Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash
A new business, whether it is physical or online, is unknown to people. There has to be a way for you to let people know that you are here and that you offer products and services they need. If you merely rely on foot traffic, growth will be slow. You need to advertise also there are many different ways to generate leads, even if you are merely operating a local business. Facebook and Instagram are the two premier choices, and we will tell you today why.
Number of Users
Facebook has 2.7 billion users per month—and these are active users. That is roughly 30% of the entire global population. It was back in 2012 when Facebook reached a billion users. Instagram, on the other hand, has around 800 million monthly active users.
No, you do not have to reach all these users. A small chunk should be enough to get the leads that you want. A mere 1% of this audience gives you 20 million leads, and this should be enough for any business to get a good number of clients. Also, the sheer volume of users of Facebook and Instagram means that your target customer is using either or both of these platforms.
Personalized Ad Impression
On both Facebook and Instagram, your ad is not shown randomly. Before the age of the internet, ads were placed on TV stations, radio stations and print. The problem with this advertising method is that they are seen by random people, and these people are not likely to be interested in your business.
Today, you can place ads on Facebook and Instagram and choose your targets. For example, you can tell the system that you only want to show your ad to females and to people who are only located in a specific place. These options are called demographics, and below are some more examples:
- Age – choose the age group where Facebook and Instagram will show your ad.
- Detailed targeting – you can choose different criteria based on the interests and behaviours of the user.
For detailed targeting, you can tell the Facebook ad system to show your ad only to people who meet your criteria based on the other ads that they clicked, the kinds of pages that they engage in and the activities that they like.
Ad Cost is Cheap
Be prepared to spend thousands of dollars on ads if you advertise on TV, radio and print. On Facebook and Instagram, you can start with as low as $50, and this can even be lower depending on your advertising choices. For example, you will pay less if you are targeting a smaller population. The same is true if you are targeting a specific gender. The lesser number of people, the lesser you pay.
The wonderful thing about Facebook and Instagram advertising is that you can also choose how long your ads will run. There is no standard to this, but the system will tell you if you should run your ad for at least three days or longer than that. As you can see, you are in full control of your advertisement. You will run your ad according to your budget. If you are already seeing positive results, then you can just log back in and then stop the ad from running.
You Can Do Re-targeting
Re-targeting is an advertising process where you are pushing your ad only to people who have already shown interest in your offer. Let us say that last month, you ran an ad and your ad had 1,000 clicks. Today, you want to run more ads, but this time, you want to show this ad only to people who have already clicked your previous ad.
You can do this in the Facebook universe, but why? In re-targeting, you are sending a different message. Pretty much, you already know that these people already clicked your previous ad. In this new ad, maybe you want to change your offer—maybe you can offer a discount, and this will make them respond better.
You do this because the people who have initially clicked your ad have already shown interest. It is only a matter of why they did not make a purchase. So, it is possible that they are looking for better value, which you can offer only to them on your second ad.
You Can Do Video Ads
Videos perform better than images and text. Videos will allow you to tell a story, and they are much more engaging. Since your target market is on Facebook and Instagram, you do not even have to create your own YouTube channel anymore. If you load your videos on YouTube, you have to build an audience, and this can take a really long time.
On Facebook, all you have to do is to upload your video on Facebook. Once it is on the database, you can reuse that video again and again. Also, you can show that video to specific people only – your target market.
Facebook and Instagram are the best lead generation platforms for your new business. All sorts of people use both platforms, and it is virtually impossible not to find your target market here. Facebook is best for all businesses like restaurants, online bookmakers like GGBet, and others. However, Instagram is best used for businesses where your products are tangible. Instagram also works best for products that result in something visible, like beauty products, soap, etc.