3 Facebook Advertising Strategies to Convert Strangers into Buyers

Many people try their hand at Facebook advertising without taking the time to understand the Facebook Platform and buyer psychology. If you can think of Facebook advertising as an online version of a business networking group, you’ll be leaps and bounds ahead of many.

Imagine the last time you went to a networking event. Did you jump right into trying to sell them your product or services? If you did, you probably weren’t too successful. Successful networking is all about building relationships. And how do you do that? You provide something of value and educate the people you connect with to build their trust and to establish credibility.

It’s also good to keep in mind that, like people at a networking group, people on Facebook have different personality types and they make buying decisions differently. Some will impulsively buy that candy bar at the checkout counter, but others will carefully think through their buying decisions.

Sales and marketing professionals know that it usually takes multiple “touches” to make a sale. Most people don’t buy your product or service the first time they see or hear about it. And, if technology has done anything, it’s made the path to a purchase more complicated and increased the number of touches required to make a sale. Some experts today believe that it takes 6-8 touches just to create a viable sales lead.

Like most marketing, Facebook advertising is rarely an overnight success. You need to be strategic and persistent to see impressive results. To receive the most return on your Facebook advertising investment, you need to address people who are at different stages of your sales funnel and lead them to a purchase.

With Facebook ads that means taking time to determine your audience and what type of content you will offer them. Focus on how your ad can deliver value, help your audience in some way, and show them that you’re trustworthy. They may not make a purchase the first time they see your ad (or even the second or third time), but you’ve begun building a relationship with them.

With Facebook ads that means taking time to determine your audience and what type of content you will offer them. Focus on how your ad can deliver value, help your audience in some way, and show them that you’re trustworthy. They may not make a purchase the first time they see your ad (or even the second or third time), but you’ve begun building a relationship with them.

These ads are intended to build warm audiences by focusing on branding and building goodwill and awareness. The idea is that you will eventually move these people to the next type of Facebook ads that focus on converting.

Krance recommends spending 20-30% of your Facebook advertising budget on branding ads . However, you must realize that they aren’t going to generate a whole lot of money upfront, so be careful not to invest too much money in them. Think of them as an investment that can make a difference in the future.

Your target audience is going to be fairly broad with these ads because your goal at this point is to reach a lot of people who don’t intend to purchase your product or service at the moment.

The content of these ads could feature a blog post, YouTube video, or Facebook Live – something that delivers value to your audience. These need to be content-rich ads that educate, tell a story, build an emotional connection, and generate conversations.

At this point, you’re spending a small amount of money to share social media content to a broad audience. The key performance indicators for these ads are cost per impression or cost per video view, so you can determine how many people you’re reaching.

These ads focus on both cold and warm audiences and are meant to generate conversations and shares with specific content and call-to-action. This is where the bulk of your money will be spent – 50-70% of your Facebook advertising budget.

You’ll want to create several ad sets at this stage: one for cold audiences, one for warm audiences, one for all your lookalike interest audiences, and one for your fans.

Like the content in your branding ads, the content here should educate, tell a story, build an emotional connection, and generate conversations

Videos are great for these ads because they build a subconscious connection with people. Your ad content should include one or more of the following qualities: education, demonstration, information, or entertainment. A short sales pitch should be added at the end of your content.

We all know the obvious reasons why sharing on social media is good – it builds trust and puts your content in front of more people. But sharing also tells Facebook’s algorithm that people like your ad, which means you’ll be rewarded with more impressions; cheaper clicks, views, and cost-per-conversion; and higher ROI or Return on Ad Spend.

If you focus on providing content that educates, demonstrates, informs, or entertains, Facebook will focus on getting your message in front of people who will help you achieve the marketing objectivethat you have indicated in the ad.

These are the ads that many advertisers put all of their energy into because they’re the ads that generate sales . However, the first two types of ads are what bring many people to this point. 10-20% of your budget should be spent on this type of ad.

Your target audience is relatively narrow at this point. For example, you might target only people who have visited your product page but didn’t buy.

The content of these ads can touch on your audience’s challenges and frustrations but should focus on how your product or service is different and how it can help them solve their problem. This ad can include a link that sends them directly to your sales page or checkout.

This is not a step-by-step strategy. You don’t need to wait to run a conversion ad until after your branding ads have run for several weeks. You can run simultaneous ads with different content, target audiences, and objectives running in each category simultaneously. The key is to look at your overall Facebook marketing plan strategically.

If this sounds like more than you want to take on at the moment, PMI can help create Facebook ads for you that attract new clients and move them along the sales funnel. Give us a call at 484-297-6395 or contact us online.

*This is a condensed version of the post entitled “ How to Combine Facebook Ads and Content for Better Results .”