01 Jul How Cheap Can Facebook Marketing Be For Small Businesses?
You’ve got your Facebook page up and running, you’ve loaded your pictures and you’re posting every now and then. Now, you’re wondering how to step up your game. Marketing can be costly, especially if you don’t have a dedicated marketing team in house (which most small businesses don’t have). Amongst all of your other expenses, is Facebook marketing something you can afford? Yes – absolutely. Here’s how cheap it can be!
Free Facebook Marketing
First of all, Facebook marketing can be absolutely free for you. Yes, free. You can actually run a pretty successful Facebook strategy all on your own by ensuring you hit some of the key points to running a good Facebook page.
Make sure your page looks professional, has all the information a customer may want to know, and then make sure you post good quality content often. Post engaging pictures and videos, engage with your Facebook page comments, and interact with your market. With a few small tips and tricks, you can have a successful Facebook page that does the marketing work for you.
If you’re making sure your page has all the right elements, and people enjoy interacting with your page on Facebook, then you’ll be getting free marketing with shares, likes, and word of mouth.
Facebook Ads
Now that your Facebook page is getting some traffic and engagement, it might be time for you to move to the next level with your Facebook marketing tactic. Some may think ads can cost them an arm and a leg, but advertising on Facebook can be quite affordable and effective if done properly.
Facebook Ads run like Google AdWords, in the sense that they are a pay-per-click/pay-per-impression system. But, Facebook has access to tons of unique personal information (think: interests, personal information, location – you name it), allowing you to target your ads extremely well.
Let’s say you’re a yoga studio and you want to target 19 to 35-year-old women living in the downtown core of Toronto who already go to the gym, work downtown, and already “like” pages such as Lululemon and Nike. You can set your filters so that your Facebook ads reach exactly those women.
There’s a really cool article on Buffer titled “What $5 Per Day Will Buy You On Facebook” that goes into even more detail about their experiment with Facebook advertising, showcasing that a little cash can go a long way.
Have A Strategy
You can spend all the money you want, but you won’t get a thing unless you have an airtight strategy. Know who you want to target and what you want to accomplish so that you can make sure your results are what you’d expect. This will help you make your dollar stretch as far as it possibly can.
Remember that most people scrolling Facebook aren’t there to buy something new. Rather, creating brand awareness through content marketing is something you may want to consider targeting on Facebook. Engaging content with a strong call to action will go far on Facebook.
Also, remember your medium! Since you’re on Facebook, make sure your ad speaks to the people – make sure it’s relevant, visually appealing, and speaks to the person scrolling through their feed with a call to action they can’t say no to. You can get to know what works by checking out lists of great Facebook advertising. Hubspot has a good list of Facebook ads that work.
Facebook marketing is what you make it, and you can throw a ton of money at it or try and master it in a way that’s affordable and successful for you. You can spend a ton on marketing and not have it be successful if you don’t have a strong strategy outlined. Careful thought and planning, as well as research, will allow you to get the most of your time and money.