Paying for Facebook adverts

[Tigris]

Hi guys,

what are your thoughts on paying for facebook adverts for a local service based business?

The small business owners I speak to locally say they don't bother paying for Facebook adverts. Instead they just use leaflets, facebook groups etc instead.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Are your target customers frequent Facebook users?

 

[Tigris]

Are your target customers frequent Facebook users?

To be honest not really. I find a lot of my customers (also from my line of work from the past 10-12 years) tend to be elderly or don't have the time/want to bother with facebook. I do often get a few jobs from posting in local facebook groups though. I know some people spend £100's on facebook adverts but I don't think i'de get a great ROI doing that.

 

[Mark T Jones]

To be honest not really. I find a lot of my customers (also from my line of work from the past 10-12 years) tend to be elderly or don't have the time/want to bother with facebook. I do often get a few jobs from posting in local facebook groups though. I know some people spend £100's on facebook adverts but I don't think i'de get a great ROI doing that.

I think that really answers your question. In marketing, what works for one may well not work for another.

Parish mags are a surprisingly cheap & fertile ground for local business with older target clients.

 

[sarky]

Hi guys,

what are your thoughts on paying for facebook adverts for a local service based business?

The small business owners I speak to locally say they don't bother paying for Facebook adverts. Instead they just use leaflets, facebook groups etc instead.

My town's Facebook page has loads of local businesses posting with their services (for free). No one seems to mind; a lot of people seem to find it helpful.

 

[Tigris]

My town's Facebook page has loads of local businesses posting with their services (for free). No one seems to mind; a lot of people seem to find it helpful.

Will stick to that and might try door to door business cards. A little more substantial than flyers.

Trouble with marketing is one thing doesn't work for everyone. Some don't like the idea of putting information through letter boxes about your business but then others have had success from it. Especially with some of my previous customers not evening being on Facebook. I guess it's a case of trying it out.

 

[SarahLou21]

Try facebook small business groups to promote yourself and just post on facebook by using a business page. This is a cheaper alternative but a lot more time consuming. Remember what works for one may not work for another. We use Facebook and Google retargeting ads as our main source of business but this works for us. If you have the money, perhaps engage with a marketing agency for some advice and assistance with this as they could point you in the right direction for your business.

 

[Socio South West]

A carefully selected and targetted Facebook advert can work well to increase awareness, if not generate sales - but only if the product or service you are using is appropriate to Facebook users.

How much you can get away with posting on a local group depends entirely on the group Owner/Moderator. Some are ruthless about business posts, and some actively encourage - often best to check if its not clear in the Group description.

An alternative is to follow a number of the local groups around your area where there are always people asking for recommendations and respond to those posts - but that depends on you being a regular Facebook user which to many is a total drag.

 

[PrototypeCreative]

Have to agree with the comments above. If you target the right audience and create a good, solid advertisement then you can increase brand awareness, general clicks onto your profile & possibly get some good leads/sales. However, I wouldn't personally depend on these adverts for a large number of conversions in terms of sales unless you have something that is really in demand.

I think, if you're a smaller business then it may be better to start out joining local groups and gaining awareness through local contacts you may have. Encourage people to share your page with their friends & family who live locally. If you have the budget to spend on Facebook advertising then great but I would suggest building a profile first organically then possibly trying out adverts. Have you considered local SEO tactics? A marketing agency is a good idea but only if you have the budget to do so as they can help you expand.

 

[Smithco]

To be honest not really. I find a lot of my customers (also from my line of work from the past 10-12 years) tend to be elderly or don't have the time/want to bother with facebook.

I think you've answered your own question. The demographic you describe read local papers and stuff like church magazines as mentioned upthread.

I've tried FB ads once or twice and seen nothing notable from it. FB users aren't particularly my demographic either but I gave it a spin just to see. I find the platform to be full of militant, gobby people on lower incomes generally (your experience may differ). It probably has some sensible local or niche-specific groups, but I've found it to be full of bile personally. I don't use it on a personal level and I think as a medium it's dying away. Younger people certainly are using it much less.

What's that neighbourhood site everyone seems to use now? If they take advertising, that might be worth a look. More likely to find older people on there I'd say.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

To be honest not really.

or don't have the time/want to bother with facebook.

How many people did you ask to draw that conclusion?

With possibly 70-80% of people in the UK allegedly registered to it, I would be surprised if you couldn't reach your target market.

The only way to find out is to test it and make sure you have a measurable call to action. Set a budget of £50-100 over a week or two and really target your audience.

 

[AlanJ1]

I've tried FB ads once or twice and seen nothing notable from it. FB users aren't particularly my demographic either but I gave it a spin just to see. I find the platform to be full of militant, gobby people on lower incomes generally (your experience may differ). It probably has some sensible local or niche-specific groups, but I've found it to be full of bile personally. I don't use it on a personal level and I think as a medium it's dying away. Younger people certainly are using it much less.

Have you tried segmenting down on FB? You can pretty much just target whoever you want so you can find your audience (if it is there).

 

[Smithco]

I did, and the target audience seemed very small with no discernable way to verify it reaches the right people.

 

[MrHarryPotter]

I think that really answers your question. In marketing, what works for one may well not work for another.

I'd have to agree with this. But for starters, if you don't really want to spend too much for your digital marketing budget, you can always start promoting through Facebook groups.

 

[fisicx]

I'd have to agree with this. But for starters, if you don't really want to spend too much for your digital marketing budget, you can always start promoting through Facebook groups.

Depends on what you are promoting. Facebook isn’t very good for B2B.

 

[Cornwhaul]

I was dead against Facebook advertising for years, only really because I'm not a fan of social media.

For the last couple of years I have found the ads to be brilliant, our ads just pop up in peoples news feeds Wether they are actively looking for a service or not. In the early stages of our new business it's about getting our name out there, the people see it the better!

 

[fisicx]

I was dead against Facebook advertising for years, only really because I'm not a fan of social media.

For the last couple of years I have found the ads to be brilliant, our ads just pop up in peoples news feeds Wether they are actively looking for a service or not. In the early stages of our new business it's about getting our name out there, the people see it the better!

How many of those adverts resulted in new leads compared say to google ads?

 

[Cornwhaul]

How many of those adverts resulted in new leads compared say to google ads?

On a cost to advertise:value of sales profit ratio Facebook wins hands down. I don't have numbers as I'm not in the office but will post them once I've gone through them at work.

I have made a lot of mistakes with Google ads but after some better refining the numbers still don't add up. We've made some quite high value sales with Google shopping ads but as our markup on products is fairly slim, the cost of conversion in relation to the amount of clicks required to make a sale is far too expensive.

My limited knowledge on effective google ads marketing is most definitely a factor but at the moment we just can't afford to spend more than we are making.

Facebook on the other hand seems to be the way forward. I can't think of anything worse than spending my days/evenings staring into my phone looking at how good other peoples life's are via an endless news feed. But people do. Our ads are shown on a platform that exists to cure peoples boredom & short of a huge budget I can't think of a better option for the cost. (I'm always learning though so if anyone knows of an alternative that works for them I'm keen to hear about it) Not only are they setup to relevent people but they are also setup to continuously show our name with the hope that eventually we become close to a household name.

Again my ads are far from perfect but I've seen far more sales on Facebook over Google ads.

 

[fisicx]

You run the sort of business that is ideal for fb adverts. If you tried the same for your new building materials business I suspect you may not be so successful.

The problem with any marketing is there is no one size fits all. I know for example any sort of social media just doesn’t work for my services.

 

[Cornwhaul]

You run the sort of business that is ideal for fb adverts. If you tried the same for your new building materials business I suspect you may not be so successful.

The problem with any marketing is there is no one size fits all. I know for example any sort of social media just doesn’t work for my services.

Apologies I should of made myself clearer.

Although I have dabbled with Facebook adverts for the landscaping, sales for this business come via organic search results, directory listings & after 10 years of trading, word of mouth. I can't actually remember the last time I started an ad campaign for this.

My previous post was wholly about the building materials business. We don't just sell building materials, we also supply decorative aggregates, carry out local deliveries either for our own goods or a third party & carry out muckaway services. A lot of what we do relates differently to people, for example we will supply a bag of cement to a builder for their ongoing project or a small bag of gravel to Karen to make her plant pots look nice.

 

[fisicx]

Apologies I should of made myself clearer.

Although I have dabbled with Facebook adverts for the landscaping, sales for this business come via organic search results, directory listings & after 10 years of trading, word of mouth. I can't actually remember the last time I started an ad campaign for this.

My previous post was wholly about the building materials business. We don't just sell building materials, we also supply decorative aggregates, carry out local deliveries either for our own goods or a third party & carry out muckaway services. A lot of what we do relates differently to people, for example we will supply a bag of cement to a builder for their ongoing project or a small bag of gravel to Karen to make her plant pots look nice.

Local business and B2C. Perfect for FB ads.

 

[Cornwhaul]

@Tigris just noticed that I've side stepped your post about your target audience.

We sent out around 10k leaflets to our local area in addition to the Facebook campaign. The results so far have been pretty clear. The 'older' generation of say 50+ arrive to our yard with our leaflet in their hand to take advantage of the '10% off with this leaflet' but anyone younger than this have appeared to disregard it. I had actually spoke to a friend of mine that didn't know about the new business, he had stuck the leaflet straight in the bin!

Although the leaflet drops were fairly successful, for us the Facebook campaign was better.

 

[Tomas Tovey]

Hi guys,

what are your thoughts on paying for facebook adverts for a local service based business?

The small business owners I speak to locally say they don't bother paying for Facebook adverts. Instead they just use leaflets, facebook groups etc instead.

Hello Tigris ?
I Specialise in marketing for local businesses and I find both Facebook ads and good SEO (Search Engine Optimisations) plays a major part in local business growth!

The beauty of using Facebook ads to promote a local business is your ad spend budget doesn't have to be big as you don’t need to show a massive audience.

Think of it like this…
If your getting customers simply walk through your doors due to past relationships or just stumbling across your business that’s amazing!
Now imagine getting your message out there and showing 1000 targeted locals in just 1 day (which wouldn’t cost much at all) your product and give them a reason to visit your business!

Basically, don’t rely on luck to bring your customers through your doors, rely on driving them through your doors with a well thought out marketing plan.

BE KNOWN NOT FOUND!