Facebook might be losing it’s “sexy” and “cool” appeal among social networks since it is no longer the destination for teenagers eager to air their angst. As a matter of fact, 71.1% of Facebook users are twenty-five years or older. However, this does not imply that Facebook is sinking into oblivion. Recent research from statista shows that Facebook is actually bigger than ever with about 1.86 billion monthly users. Surely, such a significant amount of monthly users cannot signify slow down let alone oblivion.

Facebook marketing opportunities are always in plenty

Facebook is an ideal place to invest. I certainly invest a lot on Facebook. In fact, Google Adwords’ cost-per-click does not come close to that of Facebook in terms of relative cheapness. The average cost-per-click on Google Adwords is $2.32 while on Facebook, it’s just $0.64. And that’s not all, with a few economical moves, you can slash the number to a smaller amount. This information is sufficient to capture the imagination of many online marketers.

Another great thing about Facebook is that there are many options available for different users. For instance, you can increase management, build brand awareness, get more traffic on your Facebook page and even transform the traffic into sales. It really depends on what you are looking for and your specific objectives.

But here’s the deal

Facebook can be distinguished from veteran pay-per-click (PPC) platforms such as Adwords in that, Facebook goes beyond impressions or just buying clicks and features its own Sales Funnel as well.

This is how.

Change your approach

Before you begin your Facebook marketing quest, you need to ask yourself the simple question, Why do I log into Facebook?

If you are like most people, chances are that you log in to check your friends’ Facebook updates, comment on their photos and basically to know what’s up. With that in mind, it’s safe to say that a person who logs into Facebook to specifically look for products to buy is really weird (not to mention anti-social). People log into Facebook to chill and hang out with their friends, not to make purchases.

Below is a graph detailing how a majority of the people on Facebook spend their time.

From the graph, it’s clear that Facebook is more concerned with socializing than with anything else. Generally, when people are on Facebook, they are rarely thinking about making a purchase. This implies that the overall intention of buying products is rather low on Facebook and that it is perhaps a very unorthodox place to make sales.

In some instances, this might be true and may result in disappointing ROI for many brands. They might be getting the followers and additional management, but still be lacking in solid conversions.

A bad workman always blames his tools and in our case, poor management would lay the blame on Facebook. But really, Facebook is not the problem, it is the approach in question that should be modified to be practical. Otherwise, you do not go trying to sell products to a person who is not yet ready to buy. People don’t just pull out their credit cards and buy without a buying mindset.

Perhaps you are familiar with the following buying cycle

Let’s face it. When people are at the “opportunity recognition” stage, chances are that they are not ready to purchase the product. But you need not despair because some Audience will purchase the product thus, all hope is not lost. However, most of the Facebook users are not ready to but it is still possible to turn such leads into conversions.

Here’s how

Being successful in Facebook advertising requires that you create your own sales funnel. The sales funnel should make sense, be logical and consider that most people are not on Facebook to buy products

With that in mind, here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can create a your sales funnel on Facebook.

Step 1- Create segmented content

The first thing you are going to need at your disposal is content of different forms. This could be a video, slideshow, infographic, blog post, an eBook, etc.

Regardless of which form you choose, you should ensure that it’s engaging, has high quality and is relevant to the particular product that you are promoting. Ensure that the content is available on your website as this will come in handy when retargeting leads and working them well deeper into the funnel.

You will require various forms of content in order to reach different categories of audience. Considering the fact that you will encounter various people at various levels of the purchasing process, a one-fit-all approach might not be the best way to go. Some people might be cold and not be interested in buying and are simply conducting research while others might be looking to buy the product immediately.

Tailoring the content with different users in mind ensures there is something for different categories of audiences. Once the audience is exposed to the content, then they are in your funnel

Step 2- Promoting content to”warm audience”

It is better to start with the easy stuff and save the difficult stuff for last. That is why I recommend promoting content to warm people first.This will basically comprise of your Facebook fans as well as those in your retargeting list.

The key here is to monitor engagement levels and find out which content is making the most conversion in terms of sales.

Fully evaluate your content and see which one is performing best. Chances are that, If the warm leads respond well to the content then, the cold audience is likely to follow suit.

Step 3- Target “lookalike audiences”

On Facebook, lookalike audiences refer to people who resemble your current clients, fans or your website visitors. They are basically people who have similar behaviors, interests, and habit as your current main audience. Think of your lookalike audience as an undecided audience who can be easily turned into a warm audience.Therefore, these people are your targets.

To target such audience, you will have o visit the audience segment on Facebook then click on the option for creating a lookalike audience.

After you click on it, this is what will pop up

Proceed by first choosing your source. This might be a personalized audience, your pixel data or the fans on your page. Choose whichever is most suitable.

The next step is to determine the location together with the size of the audience which may be approximately 1% to 10% of the population of the country/countries you choose.

Remember that the other things held constant, the lower the percentage of audience size, the greater the likelihood that your lookalike audience will match your current audience.

After you have done that, click on the “Create Audience” option at the bottom.

Congratulations, the lookalike audience now comprises cold audience who can easily be transformed into viable leads.

Step 4- Promoting the best content first

Recall the content that was received well by your warm audience? This is the content to expose to the undecided buyers. Regardless of whether it’s a blog post, a video, webinar or any of the other forms, more emphasis should be put in promoting this content.

The objective here is to move a substantial number of the undecided folks into your sales funnel to ensure they are transformed into a warm audience.

From this point on, they should know enough about your brand and have a “buying mindset”

Step 5- Effective re-marketing

When advertising, you do not expect that most of the undecided buyers will turn into willing buyers that make a purchase in a heartbeat. That’s not exactly how it works. Most of the time, you will have to expose your audience to your brand repeatedly before they are moved enough to buy the product. Priming your audience will require remarketing and the ideal network to do this is Facebook.

Step 6- Making use of Facebook Pixel

Facebook pixel is one of my most favorite tools on Facebook ads.

Facebook pixel works as follows:

1. Create a Pixel on Facebook.
2. Add Facebook pixel to be included in your website code.
3. You use the pixel for re-marketing and bringing visitors back to buy the product.

To begin click on “Tools” in the top menu then “Create a Pixel”This is what will pop up

Ensure that the small box next to ” I agree with Facebook Pixel Terms” is ticked then Click “Next.”

It will give you the option of using a tag or integration manager or copy-pasting the code. Copy and paste is easier, but feel free to use whichever method you are comfortable with.

After this is done, Facebook will automatically create your pixel code.

The idea here is to copy-paste it in your website’s code.

This may be a bit challenging if you do not have much coding experience. In which case I will refer you to this Facebook guide for all the details that you will require.

You should take painstaking care when pasting the code to avoid ruining the original code on your site.

Step 7 – Remarketing using a video

There are various remarketing techniques. As for Facebook, I prefer using videos for moving people deeper into my sales funnel.

When a person checks out a video, guide or blog post, or guide, they gain knowledge about your brand and probably develop some interest. My objective, therefore, is to make a video ad that will resonate with the audience and make them go to my homepage.

I might convey something of the sort, “Thanks for taking the time to check out (the content), you can find additional information on (name of your landing page) to ensure that you don’t miss out on anything.”

Pay close attention to the fact that I am not trying to sell them anything right away, I am basically trying to get them to learn more about the product.

This is a very effective method for moving your leads down your sales funnel without seeming to be a salesperson.

Step 8 – Remarketing yet again

At this stage, you will make some conversions, though not all your audience will convert.
So what is the way forward?

I recommend coming up with an additional remarketing ad in order to reach out to those who did not convert initially and to encourage them to subscribe to your mailing list.

For example, your ad may read something like, “thanks for taking te time to check out (the page), don’t forget to opt in for our (free eBook, free trial, etc.).

In so far as you have a great offer, a large proportion of the non-converts will proceed and opt in. Once they opt in, you can warm them to the point when they are willing the product.

Step 9 – Warm up your prospects even more

Motivating your prospects to opt-in is great, but it’s not enough.

About a quarter of those who opt in will actually read your emails. This implies that three-quarters of those who opt in won’t actually make a conversion if you stop there.

If someone visits your free eBook or free trial page and doesn’t convert, I would suggest that you create an ad explaining all the advantages that come with the product in order to address and eliminate any skepticism that the may have towards the product.

A great way to do this would be to provide testimonials, explain the product’s features further, or to mention notable figures as well as brands that have made use of your product.

The idea here is to do whatever it takes to increase the credibility of your brand so that people believe that the product actually does what it is supposed to do.

Step 10- The hard sell

The final step in the sales funnel is to make the hard sell. From this point on, you are keen to follow up on the people who ave made use of your free trial, eBook, etc., but did not go to the final checkout page.

A good approach in such a situation is creating a personalized video that conveys the following message, “Thanks for taking the time to check out (the content), However, you didn’t buy (the product).”

Then proceed by using a compelling message as to why they should buy the product.

From this point on, all of your potential customers know about our brand and are primed up and willing the product.

How Facebook sales funnel works

Perhaps the information laid out above is too much to absorb in one reading. So allow me to summarize it using a visual funnel.

This brings us to the last stage

The main steps are as follows.

1. Begin by generating content for your current “warm audience” to see what resonates with them most.
2. Create an audience that comprises of people with similar interest as the audience that are willing to buy the product.
3. Promote only the best content you have to the undecided audience.
4. Some of your undecided audience will become warm and buy the product.
5. Use Facebook pixel to remarket to those who didn’t convert.
6. Finish the four phases of remarketing which basically involves targeting those who didn’t buy the product.
7. Maximize on the conversions.

When you follow all the instructions above, you will gradually move leads down your sales funnel. As you progress from one stage to another, they will gain more awareness about your brand and will be more interested in buying what you are selling. This is crucial because not many people are willing to buy right from the word go.

As a matter of fact, it might take significant effort and exposure of your brand before your leads are comfortable enough to buy your product.

Efficiency through automation

The amazing thing about this sales funnel is, it allows you to take advantage of the process of automation.

After you have created a few distinct remarketing ads for your audience at various stages of the funnel, you can switch to auto pilot.

This gives you the opportunity to spend time perfecting existing content and generating new content to attract additional people to your sales funnel.

From this point on, you are basically making the best of your content and achieving optimal conversions.

Conclusion

From my experience, I have found Facebook to be a very reliable platforms for gaining exposure for my brand and one that is actually very effective in increasing the number of sales.

However, in order to be successful, you first have to understand how the average Facebook user thinks. Getting somebody to be comfortable enough with your brand to buy your product is a process and takes time.

After developing a sales funnel, you can take potential clients step-by-step through the purchasing process and provide them with all the relevant information to ensure they are able to make the right buying decision.

You only need to sit back, be patient and let Facebook do its job.

The most amazing thing is how easy automation makes your job after creating your content as well as remarketing ads