By Rianna | Rianna@PancakeDigitalSolutions.com
Success in today’s business world means a presence on social media and some type of Facebook Advertising strategy. While it is true this is not the case for everyone, digital marketing is a key component for the majority of businesses. Indeed, most folks that are not currently successful on social media and generating revenue from Facebook Ads want to be or have a plan to be soon.
Wherever your business is in terms of the social media marketing journey, these three important, yet often forgotten, ingredients will help you get started, get better, or reaffirm what you already know.
Background
A lot of good marketing advice come in threes. Here are some examples, many of which will sound familiar.
1- Before someone buys from your company, they need to 1) Know 2) Like, and 3) Trust you
2- Good Funnel Marketing has a 1) Lead Gen, 2) Lead Nurture, and 3)Sales
3- Understanding your audience is 1) Cold, 2) Warm, or 3) Hot
Three key components are ideal for a strategy because it is easy to remember. So, with that in mind, here are three key ingredients to ensure you are successful in this world of ever-changing digital marketing, social media for business, and Facebook advertising.
Start with Intent
While this may seem obvious or odd, it is extremely important to start with intent. Arguably, without intent, there really is no point. Even if you do not consciously realize it, everything you do has a purpose. You may have some generic purpose, such as to make more sales or make more money. Or, you may have a specific mission, e.g., to get more traffic, but not the details of what that means.
This may feel redundant, but have you set an intent or a goal you know how to go about figuring out? Is your goal to sell more? How much more? Of what? To whom? More traffic from where? To where?
Perhaps you don’t have the answers to these questions yet and that is your intent. At this point, you may need to start advertising to get more data to learn more about your audience. This is very much along the lines of setting SMART goals.
Provide Genuine Value
Providing value in business is not a new concept. It is easier than ever to publish content and share information, making it more important to share good content that stands out and is something people want to see.
But what specifically is meant by “genuine” value? Let’s break it down.
Merriam-Webster describes genuine as-
a: actually having the reputed or apparent qualities or character
b: actually produced by or proceeding from the alleged source
c: sincerely and honestly felt or experienced
2: free from hypocrisy or pretense
and Value as-
2: a fair return or equivalent in goods, services, or money for something exchanged
3: relative worth, utility, or importance good
4: something (such as a principle or quality) intrinsically valuable or desirable
Let’s bring it back together.
Providing genuine value could also be phrased as
– Actually having the apparent qualities produced from the source providing a fair return on equivalent goods/services/money
– Providing sincerity and honestly felt or experienced relative worth, utility or importance
– Actually true, free from hypocrisy or pretense something intrinsically desirable
Understanding this deeply is the first step. Once you have a full understanding of what it means to provide genuine value, it is time to apply that genuine value to your business offer through your marketing and Facebook ads.
Because your business offers a product or service, it is solving a specific problem for a group of specific people. It is essential that you determine what that problem is and show how you are solving it.
Own a used car dealership? People need affordable and reliable transportation. So an ad might say:
Great Cars – Affordable Pricing!
More specifically, someone may need a way to get their kids to school safely and get themselves to work on time. They want a safe car for the snowy weather but don’t have the budget for a brand new car. So, the ad may say:
Safe and reliable transportation is important to your family. We can help with pricing for all budgets!
This is very basic copywriting, but see the difference it makes? Anyone who is thinking their product or service is for everyone has not thought about it enough, or is only thinking about what they want to get out of it. Are you thinking more of the payment you will receive for selling the car? Or are you considering how this car is going to allow the family to have time to have breakfast in the morning and ensure the mother gets to work on time and isn’t distracted worrying about her kids walking in snowstorms, for example.
Once you truly –genuinely– tap into this, your marketing will get so much better. Trust me!
Measure It
Measuring is probably the ingredient most missed of these forgotten ingredients. How will you measure the success of your ads? In order to do this, you must have first set intent, then set value.
Let’s say your intent was to get new subscriptions to your newsletter. How many, at what cost, providing what value, to whom?
For example, let’s answer these questions with a case study from our work with Badassery earlier this year.
The goal was to increase sign-ups to the newsletter to provide more female entrepreneurs with more valuable content from a community that gets it! By adding a thank you page with tracking, we were able to see when people signed up from the ads we ran, more specifically, averaging 2 new leads a day at $0.98 each.
See how specific that is? Make it easy to tell when you have been successful. Too many people boost a post for $5 or $10 and say it didn’t work. But what was the intent, value, and measurement? If the intent was to get more traffic to your website, how many clicks did the links get?
The more specific you can be here, the better you will do. Which sounds more achievable? “Sell more product!” or “ “Let’s sell 10 products from our new clothing line this week.”
This is one of the key factors that makes Facebook Advertising so much better than many other types of marketing. There is a lot of data to learn from and measure, meaning much of the guesswork is taken out.
On The Table
The business world has been changed by social media marketing, and more specifically Facebook Advertising. Embrace this chaos in your business! These three ingredients are sure to help you be successful no matter how many times Facebook changes their algorithm. Start with setting specific intent, provide genuine value for your people, and measure – measure – measure!
Try out these 3 forgotten ingredients and let us know how your advertising improves!