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After running my own advertising and PR company for the past 22 years, I have learned that you always have to think ahead and be resourceful. Whatever worked yesterday doesn't mean it will work today or tomorrow, especially now in our post-pandemic world.
When the cost of living crisis hit, I could see many companies in trouble. They were struggling with finding leads, filling their calendars with appointments and setting up automation in their business to save time and money. This is something that I have experience with — over two decades of experience, so I created an offer to help companies of all sizes remain afloat. But the challenge I faced was, how do I get this offer out there? So, I turned to Meta advertising — advertising on Facebook and Instagram.
Related: How to Master the Art of Digital Marketing in 2023
With many years of digital marketing and advertising experience under my belt, here are my hacks for scaling the digital marketing side of my business for just $10 a day.
1. Have an irresistible offer
You need to think about what will make people stop and want to speak with you. Put yourself in your potential customers' shoes. If you don't think that you would want to take up your amazing offer, then would they? Focusing on the benefits of your product or services that your customers will receive will help you craft your luring proposal.
For example, if you're a real estate agent selling properties, don't sell a specific home on social media with a photo of the listing, but rather target investors — offering them the opportunity to purchase a great asset without even featuring an image of the property. It's the return on investment that you're ultimately promoting rather than the home for sale.
Guarantees can be captivating, too, as long as you can deliver on your promise and it doesn't sound too far-fetched. The ads that guarantee "we will ensure we provide you with 15 full paying clients within a month" are too unrealistic and actually deter potential customers. Instead, for example, you could have a 30-day satisfaction guarantee if you have a coaching course or "see results in 30 days" if you're a personal trainer.
Related: How to Craft Irresistible Offers Your Ideal Clients Can't Refuse
2. Create a scroll-stopping design
The best designs have the foundation of a brilliant, funny and clever headline that grabs attention. I have found that slick, professionally shot and edited videos don't work at all. People are on social media to catch up on their friends and family's updates — not to see a fancy video ad. Attention spans are diminishing by the minute. Don't think for a second that your target audience will watch your 90-second video encouraging them to go to a landing page. Instead, base your design with a simple, easy-to-read font combined with a plain background that pops. When it comes to your static image design, less is more. Your headline should be the only text that makes up the graphic. This will get viewers to stop scrolling right away.
Don't have a designer? Don't worry. Programs like Canva make it very easy to create different designs for social media channels and even come with inbuilt size templates so you know that your artwork will be compliant. The Facebook advertising manager platform also has an AI feature that will automatically redesign your artwork for various placements, so you no longer have to design multiple versions.
3. Set your campaign objectives
Facebook and Instagram have recently overhauled their lead form ads, allowing advertisers to get leads inexpensively by using their built-in forms. After all, Meta wants its audience to stay on its channels for as long as possible, so companies that opt to use its in-built forms and keep their audience sticky are being rewarded.
Think about your objectives and structure your campaign accordingly using the platform's options. If you're after more sales and leads, lead forms are ideal. Another great way of increasing engagement with potential customers is with an engagement campaign that encourages people to message you directly. This is often a preferred way of communicating with people under 45 years of age.
Related: How Text Marketing Could Be Your Most Powerful Customer Engagement Too
4. Optimize the ROI on your advertising spend
When it comes to your designs, it's important to see what works and what doesn't without changing too many variables at once. I always suggest spending no more than $10 a day initially with your ads. By doing so, your ad creative is actually doing all the heavy lifting rather than your budget. If you have a lackluster ad or offer, testing at $100 a day could skew your results because you're spending more than your competitors. Choosing to test at just $10 a day, you will see within a day or two the return on investment on the creative you are testing. If it's meeting your objectives, keep going at $10 a day. If not, turn off that ad set and launch a second creative and start again.
Related: You Won't Have a Strong Budget Until You Follow These 5 Tips
5. Slowly increase your Meta advertising budget for consistent campaign performance
Once you're seeing results with your creative, it's time to scale. This doesn't always mean boosting your budget immediately. It often takes the pixel a little while to go through a learning period. Many of my clients only spend $10 a day, like myself on ads, and get several leads coming in each day. However, if you want to increase the learning phase period, then start off slowly by increasing your budget by no more than 25% every few days.
When it comes to marketing your business on a budget, it definitely is possible and thanks to platforms like Meta, you can now quickly see what's working and what's not. Never has there been a time in business where you can turn on or off an advertising campaign so quickly and measure results down to every dollar spent.
