Advertising on Facebook seems like the obvious choice for B2C companies. With 2.38 active monthly users, it is the right marketing tool to put your products or services in front of the right audience and to boost your brand awareness.
But, whenever we recommend Facebook advertising to a B2B company, they look at us as if we were crazy. Most of them have complex digital marketing in place with an extremely niche audience and long sales cycles. Facebook (and social media in general for that matters) look like trivial advertising platforms good only for selling consumers goods, but not for targeting high-level executives.
It usually takes us a bit of convincing to persuade them to give B2B Facebook advertising a try. And, once the results are in, they are hooked.
Look, we’re not saying that advertising on Facebook is a guarantee that you will increase your bottom line overnight. It doesn’t work like that regardless if you are a B2B company or a B2C one. But, if you understand how the platform works and what it offers and if you are ready to put in the hard work, then you can build on of the most valuable lead generation tool from your digital marketing suite.
In this article, we’re going to show you why Facebook advertising works for B2B companies too and how you can improve your efforts.
The Case for B2B Facebook Marketing
There are 2.38 active users on Facebook. Not only that it is the largest social network, but the amount of valuable data it stores is beyond imaginable. People share almost everything on Facebook, from their age, location, and education to their jobs, interests, hobbies, and even intimate details from their lives.
And, Facebook doesn’t just store all these insights. Their advertising tool allows you to create custom audiences and target your buyer persona with great accuracy. Facebook takes the guessing out of your marketing efforts and ensures that the people who see your ads are truly interested in your offer.
Let’s look at the ways Facebook can help with B2B marketing.
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Build Brand Awareness
Facebook has made it possible to customise your target audience to the T. For example, if you want to target someone who is the decision makers in a company, such as the CEO or CFO, you can do that. There numerous variables that you can set to ensure that your ads campaigns are seen by the right people, thus helping you build brand awareness and drive traffic to your website or a specific landing page. There’s no more guessing either because now you can see for certain what is not working and adjust it in real time.
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Drive Traffic to Your Website with Remarketing
The target audience that is relevant to your B2B company is now aware of your existence. Now what? One of the mistakes both B2C and B2B businesses make is that they focus their efforts on driving traffic to their Facebook page. Don’t do it. It’s only a waste of time and money. Just think about it, how likely is your audience to take an action after visiting your page versus your website. Sure, they might scroll through your post, like some of them, maybe share one or two (and that’s great for engagement, ) but that’s pretty much it.
When you focus on driving traffic to your website or a landing page, you also get a chance to retarget them in case they left without doing anything. Did they read your offer but didn’t book your service? Retarget them with an ad, offering a discount.
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Facebook Advertising Makes Lead Generation Easy
When it comes to PPC (pay per click advertising,) prospects have to go through your website first to convert into leads. We’re not saying that it’s wrong, but it’s less likely for someone who is not familiar with your brand to go through all this trouble.
The beauty of advertising on Facebook is that it allows you to collect precious target audience data right there on the platform. Two clicks on your ads are all it takes to collect relevant email addresses and build a list that you can then nurture and turn into customers.
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From Awareness to Interest to Conversion
As you may have noticed by now, Facebook works just like any other digital marketing tool. It allows you to build awareness about your company, create interest around your product or services, and persuade prospects to turn into customers.
A word of advice regarding conversion ads: make sure that you direct prospects on a landing page and not your website. For example, if you’re advertising a new content scheduling app to content marketing managers, ensure that the moment they will click your ad they will land on a page that gives them additional details about the offer and persuades them to close the deal.
Start Small
Some of our B2B clients need some convincing to invest in Facebook advertising. Others, on that other hand, are so excited about the possibilities that they are ready to blow their entire marketing budget in just one campaign.
Either way, we always start with a small daily budget to test the waters first, experiment for a bit and see what might have potential. Keep in mind that Facebook will spend your money no matter what, so it’s better to start with a limited budget than blow it all on one ad campaign and then claiming that B2B Facebook advertising doesn’t work when it comes to pieces.
Another great way to make the most of your advertising budget is by scheduling your ads. That way, you tell Facebook when you want it to display your ads and avoid having your budget reduced to zero during hours that your target audience isn’t active. Focus the bulk of your budget to target prospects while they are at the office and limit spending during off hours. That way not only that you’re not only that you are not wasting money when your target audience is busy doing something else, but you’re also increasing your chances of conversion.
Instead of a Conclusion
We could end this article by telling you that advertising on Facebook is the next level for B2B companies and that you are missing out on a tremendous opportunity if you ignore this marketing channel. Hopefully, the arguments we’ve made so far convinced you of that already. If not, then you should get in touch with our experts at Australian Internet Advertising and let them tell you the success stories of the B2B companies that worked with us and explain how we can help.
But, there’s something else we need to tell you before you finish reading this article: make sure to install the Facebook pixel on your website before giving Facebook advertising a try.
This line of code will allow you to track every action on your website and respond to it with the appropriate remarketing campaigns. It will take you a few minutes to do it, but the benefits are endless.
There’s a lot more to say about advertising on Facebook for B2B companies and we’ll probably cover the setup part in a different article. But, if you have any additional questions don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at Australian Internet Advertising.
