Story-selling with Facebook

Let’s face it, in business it’s never about you; it’s all about your customer. This isn’t easy with the struggles of feeling burnt out, alone and from wearing ‘too many hats’. The truth is though that customers aren’t interested in you or your story, so you need to think of a different way to get them to notice you.  What’s the best way to do this, you ask? Tell the customer their story. It’s called story-selling; you sell the customer the story they see themselves living.

The next part of the equation is finding an effective medium to sell the story to your customers, and as people spend such a huge amount of time on the internet, it makes sense to start where your customers are spending most of their time. Sensis reported in May 2015 that almost 50% of the Australian population use social networking sites on a daily basis. Of this 93% of them are on Facebook. Marketing online means that when you are story-selling, you need to be much more creative than if you were speaking with your customer face-to-face, and thankfully Facebook has created some ingenious ways for you to do this.

Facebook’s ‘Call Now’ Button connects you (the business owner) to mobile Facebook users, which is outstanding for businesses which operate in service based industries or want more foot traffic brought into their bricks and mortar store. For many business owners, a lead happens the moment the phone rings. The more opportunities you provide for potential customers to call you, the easier you are making it to convert those lead into sales.

This ‘Call Now’ Button allows people to reach your business when they are near you because they boost local awareness. Through smart targeting adjustments which can be made through the Facebook Management portal, your ads can be geographically targeted for local customers in your business’s vicinity. It’s a hugely underutilised tool which when used correctly can return huge results. It’s also great for building awareness of your business, getting foot traffic through your shop door and attracting new customers.

To make it work, you need to simply give Facebook your business location (address) so that they know which customers to target. It can also be delivered to people on any device who are using Facebook. With the rise of use in mobile devises such as smartphones and tablets, you need to allow your online marketing to reach people whenever and wherever they are.

There are two Call-To-Actions (CTAs) which will allow you to speak to customers within your local area

• Call Now – this is great for service based businesses which require customers to call for a conversion (booking a service, for example).
• Get Directions – this is better for retail stores or stores selling a physical product or require customers to walk through the shop door to get a conversion

It’s an important lead generation tool as it takes an extra step out of the customers buying cycle, as Larry Kim aptly explains in a blog for Social Media Examiner. Instead of having to be directed to a website or landing page to make a call, they can make the call directly from Facebook. This ad format has been optimised as well, so it reaches as many people as possible for the least amount of money as possible. It means it can deliver on several key marketing metrics for your business such as business recognition, page interaction, clicks to call and more. You can view the results of your local awareness ‘Call Now’ or ‘Get Directions’ ads in your notifications tab. The two most important keys points of data are ‘people reached’ and ‘clicks’.

“Smart targeting on Facebook can get you in front of motivated consumers on mobile. Adding the Call Now button gives people a direct link to convert from the ad, no extra steps required”. – Larry Kim, 24/08/15

As a side note, Facebook now also has other enhanced CTAs for your adverts, so no matter what type of industry your business is in, you will easily find a CTA suitable for your advertising goals and business model. Successful Facebook ads combine four key elements; visuals, relevancy, a unique-selling-proposition (USP), and a CTA. The ad formats which contain the new ‘Call Now’ Buttons consists of all four of these features, all you have to decide is what to put in them!

Story-selling can occur over the phone, face-to-face, but more importantly, it can be achieved with Facebook advertising. The levels of exposure your adverts have on Facebook in comparison to the number of people you could call in a day, for example, are second to none. Meet your customers where they are and start advertising on Facebook now. To learn more, you can visit the SponsoredLinX website or you can easily give us a call on 0800 480 078 to find out more about how Facebook can put your business in front of the people who matter; your customers!

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