Let me first jump out there and say – Content is still KING! Content is the very backbone of effective advertising. If you want to excel in Facebook Marketing, you need a winning content strategy.

Let me quickly define what content really is. It’s a video, a blog post, a podcast episode, pdf download, etc. that’s designed to solve a problem for your ideal customer. It doesn’t matter how dramatic the problem is, it just needs to help or be valuable in some way to your audience.

If it’s not, nobody’s going to care. Harsh… but true.

Know Your Customer

The very first step in your content strategy, then, is to get to know EVERYTHING about your ideal customer. In your research you want to know things like:

• What they like
• What they hate
• Where they hang out (in real life and online)
• What their habits are (good and bad)
• What are their fears and struggles
• What are their hopes and dreams

Get the point? The more you know, the more you can effectively help them.

And helping them is your ULTIMATE goal and is why you went into business in the first place – not just to make money. Or at least I hope it is.

If you’re in real estate, you went into business to “help” people buy and sell homes.
If you’re a financial adviser, you went into business to “help” people invest their money wisely.
If you’re an orthodontist, you went into business to “help” people have a healthy and winning smile.
If you’re a gym owner, you went into business to “help” people achieve their health and fitness goals.

Become a Problem Solver

Once you understand their problems, your mission is to create content that serves to solve their problem. You’re the expert, right? It’s time to prove it.

For example, if you were a real estate agent, you could create a simple checklist to first first-time homebuyers find downpayment assistance funds. This would be extremely valuable if your ideal customer was a first time home buyer.

Like I said, your content can be delivered in a number of different ways. And that really depends on a few things like your personality and skill level and your customer’s preferred way of learning. The thing to remember is keep it SIMPLE and FREE.

And by free, I don’t just mean merely monetarily. I mean, no exchange of information like email addresses to get your content. FREE. Totally free.

This level of content is extremely important, because it builds trust and creates your authority as an expert. When you WOW them with free, it’s time to move to the next level.

Pro Tip: Be sure to install your Facebook Pixel on your website. This piece of code will track everyone who goes to your site and engages with your content. Later you can use the Pixel to target those individuals with your Facebook ads.

Learn more about The Facebook Pixel Here: 3 Tools to Maximize your Lead Generating Power

Create Your Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is something valuable you create and offer to your audience in exchange for their contact information – usually name and email address.

Your lead magnet should be something your audience needs or wants. You can find this out by looking at your top performing blog posts or podcast episodes, or go to your Google Analytics to see your highest viewed pages.

Your lead magnet can come in many forms such as a checklist, a printable, a video series, a webinar, a case study, a strategy call, or even a free trial. You can even create a challenge series and deliver a daily email lesson for a specified number of days.

Once you create your Freebie, you need to deliver it using a landing page – also called a squeeze page. This is simply a page or pop-up that’s dedicated SOLELY to your offer with absolutely NO distractions like buttons or links. Well, except for the opt-in button, that is.

Here are a few examples of landing pages in different industries offering different lead magnet types:

Email Marketing Strategy

Remember, those emails we asked for on your landing page? We need those now!

You’re going to have your landing page form automatically synced to your email autoresponder service like ConvertKit, MailChimp, or ActiveCampaign. When someone opts into your Freebie, they’ll automatically be added to your follow up email sequence.

In this sequence, you’ll be delivering more valuable content and allowing your new subscriber to get to know your personality even more. Treat this person like a VIP… because they are.

As a business owner and marketer, your email list is one of your most valuable assets. And like Jeff Walker of Product Launch Formula says, your email list is your license to print money!

Your list is so powerful because they are your direct line to connect with, survey your ideas, offer your discounts, and sell your products and services.

If you do it right, by emailing them AT LEAST once per week, your list will be happy, engaged, and informed. Your list won’t be turned off by more frequent emails, as long as you’re delivering great content. In fact, if you email too infrequently disconnect and possibly even forget who you are.

This is a simple and complete content marketing strategy for small business owners who really want and need to be spending their time – RUNNING THEIR BUSINESS. Unless you’re an online marketer who does this kind of thing for a living, you don’t have time for unless content sales funnels.

This model will work well to bring you a steady stream of engaged customers into your sales funnel. Now, it’s time to do what you do best and take care of your new customers!

Maybe you see the value of going deeper and adding more layers to your marketing process. That’s great and the sky’s the limit! Let us know how we can help! And let us do what we do best FOR YOU.

Facebook Ads are quickly outperforming all other means of advertising for small businesses. If you’re a business owner, you should be using Facebook ads. Think about it, if Coca Cola, Ford Motors, and Nike are using Facebook ads – what aren’t you?

The reason they’re so powerful is they allow you to do so much more than was EVER possible before in advertising. Imagine a highway billboard advertising a nearby surf shop. Think of how many millions of cars drive by that advertisement every month who would NEVER be even remotely interested in ANYTHING related to surfing .

It’s really a waste in high cost advertising dollars! The same is true for other forms of print and television advertising. You’re simply putting your message out there in front of the masses and hoping the RIGHT people see it.

What if there was a way to display your ads with laser-focused accuracy?

There is!

That’s what Facebook allows you to do – get your ad in from of ONLY those individuals who are most likely to be interested in your business. And the best part is, Facebook ads are extremely affordable in comparison to other more traditional forms of marketing. So, that’s a win, win in my book.

How Facebook Ads Work

Before I get started on how Facebook ads actually work, I want to talk briefly about Content Strategy. An ad is basically showcasing your content. Your content is how you strategically share your businesses services, products, or brand message. It will most effectively come in the form of a blog post, podcast episode, video tutorial, or pdf download.

In short, your ad will only ever be as good as your content. So, make sure you take the time to craft valuable, problem-solving content. Only then will your ads have a chance to survive.

Now that we got that out the way, let’s talk about how you’ll actually deliver your stellar content through Facebook ads.

The first thing that needs to be done is gathering data. You must above all things – understand in great detail who your ideal customer really is.

There’s no rapid formula to Facebook ads… you’ve got to put in the work. When you first start running ads, you’re essentially buying data and doing research. You’re trying to see how the market responds to your message and who is responding.

The Power of Facebook Targeting

This is called targeting. And the secret to targeting is, the more you know about your audience, the better you can target them. And you’re looking for winners which are groups of individuals who are most interested in your business and what you’re offering.

The foundation of Facebook targeting is Audience Building. When you build your Facebook Audience, you’re creating that group of individuals we talked about that are statistically more inclined to be interested in your ads.

There are 3 distinct Facebook Audience types – Custom Audiences, Lookalike Audiences, and Saved Audiences.

Read More about Facebook Audiences here: 3 Tools to Give Your Facebook Ads More Lead Generating Power

Once you begin targeting your ideal customers using Facebook’s Audiences and the Facebook Pixel, you can take your targeting one step further with Re-targeting.

It’s kind of like the whipped cream on top of a chocolate covered sundae. When someone engages with your ad – usually with an ad targeting cold traffic – they will then be shown more ads later on that are more geared toward your warm traffic.

That’s the secret to 10xing your marketing game.

Know Your Traffic Sources

Where most small business owners get it wrong, is they unknowingly target the wrong traffic sources at the wrong time. There are 3 layers or categories of traffic – cold, warm, and HOT.

Cold Traffic

Your cold traffic (those who don’t know you or your brand) should only see ads that showcase your brand’s message. You’re only trying to warm them up and wet their appetite for what you have to offer. When they engage with one of your ads, they become warm traffic.

This doesn’t mean you can’t share your content with cold traffic. In the example below from Digital Marketer, they shared content to their cold traffic. The only distinction is to add more content in the actual ad to gain trust and show value before they even click to your actual content.

Warm Traffic

Your warm traffic will receive your content – your helpful articles, tutorials tips and tricks. By now, you can present your ad with less copy in the actual ad. They are getting to know you, and already trust that you will deliver the goods.

When someone engages with your warm ads, they become your hot traffic. And they are what you want ALL your audience to become!

Hot Traffic

These are the people who are most ready and interested to buy from you, hire you, or work with you. This is the group you’ll want to show your offer ads to.

These are the ads that showcase your services and products – the big guns. Maybe you have a one-time discount code to entice them to make their first purchase or a brand new course that’s perfect for your audience.

Now you see how amazing Facebook ads can be for your business. If you’re not running ads yet… what are you waiting for?

You’re leaving boat-loads of leads and money on the table!

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below and I’ll jump right on and answer them for you.