Social Media Ads Along the Sales Funnel
There’s a misconception when it comes to creating an online presence: “If you build it, they will come.” They certainly will not. The same rings true for social media advertising. Creating a beautiful ad and launching it on Facebook or Instagram will not magically generate leads or sales.
You dialed in and chose your target audience based on their interests/behaviors, but these new users have never heard of your brand.
So how do you warm up a cold audience, expand your reach, and start generating leads? Enter the marketing funnel.
It’s kind of like dating. You see someone at a bar and think they’re pretty cute. You approach them and immediately kiss them. The result? A slap in the face, probably. There needs to be conversation, a connection.
This is the same with advertising to cold audiences. You need to create awareness, consideration, and then conversions. Our advertising agency has developed a few techniques that work along the funnel.
Top of the Funnel
Here lies the awareness stage where the goal is to attract new audiences and expand your reach. Since these audiences are complete strangers to your brand, you’ll need to introduce yourself. Create an ad that makes people realize why they need you. Highlight their needs and problems and introduce your business as the solution. Emphasize unique benefits, inform, and educate. Don’t ask for too much here. Even offering something for free requires cold audiences to put in their contact info and they may not be ready to do that yet. A social media marketing company may utilize this tactic to grow your audience which can be used for additional marketing efforts.
Target people based on interests and demographics. You can also use Lookalike audiences allowing Facebook to find other users that resemble your existing customers. The ad objectives in the top of the funnel are brand awareness, reach, traffic, video views, and messages. While your initial goal may be sales or leads, we’re just not there yet. Offerings in this phase can be watch a video, visit the website, take a quiz, checkout the product page, read a blog post/guide. Calls-to-action include learn more, watch more, see menu, listen now, and send message. Telling the price of your products or service is not necessary in this phase.
Your ideal ads in this phase are video ads, collection ads, image ads, carousel ads, and instant experience ads. Video is definitely preferred though as it has the highest engagement across Facebook and Instagram. Tell a compelling story that will stick in people’s minds. Video can also set you up for the next stage of the funnel. You can create a custom audience of people who watched 25% or 50% of your video and retarget them in the consideration stage.
Middle of the Funnel
Once audiences reach the middle of the funnel, they are prospects ready to become leads. In this Consideration phase, prospects should land on your website and learn more about your business. Here, you can ask for their contact info, perhaps exchange their email for a downloadable guide, special offer, webinar access, free sample or trial, etc. Use a dedicated landing page that has been optimized for lead capturing. Collecting emails will help you use email marketing to continue to target and persuade your new users.
Audiences you can target in the middle of the funnel include Facebook and Instagram page engagers and people you attracted in your previous funnel step – video viewers (watched 25% of your previous ad, 50%, 3-seconds, 10-seconds, etc.) and ad clickers (clicked a previous ad).
Your campaign objectives should be traffic, engagement, lead generation (form), messages, and, if your ads are performing well, try conversions. Use image ads and carousel ads to offer a straightforward experience to your warmed up audiences. Offers to try here are free trials, webinars, free samples, special deals, product demos, giveaways, and downloadable content.
Your ad content should be simple as now audiences know you better. Highlight social proof, no risk, and perceived freebie value. Use CTA buttons like sign up, get offer, download, get quote, subscribe, learn more, book now, and shop now.
Tip of the Funnel
Hooray! You made it this far! The goal at the tip of the funnel is to convert leads into customers. Now that you’ve introduced your brand, raised awareness and interest, and built trust with freebies and lead magnets, your audience is hot! At this conversion stage, you want to be clear in communicating your value proposition.
Target all your website visitors, visitors to specific pages, add to cart or initiate checkout users, and users that completed each step in your funnel. Campaign objectives at the bottom of the funnel are conversions, catalog sales, and store traffic. Image ads, dynamic product ads, and carousel ads are a good option here as they are to-the-point and communicate your objective clearly.
Be direct, boost your audience’s confidence in their decision, make your offer irresistible! Include price, shipping info, special deals, amount saved, social proof, free gift, urgency, and risk-free wording. Use CTA’s like shop now, book now, sign up, subscribe, and get offer.
Q for U: Are you using the funnel in your social media ads?
Don’t fret if not. It can be overwhelming and time-consuming. Take a step back and think about what kind of ads you can run in each phase and what audiences you can target. If you get stuck, our social media advertising agency is here to help. We strategize and come up with a Facebook Ads Funnel that will warm up audiences and generate leads for your business.
Read more about Social Media and the Sales Funnel on this blog: Successful Social Media Marketing along the Sales Funnel – Building Brand Awareness & Trust Plus Tailored Ads
Need support creating a funnel strategy for your social media ads?
WSI is here to help you transform users into leads, and leads into customers. Contact us for a free consultation or if you need any information about our services.