I’ve been using Facebook ads for years now to drive traffic to my websites, which results in opt-ins and sales. 
Even though this ability to get lots of traffic cheaply has been around for a few years now, many information marketers I meet seem to be scared by Facebook.
But it’s so simple to create a successful ad with Facebook- and get a far more targeted audience than with Google Adwords. There are just a few things you need to know:
- People do not go to Facebook to buy things. They are there to see what their friends are talking about, and perhaps read a fun Cracked.com post and see a few funny pictures of cats. Your ad cannot be selling them anything if you are marketing an info product.
- The ad’s success is mostly about the picture you use.
- You will have far more success if you market to your own fans
- Test everything (easy to do here without wasting lots of money)
Ok let’s take a look at the 6 steps to creating a successful Facebook ad:
1. Create a free offer that will be highly useful to your fans. This can be a list, like “3 tips to keeping your dog healthy” or an ebook, or a video you have created. Create this content on a page on your site.
2. Find a picture that will likely capture their attention. Faces and animals work well. Often a funny face or someone doing something strange will get eyeballs to your ad, and clicks. A great place to find a variety of pictures is google.com/images. But again, test everything!
3. Create your ad in Facebook (I won’t walk through the steps on this as there are millions of resources as to how to create Facebook ads, including Facebook itself). Your headline needs to be one of two things: A question, such as “Do you want to lose weight?” or a statement that speaks to their needs, like “Get swimming help now!”
4. The text should describe the offer, and include the call to action, like “Click here for 3 free tips on how to lose all your weight forever!”. If you leave out the call to action, they won’t click.
5. Send them to the page you created with the thing or tips they are getting. The important thing here is to give them exactly what you promised in the ad. Including the same wording is a good idea.
6. After they got the tips or free thing, now you can ask for their email, with an even better offer than what got them to the page.
And of course, they are opting in to your list where you have an autoresponder set up that gives them great content, links to buy your products, and sales messages. But that may be a topic for another post.
So in summary, your prospects on Facebook are going through this process:
-Click on your enticing & engaging ad that contains a free offer
-Read over, listen to, or watch your free offer on a page on your website
-Join your list because they are getting more free relevant info in exchange
Going from Facebook browser to buyer of your stuff is all about easing them through the process. When you can do this, you can increase your ad budget and pick up new subscribers and customers all day long!
What do you think? Have you tried using Facebook ads and come across problems?
