Facebook As marketing platform

Facebook As marketing platform

Facebook is an amazing advertising platform although most businesses still unaware that many firms are getting business from face book successfully. Some Factor you should consider if you are looking for business through social media sites like Face book.

If Facebook advertising works (and it does), why arent more business using it as an effective advertising or recruitment tool?

Facebook is an effective tool to build successful campaigns.

Firstly some quick stats; these stats are always changing (for the better), but, in a nutshell, Facebook can rightly be called a phenomenon with 200 million active users, 18 million of those return daily. And its popularity is spread across all age groups; 12% of users are aged between 13-17, 29% aged 18 to 24, 30% aged 25- 34 and 29% aged 35 and above. This demographically even split makes Face book an amazing prospect for business advertising.

Face book enables advertisers to only show ads to those targeted users who would be interested based on the detailed information captured by each user. The key to Face book advertising is knowing and understanding your target demographic and making sure you reach them with adverts that resonate and are relevant. So the first action is to work out who you want to reach and build a targeted campaign against that demographic. Think about the possibilities here for who you want to reach and how they would register their interests on Face book the opportunities are endless.
5 factors you should keep in mind when you decided to start Face book advertising campaigns:

1. Make Your Ads Campaign Specific.

So many businesses make the mistake of creating a general business ad with details of their company as a whole. The more specific the ad, the easier it will be for the viewer to decide whether it is relevant to them. Increasing relevant and cutting out irrelevant clicks. It will also allow you to more clearly specify your key demographic i.e. age group, gender, interests.

Create an ad for each specific product/service you provide.

For example: For a Search engine marketing institute instead of creating institute profile ad they should create ads for their separate courses e.g. a Pay per click management course ad with specific details about that course. This leads onto what you do with people when they get onto your site

2. Think Carefully About The Ad Landing Page
You could have the best ad in the world but if the viewer isn’t taken to a landing page that matches the ad copy, they’ll lose interest. If you are recruiting land on the relevant work for us page. If you are a institute looking to increase enrolments, land on the right course page.

3. Make Your Ads Emotive

Create a reason for the user to click on your advertisement. Remember you are targeting ads to their interests. Ask your visitor a questionnaire.

For example: A further Search Engine Marketing institute may ask Do you want to be a Search engine Optimization professional? When alluding to their Search engine marketing course. Use strong emphasizes tags for Making bold statements that grab the Visitor attention will always gain you more clicks. Be daring as well as informative with your ad copy and you’ll definitely get a higher click through rate.

4. Choose a Memorable Picture

Facebook allows you to include a picture with your ad. Your company logo won’t always gain maximum clicks. Good innovative and ad specific pictures get more clicks than anything else, but images that closely relate to your product are always a good choice.

5. Be Competitive and Realistic with your Bids

Although quite self-explanatory it is important to take note that you can run your advertisement for a specific time period and can specify the date and time the campaign starts and finishes. Impressions are the number of times your advert is displayed on face book. Ensure your daily budget and cost per click is both competitive and realistic. It may take a certain amount of trial and error to gauge the right bid per click and you should start at face books suggested bid when you first start listing your ad.

Facebook advertising can be extremely cost effective and a valuable advertising platform if used with thought and care. Dont be afraid to be imaginative when writing your ad copy and choosing your picture and monitor your click through rate carefully as this will be a good indicator for how well your ads are performing and how much you should bid per ad. If you want more detailed help with setting up a facebook advertising campaign or want information on our flat fee recruitment service please get in touch.

Facebook is an amazing advertising platform although most businesses dont know how to use it effectively. Heres some key considerations to take into account when advertising on Facebook

About the Author

At SEO Spidy our expert team in Multilingual Search Engine Optimization can promote your website in a large number of different languages within our globe. Multilingual SEO is one way of gaining worldwide recognition for your site. SEO Spidy estimate that 63% of the world population is non-English Speaking. SEO Spidy have the ability to perform this service for those who want to Promote their site globally, our multilingual search engine optimization offer huge opportunities to bring the right traffic and business to your website.

Change Landing Page Facebook

Create Prospect-Friendly Online Marketing Forms – Stop Losing Leads!

How many times have you clicked on a link to download content that interests you only to be faced with a form approaching the length of your IRS tax return? What most folks do next, according to my informal personal survey, is to hit the browser’s back button. Your prospects are eager to read your content and they’re even open to learning more about your products. They may or may not be interested in purchasing anything today but you’ll never know because your ominous form asking for everything except your mother’s social security number scared them away. That’s one less lead and one less sale. Technology companies, especially software vendors, are frequently the biggest culprits of “form over-kill.”

An example of online forms gone bad

Let’s look at a hypothetical company with a standard approach to online forms in their marketing. Software Company, Inc. has a reasonably professional web site where they host whitepapers, demos, webinars and free trials of their software. Software Company Inc.’s web guy (we’ll call him Bob to protect the innocent) insists that forms are tricky to build and insists that the marketing manager (we’ll call her Laura to protect anyone called Mary) must create just one form for each call to action. The marketing manager is feeling pressure from the sales team to provide highly qualified leads. The marketing manager is no dummy and knows that the more prospect information she can gather, the happier they will be, right? (Stay tuned for the nuanced correct answer to that question).

So, what does Laura’s form look like?: First Name, Last Name, Title, Company, Address Line 1, Address Line 2, State, Zip, Email, Phone. But that’s not all. The more information on the lead, the happier sales will be, right? So, she adds a survey, which she figures will also impress the Executive team when she sorts the data to create a snapshot of prospects and existing customers me who raise their hands. These are the survey questions that Sue believes would provide valuable company data for sales: What industry? How many employees? Annual Revenues? etc. etc. ad nauseam. The cherry on the cake is that Bob makes all the fields forced – meaning the prospect or customer MUST answer all the questions before hitting submit to get to that piece of content, demo or trial software.

In the age of 140 character attention span, what percentage of prospects who reach Software Company Inc.’s form are likely to complete it versus hit the back browser? The scientific answer = not many.

Of course, that was a slightly exaggerated and worst-case scenario for how- not- to manage your online forms. You are undoubtedly more cognizant than Sue that the use of forms and how to construct them for different calls-to-action plays a vital role in your interaction with prospects as well as effective lead generation.

The reality is that there are different approaches to online forms depending on the call-to-action or content and how each of them is marketed. The golden rule is to consider who you are trying to reach, how you are reaching them and then customize your forms to meet your goals.

If I were consulting for Software Company Inc., I’d sit down with Laura and Bob and ask them to diligently assess the goals of their online calls-to-action. Who specifically are you trying to attract and what are your expectations for lead volume? Based on their feedback I would offer specific recommendations on how to customize their approach to online forms for a better user experience and more qualified leads.

The key elements you need to consider when you’re creating online forms

Value of the content/call-to-action

High value: High value content is typically proprietary and involves a monetary investment, such as development or conducting research. It provides significant benefits, or higher perceived value to your target audience. An example is a whitepaper that is extremely timely in providing critical information to help your prospect or customer improve their business or do their job. For instance, a whitepaper on new Federal, state or local government legislation that is directly allied with your software solution. In my personal corporate experience in a variety of software and services categories, there is always an opportunity to create such high-value whitepapers, whether it is a horizontal or vertical industry message.

Low value: Product specific whitepapers, product demos, webinars and podcasts are typically lower value content most of the time. Although you may have invested money and resources to create them and they are invaluable tools to help you create interest and generate leads, they are not of intrinsic high value to your prospects.

High or low value: Trialware and promotional offers or discount can be either high or low value depending on what you are offering.

Expected Lead Volume

Develop forecasts on what you expect in lead volume from each call-to-action, even if it’s a generic whitepaper. Forecast by month and don’t be afraid to share your expectations with your sales team. If you’re offering a webinar on a regular monthly basis you will be able to predict responses over time and adjust lead goals if you make changes in how you market the webinar, e.g. if you do an email campaign drop in addition to just promoting the webinar on your web site. Here’s the nuanced answer to the question about sales wanting as much information as possible on a lead: they do but not if you can show them how many prospects are frightened away by a litany of questions on a marketing form.

Desired quality of lead

Not all leads are created equal. It is OK to balance your marketing between calls-to-action that will create a few very high quality leads and others that will provide a lot of responses but a lower proportion of highly qualified leads. You certainly want to weed out as many tire-kickers as possible but you also have to factor in your sales cycle and the lifetime value of a converted lead.

When to use a long form, short form or no form at all

Long forms have more fields for contact and profile gathering, more forced fields and may include a survey.

Short forms require the minimal fields necessary to meet your objectives for a specific call-to-action.

No form requires no definition.

I have spent several years accumulating wisdom on the usage of online forms and seen new trends emerge. In my real-world experience managing corporate web sites and being deeply involved in all response mechanisms including tailored online forms, here are some general rules of thumb when it comes to the use of long forms, short forms or no forms at all.

Long form: Use a long form for high value content. If you’re offering this content to both new prospects and customers through separate marketing activities or mediums use a pared down long form for your customers. Customers will be offended if you’re asking for contact information that you should already have. In either case, be judicious on forced fields. Consider requiring only name, company name and email from prospects. Some people will fill out some or even all of the optional fields. The plus side is that you get an indicator of a high level of interest when more voluntary fields are filled out. You can then flag these as “A” leads for your sales team.

Short form: This is ideal for the bulk of your low value content downloads, demos and webinars. It is also the best form to use for most online calls-to-action in email or direct marketing campaigns. First Name, Last Name, Title, Company Name and Email is a reasonable threshold for most prospects. Be careful about asking for a Phone Number and never force that field on a short form. Leave it optional. People will back out of even a short form if they believe that you’re going to harass them with calls. When promoting content on your Facebook business page I recommend the skinniest of forms (email only – for subsequent marketing but don’t forget opt-out regulations) or no form at all.

Note: If you’re promoting a download in an email campaign you can pre-populate a hidden field in the form with a unique marketing tracking code (sometimes referred to as media code or promo code).

No form: I am a big believer in allowing a content download for low value content without asking any questions at all. You may not get a tangible lead for sales to follow up on immediately but you will be able to track effectiveness by monitoring download volume. Try using no form at all for a content download from your web site where you previously used a form. Check the before and after download counts. A landing page tied to a specific email marketing campaign is an ideal opportunity to do an A/B test on using no form versus a short form, especially since you can track activity if you are using a unique URL. At first it takes some faith to not use any form for a call-to-action. Remember that, in addition to download stats, you will have sales feedback on the origin of a lead that will be part of your measurements.

Tracking the effectiveness of your online forms

Whether you use a long form or a short form, check your open rates and compare with form completes. This will give you an indication if you need to shorten your long form or reduce the number and type of forced fields. Conversely, test adding more fields to your short form if you have a very high completion rate and have an interest in gathering some additional data – but only if it is truly meaningful data that expands your marketing opportunities.

Testing, tracking and analyzing the results you are getting from your online forms is critical to ensuring you are keeping the right balance of interest in your content along with leads for actionable follow up. Match the results against your objectives and adjust the forms when you can clearly see trends in response rates and quality of the leads.

If prospects are backing away from your online forms, you’re needlessly losing leads. Engaging with your customers and prospects extends to every communication and interaction. That includes your marketing forms. Taking the time to create the most appropriate and least invasive forms demonstrates that you value your prospects’ interest in your products and services more than just grabbing their contact information. A pleasant online experience builds credibility, trust and ultimately generates more leads and more customers.

About the Author

Caroline Birch is Principal at Just Think Consultants, a marketing consulting firm providing strategic marketing, integrated marketing planning, marketing communications, product launch and sales distribution consulting services to software companies. Caroline has over 20 years of Executive and Senior Level software marketing experience that spans b2b and b2c in direct, channel and two-tier distribution models. Mostly, Caroline is just passionate about software marketing. To sign up for Caroline’s free marketing e-newsletter, AhA!, filled with expert tips and tricks on how to improve your marketing efforts and lead generation, go to http://www.justthinkconsultants.com

Landing Your default tab on facebook?

I will create a new Facebook page and want to make my home page as the default destination tab ... but this option seems have disappeared. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can change the default destination tab? Or is it just a technical problem that the options appear have changed? Thank you!

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Landing page facebook changing

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