For B2C businesses, the advantages of Facebook are plain to see – it is a powerful platform for increasing visibility, interacting with potential customers and providing offers and remarketing materials which will entice people to convert at an accessible cost. With respect to B2B marketing that makes use of multi-touch tactics, doubts remain for certain industries which are characterized by extended sales processes and have a particular target audience.
For those B2B companies who think that Facebook is merely a hub for false information and humorous cat videos, you are not taking advantage of a great potential for increasing your business.
Why Facebook Ads Work
There is no doubt that when done correctly, Facebook ads can be the best promotional technique available. But why is it so successful? The elements that gave Facebook’s marketing campaigns success for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business are three in number.
Data.
As opposed to conventional advertising, Facebook promotions are equipped with an incredible amount of up to date information. Rather than having to wait out months or even years of newspapers and radio ads in order to determine if they’ll lead to a boost in sales, Facebook can make that process much more efficient and the return on investment quickly visible. For instance, you can examine precisely how much money was expended on an individual picture and how many purchases, prospects, or transformations were acquired thanks to that particular picture. This provides an opportunity for advertisers to figure out which posts are the most successful and adjust their campaigns accordingly.
Targeting.
Cookies, browser histories, and data make it possible for Facebook to provide more diverse target audience options compared to other advertising sources. These ads are not limited to just reaching a certain area; they can be optimized to focus on diverse demographics, likes, and actions. Rather than going for the entire St. Louis population, the ads can be displayed to those aged over 35 living a 10-mile radius of the area, who read business magazines and amuse a c-suite job title.
Choice Marketing.
If you’re unfamiliar with it, “interruption marketing” is the converse of standard advertising. It is the procedure of disturbing persons from what they want to be doing, like hearing music on the radio, so as to display a commercial to them. In contrast to other platforms, on Facebook, people are electing to engage with the materials, have a look at a Facebook page, or view the video. Others will scroll right past and ignore it. As opposed to other options, possessing the decision to be present will make it much more effective to make a bond with your listeners. Also, Facebook will only be profitable if the person watching responds in the way you have requested; the plan has been created to help you succeed. (If you know what you are doing).
It is beneficial to establish a plan for using social media as well. Keeping a regular online presence through a natural social media approach can help strengthen the results of a Facebook advertising plan.
When Facebook Ads Makes Sense for B2B
It’s evident that this tool is beneficial for B2C marketing, especially for eCommerce items. Despite this, Facebook also is just as effective and compelling for various B2B marketing approaches.
In order to make the most of Facebook advertising for your B2B business, you must possess a structured selling procedure and be familiar with your figures. For example, let’s assume that out of every 100 connections you make, you are able to make 20 appointments. From those 20 calls, 10 answers are qualified contacts. Of the 10 people, five arrange a follow-up consultation, and out of those, two make a purchase. For every one hundred people who contact your team, the average number of customers closed is two.
Next, let’s look at costs. By considering each customer to have a LifeTime Value (LTV) of $12,000 spent with your business, one can figure out that for every hundred contacts, it will amount to $24,000 of total gross income. In order to comprehend your approach more clearly on this instance, $24,000 was the total income, while outgoings totaled $12,000, thus leaving you with a gain of $12,000 for the organization. If the cost per 100 contacts is below $12,000, you will make money.
Having these statistics in hand makes it a breeze to create a plan for your Facebook advertisements. It could have been a shock before to spend $50 for a contact if the close rate was only 2%. However, now that you are aware that the profit from each contact is $120, that cost is a lot more sensible. It is rare to come across other forms of advertising that allows you to gauge the return on your investment so precisely and precisely.
Type of Facebook Ads to Use for B2B Marketing
Right now, you can select from 11 different goals for your Facebook Ads approach at the “Campaign” level. These objectives are in line with most marketing objectives:
As is obvious, this progression involves three stages of generating leads and marketing, beginning with just being aware of it, and then considering it, before finally converting it. To best use this advertising resource for businesses that serve other businesses, there are four of the 11 goals that most closely align with a sales and marketing plan.
Brand awareness
These initiatives attract potential customers to the initial step of your marketing process. The aim of these campaigns is to stir up potential customers’ curiosity.
It is improbable that these efforts will result in an immediate purchase (though certain people may be so captivated with what you are communicating that they can’t refrain from completing the sale). When you are planning a brand awareness campaign, the group you are targeting should be broad and should include a wide range of qualities your potential customers might have. Brand recognition promotions are great for utilizing 8%-10% approximations of past purchasers and current clients. By using this, you can prevent displaying your tech savvy software as a service product to older people who fear technology.
Traffic
Traffic campaigns allow you to drive…. Traffic! You have two choices: you can route leads to your Facebook page (that is not recommended) or your website (the better option).
These initiatives are one of my favored techniques of creating exact retargeting lists (as well as, consequently, resembling audiences). This plan is uncomplicated; when executing Brand awareness initiatives, your objective is likely to cover a broad range of audiences. Yet in Traffic campaigns, it is time to narrow down and tailor your goods and services to certain demographic, psychographic and market categories.
Lead generation
For every B2B advertiser, Facebook lead generation ads offer the best value for money. It is possible to gather the data of possible customers inside Facebook, eliminating a potential problem: the need to visit your website.
Although your website may be attractive, the advantage of running lead ads lies in the fact that prospective customers’ details are automatically extracted from their Facebook page. If joining X—your offer—requires only two steps to complete, it is likely someone unfamiliar with your company would be more likely to proceed than if they needed to enter their data manually.
Facebook’s lead ads provide you with the ability to gain advantageous contact information from your prospective customers, which can be beneficial in developing email lists, providing prospective customers with email preferential treatment, and transferring warm leads to the sales team.
Conversion campaigns
These are your closers, the ace up your sleeve. They also tend to be expensive. You should never send prospects directly to the pages on your website when using Conversion campaigns; instead, leverage each click that you are paying for by sending the traffic to specific landing pages. For those in the software industry, it is advisable to put conversion campaigns into action in order to channel potential customers into opting for product tests or registering for a demonstration.
Ad Sets: Where the Magic Happens
Campaigns are structured objectives, and the level of your ad set will decide things such as the budget, timing, audience, and the development of your ad. It is essential to understand the advantages Facebook offers to make it a beneficial channel for business to business marketing investments.
Budget & Scheduling
You can choose to allot a daily or total budget to each ad set created on Facebook.
If you’ve had experience with a Google Ads account, you are likely familiar with daily budgets; just set a daily spending limit, specify the initial date and the final date. I prefer to allocate modest amounts to B2B customers in the initial stages as they have greater carefulness; they are ideal for experimenting, testing what works without inadvertently losing money unnecessarily.
In other words, Facebook will not miss a single opportunity to utilize your funds.
Experienced Facebook marketers should employ a lifetime budget; it may be wise to start with short intervals (such as 3-5 days) for the commencement and conclusion dates, until confidence when straying from daily norms increases. Facebook will allocate its funds over the given timeframe in order to get the best results from your campaign objectives.
Advertisers can trick this system for a little more gain from their lifetime spending by using ad timing; it is like a reverse placement on the Google Display network.
You’re informing Facebook that you’d like it to decide when to feature your ads inside a given time frame, but making sure the program cannot use time slots during which your potential customers most likely won’t make a purchase. This makes sure your resources don’t get wasted late at night or on the weekends, when folks are more focused on their fantasy football teams than setting up a presentation.
Managing finances should be based on performance, yet we have to keep the goals of the campaign we recently discussed in view.
Utilize ad scheduling in visitor conversion campaigns to steer prospects towards product demos while they are in the workplace, subsequently expand your ad scheduling (or reduce your daily budget) in least significant campaigns with offers that can be obtained around the clock (like a material download).
Ad Placement
Deciding how much to spend and when to advertise on Facebook is important to make the platform a success for your business; however, if you don’t make good decisions about where to place your ads, all your efforts can be wasted. It must be mentioned that “Facebook Ads” isn’t necessarily the same as “News Feed ads.” Unless the instructions are explicit, these kinds of ads may end up in off-the-beaten-path areas of the online world as well.
Within Facebook itself, ads can be served in:
- The news feed
- Groups
- Right column
- Instant articles
- In-stream videos
A few of these Facebook ads can be advantageous for B2B promoters (hey, news feed and right column), however, the additional ones grant negligible exposure and decrease chances of gaining customers. Making money is your top priority, not being disregarded. You want ad engagement. Ensure your ads appear in the appropriate locations by opting out of automated positioning.
Facebook informs that if custom placements are picked, there will be a decline in the amount of people reached, in comparison to the automatic option. If there was a decrease in quantity but a boost in quality, would that be a problem?
Aside from working to boost recognition of a brand, there are a few other advertisement placements available on Facebook, however, they are of limited use for B2B advertisement purposes.
You ought to consider selecting “all devices” for your advertising unless you possess some strategies specifically intended for mobile devices.
You can advertise on Instagram by utilizing Facebook’s ad platform; there is no need for another platform since Instagram has no independent settings for ads. Rather than being limited, marketers can pick to display their ads either in the newsfeed or in story format. At long last, Facebook advertisements can be presented to users through the Facebook Audience Network which are the obscure parts of the web mentioned before. I have found that for B2B firms, having Instagram and the Audience Network together for remarketing is the only beneficial option. If you are offering personalized placements, I recommend abstaining from using them.
Reasons Not to Use Facebook Ads for Your Business
Facebook ads may not be the most ideal choice for your business-to-business business at this moment. Even though they can be extremely advantageous, there are certain examples of why this might not be fitting.
- You don’t know where your profit is coming from.
- You have a tight marketing budget with no room to test.
- You have no existing digital footprint.
- You are on a short timeline.
The amount of time it takes for a B2B company to have reliable results via Facebook advertisements may range from 6 to 12 months, based on the duration of the sales cycle and the conversion rate of leads. Testing, optimization and experimentation are required in order to gain knowledge of what succeeds. Once it is determined how the process works and integrated into the company’s sales routine, it can serve as an efficient source of revenue for many years. If you don’t have enough time to make Facebook advertising work for your company, then it is best to focus your energy elsewhere and think about it at a later date.
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