of offer on it, like a coupon. This helps you sift through those who just want something for free and those who actually have an interest or need for your service. You want to give them an incentive to pick up the phone or come into your business.
For Local Businesses, there’s a third type of campaign you should consider running, and that’s a branding campaign. This campaign may or may not have a direct call to action, but it’s important to help establish your business as top of mind when someone in your community develops intent.
A branding campaign can be as simple as boosting a post. For example, say you own a restaurant. You can post a picture of people having a great time in your restaurant and say, “Come into the restaurant, mention Facebook and get a free appetizer.” It’s that easy.