Whether you’re looking for a new way to advertise your design agency or you’ve tried Facebook and Instagram advertising before, this post will provide valuable insight into a tried and tested ad strategy which may help you to take your client base to the next level.

For those reading who are not familiar with the ins and outs of Facebook and Instagram advertising and without getting too technical, I’ll briefly explain the benefits of using this form of marketing to grow your agency or any business for that matter. With the help of Facebook’s highly intelligent algorithm, advertisers are able to target refined audiences of current and potential customers using specific demographic and psycho-graphic parameters. Create audiences based on your ideal client’s job title such as ‘business owner’, their age, what they are interested in and where they live. Target audiences of people who are similar to those who follow you and engage on your social media pages or who have visited your website previously, for example. Optimize ads for a particular objective such as only targeting people within your target group who are most likely to visit your website or submit an inquiry after seeing the ad. The list goes on and on!

One of the best ways to take full advantage of Facebook’s algorithm, is to gradually build a highly refined audience of people who are aware of who you are, what you do and how you can help them. The more refined your audience is, the more your results and ad spend are optimized as you will only target those people who are truly interested in the service you are advertising. This, however, does require a bit of trial and error and trust in the ability of the platform to get you there.

Finding that highly refined target audience you’re looking for requires at least three steps or phases to your Facebook and Instagram ad campaign strategy:

1. Awareness Phase

   You first have to let your potential clients know that you exist! Facebook allows businesses to run ads optimized for awareness, delivering your ad to as many Facebook and Instagram feeds as possible within your set target parameters. In this phase, it is important to not try to sell your business to an audience who have never heard of you before. Focus on curating a short message that briefly describes who you are and what you do. Link the ad to your home page or services page on your website so that anyone who clicks on the ad, will be automatically redirected to a page that will provide them with further information about your agency.

2. Lead Generation Phase

Now that you have had some new visitors to your website and the audience within your target market know a little bit more about you, it’s time for the next step. This phase entails re-targeting those people who engaged with your awareness-based ad with a new ad that builds trust and moves them further along the process of potentially becoming a paying client. In order to do this, offering something of value to this audience in exchange for their contact information is a great strategy to use. Implement a lead form ad on Facebook, advertising a freebie that is relevant to your audience’s needs and you will see those leads rolling in. A free consultation, a free website or branding audit or a free guide – anything that will help your audience to solve a possible problem, are good places to start! If you are giving away your time as your freebie, this phase will likely bring in more leads than you have time for. To ensure that your leads are not left surprised if you can’t go through with the consultation they signed up for, communicate clearly and openly that you only have a limited number of free consultation spots available. Use this opportunity to investigate the quality of the leads that you receive and maximize your time wisely by only following up the leads which you think have the best potential of becoming a future client.

3. Sales Phase

This phase gives you the opportunity to finally sell your agency services to your highly refined audience who have developed awareness and trust in your brand and offering. Start promoting your services or products in the ad and link the ad to your lead form or product page on your website to encourage inquiries. Offer a discount or other incentive on your services or products to the first 10 clients or buyers, with the offer available for a limited time period to create a sense of urgency among the audience.

When designing the creative for each ad you run, it is important to create something that is eye-catching and relevant to your business. People are flooded with content each and every day so in order for your ad to be seen, your creative and copy needs to be on-point!

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By Lauren Quibell, Co-Owner at Blue Rabbit Digital

If you are looking for further advice on how to market your business using Facebook and Instagram paid advertising, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We will happily provide a 30-minute free consultation call to discuss how your current/future social media marketing plans and strategies can be optimized using this form of advertising.