Change! Why do we fight it so much?
My mum hates change too. Make a change to her recipe when you make the family dinner, and you will find out how much she hates it.
Lots of businessmen are no different from her. They are the chairpersons of the the-devil-you-know-is-better-than-the-angel-you-don’t-know association.
They stick with less profitable traditional marketing options when Facebook adverts can give them the profits they need.
If you are one of them, then in this article, I will show you how using Facebook ads can make your business more profitable…
…And why you should make it a part of your overall marketing strategy.
Shall we?
-
Facebook Adverts Are Highly Effective.
No sane person markets for the sake of marketing, and I know you are not insane.
Therefore, you would only want an effective ad platform. Then, how effective is advertising on Facebook?
Firstly, Facebook has the numbers.
There are over 25 million active Nigerian users. And irrespective of the kind of business you run, at least a fraction of 25 million people would love what you do.
Imagine having a store in an open market that has over 25 million daily visitors. How many of them do you think will be interested in your products?
It is logically impossible that nobody would buy from you, even if you have the worst product, customer care, or the ugliest face ever.
The Money Cycle and Your ROI.
According to statistics, about 98% of Facebook’s global revenue in 2020 was from selling ad spaces to businesses.
Facebook is among the top 10 internet companies globally, with a 2020 revenue of roughly 86 billion US dollars – With the majority coming from advertisers buying ad spaces.
Their ads must work, else advertisers would have abandoned them a long time ago. But no, we are still here, and I don’t see the number going down anytime soon.
That is enough reason for you to use Facebook ads for your business.
Advertising on Facebook is like the water cycle.
Do you remember your basic biology? The sun heats up the earth’s water causing it to evaporate and forming clouds in the sky.
These clouds, on cooling, fall back as rain only to evaporate once more; continuing the cycle.
Advertising on Facebook is a money cycle.
An advertiser pays Facebook to market a product on their platform; Facebook makes money and then shows the ad to the target audience.
Afterwhich, the audience pays the business, and after receiving the product, they are happy. The advertiser makes money and is happy. Therefore, the cycle continues.
Every business wants to stay profitable, but with the onset of the pandemic, lockdown, and recent economic crisis, staying profitable is more daunting than it used to be.
You need a constant inflow of targeted customers,
Some businesses made more sales during this Covid-19 period with Facebook ads, while several had to shut down.
Facebook ads are not just effective: they also level the playing field. Let me show you how
-
Leveling The Playing Field.
Growing up, I hated eating hot meals.
But unfortunately for me, my mum believed siblings should eat together. Being the last of three children, eating with my siblings meant eating at their pace irrespective of how hot it was.
They would gulp the food while I struggled to keep up.
Eventually, when I was about 8 years old, I had had enough. I begged my mum to serve my food alone, deciding never to eat with them again.
Initially, I thought my plea fell on deaf ears, but I noticed something she did the next time she served our food.
She had let the meal get warm before she allowed us to take it from the kitchen. My siblings soon realized I was not a slow eater after all.
When compared to traditional marketing, Facebook advertising gives everybody a chance.
If you use Facebook for your business, you can reach your prospects without spending millions of Naira.
Irrespective of how big or small your business is, you can use Facebook for your business and get quality results.
Most traditional forms of marketing are both ineffective and expensive, and only a few businesses can use them consistently.
But with Facebook ads, just about any business can reach its audience and make profits doing so.
One reason leveling the playing a big hit for Facebook is the flexibility of their charges. This leads me to the next point…
-
Budgeting.
In December 2020, a client wanted to combine a radio jingle and Facebook ads to launch a new branch of their business.
It was a great idea until the radio station stated their price, and my client soon realized that they couldn’t afford it.
Budgeting on Facebook is extra flexible. It is one of Facebook’s main selling points to advertisers.
With Facebook Ads, you can decide how much you would want to pay and still get quality results for that amount.
You can decide if you want to set a daily budget or set a budget for an extended time called a lifetime budget.
Although there is a limit to how low your daily budget can be, as seen in the images below.
You can also set your account limits. This means that you tell Facebook the limit you want to spend on a specific ad account within a period.
That way, you don’t spend more than that amount on ads within that time.
As great as having a customizable budget is, Facebook ads still offer you more.
-
Simplicity and Result Speed.
The first time I ran a Facebook, I did it as a test.
I had my page set up, but I didn’t have anything to sell. I only wanted to check it out.
So I decided to run the ad to get more followers and likes for my page.
The setup process was swift, and the result was mind-blowing.
Creating a Facebook ad is straightforward. You have different kinds of ad types, with each ad type built for diverse marketing goals.
Facebook ads give you fast returns for your investment, especially when you have a great product.
With Facebook, you can set up an ad campaign in minutes.
You can boost a post to reach more users. You could also create a more complex campaign targetting a specific audience for better results.
-
Targeting.
Have you ever searched for something online, say a pair of shoes, then you see a Facebook ad of that shoe?
That is the power of targeting with Facebook ads.
Facebook knows what their users want and sell this to advertisers like you and me.
This is important because, with Facebook, you can get your ad to reach who you want. You can target people on Facebook in different ways.
From their location to the pages they have visited on your site.
You can also target them by what Facebook pages they like or based on their online buying attitudes.
You can go as far as their marital status, interest, age, and gender.
Targeting right is vital if you want to succeed in your online campaigns, and Facebook ads should be your first choice.
Using traditional means of marketing is wasteful. You can’t get targeting that reaches the exact audience your business needs.
Traditional marketing also has one other shortcoming. It lacks flexibility.
-
Flexibility.
Facebook advertising is the king of flexibility.
With traditional marketing, you can hardly change your marketing messages or creatives. But with Facebook ads, you can change just about anything: your creatives, target audience, objectives, or tactics whenever you want.
You can pause an ad, duplicate it, or test an ad with different audiences.
Running an ad on Facebook comes with lots of options.
You can run ads for any business goal. Be it brand awareness, lead generation, installing your app, selling your product, you name it!
Irrespective of what you want to achieve, there is a marketing angle for you.
When you run a Facebook ad, you can increase the budget to get better results when the ad performs well.
If it underperforms, you can change any of the ads’ components to get better results.
Facebook is one of the most flexible advertising platforms there is.
-
Instant Feedback.
When you run Facebook ads, you get to see how people react to your ads.
How they engage with it. The comments, the shares. They give you an insight into what kind of responses your ad is provoking.
This gives you instant feedback which, helps you determine if your ad is heading towards success or failure.
It will also give you insights into your audience.
This is the total opposite of traditional marketing, where there is no or poor chance of feedback.
With traditional marketing, you can only hope your marketing succeeds.
-
Measurability.
Running ads on Facebook gives you insights and metrics to measure your campaign results.
These help you determine the success or failure of a specific ad campaign.
You’ll find metrics such as link clicks, impressions, ad frequency, reach, conversion. Etc.
These metrics would always depend on the ad and what you want to achieve.
These metrics are vital because they help you know what went wrong or right in the campaign. With that, you can make the required adjustments.
To Wind-Up.
Yes, change is something we all try to avoid, but some would make your life better. They may come with uncertainties, but their end result is almost heavenly.
Facebook ad is one of them. Give it a try.
Using Facebook ads for your business in Nigeria can help you reach more people and also make your business more profitable. If you want to find out how to run a successful Facebook ad, then click this link to read this article.
If you have any questions, drop them as a comment, and I’ll reply as soon as I can.
Leave a Reply