I just went on a vacation with my wife to Italy (Sep 2019) and my favourite city during the trip was Florence. Even though it was really packed with tourists, I really love the buildings there.
Ponte Vecchio is one of the oldest bridges in Florence and when I stood there to look across the river, the view was just breathtaking. People say that Ponte Vecchio was spared by the Nazis during the German bombing in 1944 because its extraordinary beauty conquered Hitler’s heart during his visit in 1938. Mussolini (Prime Minister of Italy then) even had two large windows opened in the center of Ponte Vecchio so that Hitler could admire the west panorama of the Arno River.
Why am I talking about this bridge?
Because what caught my attention was the number of jewelry shops there, and the constant human traffic all day.
And I thought to myself, what could I do to stand out and drive more business if I owned one of the jewelry shops there?
At that point, I saw how Ponte Vecchio could be used as an analogy for showing the power of what Facebook ads can do. So I decided to snap the picture above and help you visualize.
Imagine this:
You decide to start your own business, and you have a “shop” (it can be a virtual shop like a website or a physical store).
Just like the shops located along Ponte Vecchio, where they decided to be there probably because of the high human traffic, you now have a “shop” too located in a very high traffic area (Facebook).
But now, with the capability of Facebook ad platform, you can work wonders to drive up the sales, which is impossible to do in Ponte Vecchio (or in real life basically).
Let me explain.
First, you can run ad campaigns to drive traffic to your shop by showing them your products and your brand.
Then, you can track the interested audience (known as custom audience in Facebook ads) who came by to your shop, and create different strategies to increase sales depending on whether they buy it or not.
Imagine you now own a jewelry store in a high traffic area (Facebook). After running a campaign to advertise your products, a lady wearing a beautiful black blouse came into your shop.
Scenario #1 – She viewed but did not buy.
She viewed your specially designed purple diamond earrings, enquired about the price, but did not purchase because she was unsure and needed more time to think about it.
She then left the shop. But, you now have already “tracked” her. You can devise different strategies to convince her to buy, without having to call her on her mobile phone and bug her. Perhaps, you could entice her to buy the diamond earrings by giving a 15% discount on the next day.
While using her mobile phone to surf Facebook or Instagram mindlessly, she saw your very enticing price drop, and decided to purchase it right away. And… ka-ching! Your revenue and profit has just increased!
Put this on a larger scale.
Imagine 20000 people saw your purple diamond earrings, but did not buy, and you decide to give a huge offer.
Are you going to personally call 20000 of them to tell them there’s an offer? No it’s impossible. But what you can do is to run a separate ad to show them the price drop.
This is called a retargeting ad. And trust me, retargeting customers on Facebook is like an instant gold rush everytime I run it on the right time.
If you are running ads now but not retargeting, you are truly putting money on the table!
Scenario #2 – She viewed and bought.
So this lady, who came in a beautiful black blouse, stylish and cool, whom we can also assume likes to accessorize, decides to buy your purple diamond earrings.
Here’s the craziest thing Facebook can do. With their algorithm, they are able to find another group of audience similar to the lady who just bought your earrings. Perhaps, a similar group of people who also enjoys accessorizing, who also enjoys being cool and stylish and would spend money on a pair of purple diamond earrings.
This is called a lookalike audience.
Let me ask this, if you were to show your earrings to a random group of people, versus another group of people who are similar to the lady who just bought your earrings with the same buying power and the same interests, who is more likely to purchase? The answer is obvious!
And to me, lookalike audience is one of the most powerful elements of Facebook ads, and that is how I manage to scale my business to 6 figures in just 2 years!
Getting started with Facebook ads
If you have yet to use Facebook ads for your business, here’s a 3-point checklist for you before you start doing so:
1. Know exactly what your offer is; what product/service are you selling at what price? And what’s special for them when they sign up with you?
2. Do you have a sales page (landing page) ready?
3. What is your follow-up process? (assuming your landing page helps to collect a person’s contact)
Are you going to automate your follow-up? If yes, then set up the proper email workflow in place and know what you want your customer to do; whether to book an appointment with you, or pay you for your product.
If you choose to manually follow-up (which is fine for certain industries), then what is your follow-up process? Are you going to get their email, call them or Whatsapp them?
Only when the above are done, then you can start running traffic to your sales page.
(This post is taken from part of my 3-step marketing framework which I’ve used to scale my business. Will be sharing more in time to come!)
