The 1 Thing You MUST Do BEFORE You Run a Facebook Ad

Have you heard that running Facebook Ads for your business is a surefire way to get new clients?  Are you ready to join the party?

Well, it's 'bout freaking time! I mean, it's 2018, ya'll.  Time to get with it! :)

If you think you can get BIG results with Facebook Ads, you're right.  Lots of gyms and studios are generating leads with their ads everyday.  

But I want you to know the truth.  It takes TIME.  It take STRATEGY.

And selling straight to "cold" audiences ain't gonna do it for ya.  So before you start targeting your people of a specific age in your zip code, know this...

The #1 Thing You MUST Do Before You Run a Facebook Ad is to create a warm audience.

And the best way to do that is…

Create content that asks for nothing in return.

⇒ Before I continue on, you might be wondering, "What is a warm audience, anyway?"  Basically, it's people who are at least somewhat familiar with you or your brand.

A cold audience, on the other hand, is people who have never heard of you (think: cold audience = like cold calling).

The goal is to get as many people exposed to your brand as possible, without asking for anything in return.

This strategy probably defies everything you've learned about Facebook Ads.

I mean, everything I read says "have a strong call to action" or "make sure they know what you want them to do."

But the big idea here is EXPOSURE. Get as many eyes on your content as possible.  And GIVE, GIVE, and GIVE some more.

It will payoff. I promise.  Especially after Mark Zuckerberg’s big announcement about newsfeed changes a few weeks ago.  Facebook is going to prioritize content that connects family and friends and sparks conversation, bringing people together to engage.

The more you give, the more people will engage.  This should become a key part of your strategy.  Permanently.

So how does this work?  Well, each person that views or engages with your content now becomes part of your warm audience.  And after you give them lots of good, free, juicy content, you can send Facebook Ads directly to them!

And that's awesome because they've already been exposed to your content. They already know you.  Are you following?  

Give free content, asking nothing in return = get people familiar with your brand = create a bigger audience for your business

so how do you actually create warm audiences, anyway?

PUBLISH BETTER CONTENT + GET MORE PEOPLE TO SEE IT

Sounds easy enough, right?

1. Publish BETTER content.

The more helpful and valuable content you create (videos, articles, tips, tools, etc), the more engagement you will get with viewers.  I can't really tell you what kind of content you need to publish. That is specific to the kind of business and brand you have.  

But I can tell you this: be unique. Be real.  Be yourself.  That’s really what sets you apart from everyone else. If you're charming, charismatic and witty on video, do us a favor and get in front of that camera! Or if you're better at writing, do that!

 

2.  Now, PUSH people to your content!

Now that you've published your content, how will you get more eyes on it?

• Promote your videos or posts on Facebook with organic "link" posts.

  This is super easy and you've probably don't it a million times. Just create a post on your page and insert the link to your blog post. Write a blurb on why you're sharing or what it's about and you're done!

• Turn your “link” post into a Facebook Ad

  A couple days after you post, create an ad inside Ads Manager and select that exact link post as your ad.

• Insert links to your Facebook content in your newsletters or emails

• Post links to your content on your website or other social media outlets

• Basically, any way you can think of, tell people about this content on your Facebook Page!

• Take a spin on your content and record a FB Live talking about it more in depth

  This is a double-whammy! You'll build the audience from FB Live AND from the content you're pushing people to. Whoop whoop!

**Important: Before you start, be sure that the piece of content you're promoting has the ability to build custom audience. On Facebook, you'll need it to be a lead ad, video, page interaction or canvas engagement. Off of Facebook, you'll need the content page (such as your website or blog) to be "pixeled."

Need more help? I wrote another post about creating custom audience that you can read here.  

Or you can go straight to my video tutorials on how to build a custom audience by accessing The Tech Vault.  Just click the image below!