I'll admit I was one of the last holdouts refusing to explore Facebook advertising for our marketing efforts and our clients.

I basically wasted 6 months due to ignorance, ego and stupidity.

Years later we have been successfully leveraging Facebook advertising for every client we have including politicians, athletes, small businesses and universities

However, we consistently hear new prospects claimed Facebook advertising has failed their business.

Well, naturally if you don't know what you're doing, you're going to be as effective with Facebook advertising as a politician is with a calculator.

So today, allow me to teach you the very basics to get you leveraging Facebook advertising to increase your revenue as quickly as humanly possible.

Getting Started with a Status an Ad

If you've been on Facebook you understand that a Facebook ad is not much different from a status update.

In fact it is a status update, just one that you spend money to advertise to much more people.

For example, take a look at a Facebook status I recently wrote, that happened to go viral with 672 shares (child's play):

Now take a look at an example of a Facebook ad:

 

Just like when you post a link to Facebook, it displays the headline, URL and a brief description. The big difference is ad's contain the word Sponsored at the top.

Though they appear similar, a Facebook Ad is NOT a Facebook status update.

One endeavors to socialize with others, and the other is meant to sell stuff.

That's it, and nothing more.

Creating a Great Ad

The first thing a great ad does is get your attention.

Without getting your attention, an ad will be seen by less people, with less clicks, less conversions and less revenue.

So you want an image or a video that will immediately stand-out and make people feel something.

For example, here is a simple mockup of an ad we did around the holidays for a company wishing to attract people with down trees. Naturally it was wildly successful, and took miutes to create. 

You have to understand that your target market has a problem that your offerings solve.

And that problem rattles around inside of their head at least a few times each week.

So use an image that uniquely touches on that problem, and use the text section of your ad to present the solution. 

An Ad, and Arrow, is Useless without Great Targeting 

Now let's talk about how to ensure your ad goes to the right target audience. 

I'll admit that our agency cheats as much as possible when it comes to making our ads, and our Clients' ads successful.

One of the biggest ways we cut corners and dramatically improve performance is by using what's called a Lookalike audience. 

You see Facebook allows you upload a list of your customers (or leads, prospects, email list, etc.) and advertise to people most like them.

You see when people create and maintain a Facebook profile, they give tiny hints about what they are looking to buy.

So when you upload a list of 300 moms who have enrolled their kids in a music school, and you are a mom with musical proclivities, you can bet Facebook is going to let this school advertise to you.

It's actually 1,000x's more 

 this is known as the creative process of creating your Facebook ad

 if you're not very creative and highly recommend you read the following books to give you some guidance.

 However I will give you some Basics here to get you alone

 first and foremost you want to make people realize they have a problem

 you don't want to talk too much about what you are selling but rather you want them to identify that there is a deep need in their life that is not being met

 picture of the high school jock meeting popular cheerleader for the first time I'm starting a conversation with what you wish you could get away mother ridiculous expectations and just enjoy your life not worrying better than the world puts on us

 but this cheeky little chap if I actively did this position himself has the keys to the golden Kingdom

 at this young lady may be looking for

 and she didn't even realize that adventure and excitement was missing from her life

And that's the point of what you're doing nearly all of our clients ads Begin by addressing a problem their target market is having the clear pathway to soften that problem with our clients products or services

 headline of the ad has to be sure especially for mobile devices so you don't have a lot of opportunity to craft something great however much more people will read the copy of your ad then they typically do when they see your ad in a magazine

 for example David Ogilvy commonly cited the number that five times more people read your headline than the actual copy well I'd have to say out of every two people that read your headline one will also read your copy

 so as you can see your headline is not nearly as important

 and if the image you select does a good child of getting attention you can rest assure they will be right here eating the rest of your ad

 something I haven't mentioned so far was the fact you can create a video for the sad

 that is a more complex technique that can be very effective if it is done properly

 so we're not going to get into a video at here but I will tackle it in my daily marketing advice.

 

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