Selling on Facebook: The Definitive Guide

You want to know about selling on Facebook, right?

It’s no secret that Facebook is an unstoppable powerhouse when it comes to social media.

Over 2 billion active users per month and still growing, there’s a target market for almost every business…

Including yours…

But how do you actually reach buyers on Facebook, not just window shoppers that will browse your products or services but never become a customer.

In this guide I’m going to show you how to successfully sell your products or services using Facebook advertising, to take your business growth to the next level.

SELLING ON FACEBOOK – DON’T SELL RIGHT AWAY

As counter intuitive as it might seem don’t approach “cold” audiences on Facebook trying to sell your products or services right away.

The biggest mistake we see people making when it comes to selling on Facebook is…

Selling too early

Let me write that again,

Selling too early!

Don’t just put up an ad to sell your product or services, this isn’t Google.

If you just run sales based ad campaigns, to “cold” audiences, you won’t see the results you want.

If you just run a campaign that says “buy my products or services”, to an audience of people that have never heard of you or seen you in their Newsfeed (“cold” audiences) it won’t deliver the results you want.

Why?

Because your target audience doesn’t know, like or trust you enough to take the action you want them to.

Would you buy something from a stranger that comes up to you in the street?

Probably not…

It’s the online equivalent when you are selling on Facebook via sales campaigns straight to “cold” audiences.

SETTING UP THE SALE

If you are not selling on Facebook right away, what should you do?

The answer is to implement a strategy that is proven to take someone from a stranger to a paying customer.

There is no single ad campaign I can tell you to run that will instantly deliver hundreds of thousands and millions of pounds of new revenue.

Instead, this strategy is a series of Facebook ad campaigns that goes far beyond just boosting a post and running a couple of ad campaigns.

It’s called…

The ALL Framework

And here’s how it works…

THE ALL FRAMEWORK METHODOLOGY

The ALL Framework is a three stage advertising funnel, that we’ve developed at my agency (Gecko Squared), which takes someone from a complete stranger to a paying customer in the shortest amount of time possible.

We implement it for our private agency clients as well as teach it on our training programmes and in The Facebook Ads Club.

It’s been responsible for adding over £5 million of new revenue across our client base.

When implemented correctly it shows the right ads, to the right people, at the right time.

The three stages of the ALL Framework consist of:

• Awareness – Deliver value via video content to build awareness, recognition and credibility
• Level 1 Remarketing – Product or service offerings to your video viewers, driving website traffic
• Level 2 Remarketing – Website remarketing to “hot” audiences ready to buy

The ALL Framework automatically moves your target audiences from one level to the next, based on their engagement with your business.

This allows you to create consistency in your results month after month, year after year.

It’s the most effective advertising strategy on Facebook right now. Period.

AWARENESS (TOP-OF-FUNNEL)

At the top of the ALL Framework is Awareness. Here the goal is to generate awareness for your business.

You do this by delivering value through free engaging content.

Why lead with content?

We do this because unlike on Google where people are actively searching for products and services, people just aren’t doing this on Facebook.

Instead, they are consuming content from their friends, family and businesses.

Organically, Facebook has been prioritising content from friends and family, which is why brands and media publishers have seen decreases in organic reach.

Facebook is a content network first and foremost, so do what Facebook wants and deliver highly valuable content to your target audiences.

Lead with content and you’ll already be ahead of the majority of business owners who are selling on Facebook too early.

THE MOST EFFECTIVE CONTENT TYPE ON FACEBOOK 

The most effective content on Facebook right now is video. This is no surprise as it is by far the most engaging type.

From a consumers perspective it takes both their audio and visual communication channels to consume video content.

It can grab your target audience’s attention in the Newsfeeed and hold that attention for longer than any other type of content such as a blog post or a podcast for example.

That’s why Facebook has now hit over 100 million hours of video content watched per day.

That’s not all

There’s also another benefit of using video content and that’s from an advertisers perspective.

The reason why you want to use video content at the Awareness stage over any other type is because you can build video custom audiences from it, which you then use as the targeting for Level 1 Remarketing campaigns.

VIDEO CONTET BUILDS MORE THAN JUST AWARENESS

When using video content at this stage in the All Framework not only are you building awareness but you are also building recognition in your target audiences Newsfeed.

When you subsequently remarket them at Level 1 and at Level 2 you are no longer a stranger in their Newsfeed.

The best part…

You see better performance across all key metrics, including relevance scores, due to that recognition.

By producing relevant, valuable content that makes your target audiences lives better you are also building credibility and authority for your business in your given industry.

TYPES OF AWARENESS CONTENT

You’ve seen why video content is the most effective.

Now, I want to show you the types of video content to use in your video ad campaigns, at this stage in the ALL Framework.

EDUCATIONAL CONTENT

Educational content is one of the best ways to deliver direct value to your target audience by either directly teaching in the video itself or using video content to give a preview of written content such as a guide or checklist Lead Magnet.

Education content is best used either in a B2B context or where you have a product with complexities, that you need to simply for your target audience, so they can fully understand your product before they purchase.

TELL YOUR STORY

Consumers don’t just buy products or services for their features, they buy from brands that align with their own ethos and core beliefs, that’s why video content that tells your unique brand story can be extremely effective at building trust and awareness.

For every business that advertises on Facebook, your story is a key piece of video content that you can use at this Awareness stage.

ENTERTAINING CONTENT 

Not just cat videos! This is the type of content that people think about when you say video on Facebook.

However, you don’t have to use cat videos to get your point across. Entertaining content is best used in the B2C space and it particularly useful for experience provides or where amazing content is the byproduct of your core product.

GoPro are an amazing example of a company that creates highly relevant, entertaining content.

AWARENESS LEVEL AUDIENCES

We’ve covered the types of content you need to create to build Awareness at this stage.

Now, we move onto the actual audiences you should use at the Ad Set level of your campaigns.

At this stage of the ALL Framework you want to use Saved  audiences and Lookalike audiences for your campaign targeting.

These are two types of “cold” audience that you create in the Audiences Dashboard in Ads Manager, which consist of your potential new customers or clients.

LEVEL 1 REMARKETING (MIDDLE-OF-FUNNEL)

In the middle of the ALL framework is Level 1 Remarketing. Here the goal is to build consideration of your products or services in the minds of your target audience through specific remarketing campaigns.

You are targeting “warm” audiences of people who have had a previous engagement with your business on Facebook.

At this stage you are now selling on Facebook.

By introducing direct response benefit driven ads about your products or services to position certain offers, you can drive people from Facebook to your website to discover more and purchase or enquire.

LEVEL 1 REMARKETING OFFERS

We are now going to look at the different types of offers you can run to your new “warm” video audiences.

DISCOUNTS

Discounts are very simple, but very effective. When it comes to selling on Facebook, you’ve almost certainly seen an ad in your newsfeedmthat says something like: “Get 10% off when you use discount code FB10”

The ad example below uses NW20 to offer a 20% off product discount.

At the agency, we’ve created hundreds of ads for clients that utilise some sort of product or service discount as they consistently deliver exceptional ROI.

With new customers, it reduces the barrier to entry for your target audience to purchase therefore, minimizing the level of risk associated with purchasing from a new company they haven’t used before.

Who should use discounts?

They are suitable for almost every business:

• ECOMMERCE
• LOCAL BUSINESSES
• ONLINE BUSINESSES
• EXPERIENCE PROVIDERS
• MEMBERSHIP CLUBS

FREE CONSULTATIONS

Next we have the very effective offer of a free or complementary consultation. This is the best way to get your potential customers on the phone and talking to them.

However, when you run a free consultation offer you need to establish some strict criteria.

To make sure you don’t waste time with unqualified prospects you can insist people or companies meet certain requirements before they are entitled to a free consultation.

No surprise to see an example of one of the strategy session ads we’ve previously used for the agency side of the business.

The key thing to note about free consultations is that the value to your target audience has to be clear upfront, in both your Facebook ads and your landing page.

You still want to lead with value first and then your pitch at the end, otherwise people will see straight through the offer and know it is a glorified sales call.

When you do free consultations right people should want to know more about how you can help them and be actively interested in the services you provide.

That means you hit their pain point, made it timely and have provided the solution in the form of your services.

Who should use free consultations?

Free consultations work exceptionally well for service providers, the higher the average customer value the better (ACV).

With a high ACV you can front load your acquisition time by providing the sessions for free but when someone converts into a client it makes it worth it because they are spending thousands of pounds over their lifetime that they work with you.

LEVEL 1 REMARKETING AUDIENCES

At this stage all of the audiences you use on Facebook are Custom Audiences.

This is an ad targeting option that lets you find people who already know your business on Facebook and is a way to capture and group “warm” audiences.

The most appropriate to use at Level 1 are Engagement Custom Audiences found in your Audiences Dashboard in Ads Manager.

Specifically, you want to use Video, Page and  Instagram Business Profile engagement custom audiences.

LEVEL 2 REMARKETING (BOTTOM-OF-FUNNEL)

At the bottom of the ALL Framework is Level 2 Remarketing. The goal at the bottom of your sales funnel is to drive conversions by re-engaging people that have visited your website but not taken the particular action you want them to.

It’s not just for large companies like Amazon to use, it works for every size of business, as long as you have the Facebook Pixel and conversion tracking installed on your website.

At this stage you are targeting “hot” audiences of people who have already browsed your products or services therefore you see much higher engagement rates when you introduce another ad campaign to them.

THE RTM METHOD – LEVEL 2 REMARKETING AD TYPES

REMINDERS

The first way to re-engage people who have visited your website is through reminder based campaigns. The always on, always connected nature of social media means that attention spans are decreasing as people get distracted easily.

Reminder based campaigns are a great way to bring people back to finish a particular action, such as a purchase or lead action, depending on what you offered at Level 1.

TESTIMONIALS

Testimonials or product reviews are consistently the most effective ad type at this Level 2 stage, when it comes to selling on Facebook.

When you use them in your ad copy you are not only building social proof but you are deepening that relationship by developing enough trust and confidence that your target audience will come back to your website and convert into a customer and complete their purchase or lead enquiry.

For example, if you’re an eCommerce company one of the most effective campaign types at this level is the cart abandonment remarketing campaign, utilising testimonials. This targets people who have added your product to their basket but then abandoned the checkout process.

If you don’t have eCommerce actions to use to remarket people, you can still remarket people through page views via a “People who visit specific web pages” website custom audience covered in the Level 2 Remarketing audiences section below.

MESSENGER

A fast and simple way to start the conversation with your target audiences is via campaigns that send people straight to Facebook messenger, with one click on your ad.

Best used for service businesses with high end offerings or services with complexities, messenger campaigns make it easier for your potential customers to ask questions and find out more about your the service that you positioned at Level  1 of the ALL Framework.

IMPLEMENTING THE ALL FRAMEWORK

Now you know how selling on Facebook actually works, via the ALL Framework methodology, we need to talk about implementing this framework in your business.

If you set all the stages live at the same time it won’t work.

When first implementing the ALL Framework you need to stagger the implementation of each level.

1. Start with an Awareness build

First of all you want run your Awareness campaigns to build up your “warm” video custom audiences which you use at Level 1.

Why does this matter?

If you were to launch Level 1 Remarketing campaigns at the same time as your Awareness campaigns, you would saturate your Level 1 audiences as they are not large enough.

This means that you would hit frequency issues, your relevance score will decrease pushing your costs up and reducing the effectiveness of your Level 1 Remarketing campaigns.

2. Then introduce your Level 1 Remarketing campaigns

Once you have built up a large enough number of video viewers (10k or more) you can introduce your Level 1 Remarketing campaigns, targeting your video custom audiences.

When you do this, don’t pause your Awareness campaigns. Keep them going so it continually populates your video custom audiences, moving people automatically into your Level 1 Remarketing campaigns.

3. Finally, introduce your Level 2 Remarketing campaigns

After you have around 2000 people in your website custom audience, you can introduce your Level 2 Remarketing campaigns.

Just like you do when you introduce Level 1 Remarketing campaigns, when you introduce Level 2, do not pause the level above, in this case, Level 1 campaigns.

Now you should have all three stages of the ALL Framework running at the same time.

This means that your target audiences get moved from one level to the next automatically, based on their interaction with your campaigns.

This is how you create the consistency and stability in your results and why the ALL Framework continues to delivers exceptional results month after month, year after year.