With all the fierce competition that there is nowadays on Facebook Ads, having a robust lead generation strategy is the KEY to getting the best and most qualified leads for your business.
Given that your business is unique and that your ad strategy should reflect that, here is a roadmap that I created for you that you can follow to develop a strong lead generation strategy!
Let’s get started.
Understand What the Customer Journey is Like for Your Customer
Before you even start poking around in Facebook's Ads Manager, you need to take a few seconds to just… think. Think about who you want to target on social media, your customer’s journey, and what message you want to get across. This way, you have more clarity surrounding your goals and you won’t spend money on Facebook Ads like a crazy person with no idea how it is going to turn out for you!
Figure Out How Many Touchpoints You Need
Are you offering a high-ticket or low-ticket product or service? What resources does your ideal client have in terms of time and money?
Asking these questions will help you determine the sequence for the journey, such as how many times they will need to see your ad or how many different touchpoints should be introduced at each stage of the sales funnel. They will also get you thinking about the creative assets and approach you will have to take.
Create a Strategy That Showcases the Value of Your Unique Offering
Now it's time to start building a strategy! But before I go any further….
PLEASE throw the ad funnel templates away! Your Facebook lead generation campaign should revolve around your UNIQUE offer and position your brand in a way that is true to its values and mission... NOT what some guru on the internet says you should do.
A proven way to target a cold audience at the top of your funnel is with a lead magnet. A lead magnet is a "freebie" that your target audience will see enough value in it that they will give you their information, in exchange for that valuable piece of content. At this stage, we can collect emails, names, and get them pixeled when they visit your website.
This lead magnet can be an e-book, PDF, a free consultation, and even a free webinar! To figure out which lead magnet you should use, dig deeper into the insights that you have about your current customers and find out what they will most likely engage with.
Whatever you do, don’t assume that they will engage with whatever lead magnet you will throw at them. If you have the luxury to do so, ask your current customer database directly what they would consider as a valuable freebie.
Get Started with Your Ads!
Once you have everything we discussed above laid out and in order, it’s time to start spending your ad budget.
I highly recommend that you start your lead generation strategy with a video ad, as this is the easiest way to get your cold audience to engage with your ad at the top of the funnel. This video ad can introduce the valuable offer you are giving away or it can simply give away the value you want to transmit to your audience in an ungated way.
From there, you can then retarget an audience that has watched a certain percentage of your videos, and they can now be considered your "warm" audience. I’ve personally received the best results by retargeting those who watched 25% and above.
A second strong alternative for the top of the funnel would be to put your lead magnet to work, which will direct those who clicked on your ad towards a landing page. Here, you can collect their emails and send them the lead magnet they asked for. Then, you can simply retarget those who visited your landing page with your paid offer thanks to the Facebook Pixel. You can also learn about Facebook's Conversions API here!
While both of these options are the ones that have delivered the best results for me and my clients, the choice of which one to go with will rest with what you discovered in the second point I mentioned above.
So there you have it! My tips for building a successful lead generation strategy. What strategies have you tried for generating leads with Facebook Ads? How did they work for you?
If you are looking for help with developing a custom Facebook ads strategy for your business, you can reach me here!