Facebook Ads To Generate Leads

Real estate marketing used to be about referrals, direct mail and flyers. Now, it's gone on-line and marketing through Facebook is an excellent digital marketing opportunity. If you are looking for an ad platform that allows precise demographic and behavioral targeting, then look no further than Facebook. This cost effective medium allows for a competitive advantage among local competitors.
If you are a Facebook user, then you have seen sponsored ads creep into your news feed. If you are thinking about creating a Facebook ad to generate leads, then you will need to get a few things in order to begin. The first must have is a Facebook business page. While it doesn't take a marketing professional to create Facebook ads, it does take some time to develop an ad set and make sure the ads are working. Each ad allows for an image as well as text and a call to action button. A variety of options are available for ad placement varying from a right-hand column advertisement to a mobile or desktop news feed. Understanding your target audience is an essential component in creating any successful Facebook ad campaign.

Ad Targeting
Facebook marketing allows for laser-focused targeting of leads and utilizing Facebook ads to promote real estate services can be a very cost-effective method for gaining qualified leads. Among the top targeting areas are income, behaviors and interests as well as geographic Location. As an example, Facebook offers a behavioral category that's termed "Likely to Move." Other great lead generation possibilities include targeting by life events or home value.

Ad Budgets
Ad budgets can vary significantly, but the biggest thing to pay attention to is the amount of return that you get. Most recommend starting off with a lower advertising budget that won't break the bank. Then determine how the ad is working through engagement and conversions.
Advertising can be done for as little as $2 a day with some major companies spending upwards of $200,000 per day. There are two different pricing systems that Facebook offers: cost per click (CPC) and cost per mile (CPM). The CPM is what you pay per thousand impressions whereas as the CPC allows you to set a price that you will pay for every time someone clicks on your Facebook ad.

Ad Objectives
Without having clear goals in place for a Facebook ad campaign, then you are wasting money. Facebook offers "objectives" which allow you to choose what you want from your ad campaign. Do you wish to increase website conversions? Promote a page? Get people to claim your offer? There are a wide variety of options available to choose from, but the increase in website conversions should be what you want to focus on primarily if the goal is to capture leads.

Capturing Leads
Want more leads? Sure everyone does. But many don't know what to do with them once they get a lead. Having a system in place to capture leads before placing a Facebook ad is crucial. Some wing the Facebook ads and wonder why little to no results are realized. Without planning ahead and having a solid lead capture system in place, the time and money spent on Facebook ads aren't worth it. Obtaining contact information, if only an email will help build up a database.

Without the ability to generate leads business won't come. That's why Facebook ads are a great and cost-effective way to generate highly qualified leads for just about any business. Real estate marketing experts generally agree that Facebook is one of the top ways to gain quality leads. Every day over 900 million people log in to Facebook, so it is a great platform to reach people on for a lead generation tool. Setting up a Facebook page is free, it's only when you want to create an ad that it costs money. Utilizing Facebook's advertising program as an inbound marketing tool can be done through highly targeted ads. A recent Merchant Circle study reported that over 20 percent of small businesses in America have utilized Facebook to help promote their business. And, over 65 percent of businesses stated they would use Facebook ads again. Facebook ads offer flexibility and are also user-friendly to set up and maintain.

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Facebook - Where There Are People, There Are Sales

  

Ever tried selling your products on Facebook? No? Well maybe you should. Where there are people there are sales!

Stage 1

The first thing to do is get yourself a business fan page. It is very easy to set up and it will serve as your shop window to the world. Now unlike eBay you do not have specific listings (although it is possible) so you must really push your products and services and actually sell yourself. I find this exciting and challenging as you need to actually seek out potential customers which should result in sales.

Once you have your page you can then set about making it look attractive and enticing to potential buyers. There are many third party apps that will do this for you (usually free) and I have tried a few but probably my favourite is one called Pagemondo which enables you to have a snazzy landing page for new likers to see where you can feature high profile products and display your logo etc. This, like an eBay template can give your Facebook presence an air of professionalism.

Stage 2

The next step is to get fans/likers and this is the hard bit! Obviously the first place to start is friends and families that are already contacts of yours on Facebook and it is amazing how many more fans you can get if you send a begging message to all your friends asking them to invite their friends who in turn invite their friends etc etc, a bit like a pyramid scheme!! It works even better if you offer a small prize for the friend who sends the most likers to your page. Another good way of getting fans is to get existing customers from your website or eBay sales to sign up by sending out leaflets with every sale asking them to join to group to stay in touch with new products and special offers. I often get good repeat orders just from posting an update on my page.

Once you have exhausted your immediate circle of acquaintances and past customers its time to start enticing members of the public to your page. There are a few ways of doing this. The quickest and easiest is to use site like Twiends which is basically a massive fan chain, exchange program. You like other peoples pages and they in turn like you back. I don't, however hold much faith in these systems as you are not getting targeted followers, especially if you are selling fairly niche products. If you sell something universal though such as electronics or books you may have some success using this method. There are also a number of Facebook pages set up specifically set up to get you likers. Here are a few of them...

NetworkYourBusiness

AddictedToNetworking

FanpagePromote

A method I have used to get likers is to use pages that are targeted to my demographic. For example pages on Facebook like 'Mums Who Make' is a page dedicated to stay at home mums who make and craft and then sell on Facebook. Targeting this page works well for me as many of these Mums have kids and subsequently need toys for parties etc. Also many of them take existing products like Santa sacks, personalise them and sell them on. Selling to these people has been very lucrative in the last few weeks. Now of course it depends on what you are selling but I am sure if you spend a bit of time surfing pages you could find similar pages suited to your niche. Seek out groups and pages that are relevant to your business and join them. Some will let you promote your business some will not but the more groups you join the better. If a business finds your page and likes it then it is common Facebook etiquette to like them back, even if they are nothing to do with your business sector. Making virtual friends or acquaintances is a big part of progressing your Facebook profile. I make sure I like all the toy, party, bouncy castle, Christmas, Halloween pages I can find as you never who may be in need of my services!

Stage 3

Once you have a good base of fans you need to promote, promote, promote! The more you update your page the more sales you will get and as previously mentioned some may not see this as a good use of your time if you only pick up a couple of sales a week but you have to be in it for the long game - if you build it they will come (points if you get that random eighties film quote!!). Every time you have a new product or piece of news post it on your page as someone, somewhere will see it and the law of averages says that someone will buy it! Also, be creative. Hold competitions, promotions and special offers, engage with your customers and try to spark their interest. I imagine myself as a market stall holder and trying to grab passers by that really don't want to be grabbed!

Another way of getting sales it to link your Facebook page with your eBay account. There are some good guides on Google explaining how you can do this.

There are also ways of getting an eBay style 'shop' on Facebook. Companies like Buegle will charge you for this but to be honest I am skeptical about paying for services like this as I dont think the returns are currently there to make this financially viable. Especially when I managed to do it for free!!

The website I use for Risus Wholesale has a function built into it allowing me to export all of my wholesale toys listings to shopmania who in turn will then list all your items directly on Facebook and after having it up and running for a year or so I am now making some good sales and enquiries.

I hope this guide will help a few people. Selling on Facebook is not for everyone but I honestly think its worth a try if you have the time and energy to put into it.

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Traffic Tips to Build Your List

1

Traffic tips to build your business, without traffic and customers purchasing your goods you don't have a business only a hobby! Everyone will tell you the money is in the list. When you have your own list of happy customers you know a broadcast email or an email sequence can bring you a stream of orders.

If you start affiliate marketing with a mentor and just send prospects to the mentor's sales pages that is the easiest way to make an income when you begin, but it won't be long before you realise you are just building the Mentor's list and business. Yes you are getting paid for your efforts, but by taking their names and emails first via a redirect system you are both gaining and you get two chances of making a sale. You can also sell other products to your own list.

Therefore as you progress in your training and learning the techniques necessary you will also probably want to grow a list of you own; but either way the more traffic techniques you learn the more opportunities you have of making a good income.

Solo ads are one of the simplest forms of paid advertising. Solo ads can build your list fast. You purchase visitors to an opt-in sales page by offering a free gift via an email the supplier sends out for you to his list. Only use monitored Solo ad websites for suppliers which can be found on forums, Facebook groups or recommended by your mentor.

Facebook advertising is another fast method. Facebook has some tutorials to help you get started but it does take time to become proficient at choosing the most relevant selection of people to include.

Content marketing, there are many ways to grow your list organically, for example article directories, sometimes your information is picked up by others and passed on, make sure you have a link back to a sales or contact page. Guest blogging sites and free advertisements can also help. Guest blogging sites are often looking for good articles.

Email Marketing; as soon as you begin to grow your list you can benefit from email marketing, both sequence emails, newsletters and broadcast emails are used with an auto-responder like Get Response. This enables you to create a relationship with your prospects. It often takes a while to gain the confidence of your prospects before they trust you and purchase you offerings. Don't just send them sales emails make sure you send them good content emails or they will stop opening them.

YouTube Videos; videos are very popular and can easily be informative. They can be made with slides or speaking into the microphone. If you are visually in front of your audience it helps gain confidence because you appear as a real person they can relate to. Videos can be made with your phone, directly from your laptop or using a variety of free and expensive equipment. If you take a look at YouTube you will find videos on every subject you can think of. they can be a great source of traffic.Videos, like pictures, are popular with both Google and Facebook and because Google owns YouTube it can help your page rankings to use video on your website or linked to it..

As traffic is such a huge subject, her are some books that might interest you:

"Facebook for business" by Bud E Smith

"Email Persuasion" by Email Brodie

"500 Social Media Tips" by Andrew Macarthy

"Profitable social Media Marketing" by Tim Kitchen and Tachmeem Mirza

"SEO Step by Step" by Caimin Jones

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