With so much emphasis now being put on digital marketing it’s essential that businesses know how to best take advantage of advertising platforms online.
Gil David, the Founder of Run DMG, has spent over 13 years in sales, marketing, and business management, as well as over 5 years running Facebook adverts for a wide range of clients, including beauty chains and e-commerce stores, online coaches, and nationwide fitness franchises.
Having worked with social media advertising budgets from a few hundred pounds to 150k+, Gil was the perfect guest speaker to deliver a Lunchtime Learning session facilitated by the Cathedral Quarter BID (Business Improvement District), sharing six key insights for social media advertising:
1. Pixel
A Facebook Pixel is a piece of code that is generated within your Facebook advert account that can be installed in your website. It tracks user behaviour offering key insights and allowing you to target and re-target potential customers more specifically. To ensure GDPR compliance, make sure you refer to your pixel in your Privacy Notice.
“Pixel is a great tool that allows you to build custom audiences, re-target, and build lookalike audiences on Facebook – you provide a database or current audience and Facebook will find people with similar interests and purchasing behaviour based on a wide range of data points” said Gil.
2. Planning
When it comes to social media and social media advertising, the majority of small business owners greatly underestimate its value, as well as the strategy and planning required for successful campaigns.
Gil explained: “People are not likely to buy your product or service based on one advert. They’ll purchase further down the sales journey. You should be planning the buyer’s journey with multiple campaigns along the way.”
3. People
Putting up adverts that are too broad and generic to appeal to the masses is unlikely to work. Gil recommends honing the definition of your perfect customer so that you can focus on targeting specific groups of people.
Gil asked the delegates: “Who are you targeting? This will influence the images and copy that you use. Where are you targeting? Set your Facebook adverts to target specific geographical areas. Where are they in the buying journey, and why should they care about your product or service?”
4. Pull
Today, we are all bombarded with information, content, imagery, videos, sounds, and advertising. How are you going to draw your customer’s attention to you? Gil recommends the ‘Heresay’ approach: “Here’s what I’ve got. Here’s what it’ll do for you. Here’s what I want you to do next. Here’s why you should do it now. Here’s why it’s safe.”
5. Process
Social media adverts aren’t a dark art, nor is there any one-style-fits-all approach that works for every business. There are some top tips that apply to all businesses – such as strong imagery and good copy – after that it’s a case of trial by error.
Gil said: “Don’t set adverts and leave them to run for weeks at a time. Check in on performance regularly, even daily. Test multiple images with different copy to see which ones work best for your target audience. Pause or stop those that aren’t getting a great response, and invest more into those that are.”
6. Persistence
“7 out of 10 social media adverts will fail. Most people think it’s the other way around” said Gil.
Make small changes to your adverts each time, so you can see which changes are having the biggest impact.
Want to hear more top tips for running social media advertising campaigns for your small business? Check out the full recording of Gil’s workshop on the Cathedral Quarter website – cathedralquarterbelfast.com/
Check out some more Lunchtime Learning sessions at: cathedralquarterbelfast.