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Are You Ready To Grow Your Business?
So you’re ready to grow your business! You’ve got the process down and staff trained, you’re set up on every social media platform imaginable, and you’re posting eye-catching content. All you’re missing are the clients. Enter advertising! While running an ad campaign may seem like a no-brainer, running a successful ad campaign takes finesse and know-how. Here’s everything you need to know to channel your inner Don Draper and put your content to work.
Hey, Is This Thing On?!
If you don’t set up a savvy advertising strategy from the start, you risk sending all that beautiful content and creative effort straight into the void. Want to make sure your marketing siren song gets results? Have a (good) plan. One of the number one mistakes owners make when trying to grow their business is overconfidence in organic growth. We had a well-established client with a decent social media following and a robust content strategy. But despite how active they were on their platforms and the existing reputation of their brand, their engagement was spotty, and their reach stayed within arm’s length of a T-Rex. The lesson? No matter how great your business and content are, growth without thoughtful advertising will be slow going.
Another common mistake made by business owners is opting to boost a post instead of advertising on Facebook. What’s the harm, you ask? While boosting may seem like an easy way to promote your content, it gets you in front of a wider audience that isn’t necessarily made up of viable leads. You’ll be out $200 for what is, effectively, a crapshoot. A Facebook Ad, on the other hand, costs $50 and runs within specific parameters that you get to pick, allowing you to hone in on your target market.
So What’s the Right Way To Do It?
Before you throw your hard-earned cash at an ad strategy, it’s important to start with the basics and create a foundation for your campaign.
“What’s a Win for You?”
This is one of the first questions we ask our clients. Is it more referrals? Increased shares from your YouTube channel? Maybe you want more of your existing type of clients, or maybe you’re trying to establish relationships with 2nd generation investors. Clearly defining what successful marketing results look like for you will set you up for step 2:
Know Your Target Audience, and Meet Them Where They’re At!
Say you want to start reaching your existing clients’ successors. What’s the demographic? Which social media platforms are they active on? Once you know where to focus your efforts, you can shift your attention to step 3:
Content for the Win.
Craft your content with your brand identity and your marketing objectives in mind. If multigenerational wealth management is on the docket, your content should focus on relevant topics like family wealth conversations, 2nd or 3rd generation business transitions, or tax and investment strategies after receiving an inheritance. Got your content on lockdown? You’re ready for step 4:
Evaluate Your Ad Options.
Depending on the platform, you’ve got options to consider based on your priorities. You don’t know what you don’t know, so it’s best to spend some time researching what’s available and best fits your objective. Options may include choices of when to run your ad, the ability to link to a URL, and choosing a Facebook bid, which automatically disperses based on your budget vs. entering a price you’re willing to spend to get each impression.
How Exactly Should I Use My Ad Budget?
Can you just split your budget evenly between each platform? NO. Well, you could, but you shouldn’t. Depending on the site and your goal, your budget may be able to stretch a bit further or could stretch to the breaking point. LinkedIn costs more for the same face-value results you could get on Facebook but tends to be more viable in our opinion. Advertising for YouTube reach is your marketing dollar menu, while a Google Ad is your “trying-to-impress-my-dinner-date” option. As a general rule of thumb, lead generation costs at least $250 per platform and $500 for Google. Grab a comprehensive cost breakdown with our downloadable here.
Great, I Checked Advertising off My List!
Hold up! Advertising is like buying flowers for your wife: once in a lifetime is not gonna cut it. An ad may gain you residual results after your campaign has run its course, but you’ll lose momentum pretty quickly. You should also adjust your objectives and content accordingly as your business needs change. Running the same ad set within a Facebook campaign will allow the algorithm to continue learning your audience and grow more effective, but you can (and should) switch up your objectives between reach (who sees your content) and engagement (who interacts with your content) depending on whether you’re trying to grow new client relationships or strengthen existing ones.
But Is It Working?
Great question! Generalized success in advertising depends on what your “win” is, but to get more specific than that, you’ll need to deep-dive. We’re big-time data fans around here, so we’re all about heading to each platform individually to take a look at the reports they provide. Pro tip: arm yourself with the know-how to interpret your numbers with our Social Media Benchmarks Downloadable! Once you’ve got the numbers, it’s important to keep two things in mind: 1) It takes a bit of time to see results for reach and engagement; the intangible work you’re doing is building trust, brand awareness, and solidifying your relationship with clients and prospects. 2) Lead conversions are the result of multiple factors. It’s rare that a prospect will decide to work with you based on one social post alone.
So there you have it! Advertising isn’t for the faint of heart, but it’s well worth the effort, time, and budget. Remember that client we mentioned earlier? After signing with us, we compared their numbers over almost a year of business, with only the last two months representing our involvement in their marketing strategy. Once we put an ad campaign in place, their monthly reach (our objective) on Facebook jumped from 1,779 to 32,977 and on Linkedin from 409 to 10,197. Ready to get growing? Get savvy for more helpful tips and tricks to aid you on your marketing journey.
Related: 4 Reasons Financial Advisors Can’t Rely on AI To Create Marketing