Facebook was once considered the friends and family social media channel. But things have changed. With 17 million active users, Facebook is Australia’s biggest social media channel. Here are eight good reasons why you should consider Facebook ads as part of your marketing plan.

Reach

Frequency and reach are two important factors for advertising. Ideally you want:

Good reach into your market.
A good frequency of ad posts so they are seen and remembered.

In February 2017, Facebook had 17 million active users in Australia, which means 70 percent of Australians are actively on Facebook. Of those, 25 percent check social media sites more than five times a day, and 63 percent check it in the evenings. If your customers are Australian, you’ve got a good chance of reaching them via Facebook.

Other social media channels lag behind:

Facebook – 17,000,000 users (up 1 million since January 2017)
YouTube – 15,000,000 unique active views (not unique users)
WordPress.com – 5,100,000
Instagram – 5,000,000 Monthly Active Australian Users (Facebook/ Instagram data)
Snapchat – 4,000,000 DAILY Active Australian Users (Snapchat data)
Tumblr – 4,000,000
LinkedIn – 3,600,000
WhatsApp – 3,100,000 Active Australian Users (30% increase since 2015)
Twitter – 2,800,000 Monthly Active Australian Users approx
TripAdvisor – 2,800,000

Source: Social Media Statistics Australia – February 2017

Big Data For Targeted Ads

Facebook has approximately 1000 pages of data per user. This includes:

Demographic data users provide for their profile (gender, age, job title, mobile number, marital status, location, interests etc).
Actions users take on Facebook (likes, clicks, pages visited, messages sent via Messenger, posts, photos, check ins etc).
Data Facebook purchases and merges against user profiles (purchasing habits, browsing history).

Those numbers may horrify individuals concerned about their privacy. However, the comprehensive data Facebook keeps on every user allows small businesses to create highly customised targeted Facebook ads.

Customised Audiences

Facebook has some nifty tools that allow you to target a specific audience including:

Custom audiences – you can load a database of your existing customers and target to them.
Look alike audiences – Facebook users who fit the same or similar profile to your existing customer base.
Visitors to your website – create a custom audience of people who visit your website and use it for retargeting.

However, there are some considerations for small business owners.

Customer data – Facebook users often use their private email addresses. If you have your customer’s business email address in your database, there may not be a match. However, you can create a match using their mobile phone number.
Website visitors – If your site has fewer than 1000 visitors per month, it will be difficult to create a Facebook ad campaign.

Affordable

Affordable advertising is a big challenge for any small business. Every business needs to create new business opportunities but advertising can be expensive. For example, a traditional print ad in a local newspaper can cost around $6000 + GST per ad. With traditional advertising, you have to:

Pay for professional artwork.
Place the ad by the deadline.

Most often, the ad appears once in one publication. You have no visibility on how many people have read the ad and you have to survey new inquiries to find out if they saw the ad. You don’t need thousands of dollars to create a Facebook ad. For a modest budget, you can experiment and:

Reach a targeted audience, including your own customers, visitors to your website and people who fit the profile of your ideal customer.
Create your own artwork.
Place the ad at any time, and run it to your own schedule.
Modify the ad if it is not performing well.
Measure the engagement with your ad (clicks, likes, shares).

Achieve Marketing Goals

You can place Facebook ads to achieve three key marketing objectives:

Awareness: Local awareness, brand awareness, reach.
Consideration: Traffic, engagement, app installs, video views, lead generation.
Conversion: Conversions, product catalogue sales, in-store visits.

It’s no coincidence these stages roughly align to the customer journey (the steps a lead takes to become a customer of your business). I can hear you say “I’m only interesting in paying for conversions”. I understand what you’re saying but marketing is a bit like dating. New customers need a process of getting to know you. So first, you need to let them know you exist. One way to do this is awareness advertising. Once you’ve made contact, you need to keep them interested and nurture the relationship. Consideration advertising can support this critical step in the relationship. And once you’ve built interest, trust and rapport with your prospect, you can progress the relationship to a sale. It’s worth noting that research shows customers need 7-14 interactions with your business before they’re ready to purchase.

Facebook Ads Improve Lead Conversion

It’s not likely that advertising via social media alone will bring in a high volume of new business. A multi-channel approach is wise for any business. Research shows that a coordinated, permission-based email and Facebook campaign can improve the results of your marketing campaign by up to 77 percent. That is, prospects who see your Facebook ad and receive an email are much more likely to get your message.

Source: Hey $FNAME” is Dead. Here’s How to Personalize Marketing in 2017.

Facebook Ads for Local Area Marketing

One of the great advantages digital advertising has over traditional advertising is the ability to be more targeted. Facebook advertising offers great tools for targeting customers and prospects in your local area. You can define your audience by a geographic radius around your business. This is ideal for retail businesses that service a broad demographic audience but a local geographic customer base.

Recruit New Staff

If your business employs entry level staff, Facebook can be a good way to recruit new employees. For example, we have recruited for a food and hospitality business that employs shop assistants. We ran a Facebook ad for one week and received many quality applications. However, Facebook is not the right channel for every role. We also tried to recruit a chef via Facebook and didn’t receive any suitable applications.

Facebook, Small Business

Facebook Ads – 8 Reasons Why They’re Good for Small Business