I have put together some tips that will help you to use Facebook marketing to increase your leads. Let me start by saying there are usually 3 camps of B2B Facebook Advertisers.
1. The ones that have tried Facebook but haven’t noticed any improvements leaving them feeling very disappointed with their results and giving up.
2. Those that are using Facebook Ads, have seen some basic results and persevere in the hope that their results will improve.
3. Those that want to try Facebook advertising but have been too frightened to do so due to budget concerns and a lack of understanding.
Do you fall into any of these categories? If so read on……
One of the most common mistakes B2B business owners make when using Facebook Ads is driving their paid Facebook traffic to the home page of their website, or a sales page. Why is this mistake? Well the paid traffic you get from Facebook isn’t the same as the paid traffic you get from Google. Even if you are driving high amounts of traffic to a sales page it will be quite difficult to get the page to convert. This is because most of the traffic you get from Facebook will come from people who have logged on to Facebook to connect with friends and family and search for interesting topics etc. Facebook traffic is not the same as Google search engine traffic. Here’s why……
If someone types in ‘accountant’ on Google, then they are actively looking for an accountant. If someone comes across your Facebook ad advertising accountancy on Facebook then it will most likely by because you targeted them, they were not actually actively looking for your services. Which means they are not as likely to be in a buying/investing state of mind. If they see your Facebook Ad advertising accountancy services, they are likely to be interested as they know they need an accountant. However, they are not necessarily at the stage where they are ready to make a commitment to invest in accountancy services. And are unlikely to spend a great deal of time looking into it, as they are enjoying their leisure time on Facebook.
In order for your Facebook marketing to be successful, you need to understand the psychology of why the user is on each particular network. To give your paid marketing a good chance of success you should be using Facebook Advertising to build your email list, and get people into your funnel so that you can market to them in the future. To do this I recommend you offer what’s called an ethical bribe, you can do this by offering your prospects something that is of value to them, in exchange for their name and email address. You need to offer them something that will really tempt them, providing results in advance is what works best on Facebook Ads. You can do this by offering them something that they won’t be able to resist.
FREE stuff always works really well, such as a FREE report or assessment after all who doesn’t love a freebie? For example you could write a short eBook or produce a video series for people to sign up for such as …‘5 Questions You Must Ask Before Choosing An Accountant.’ Once they have signed up for your FREE offer they are in the top of your funnel and you have the information you need to market to them again at a future date when they are more likely to be in the mood to commit to making a purchase. Once a prospect is on your email list you can market to them for weeks, months or even years to come! (With their permission of course.) HubSpot offers a great system for nurturing your leads via marketing automation, you can find out more about this here - http://offers.jdrgroup.co.uk/hubspot-demo
I think the reason so many B2B business owners view their Facebook marketing as a failure is a lack of understanding. Rather than seeing Facebook as a long term investment, they expect to see the same instant results they can get from other paid advertising campaigns such as Google Ads. You would be wrong to expect hundreds of instant customers immediately from your Facebook marketing campaign. In my opinion Facebook marketing is best used as a lead generating tool. Facebook marketing is all about attracting leads then nurturing them until those leads turn into paying customers. Indeed, you may get a few instant customers as a result of your Facebook marketing and if you do that’s great however please remember if you don’t that’s OK. Your campaign hasn’t failed. As long as you are attracting new leads and getting prospects into your funnel then your Facebook campaign is working!
Now you’re probably thinking this is all well and good but how do I work out the ROI as I don’t want to be spending a fortune on each lead I get from my Facebook marketing! And you are completely correct. You need to monitor how much each lead is costing you. This is really easy to do as Facebook works it all out for you. When you are setting up your Facebook Ads campaign, Facebook will ask you what your campaign goal objective is, and what you would like to set your optimisation and pricing at. Be sure to select the correct optimisation, pricing and goal for your campaign.
Once you have done this Facebook will help you to create a tracking pixel, place this pixel on the page where the prospect is directed too after they convert, and it will let you know how many of your prospects have converted, and how much each conversion has cost. If the cost of each conversion is higher than you would like, then you need to re-evaluate your ads and landing pages to see if you can get your conversion charges down.
I hope the above article has shed some light on the benefits of Facebook marketing for lead generation purposes for B2B business owners. You can read more articles regarding B2B marketing here - https://blog.jdrgroup.co.uk/digital-prosperity-blog/topic/inbound-marketing-seo-ppc-social-media-video
