Facebook provides an excellent way to reach out to current and potential customers so you can drum up more business. While having a Facebook business account is free, if you really want to reach a high number of prospective customers, you are probably going to want to invest some money in Facebook advertising and post boosting. This will enable you to get the most out of your company page. You likely put a lot of thought and effort into the content you produce for and post on social media. If you have written an interesting blog article or if you are posting about a new product or service your business is offering, you will want to make sure that as many potential customers as possible see that post. You can do this through targeted advertising.

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How to Target New Customers

If you have an informative post that can bring business to your website, consider using Facebook to boost it. Facebook marketing enables you to promote interesting, engaging content you have created by putting it into the newsfeeds of hundreds or thousands of specifically-targeted potential customers.

You have probably noticed these types of posts appearing in your own newsfeed. You can spot them because they say “Sponsored” in a light gray font under the sharer’s name. You have also likely clicked on a few of them since they target things you have shown an interest in.

When you create a Facebook ad, or boost a post, you have the opportunity to create a targeted custom audience for that post. You can specify a different audience for each article you boost to get the most leverage out of your ad campaigns.

When boosting a post, Facebook allows you to target very specific audiences. You get set parameters for:

• Location: You can choose to show your ad to people in specific countries, states and even cities. That way you are not wasting your time or money by only targeting customers who are inside the scope of your business service area. For example, if you only cater to local clients you can focus your ad only on people in your city. If you operate on a national scale, you can open your post up to the full country.
• Gender: You have the option to show your post to men only, women only or both. If the subject of the landing page that you are promoting is specific to women’s issues, you can take advantage to targeting only female Facebook members.
• Age: You can choose the age range(s) you wish to target. For example, if your article is about reverse mortgages, you may want to limit the audience to those 55 and older whereas if your article is about college tuition, you may want to target college-aged people and their parents. Be aware that Facebook has specific rules if you are targeting members under the age of 18. If you are including young people in your targeting scope, be sure to read the requirements. If your ad is in violation of Facebook’s rules, it will not be approved and you will be told why. You can then make adjustments and try again.
• Interests: This is where you can really narrow down your audience. If your landing page is about the importance of life insurance for single parents, for example, you can use targeting keywords just as “single parenting,” “child support” and “child custody” to ensure that the people who see your post are likely to have an interest in what you have to say. Facebook helps you narrow down your audience by coming up with appropriate keywords and making suggestions based on other words you have already chosen.

Additionally, if you are creating an ad to bring people to your Facebook page or website, you have even more options to make targeting even more precise. These changes will enable you to specify a particularly audience by languages spoken, behaviors, demographics and even job titles. Targeting the right recipients for your ads has never been easier.

Once you have determined the core audience for your particular post, you need to decide how much you want to spend promoting it and how long you want the post promotion to last. You are required to spend at least $5.00 when boosting a post.

You can watch and see how your post is doing by going to the ads manager tab. This will show you how many people have clicked on, liked and shared your post. If you ad is doing particularly well, you may want to increase the amount of money you are willing to spend or expand the length of time it will run. You have the option to make these changes while the ad is running.

Remember, once you have boosted a post or started an ad, you are not under any obligation to let it run its full course. If the promotion you are running is not showing the results you expected, you can cancel it at any time. You will not be charged for money that has not yet been spent.

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How to Target Existing Customers

This is a Facebook promotional tool that many are unaware of.

You likely have a large database of customer emails and phone numbers. Did you know that you can upload them to Facebook to create another target-group? If anyone on your marketing list has created a personal Facebook page associated with the email address or phone number in your database, you can get your post to appear in their news feeds.

The people that you include on this unique targeting list will have no idea that you have done this. They will not receive a notification that you have added them to any type of targeting list. Instead, they will just see your boosted post appearing in their newsfeed as they scroll through.

This is a highly effective method of audience targeting. Your previous customers are familiar with your company name and work. These are people who have needed your goods or services in the past, and this gentle reminder may get them to take a second look at what else you have to offer.

For example, a customer you did a siding installation job for back in 2010 may need to have roofing work done today. If they see an article about roofing-shingle types posted by your company in their newsfeed, they are likely to click on it since they are familiar with you. This puts your company name in the front of their minds when otherwise you might have been forgotten.

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Have You Used Facebook to Promote Your Business?

Most businesses have Facebook pages, but many never use the paid tools offered by the social media platform. Have you? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments section below. It sometimes takes a bit of trial and error to get things right, but when you do, you can see a significant increase in traffic flow to your site for very little money.

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