Blog - Marketing4Everyone

Ad Objectives, Coffee Break Guides, Facebook Updates

The Lead Machine – Find New Customers Using Facebook Ads

No matter what business you’re in, we ultimately all want exactly the same thing – leads. Getting a new customer to sign up for your service or buy your product gives you the potential of not only a lifetime customer, but referrals to friends and family to grow your business even further.

So how do you use Facebook and Instagram to get leads? Well, there are many different strategies, and it all depends on your industry. If you’d like a free, no obligation strategy call or some advice over email, just contact us here for advice.

5 Steps to Success

1. What do your customer NEED

When you’re writing ad copy, you need to think about what will ‘trigger’ that person to click. You need to solve their problem, ease a pain point, stop the scroll.

If you’re a personal trainer, instead of ‘sign up for personal training’, you could use terms such as ‘lose weight for good with our supportive personal training programme’.

Focus on the benefits of your service, not just the features. Set off some emotional triggers, as this will help you to battle the competition for their attention in the newsfeed.

2. Pixel Pixel Pixel

If you read any of our blogs, you mayyyy have heard us mention the pixel. Well sorry not sorry because it’s really important!

Having the pixel installed on your website allows you to collect a ‘virtual database’ of people who have clicked to your website. If they’ve clicked, they’re interested in what you offer, so who better to retarget with further ads to explain your business.

If you’ve been in business for a number of years, you’ve probably at some point battled for email addresses to try to build a list. You’ve then sent emails, and had the pain of 10% open rates, and even lower click rates.

The pixel allows you to send ‘follow-ups’ in the form of ads without needing them to give you their email address or any details, just a click is all you need from any source.

3. Keep it Simple

People are so easily distracted, you have about a second of their attention when they click so slow site speeds will mean zero enquiries.

Use the Facebook lead generation objective and you can collect enquiries using a simple pop-up form, so they don’t need to leave Facebook. Facebook will even pre-fill some of their information, increasing their chances of submitting it as they don’t need to do much.

We also link ads to mobile optimised landing pages, as this way you’re gathering their details on an enquiry form, but also giving them a little more information in the process.

4. Respond Quickly

If someone takes the time to enquire with you, they are likely to be ready now to find a product or service you offer. Don’t delay in replying to them, as your competitor’s ads may have already started to show to them too.

Our landing pages automatically send enquiries to your email address, so be checking for them regularly, answer the phone, check your messenger, or hire a virtual assistant to help you keep on top of things.

5. Retarget & Lookalikes

Going back to the pixel, you can now be retargeting ads to people who have previously clicked to crush your competition. People often need to give it some thought, discuss it with family members, or to raise funds before going ahead with a product or service, so be there in the newsfeed when they are ready.

You can also find a ‘lookalike audience’ of people who are very similar to those who have clicked. Lookalikes work very well, as Facebook profiles all of us and can match your business to people who would most likely be interested, using the data from those who have clicked or purchased previously.

Want some help with your lead generation strategy? Drop us a message here, we’d be happy to help!

Coffee Break Guides, Facebook Updates

How to Advertise Your Business Online!

We’ve helped hundreds of businesses over the years, so we’ve collated our 5 steps to success that you can use with YOUR business!

Check out our latest video – remember to SUBSCRIBE for future updates here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9js_Ad5i14pwfLpC3NpfaQ

These golden tips can be done quickly and will make a huge difference to your business. Watch our video here to find out more….

Ad Objectives, Coffee Break Guides

How To Make 5 Million a Year

How To Make 5 Million a Year – The DealRush Story

Despite having a HUGE competitor, development hurdles and a modest budget before launching, DealRush (founded by the owner of Marketing4Everyone) became one of Ireland’s biggest daily deal sites. So how did it scale to 5 million revenue in just 3 short years?

The DealRush Story

Tip One: You Don’t Need an Original Idea
Groupon had recently launched in Ireland and seemed to be getting a lot of traction, so we decided to copy them and start our own site. We had experience using Google Adwords and Facebook to get customers with 4 other small businesses we ran, so we figured we’d be good with getting subscribers.

Just because a business already exists, doesn’t mean yours will flop – if you do it right, you can be as successful as them, or even knock them out of the park. The rise of digital marketing and eCommerce is breaking the barriers to entry – take advantage!

Tip Two: Start Building a Following Pre-Launch
We searched and found there was an Indian company offering to build clone daily deal sites, so we hired them to build the site for us. It was a nightmare right from the start, with very little communication and awful work. We finally got them to build a landing page where we were offering 50 to 90% off restaurants, salons, gyms, hotels and holidays etc.

You had to put your email in to gain access to the site. After giving us their email address, users were directed to a thank you page where we said that the offers and deals were coming soon. We would then add them to our database with their location and name etc. Before we even had a website, we had a following! This secured our success once we were ready to launch.

Tip Three: Pilot Your Idea
We set up Google and Facebook ads to drive people to the landing page and quickly saw we were able to to get a cost per email or cost per acquisition of under 30 cents. This was very exciting, as we had heard that Groupon was paying a lot more to get each email address/subscriber, so we knew we were onto something and wanted to get the site built as soon as possible.

The hangover drink ‘Morning Recovery’ used a similar pilot scheme to test their idea before they’d even developed their product. They ran a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo which gained huge traction, and gave them an initial investment of $250,000 plus useful product feedback – it also helped them to gain future VC investment to become a multi-million dollar business.

The results from initial campaigns can make or break your chances of getting an investment. Run pilot ads to gauge how much interest there is in your business idea. You’ll be able to see your engagement, clicks and potential sales before you even launch.

Back to DealRush, the Indian developers continued to be a nightmare and we fired them a month later. At this stage, we had 6,000 email addresses and set about trying to find an experienced developer. We ended up emailing the entire Stanford computer science department offering an equity stake in return for helping us develop the site. This was not a good idea and we got some angry emails back about us spamming them etc. Finally, we found a very experienced developer and offered him a small sum plus a 5% equity stake in the business to develop the site asap.

Tip Four: Undercut the Competition
1 month later we had a slick, fully functional site and 10,000 subscribers. During that month we hired a sales guy as a contractor and had the founder and the sales contractor making 200 calls a day. We found out Groupon was charging 50% commission on every sale they generated for businesses, so we undercut them at 15% with tales of our 10,000 members. We had a brilliant line up of quality businesses to launch with for the first 2 weeks and we were super excited.

Around this time, there were a number of other sites launching and the competition was fierce. We launched and the first week was amazing with 11,000 euro in sales and many happy businesses. We did 15k the second week. We made good on our promises to these businesses to sell a decent amount of vouchers, and provide a low-cost alternative to Groupon. We were still not selling anywhere near the number of vouchers as Groupon, but at 15%, the businesses were actually making money from the deal and they trusted that we’d keep growing.

We did the same when we launched LoveWeddings.com, offering free listings in our wedding directory for suppliers, and free wedding planning tools for brides-to-be. We quickly scaled to a site offering hundreds of options to over 13,000 engaged couples signed up to our website within months.

When we launched Marketing4Everyone.com, we only charge €50 a month for our services. Once we’d proved our worth and were bringing in thousands in sales for our clients, they were accepting of our necessary fee increases to be able to become a profitable and successful marketing agency. We now look after marketing for over 500 businesses worldwide, with high retention and referral rates. If we’d launched with higher agency fees from day one, we would never have achieved this volume in less than 2 years.

Tip Five: Re-Invest Your Profits to Scale
As DealRush started to grow, we put every cent we made back into gaining more subscribers and our deals started selling in the hundreds, getting close to Groupon levels. Selling became a lot easier, as we were cheaper, selling volume, Irish-owned and had better quality deals on our platform. We continued with the same strategy of investing every cent back into the business for the first year, and by the end of it, we had over 150k subscribers and close to 1.5 million in revenue. The next year it was 3 million and the year after we hit 5 million in annual revenue.

Almost all of the other sites that launched around the same time as we did failed because they didn’t have subscribers when they started, and they couldn’t convince businesses to do repeat deals with them as they weren’t selling any vouchers. The ones that did get some traction also failed because they didn’t invest profits back into getting more subscribers.

In this sense, we got lucky, as we probably would have launched with no subscribers if the site was ready. The delay allowed us to launch with a decent subscriber base and gain traction quickly. We ended up becoming one of the top daily deal sites in Ireland, competing against multi-national companies like Living Social and Groupon, running thousands of deals and helping hundreds of different companies in different industries market their business.

We worked with businesses that were just starting out and helped them develop their brands and businesses into very successful online and offline products and services. This included hair and beauty salons, gyms, restaurants, hotels, and e-commerce. We have since sold the business to one of our Irish Competitors in 2017, but we still help many of these businesses achieve success via our digital agency Marketing4Everyone.

Ad Objectives, Coffee Break Guides, Retargeting

Tired of 10% Email Open Rates? Build Facebook Funnels!

Whatever business you’re in, you’ve likely heard the term ‘funnels’ before, perhaps you’ve even given it a go and created a sequence.

If you don’t know, a funnel is usually set up as a series of emails. You ‘hook’ people into the top of the funnel, and then take them through a sequence to nurture them, showing testimonials, case studies and promotions to warm them up to convert.

The main problem with email funnels is that you’re relying on your list actually opening them. If you manage to avoid the spam folder, you’re still looking at around 10% open rate for your emails if you’re lucky. This massively decreases your chances of then converting people further down the line to actually buy from you.

Another issue is that they come across as really ‘salesy’ and sometimes spammy. They are often very similar in format, with large blocks of text to build that relationship with the reader, but the problem is, they’re most likely busy when they get your email so don’t have time to do more than scan read it.

So how do you:

1. Increase visibility of your funnel content?
2. Ensure you’re reaching a relevant audience?
2. Cut through the noise with engaging messages and visuals?

Facebook.

I’ve written this blog because I’ve been speaking to several people in the past few weeks, all with this very similar problem. They have great USPs, are very inspiring people with genuinely good services, but their funnels are struggling to convert at the rate they’d like them to.

And it’s so simple to convert your funnel from email to Facebook & Instagram, here’s how:

1. Map Out Your Sequence

If you’re used to working with email sequences, this step will be helpful for you to lay out what you want to keep included. Look at what content you are sending out on which day and note it down. Here is a very rough example funnel:

– Thank you/welcome email – day 1

– More about you and your service – day 2

– Initial offer to join – day 3

– Customer testimonials – day 5

– Case study – day 7

– Stronger offer – day 10

– Newsletters – weekly

2. Convert To Ads

Now you’ve mapped out the important content you want to get across to your audience, you just need to convert this to Facebook. It’s important that you have pixels and lead events in place, as this information will be used to trigger the retargeting emails in the sequence.

Ad 1: Hook In Your Audience

Target: Use interests, behaviours and page engagement to build the audience

Run Days: Daily

Content: This ad would be in any sequence to ‘hook’ people in, except all you need from them is a click rather than an email signup. We usually still link people to a landing page from this first ad, and try to get their enquiry/conversion here, but it’s mainly to get the click. They are then signed up to your ‘virtual database’

You may still need a traditional ‘hook’ here, for example a signup to a free cheat sheet, and can still deliver that to them once they click through.

Ad 2: Build Awareness

Target: Custom audience – page visits in the last 3 days

Run Days: 0-3 (schedule to deactivate)

Content: Use this ad to explain more about you and your service, build up the credibility and trust in your service. Mention any awards you have, or points worth noting that make you stand out.

Don’t be too salesy, the focus here is on building that familiarity. Video works really well here, as over 90% will be clicking from mobile where videos autoplay and often with sound. Add subtitles where you can too – check our blog page for a free hack on adding subtitles.

Ad 3: Show The Proof

Target: Custom audience – page visits in the last 7 days

Run Days: 4-7 (schedule to activate)

Content: As per the traditional marketing funnel, your audience is now into the ‘consideration phase’. This is when you hit them with the proof that you rock!

Bring our your best case studies and video testimonials to showcase in your ads. This will be at least the 3rd ad they’ve seen on Facebook and Instagram for you, so don’t worry about taking up text introducing yourself again, just go straight in as if you’re on the 3rd or 4th email of a sequence.

Ad 4: The Big Finish

Target: Customer audience – page visits in the last 10 days

Run Days: 8 – 10 (schedule to activate)

Content: So you’ve hooked their interest, explained what you do, showed them why you are the best at your service, now it’s time to close!

This is where you push a limited time offer to work with you. You could also link to a landing page with a countdown clock to really add to the urgency and increase the chances of closing faster.

At the end of the sequence, you could drop them back to the beginning and alter the creatives for each phase, or drop them into your general ads on Facebook and Instagram. Just try to keep the content fresh, mix up the case studies and add new content to your sequence regularly.

If you’d like more tips on creating your own Facebook funnel, just drop us a message.

Ad Objectives, Coffee Break Guides

Why Your eCommerce Ad Strategy Isn’t Working (and How to Fix It)

Every week, we’re speaking to eCommerce business owners ready to throw in the towel with Facebook ads. Luckily, we have created a solid strategy that has worked for fashion stores, gadgets, jewellery, custom-made gifts, car parts and more.

eCommerce Strategy

So what are the common problems and more importantly, how do you fix them? The phrase we often hear is “I’ve been running ads for 2 days and not had 1 sale” which is where we begin….

Because Facebook makes it so simple to switch ads on and off, it can be easy to assume it’s like a tap. Think about purchases you’ve made online; did you instantly buy from a company you had never heard of after one click?

As an example, I am currently dress-shopping for my sister-in-law’s wedding. I stereotypically like to order at least 10 dresses to try at home, will probably return all of them, visit stores, try to lose 3 stone in a month to fit into the one I like, go back and order 10 more, before eventually choosing ‘the one’ (usually the first one I bought).

I’m currently being retargeted with ads on my Facebook and Instagram feeds by Next, Dorothy Perkins, Asos, and many other smaller independent brands and drop shippers. I am seeing their ads and clicking, I’m genuinely considering options from all of them. These are the ads currently in my feeds from a few minutes of scrolling (for research purposes obviously.) 😉

eCommerce Fashion Ads

These brands are constantly running ads to me, I know when they have sales on via Facebook and Instagram ads. This is the only reason I repeatedly purchase from these brands – I never Google them or open their emails (which I find in my spam folder usually) – they always catch me on impulse on my Facebook or Insta feed.

The reason I purchase from these brands is that I feel like I know them and I trust them. When I ask myself why, there really isn’t any answer other than the fact they are ‘familiar’, and the reason they are familiar is that I see their ads all of the time – I don’t even visit their stores and I’ve never read their reviews come to think of it. I just feel like I know them as they’re always there.

So why is this all important? Because you can’t run ads for 2 days and expect someone to feel comfortable giving you their card online, trust you’ll deliver to them, or to decide on a purchase without shopping around. Sometimes you’ll catch the odd sale this way, but it’s not going to bring home the bacon.

Think Longer-Term With Ad Budgets

If you’ve ever ordered flyers, hired a billboard ad, booked a radio slot, or even a newspaper insert, this is likely to have cost you a lot more than £15 to spend over 3 days. You’ve made a fair-sized financial commitment to that marketing campaign, and that’s how you should treat Facebook and Instagram ads.

Whatever business you run, set out a 3-month plan as a minimum for your spend. Commit to focusing on building awareness and credibility at the start, getting traffic to your website so that the pixel can collect that data and learn from it – put sales to the back of your mind at the beginning.

There’s always an exciting turning point in a campaign which is where the patience pays off. At this point, you begin retargeting people who have been clicking. They are warm as they already know about you, they’ve built some trust, they know what you offer, and they’re more inclined to purchase.

Not only this, but all of that learning on the pixel means you can create ‘lookalike audiences’ – these are people similar to those who have clicked. Lookalikes have such a fantastic response rate compared to people you just find based on interests.

So how do you fix your eCommerce strategy? You change your mindset, you have patience, and you have a longer-term strategy. We have many clients with budgets as low as £5 a day, that’s around £150 a month. You can still get a good amount of reach and clicks for this budget – run ads consistently, and you can then retarget this ‘virtual database’ with ads. This is more powerful than emailing a physical database, where you’d be lucky to get 10% open rates.

Case Study – FunStuff

Here is an example of a client we built up awareness and traffic for over a few months – they still had solid sales in that time, but we were ramping up to the big Black Friday sale week. In just 7 days, we turned €670 ad spend into €21,000 in sales – and this was just the tracked online sales. You can see that the initial interest campaign was costing €18 per purchase, but the retargeting campaign was down at €1.43 per purchase (a 146 x return on ad spend). The lookalike campaign had a 41 x return on ad spend compared to 11 x on interests, showing the power of lookalikes too.

eCommerce Sales

If you’d like some help with your eCommerce marketing, we offer fantastic ‘done for you’ packages which include pixel installation, dynamic product catalogue setup, strategy creation and your own account manager, for an unbeatable price.

Contact us here for more details.