Have you been thinking about running ads for your business? Here are some important key factors to show you whether or not you’re ready to run ads.
- You have something to sell.
Now, bear with me. It might seem like I’m being snarky or sarcastic, but this is serious. I would encourage you to never boost a post with the intention to simply bring awareness to your brand or offer something for free without keeping the larger picture in mind. What are you going to do to make those ad charges worth it? You want to have a clear idea regarding your return on investment, or ROI.That’s like going to the grocery store and loading up your cart with ingredients, checking out, and then dropping off your full cart in the corral, full of your newly purchased groceries. Not only did it take a ton of time to fill the cart, but you just wasted a bunch of money by not making use of the ingredients.Don’t waste food.Or leads. Know your recipes (or plan your “customer experience journey” from stranger to sale) before spending your hard earned dough. - You’re clear on your messaging.
When you’re starting out in business, you can either spend a ton of time learning through experience OR a ton of time investing in a team to get you there faster.I personally recommend putting in the experience first, then hiring the team.When you’re running a Facebook ad campaign, it’s important that the journey from optin to sale is one seamless experience. The messaging needs to suit your ideal client in order to encourage them to keep taking the next step towards hiring you. If you’re not 100% clear on identifying your people or their pain points, the steps can get muddy. If you’re not sure how to talk to them, you might find yourself in the middle of an ad campaign that’s not performing as well as you’d hope.I recommend being clear on your messaging and testing things out organically first, before putting down the ad spend out. - You’ve got your funnel pieces in place.Do you have a landing page for your conversions to go?
Does that page have a call to action to get folks on your email list?
Do you have a thank you page explaining what they can expect next after opting in to your list?
Do you have your email list ready to educate and nurture your new leads? - You’re comfortable with “investing” money in your business.Facebook ads aren’t guaranteed to knock it out of the park 72 hours in. And unfortunately, you need to be comfortable with spending a certain amount to test your audience and gather data about your advertising insights. It can take some time to adjust the targeting, the ad copy, and the ad creative before you’re getting leads at optimal prices. That can be a little scary when you’re emotionally invested in every dollar that’s being spent.If you were buying a billboard on a major highway and you saw every car that drove by without ever glancing at your billboard, those stats might feel terrifying too. The advantage with Facebook ads, though, is that you know your billboard is being shown to only people who are likely to be interested in your offer. That being said, only 3% of people are willing to buy something at any given moment.It’s up to you to pique interest and continue with top of mind awareness and nurturing sequences to educate and make darn sure you’re the one that comes to mind when they’re read.
- Determine What Your Successful ROI Looks Like There are many elements that go into determining successful ROI. What that looks like for your business might look very different for someone else.There are basically four types of businesses I work with when it comes to Facebook ads.These business include those who are selling:
→1:1 services like coaching, freelancing or consulting
→Info products like courses or ebooks
→One to many services like group programs or paid masterminds
→Live to virtual events like online summits or masterclassesAnd each of these will have a very different return on investment. Each industry has varying levels of competition, so CPA (or cost per acquisition) may vary from $2-7 per lead (or more…). However, if you get four people on your list for $25 and one of those people signs up for a $2000 paid mastermind, you’ve definitely gotten a return on your investment.On that same note, if you’ve spent $25 for four new emails on your list and one of those people buys a $17 ebook… that is NOT a good return.You need to track and know what a good ROI looks like for your business.
Do you feel ready? What steps do you need to complete to get your business prepared to run ads? I’d love to hear in the comments.
