With the fad that has been created around Facebook, you should understand exactly how Facebook could benefit your business and when Facebook isn't worth your time. Most people that want new things will tell you that Facebook is the most exciting advertising platform in the world, while other that have tested this medium will tell you that nobody buys in Facebook, but who is right? You will discover that both are right and wrong. The truth is really somewhere at the middle.
Precise Targeting on Facebook
It is believed that Facebook is the future of advertising because of its extraordinary reach, because advertisers could buy advertise in only one place to get all the leads they want and because Facebook advertising is simple, much easier than Adwords, which requires to be a rocket scientist to use it profitable.
The Nature of Facebook
Those that tested Facebook to generate immediate sales will tell you that this advertising medium is not worth it and this is because Facebook users are not interested in buying anything, they are simply there to chat with friends, relax and that type of stuff, they are not with their credit card in hand. Facebook is different from Adwords in the sense that in Google Adwords, it is possible to advertise to people that are close to the end of the purchase funnel, based on the type of keywords they type into the address bar. For example: If a user is interested in affiliate marketing he will start their search with this keyword, but once they have investigated a lot, they will find that a product known as "affiliate elite" could help them with their marketing efforts, so they could type something like Affiliate Elite Scam and now they are ready to buy the product.
So, almost all your prospects at Facebook will be people that are at the very beginning of the purchase funnel and that means that they won't be ready to buy unless you do a lot of work warming them up. Your work as a marketer is build trust sending emails, reports, videos, blog posts and reply to your readers so they will buy from you at some point. If you do your work right, you will be getting almost 2% conversion rates from your offers and that could be escalated to even 10% if you do a magnificent job.
Not All Markets Are Equal
Because you are catching leads early in the purchase funnel, you will lose a lot of them due to attrition and that is more intense in highly competitive markets. For this reason, advertising that is based on things that people love very much will be more successful on Facebook, things that are a passion and could develop through the years. Were Facebook really shines are in areas with love competition and were people have a passion that could be developed through the years. And yes, not all products are good to advertise on Facebook because of this.
Not All Leads Are Created Equal
In almost all markets there is a golden rule for conversion and is governed by the Pareto Law. The Pareto law says that 80% of the results comes from 20% of the efforts and in case of advertising, 80% of the profits will come from only 20% of the clients. That is the reason you will have to develop a layered offer of products beginning with the loss leader which will get the most lead. The strong profits will come from the less demanded but high priced products. If you build your line of products the right way, you could achieve a great conversion rate from all your products and a very solid business built through Facebook.
