I’m loving how some businesses are using different aspects of Facebook to get business. I asked some companies that work in the Wedding Industry to explain how they use Facebook for business, two good examples here:
Allan Cavanagh from Caricatures Ireland
I’ve used Facebook to advertise my business, Caricatures Ireland, since 2008. In that time my combined ads have been viewed five and a half million times, and have received 5,000 clicks. The numbers are staggering for the relatively small spend I’ve invested in that time, and while I’m simply too busy to track exact conversions (enquiries converting to bookings) the fact that I am so busy is probably indicative of a decent percentage.
If you have a niche business like mine, the ability to tailor your ads to a specific demographic gives Facebook an enormous edge over Google Adwords. In short, my Facebook ad will only display for Facebook members who’ve indicated they’re engaged in their personal details. Compare that to Google Adwords, where your ad displays to anyone searching for keywords: a potential waste of money. A Facebook ad is reaching a motivated target market exclusively.
I’ve picked up a few tricks for maximising ROI on my ad too. For instance, there’s no need to have your campaign running indefinitely. I run my ad in bursts, spaced 4-6 months apart, and usually no longer than a week. Your ad will probably be seen by everyone that’s interested in that space of time, so you need to allow a few months go by for numbers of the newly engaged to build up again.
You’ll need to play around with your spend as well. FB will suggest a cost per click, but you should start lower than this and increase it until you notice an increase in enquiries. You can pay per impression or per click, but if you’re a small business you want to drive traffic instead of exposing a brand name, so pay per click. Your maximum spend is something you’ll need to play around with, but I think a trickle is better than a deluge: if your budget is €500, put a max spend of €10-€20 per day so your budget isn’t sucked up too quickly.
Good copy will get a potential customer to click through to your site. A good, illustrative image will draw a potential customer’s eye. Your landing page is your shop window, and all the info a customer needs should be present on that one page, including how to contact you. A separate landing page for your Facebook campaign
will help you keep track of how your ad is going. Facebook is rapidly outgrowing its role as a website: it is becoming more of a presence than a place, as the new “Like” button spreads throughout the web. Think about setting up a Fan Page, and incorporating the “Like” button on your blog.
If Google’s catchphrase is “Don’t Be Evil”, Facebook’s unwritten one is “Be Lucrative”, so get on it.
Allan Cavanagh is on Twitter here and Facebook here.
Claire from Mrs2Be.ie
The main reason we wanted to create a Facebook welcome page was to increase the number of fans (“Likes”) that our business page was achieving on a weekly basis. We wanted to create something reasonably eye-catching and that would have an obvious call to action feature – i.e. the big arrow that encourages users to like our page. At the same time, we also wanted to give a little bit of information about what mrs2be.ie is all about i.e. our friendly discussion forum, our supplier directory, our wedding checklists and wedding advice articles. We also included this message in text format underneath the graphic so that it would be indexed by Google.
After setting the welcome page to become the default landing page for new visitors, we could see very quickly that it was working for us. Within 10 days or so, our fans increased from 500 to 1,000. This has levelled off now, but we’re still attracting a decent number of new fans on a weekly basis.
Like the mrs2be Facebook Page or follow them on Twitter.
Damien,
Good post and thanks for featuring our Facebook page.
Just to add that by frequently updating our wall posts (weekdays) with relevant wedding related content has resulted in a significant increase in visits to our main website http://www.mrs2be.ie
Might be good to check with other blogs, WordPress spam trapped your comment there for some reason.
Great post Damien. Case Studies like this are always great to read about and well done to both businesses for overcoming two of the main obstacles for small business when it comes to social media- time and budget.
Great post, I’ve got to admit that Facebook inevitably comes out top trumps for niche markets. A lot of that I feel is down to having a great eye catching image, the fact you can target the ads so precisely (have to be careful you don’t break it down too much especially when dealing with a market as small as Ireland but depends on the industry) and come on with over 1.4 million Irish users at present, most business have customers hanging out on Facebook.