This is a guest blog post by Cocoon member, Louise Gates of Gates Digital Consultancy

There is no denying that the pandemic has hit everyone hard. 

But for mums growing businesses…I think we can all agree it’s been enormously trying! 

• There have been greater demands on us at home due to less childcare support and less opportunity for self-care. 
• We’ve had to adapt to working from home alongside partners. 
• We’ve had to take on home-schooling. 
• There have been financial strains with furloughed partners and clients limiting their outgoings thereby reducing our income. 
• Not to mention the constant threat of potential sickness and grief on our doorsteps. 

But if you’ve managed to survive all that and despite the challenges that have been (and may again be) thrust upon you, you want your business to grow and thrive... you’ll want to reach more of your ideal clients and customers and have a bigger impact upon them.

Paid Ads is one way you could do that. 

To make the investment – both time and money - worth your while you’ll need to have a plan and make every penny count.

So, here are my top 10 tips for growing your business with Facebooks Ads during a pandemic…

• Be strategic 

Facebook Ads are another way to reach your ideal clients and customers to communicate your message and offers.

But the key here is to not just think about your end goal. 

Think about the path you want your ideal clients and customers to take to get to Know, Like & Trust you so they take the next step and purchase from you with ease. 

For example, your end goal might be to increase online sales or 1:1 clients, but asking people to buy straight away is a tall ask and usually has a much lower sign up rate.  

Instead, how can you help people take a step closer to you? 

You might want to use Lead Magnets (free valuable content) to capture their attention and invite them to join your Group or Email List as your Call-to-Action (CTA).

You might to invite them to take part in a challenge or attend a webinar or Live Training. 

Whatever you choose, make it easy for them to take the next step and then nurture the hell out of them!

• Get super-specific

Once you’re clear on your strategy you can hone your targeting, messaging, and so on. 

Get really specific here. Generic messaging that doesn’t speak to one person and/or one problem will kill your campaign. 

Your ideal clients/customers need to self-identify with your message in order for you to grab their attention and start building trust. They can only do that if you target very specific people and talk to them directly. 

Now, you might say you have several audiences you can target for your business. That’s fine (although I do advocate having a strong niche for your business). I simply recommend targeting each of your target audiences in a separate Ad Set so you can tailor your messaging to each one. 

One thing to bear in mind here is that you can over-niche! Don’t restrict your targeting so much that your audience is tiny – you’ll end up reaching the same people over and over again and waste your money. 

The key is to match niche audiences with specific messaging to suit them and the problem you are trying to solve for them. 

• Do your research

In order to get your messaging so strong that people self-identify with it and stop scrolling, I recommend using the exact words they use to describe the problem they’re experiencing that’s relevant to your business. 

Do your research and ask them. 

Approach previous or existing clients/customers, post questions in relevant Groups and on your own social media profiles, ask questions at networking events… you could even offer to interview people in exchange for a free consultation call or something more relevant to your business. 

• Tailor your Landing Pages

If you’ve done your homework and tailored your messaging to your audience(s), you don’t want to lose them by driving them to a confusing or poorly designed webpage. 

I’m sure we’ve all experienced this ourselves at one time or another! What was the first thing you did? Clicked back to where you came from!

Bespoke Landing Pages are webpages that you create solely for the purpose of the person clicking on your Ad to encourage them to take the next step. 

They showcase how well you know and understand your ideal client/customer’s problem, clearly detail your solution to that problem and have one Call-to-Action. 

Having a menu, social media buttons or multiple next step options might feel less pushy or “salesy”, but actually just ends up being confusing and potentially puts people off.

• Choose the right objective

Did you know Facebook has 11 Campaign Objectives for you to choose from when creating a campaign? 11?! 

Choosing the right one is important as it influences where your Ads appear, who will see them, which Ad Formats you can use and where you can lead people once they click on your Ad.

Hover over each Objective in Ads Manager for more information to help you select the one that matches closest to your Strategy. 

Top Tip: If you get overwhelmed with the choice, choose the Traffic objective as this provides the most options ;-)

• Setup tracking

Even if you think you’re not tech savvy, set up the Facebook Pixel on all your webpages and landing pages. 

This allows Facebook to gather data on the people visiting your page and you can include some really smart targeting in future campaigns – such as retargeting people who visited your landing page but didn’t complete the required action, or finding people in Facebook who are very similar to the types of people who’ve visited your website. 

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to do it yet. Start gathering the data and work it out later when you’ve got the basics working for you. 

• Start small

You don’t have to spend a fortune on Ads if you don’t want to. 

Generally speaking, the more you spend the bigger the reach you will achieve. However, when every penny counts, I’m a big advocate for starting off small, working out what works well for you and your target audience, and then increasing. 

Facebook’s minimum spend is £1 per day per Ad Set. 

Spend what you are comfortable spending and grow your spend with your confidence!

• Select Budget Optimiser

On the topic of money, make it work harder by turning the Campaign Budget Optimisation tool on. 

This distributes your money across all Ad Sets and spends it where you’re getting the best results. This is a great option if you’re learning which audiences are best for you to target. 

• Get optimisation smart

Now your campaign is live you’ll need to get comfortable looking at your reports and making tweaks to optimise your campaign and generate the best results possible. 

Setting it up is the easy bit…knowing how to improve the results is the tricky bit (or fun bit if you’re a bit of a nerd like me!).

As a starting point, compare the Ad Sets (target audiences) and Ads to see which are getting the most Clicks, highest CTR (Click-Through Rate; the % of people who click on your ad after seeing it), and highest Conversions (E.g. Leads). Pause the ones with the lowest figures and test new Audiences, Ad Formats, Messaging, and Call-to-Action Buttons. 

Don’t forget your Landing Page might also need reviewing and tweaking. Look at your site Analytics for how many desired actions have been completed as well as the number of people who have visited, how long they spend on the page, and what % are returning visitors. 

Try not to change too many things at once or you won’t know which change created the desired impact, and you won’t be able to imitate it going forward. 

• Don’t give up

It’s easy to feel defeated if you don’t see results straight away but don’t give up! Keep making tweaks and learning. 

Paid Ads aren’t a quick fix and takes as much effort as any other marketing activity you take on. 

With creativity and perseverance Facebook Ads provide an incredible opportunity for you to grow your business…even during a pandemic! 

Louise Gates helps ambitious mums who want to scale their business with Facebook Ads and Google Ads but don’t have the time or know-how. 

She supports them one-to-one with her signature program Paid Ads With Purpose.  She integrates Paid Ads into their Marketing Strategy by clarifying their ideal clients’ customer journey and then takes a load off their shoulders by managing their campaigns for them. 

Louise is also developing a Coaching Program which will teach mums how to use Paid Ads for their business themselves. You can find out more about Louise and contact her directly here. 

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