In the past few years, online advertising has bloomed, with more and more companies choosing internet platforms to promote their products.
Why so? Well, this is the cheapest way to reach your audience without even having to leave your desk.
In this new marketing climate, the platform that stands out most is Facebook. With over 2 billion active users monthly, small and large companies advertise on Facebook with the hopes of increasing their profits. Yet despite the simplicity and cost-efficiency of this method, many entrepreneurs fail to use Facebook correctly.
I have been working on this with dozens of businesses in various niches. Today, I want to share with you the typical mistakes companies make when advertising on Facebook.
1. You don’t focus the community around you.
Probably the most prevalent mistake that inexperienced entrepreneurs make is they don’t build a strong community around their business.
Create a Page where many engaged and creative people share their thoughts and ideas, and you will easily promote your own business among them and their friends. It may even turn into a strong fanbase, which will advertise your business on its own and bring in more value and fame to your company.
2. You don’t regularly publish content on your business Page.
If you think that you can create several evergreen ads that will earn you millions on Facebook, you have definitely not been in this business for long enough.
“Evergreen” is a myth. The most successful online companies update the contents of their Page on a regular basis – ideally every day, or weekly in the worst-case scenario. Similar to my previous point, this encourages the community to engage in interesting discussions and spread the word about your business. Most importantly, your buyers always see fresh, new content, which contributes to a positive brand image.
3. Your creatives aren’t ‘creative’ enough.
Investing significant resources in your Facebook Ads campaign is definitely important, but it means nothing if you don’t have a great catalog of ads that can get impressions, no matter what your product is.
Creating a Facebook advertising masterpiece is a real new-age art. You need to consider so many factors: the first three seconds of your ad, which is crucial for sales, appropriate headlines, texts, hashtags, etc. Also, are you going to appeal to people’s emotions, or are you going to make them think?
While many companies look to outsource the creative aspect of their advertising, I would recommend having a department in-house or a person who knows both the product you sell and the art of successful advertising.
4. You’re not testing strategically.
Now for the tricky part: How do you choose what audience on Facebook should see your ads? What are the interests you should consider targeting? How do you scale up your campaigns? These are the questions that require a whole lot of space and time to think about before you decide.
What I have noticed with many inexperienced Facebook entrepreneurs, however, is they actually don’t have a methodical and clear approach towards testing. They jump around different interests and try out everyoption in the ad setup menu.
When it comes to testing, developing a clear, step-by-step approach and understanding what key performance indicators (KPIs) to analyze and why is key to avoiding a wasteful resource investment.
5. You’re not checking in on what your competitors offer.
If you think that your product is purely unique, you’d be wrong — at least by 99%. There are (or at least will be) dozens of businesses around who sell something similar and do it very successfully.
Analyze each and every company working in your niche making sales and profit. What creatives are they using? What is their approach toward the community? How are they targeting their audience?
Yes, every product and company is unique to some extent. However, a proven scientific method for solving any task is finding “best practices” and using them to your own benefit.
6. You mimic others instead of finding your own way.
Now here’s the 1% exception — a very important one. Yes, finding and using best practices is vital, but you can’t simply take a successful company in your niche, do everything just as they did, and wait for millions to fall into your bank account. You need to find your own path, the method that works best for you. And I mean so many things here.
What is your business approach? What do you enjoy the most about the job you do? What can you do better than others? Find the answers to these questions and use this knowledge to your own benefit. Of course, there are so many more things to consider, but these are crucial when you start working with Facebook.
Online advertising platforms can give you fantastic results, that is true. But it’s not as simple as many people say. Advertising on Facebook gives you so much space for applying your creativity. I hope my advice will help you avoid mistakes that many others have made.
I wish you the success you have never even dreamed of. May the force be with you!
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This article first appeared in www.forbes.com
Guest Author: Alex Fedotoff is known as a “King of Scaling Facebook Ads”. Alex Fedotoff is overseeing $40+ MM/year in profitable ad spend for Fortune 500 and SMB companies
