I don’t know if you’ve noticed it lately, but the number of companies running ads on Facebook, claiming to get the most, or the most hyper focused, or the best leads for businesses has exponentially increased. Even more, it’s not a digital marketing agency, like ours for instance, selling services, but the ads are being run by individuals that are claiming that they have cracked the code to successful Facebook Marketing, and if you sign up for their seminar, they’ll show you exactly how to do it.
Have you watched any of these seminars? I have. In fact, every time I see an ad for one, I sign up for it, no matter what. Without exception, every single one of these seminars covers a very high level example of what this “magic secret” they discovered is. Then, after 30-45 minutes of little or no meaningful detail, they make their pitch to sell you an online video series that will teach you all the secrets, step by step, to get you to the success you so richly deserve. The cost you ask? On average, anywhere from $1000 and up.
Webinars Should Not Be Sales Pitches. They Need To Be Educational
I have a very, very big problem with this type of selling. Sure, tons of people will sign up to watch, and of those tons, a good number will pay the $1000 plus dollars to get the series. The thing of it is though that very few of them will realize the ultimate goal of successful Facebook marketing. Why is this? It could be many reasons. Maybe as a small to mid-size business owner, their day to day is just too busy to really focus on what it takes to succeed with this working model. Maybe they are not technologically sound enough and didn’t realize the amount of technical skill it would take to successfully complete this training track. Or, maybe they plain old just don’t want to do it themselves and would rather have somebody else do it for them. All these things are okay. It’s not okay though to run seminars in this fashion and cost people that fit in these categories their hard earned money.
The key to a successful webinar is to be educational. Speaking from actual experience, when we run webinars, historically, the ones that performed the best were comprised of 90% education and 10% sales pitch/special offer. Remember the old adage, “Givers Gain”? It holds true here too.
From my standpoint, I am much, much better off actually teaching EVERYONE how to do the core thing we are discussing in our webinar. A handful of people have the time, knowledge and technical chops to do it themselves, and they will take our ideas and run with them on their own. That is a-ok. Another percentage might realize the entire thing is not for them at all and that they maybe mistook it for something else. That is okay as well. The final percentage though is our sweet spot. Many times for one of the reasons I used above with the online video training example, they realize, after seeing me take them from start to finish through the process, that they are not the ones that can do this for their business. They then pick up the phone and hire our firm to represent them and actually carry out these campaigns on their behalf.
I am okay with ANY of these scenarios. Obviously I own the company and want to make a profit, but before I ever considered profit and loss and business growth, my core desire in life was to help others. That has been our main goal all along and everything we do is tailored around that directive.
What I Do Agree With About All These “I Know The Formula” Webinars
Even though I completely disagree with the way these seminars are being run and the wares that these marketers are selling, the one thing I do agree with is their overlying assertion as to why people are coming to them for help. The simple fact is that the Facebook Advertising platform has taken off in a huge fashion. As far as I am concerned, there is the Internet, and then there is Facebook Advertising. I would put Facebook Advertising above content marketing, ad words or SEO. Facebook Ads have become everything, when it comes to online marketing.
This saturation has led to businesses seeing their conversion results decline, and therefore wonder what they need to do to get the conversion rate back up. To the average Joe on the street, the “secret” to doing this might really seem like a secret, but to someone like myself that eats and breathes this stuff, it really isn’t. What all these seminars are explaining, and what it comes down to at the end of the day is just applying good old fashioned marketing practices to a high tech marketing platform. What are these tried and true principles you ask? It’s simple. You need to apply a sales funnel methodology to your Facebook Ad Campaigns.
What Is A Sales Funnel And How Do I Apply It To My Facebook Ads?
I’ve been talking and writing about the need to have a strong Content Marketing Strategy for your business website, for years. While I could write an entire article (and I think I actually will), on specifically what a sales funnel is, in terms of your Business’ marketing plans, today let’s keep things simple, to make sure you have a working idea of a funnel and how it works.
Sales funnels are buckets you can put visitors into that define the different parts of the journey they are on, as they go from initially interested in your services, to becoming a client. When you are talking about sales funnels in terms of your online marketing strategy, I would suggest you look at establishing three distinct funnels:
- I breathe, therefore I am group
This group of people is exactly what it sounds like. This would literally be anyone with a pulse, and anyone that could possibly, one day, someday, do business with you. You do not want to be picky with these people. The net you cast to define these people is very, very wide. An example of a group such as this would be all people that live in the city where your business is located. Sure, you may not have refined it to your exact zip code, or honed it by deep demographic filters, but that is okay. The idea is to get eyes on your ads and content. The offers you offer these people in ads served to this group require no lead capture or landing pages at all. You simply want them to click on your ad to go to the item of value that is promised to them. An example for instance, if you were the owner of a local Cross-Fit gym, might be a free downloadable workout schedule they can use to kick start their weight loss and fitness goals.What? We aren’t asking for their contact info? Correct. The idea is to get them to your page, so you can retarget to them later on down the funnel. If you don’t know what retargeting means, don’t worry. I will explain it in my next article, in detail. The idea though is to run as many people through this first funnel, so you can then narrow it down and turn your “visitor” into a “Qualified Lead”, by serving them different, more targeted ads, at a later date. - I’m intrigued and want more info group
This group of people will actually be comprised of two different groups of people. First off, you will add to this group anyone that is being retargeted to, by virtue of having clicked on an ad that was served up to group number one. The most important part of this group though will be comprised of people that you are most interested in doing business with you, or are currently qualified leads that have not yet converted to customers.How you define your ideal clients, given the vast demographic reach of Facebook, can be done many ways. For instance, you could choose people living in a certain zip code, in a certain age range, with a particular minimum income. Or, perhaps you are marketing to people in a certain zip code that are fans of Reebok and the Cross-Fit Games. Whatever your ideal client is, you want to clearly define it here.The ads you run to this middle funnel are more specific. First off, every ad will define a specific item of value that you think will be deemed useful by your prospect. Secondly, to get this item of value, the visitor will have to fill out their contact information on a landing page, thus giving you a true qualified lead. What about those that clicked on the ad, but didn’t fill out the landing page, you ask? You can actually run a specific campaign for them as well, targeting only those people that visited the landing page and did not complete the capture form. - Let’s get ready to rumble group
I purposely named this group a silly name, but that is basically exactly what it is. This group of people have been checking you and your services out, perhaps have been looking at your online reviews, and are nearing that critical stage of coming in to see about signing up for your gym, for example. The ads you run to this group will of course be very different than the other two funnels. These ads will be geared around making an appointment with the visitor. The ads should also make it super easy to schedule that appointment, automatically. My personal favorite tool to auto-schedule appointments is a service called You Can Book Me.The goal here is to give the visitor all the final things they may need to decide to pull the trigger to meet with you. Then, once they do pull that trigger, make it as easy as possible for them to immediately schedule that appointment with you.
So This Sounds Great. How Do I Actually Do It Though?
If you are intrigued by this, have no fear. I am going to do two things in the coming days. First off, my next article is going to be an actual example of one of these funnel campaigns, from start to finish, with graphics and examples.
If you already know that you want us to do it for you, rather than do it yourself, or if you decide you want this, but you do not want to embark on your own, you are always more than welcome to click the ad below, and we’ll set up a time for a private consultation, to discuss your specific needs and craft a plan that is exactly right for you 🙂
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