Facebook marketing is often difficult to get your head around. There seem to be new rules published every day on how to get the best bang for your buck, how much you really need to spend to find success, and even just how to work the platform.
It’s often so confusing that some small businesses are put off using Facebook altogether.
That being said, we’re here to tell you that it isn’t as complicated as many make it out to be, and it all starts with finding the right target audience, and learning how to reach them.
In the next five steps, we’ll go through everything you need to know.
Build an ideal customer profile
This may seem a little silly, but nowadays, having a target market of ‘female, 18-25’ simply isn’t enough.
Start to think about who your product would suit the most and their lifestyle as a whole. Write down their age, background, and occupation – then go into their finances.
Come up with a realistic household income of your customer, whether they prefer to spend with cash or card, and how much disposable income they have available.
You can then look at where your customer sees themselves in 10 years, and what products and services would make their life easier (hopefully, yours).
This will give you an immediate better understanding of your target market. Do this three to four times, creating a different ideal customer each time.
Set your ad audiences
Creating an ad on Facebook will lead you to select an audience type. These should be set up based on your customer profiles created in step one, so you can tailor each ad towards a certain demographic.
Facebook will allow you to refine your ad’s reach by gender, age, occupation, location, or even online buying habits.
Prepare for trial and error
It’s unlikely you’re going to get everything right the first time you create a Facebook ad
Start testing what makes your audience engage with your advertisements, and tailor your marketing approach further based on those statistics.
You can then start to test different offers, freebies, competitions and promotions to see what makes your audience really tick.
Take advantage of custom audiences
Facebook will allow you to tailor your ads towards people who engage with those who are more likely to create a sale, which is really handy for creating repeat custom.
These are often those who interact with your website, message you on Facebook, and have previously bought one of your products.
You can also create ‘lookalike audiences’ where Facebook finds people of a similar demographic with the same spending habits as your most loyal customers.
Facebook will allow you to start exploring custom audiences when your page hits 1,000 visitors a month, and you have the correct tracking systems in place on your website.
Seek help
If you’re struggling with the world of Facebook marketing, it’s definitely worth seeking the help of a professional team to at least get you started.
Check out the London Social Media Agency Noise Media, they manage the social media strategies, content production and distribution for tonnes of high profile brands.
