Everyone is using Facebook these days. There are over 2.2 billion active daily users.
China, the largest country in the world, only contains 1.4 billion people.
The ‘population’ of Facebook is massive!
No wonder Businesses all want to use it to promote their products and services.
The problem is, 62% of small businesses feel like their paid Facebook Ads are failing.
No one wants to be throwing money at ads that don’t work! What good is such a massive pool of potential customers if you can’t successfully reach them?
Thankfully, there are ways to fix this problem. You don’t have to be part of that 62%!
I’m going to show you the most common reasons why small businesses fail with Facebook Ads and how to fix each issue.
But first, let’s look at the big picture to understand the problem better.
The Problem Isn’t Facebook Ads
96% of all B2C marketers use social media posts as a form of content marketing. That leaves only 4% that don’t!
Not only that, but out of all of the B2C companies using social media, 97% of them use Facebook!
This means nearly everyone is using Facebook for business marketing.
If everyone is doing it, it must work, right?
Overall, only 3% of companies who participated in the Content Marketing Institute survey felt that their content marketing approach was not successful.
Since I just showed you that over 97% of them were using Facebook, we have to assume they included that in these results.
And that means Facebook content marketing is successful for the majority of businesses, in general.
But small business owners seem to be struggling with success.
Manta surveyed 4,712 small business owners regarding their use of Facebook, and their results are similar to Weebly’s.
50% of small businesses feel they’re not getting a positive return on investment from Facebook.
This is important for two reasons:
- The pool of potential customers is so massive, that if you cannot do this right, you’re handing over a huge chunk of business to your competitors who succeed at it.
- You’re paying for ads that aren’t providing a return, which means you’re just throwing away time and money.
Why is it that small businesses are failing at Facebook Ads when larger companies are not?
What are small businesses doing wrong?
Problem #1 – A lack of understanding of content marketing
I just showed you that the problem is small businesses and not Facebook Ads.
So what do small businesses have in common, that big businesses do not when it comes to Facebook advertising?
Let’s look at small businesses.
About one-third of small businesses fail within the first two years, and half of all small businesses fail by year five.
Why is the failure rate so high?
There is a range of reasons, from lack of experience to lack of cash flow.
Of course, these reasons for failing in business can also be valid reasons for failing in marketing.
Let’s start with the lack of experience.
Too many small business owners try to wear too many hats.
Just because you are an expert in your field, your product, or your service, does not mean you know everything you need to know about running a business.
Facebook Ads are not like an ad you pay to have in the local newspaper.
A basic understanding of content marketing is necessary to see success unless you’re just insanely lucky.
Understanding social marketing and how it differs from traditional marketing can make all the difference.
A typical approach through the sales funnel is actually a long and winding road across different channels, devices, and messages.
Your first job, then, is to try to recreate this whole winding path within Facebook Ad campaigns.
You need to have multiple campaigns, each with different objectives, and target audiences with varying levels of intent.
That means we need to look at campaigns as a whole.
Then we need to find the bottlenecks and determine how steps right before or after them are contributing to the issue.
The good news is that Facebook helps you with this right out of the gate:
Depending on your selection, your objectives and ads should be completely different.
Is your problem low sales?
Start with conversion campaigns.
Make sure all the basics are covered.
Create a ‘tripwire’ to scale down complex or expensive areas.
Focusing on being simple and straightforward should do the trick.
Are you trying to create consideration-building campaigns?
You need to actively re-engage people who are familiar with your business.
That means recapturing past visitors.
You should be using Dynamic Product Ads to see who has viewed product pages.
Focus on getting people to download eBooks, white papers, and checklists or try getting them to attend webinars.
Make sure you use marketing automation for all of this stuff to make it seamless.
Is your priority simply increasing awareness of your brand?
Prioritize expanding your reach by optimizing ads for website visits and clicks.
Aim to promote content that will appeal to the widest possible target group.
And make sure you try carousel ads to test different messaging to see what’s most effective.
Problem #2 – No strategy, plan, or measurement system
Of course, I realize it’s not as cut and dry as ‘learn content marketing and you will be a success’!
I also realize how many hats a small business owner has to wear and how limited your time can be.
So I’ll take you through several specific areas where small businesses tend to fail with Facebook Ads and how to quickly fix them today.
First off, as with any part of your business, the biggest mistake is not having a strategy and plan.
There is massive potential to grow your business using Facebook, but if you don’t have a clear vision of how you want to use it or what you want the outcome to be, you will fail.
Facebook is just another business tool. It is used by different businesses in different ways.
Over 72% of small businesses said they want to use Facebook to raise awareness.
If this is your goal, then a low click-through rate doesn’t accurately measure whether you were successful or not.
Before you try anything else, figure out what is your goal of using Facebook.
The top goals for small business owners in the Mantra study were:
- Building awareness
- Attracting new customers
- Getting phone calls from new customers
- Increasing website traffic
- Improving customer retention
Once you know your goals, then figure out how you’re going to measure success.
To make sure you’re picking the right posts, you need to establish engagement benchmarks.
This will help you decide whether or not a paid promotion will be worth it.
Keep in mind that benchmarks will vary between companies based on their goals.
To set an engagement benchmark for your company, you’ll want to look at your current number of followers, past engagement rates, competitors’ engagement, and your overall Facebook goals.
You’ll also want to determine how much value a click and conversion hold to your company. This will allow you to view your campaign in terms of monetary value and compare it with other advertising expenses.
A monetary value will also help justify the time and resources you put into Facebook Ads.
The benefits of maintaining an active presence on social media will only increase as time goes on.
Especially if you are a small company with little social media presence, a little effort will go a long way.
The best way to start is to define your goals, whether that be brand awareness or strictly conversions.
Plan a content strategy around your goals and desired brand personality.
Then, you’ll want to know who you’re talking to. Consider your current customer base and the type of audience you want to attract on social media.
Developing a deep understanding of your audience will help you create more engaging content and, therefore, create more effective paid ads.
Once your content is flowing, you’ll want to start tracking your KPIs so you can prove that your social media is successful.
