Facebook is the undisputed leader in websites and mobile apps. Although the Internet is comprised of over 1 billion websites the majority of time is spent on only a handful of them, and Facebook is the most active of all of them. Americans spend more time on Facebook than Google Search and YouTube combined. One out of every five minutes spent on mobile phones is spent on the Facebook app. People spend more time on their phones on Facebook than they do sending text messages and making phone calls combined!
That is great news for wanting to reach people with your marketing message, but the question remains, how do you get people to log-off of Facebook, put their phones down, and come into your store?
Facebook to the Rescue!
For the past year Facebook has been making great strides in helping small and medium size businesses to become more successful using their platform. This includes a couple of new tools specifically for brick-n-mortar retail stores.
One such tool is the newly redesigned Facebook Offers. These offers are a coupon type promotion that you can create and publish to your Facebook Page, free of charge, to go out to your Facebook Fans. With one mouse click or finger tap consumers can have Facebook e-mail the coupon offer to them. To take advantage of your offer they simply show you the coupon in the e-mail on their phone, or print it from their computer at home and bring it to your store.
Then through Paid Ads you can target your ideal customer and blanket your market area at a fraction of the cost to print and mail coupons. Facebook has a special place in Ads Manager specifically for promoting Facebook Offers that is designed to maximize the number of people requesting your Offers.
To take advantage of Facebook Offers, you first need to create an incredible, irresistible offer. Just think about all the 5% or $10 off coupons that you have let expire without setting a foot in the store. Your customers are no different than you are. If your offer wouldn’t inspire you to get off the couch and go to a store, what makes you think it will entice your customers into driving to your store. Your incredible offer could be a discount, buy one (or two) and get one free, a free gift with purchase, or any other type of promotion you can come up with. It is always a great idea to experiment with different types of offers to see what works best for your clientele.
Next you need an attention-grabbing image. Today’s society is visually inspired. You need an eye-catching photo that relates to your offer to get people to pause long enough, as they quickly scroll through their Newsfeed, to stop and read your offer.
Finally write a headline and description for your offer. Facebook allows up to 25 characters for your headline and 90 characters for your description. Just because the headline and description is short, don’t assume it is unimportant. Spend time writing and re-writing your ad copy. A powerful headline and persuasive description will have a tremendous influence on whether or not your Facebook Offer is successful.
Once you have your materials prepared you are ready to create your Offer on Facebook and share it with your Fans. To create Offers and promote them with Paid Ads you must be an Admin or Editor of your Business Page. Anyone who has the role of an advertiser can create Paid Ads for any Offers you have on your page, but cannot create the actual Offer.
You can create your Offer directly on your Facebook page in the same manner as adding posts. Or you can use Ad Manager to create your Offer there. When you create your Offer in Ad Manager, Facebook will automatically add it to your page for your Fans to view it organically.
The last step is to set-up a Paid Ad for your Offer in Ads Manager. Here you can define your target audience. The more you fine-tune your audience to your ideal customer the better the results you will achieve.
Applying a shotgun approach showing your Offer to everyone in your community is counterproductive. First you are wasting ad dollars for people who are uninterested in seeing your ad. In addition, the lower the percentage of people that are interested in your Offer, the higher your overall cost will be.
Facebook rewards those companies with a high percentage of people interested in their Offers by lowering the cost of showing the Ad. By using Facebook’s Demographic and Psychographic data to target your audience you will optimize the performance of your Ads and maximize the effectiveness of your advertising dollars.
For more information on Facebook Offers and other local business tools, including step-by-step directions using them, go to www.Internet4Jewelers.com/offers.
Brad Simon is co-owner of Internet 4 Jewelers and specializes in Social Media Marketing exclusively for retail jewelry stores. They are dedicated to Making Social Media Simple and Affordable for Every Jeweler, and provide Affordable Full-Service Social Media Management and Facebook Ad Campaign Management. For more information you can contact Brad at 864-680-4416 or Brad@Internet4Jewelers.com or visit their website at www.Internet4Jewelers.com.
