How to Advertise on Facebook

Just a quick warning, a blog post on How to Advertise on Facebook, is going to be a long post.

I’ll likely be back here to build on this again and again overtime. So stay tuned.

Below I’m going to give you the Basic 3 Rules to Live by when it comes to advertising on Facebook. These are going to principles.

And it’s principles you should learn and master first before you start thinking about Facebook Hacks or other ways you can bend the rules.

These 3 Basic Rules are the product of 12+ years of being on the front line, in the trenches, getting my ass kicked left right and centre by the industry and by the online world.

If you like the idea of avoiding common mistakes people make on when advertising their business on Facebook, read on. 

Rule 1 | Your Customers are NOT on Facebook to Discover You.

If someone you have never met is NOT already following your Facebook business page and doesn’t know your business in general, they are NOT on Facebook waiting to discover you.

People don’t go onto Facebook to become your customer.

If you start a marketing campaign on Facebook without first accepting this rule, you are going to have a hard time getting new customers.

You might make a handful of sales depending on how good your product offering is, however, you’ll have a tough time making a living.

People like you and me, people like your neighbours kids, like your nephews and nieces or second cousins kids, they are not putting their hand into their pockets, pulling out their iPhones, opening their Facebook just hoping they will see your Advertisement!

You’ll need to ask yourself, what are your target market actually looking for (it’s NOT your product!).

Do you have a way you can blend in with what they’re looking for?

There are several ways too approach your future customers for the first time on Facebook, but placing an ad in front of them that pretty much says: “hey, want to buy my product?” is not one I’d recommend.

(Unless they already know you/your business).

Breaking this rule is doing what Ryan Deiss (great modern day marketer) calls

“asking for marriage, on the first date.“

I think that sums this rule up pretty well.

How to Advertise on Facebook | Rule 1 Exercise

• How can you ease into the life of your perfect customer, WITHOUT scaring them off?
• What awesome piece of info / help would they appreciate (with no strings attached from your side).

Rule 2 | Build a Relationship (some Trust) First.

Think about this at it’s most basic level. If someone doesn’t trust you, will they be your customer?

If you really take in this question, the answer HAS to be no.

The word “trust” is extremely overused, I do get that. To know how that T word will either help or harm your Ads on Facebook (and other Social Media platforms), just morph that buzz word with the following:

If someone trusts you on Social Media, they could/can also:

• Know you, or know ‘of you’.
• Have a friend that knows you.
• Has read something, or watched something you’ve already posted on Facebook (related to the previous two points).
• Not scared off in general by what they are seeing or reading when they first see you on Facebook/Social Media.
• See’s you as someone who is not ‘asking for marriage’ right now, or very soon. (your taking small steps with this person).

All this is more of a ‘sense’ or a ‘vibe’ that you’re giving to potential customers. Think of it as being in the ‘undertones’ of what you’re writing when you post to Facebook. Or what you’re SAYING if you put a video on Facebook.

This is How to Advertise on Facebook.

If you’ve advertise on Facebook before and made a few sales, or got a few sign ups. You might be thinking “this isn’t true! I’ve got sales before without wasting time and money building up trust!”.

The truth is yes, you can make sales on all Social Media and ANYWHERE without going overboard with building a relationship.

Why is this?

No matter what you’re offering or selling, there is always 1-3% of people who are looking for that exact thing now.

It’s kind of like you just throwing a rock at a crowd of people. There’s a 1-3% chance you’ll hit someone who was COINCIDENTALLY ready to buy what you’re selling.

This is what is usually happening when you get a few sales without having some trust or some kind of relationship first. Another way to put this is the ‘lowest hanging fruit’ phenomenon.

When the easy sales and sign ups start to slowly become less and less frequent, you can come back here and have a second read of Rule #2 on ‘How to Advertise on Facebook’.

When you start building the very very first single stage of a relationship with your target audience, you are creating more and more of these 1-3% of people who are ready to buy now.

Does that make sense?

Imagine if you owned a restaurant, you’re 1-3% of low hanging fruit customers are people who are hungry right now, and who don’t have any plans for dinner. As long as they don’t see a rat on the floor, they’ll probably become your customer.

If want to build a relationship with MORE people who are not yet “hungry enough” to become your customer (no matter WHAT industry you’re in), that’s when you start to just build a relationship and some trust with a fresh group of people.

Using this same example, if you’re a restaurant owner you could do either of the following:

• Share some photos and pictures of your restaurants renovation. When you leased it, bought it, and how you revamped it (even if the photos are 7 – 15 years old!). Be sure to mention at the end your restaurants name, where it is, and what your speciality is  (briefly at the end. Not obviously at the start).
• Ask your nephew to come in and shoot some videos of the kitchen in action (like them cooking shows on TV!), share the video and maybe some customer reviews.
• Post a video talking about yourself. When you first fell in love with food, how your Grandmother taught you everything you know, and the old family recipes, about your first job in the restaurant business and where you are now. People will connect with your story, and will want to come contribute to your restaurant JUST BECAUSE of your personal story. 

These are just three examples. And they are examples of what a restaurant owner could do. However, they principles are transferrable into any business and any situation.

There’s 101 other ways to build a relationship with a cold audience, I dreamed up the three above as I was typing this, just to try and help explain the ‘type of thing’ i’m talking about here.

If you want some more help with how to transfer this over to your business, I’ll be putting on an 30-60 minute free workshop for some other business owners who also want help with this, just contact me if you want more info.

Rule 3 | Your Offer

If you’re not new to marketing, you know what I’m talking about.

If you ARE NEW to marketing, you’ll start to hear this a lot. (by the way, “marketing” has been around a lot longer than Facebook)

• “What is your offer?”
• “What was your offer?”
• “You need to improve your offer!”
• and so on..

The rewards are in the details. I suggest you don’t skim over this section and assume you’ve “got it”.

I hear big brands, nationwide brands breaking this Rule frequently. Sometimes, they might get away with it because of the millions of dollars they are throwing at the marketing campaign.

But small businesses won’t get away with it.

Rule #3 for how to advertise on Facebook, is to make sure your Ad is offering something.

You need to OFFER something to the person who will interact with and respond to your Ad. (that is, if you want your Ad to have the best results possible).

Anyone who sees your Ad on Facebook, needs to see and/or hear the benefit to THEM if they respond to and take action after coming across your Ad.

Think about that for a moment.

YOU, need to offer THEM, something that is “worth it”, in THEIR EYES!

Can we use the restaurant owner again as an example?

TERRIBLE OFFER

• “Giovannis New Italian Restaurant. Open from 6pm till late, bookings essential.” (There is nothing here “for” the customer is there? It’s ALL FOR the restaurant owner.)

BAD OFFER

• “Giovannis New Italian Restaurant. Open from 6pm till late. Books essential. Buy 1, get 1 free dessert with every main meal.”
  •  A buy 1, get 1 free dessert “offer”, isn’t going to make the phone ring off the hook, is it? – it’s just not a good enough offer. It’s not going to get a lot of people excited, and if people don’t get excited they won’t respond to your Ad. And then, that’s money wasted on advertising.

OK OFFER

• “Giovannis New Italian Restaurant. Open from 6pm till late. Books essential. Couples Special = Free Dessert and a Free Champagne on Arrival”.
  •  You might be now thinking… “hmm, that’s not a bad deal“. That’s because, it’s not a bad OFFER! But it’s not great either!

GREAT OFFER

• “FREE ROMANCE: Book a table TUE to THUR for two, and I’ll quietly pick up 100% of the bill.”
  • Now that… is an offer. 100% free dinner for two.
  • This could be only available for NEW customers, and also only advertised to locals within 5km to your restaurant. So they turn into repeat customers and you get back your ‘free dinner’ investment several times over the next 5 years. 

A great offer is best made to the best possible customer. And using Facebook to advertise, you can do this easily. 

Using the Free Dinner Offer above as an example, you would only make that offer to people who..

• Are in a relationships (eating out more often).
• Who LIVE close to your restaurant (“live”, not “travelling through”).
• Who like other restaurants and cafes around your area (they like eating out).
• And the list goes on..

These points above can all be achieved with Facebook.

If you give a free meal to someone in your Sydney restaurant, who is on a holiday from ADELAIDE… you’ve made a GREAT OFFER, to a bad customer. Because you’re not likely to get your investment in that customer back.

If you have a great product, why would you not put YOUR OWN neck on the line?

Customers KNOW when it’s their neck on the line. They know when they are the ones taking a leap of faith. So why not say “hey, try it out for free“. (Whatever it is that you’re selling).

A great offer LIKE this (doesn’t have to be EXACTLY this) does many things:

• Get’s more positive attention (which is great for how the Facebook machine works!)
• Get’s more people to “respond”.
• Get’s more paying customers.
• Turns your Advertisements from “investments” into “profit”.

I encourage you to have a good think about what you are “offering” out to people who you want to be your customers. The offer is king.

But it has to be the right offer, to the right people.

You can’t sell ice to eskimos, they simply just don’t need it. 

Having a great offer, to the wrong people will still be difficult to make work. You could offer 2 tonnes of ice to an eskimo for FREE, that’s a great offer.

But the eskimo will say; “well… two tonnes? That seems like a lot of work, having to to move all that. Um, no thanks. You keep it.”

But imagine if you invented a heater, that runs on snow. You just put snow in the top of the machine to make the heater work. No electricity needed. Just add snow in the top. Could you sell that to an eskimo?

That is a great product, to a perfect customer.

Now you just have to come up with your offer: “Try it Free for 30 Days”. I imagine after 30 nights of warm nights in the snow, the eskimo would PAY DOUBLE what you had in mind.

Crazy example?

I just wanted to paint the picture for you. Make it crazy, so you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

I have a free book on Facebook Ads, if you’re in Australia you can get a free copy here: https://craigmarty.com/free-book-on-facebook-ads  . I’ve had a bunch more printed, ready to send out. I just ask that you cover the cost of shipping and handling, and the book itself is yours free.

Sound fair?

Get your copy of my free book on How to Get Customers on Facebook – Even if you’ve tried and failed before: Here: https://craigmarty.com/free-book-on-facebook-ads