Facebook isn’t on the top of everyone’s favorite social networks list. But it’s hard to deny the power of the platform. Especially from a sales and marketing perspective. The platform offers valuable insights and resources that can assist businesses in acquiring the right kind of audience that they seek. Incorporating these tools into a sales funnel that is linked to your products website is a no-brainer.

According to the Statistia website, as of quarter 1 of 2018, Facebook has 2.19 billion users (and growing). The platform continues to grow at a consistent rate. Advertising on Facebook is also very well priced. Their average cost per click advert is as low as $0.64. Just imagine the number of marketing opportunities available on Facebook. If you have a website that sells products and a valid Facebook Page, you can then create a sales funnel that will allow you to tap into Facebook’s audience and sell your product. It’s a 5 step process to start your Facebook sales funnel.

Step 1: Create Content

People on Facebook love great content. Content that appeals to them directly in some way or the other. This content should be engaging to your audience and must be relevant to the product that you are promoting. The content that you produce should also be available on your website in the form of a blog post, eBook, or video. You can then share the content from your website onto Facebook. An example would be your websites most popular blog post or video.

Having high-quality content on both your website and Facebook means that you now have a focus point for your audience. This focus point can be a way of attracting traffic towards your facebook page and website. Creating freebies and giveaways is another great way to attract visitors. This creates a buzz around your Facebook page which leads to further engagement and likes from fans.

Step 2: Collect Traffic

Gaining likes on Facebook can take time and money. The quickest way to get an audience on Facebook is to advertise on the platform. They can get you “likes” from a targeted audience that has interests similar to your products. It’s important to remember that you should only do this once you have a well built and active Facebook page that is filled with engaging posts and content.

Facebook Widgets

You can also add Facebook widgets to your website. These widgets can help direct some of your websites existing traffic to your Facebook page. Some widgets allow visitors who are logged into Facebook to instantly click on the like button displayed on your website without having to go to Facebook.

The Facebook Messenger widget is becoming more popular with businesses. People who visit your website can start chatting with you via Facebook directly through the widget. This allows your company to directly interact with its leads who can also hit the page like button displayed in the widget.

Facebook Pixel

 

 

Probably the most important advanced feature available for Facebook Marketers is the Facebook Pixel. The Pixel allows websites to track Facebook users who visit their website. If someone is logged into Facebook and they visit your website, their profile and behavior are then recorded by Facebook. You will then be able to serve these people with ads relevant to your website. So the next time they are logged into Facebook, they will come across your ads.

This feature is great for retargeting ads and building an audience for your Facebook page. The Facebook Pixel can also be customized to track specific behavior on your website. So it is possible for a person to view a product on your website, only to leave without making a purchase. The next time that person logs into Facebook, Facebook will deliver ads related to the product that they abandoned.

Step 3: Establish a Warm Audience

A warm audience is traffic that has already been exposed to your business and its products. Warm traffic is people with an interest relevant to your products. Warm traffic isn’t only people who liked your Facebook page, it’s also people included in the data that the Facebook Pixel collected.

As mentioned earlier, you can use the data from the Pixel to serve your warm traffic with more ads on Facebook related to your content. Continuously exposing a warm audience with your content will increase the chances of them remembering you.

This can also increase the chances of them clicking on your ads which will lead them back to your website. A warm audience is more likely to give their email address and buy a product from your website.

Step 4: Create a “Look-A-Like” Audience

After you have setup and understood your warm audience, you can then move towards creating a LAL (lookalike) audience. A LAL audience is people who share similar interests with your warm audience. Acquiring a LAL audience is great news as they will most likely be just as interested in buying your product as a warm audience member would be.

In this case, Facebook already has all the data you need (warm audience data from the Facebook Pixel) and can determine your LAL audience easily. You can also upload an email list of warm audiences that you have already collected. Facebook can generate LAL audiences based on that list. You can then begin to target these users in the hopes of expanding your customer base.

The chances of LAL audience members engaging with your ads and linking out to your website is high because of their preferred interests towards your niche. That is why this method is considered absolutely valuable as it eliminates the whole trial and error part of trying to figure out your audience.

Step 5: Remarketing

As you continue to grow your warm audience by acquiring lookalike users, you can then begin to remarket your message to these groups of people. Remarketing (or retargeting) is when you begin to track people who have visited links to your website but have never joined an email list or bought anything.

These people know your brand and product. They probably love your content, which is why they keep going back to your website. However, they just don’t seem to be convinced enough to go ahead with the purchase.

Retargeting ads gives you an opportunity to push the sale even further. The customer may just be someone who is a hard sell and needs a bit more motivation or convincing. This is when you can create custom adds to further entice them to choose your product.

It’s important to remember that the message in this ad may have higher persuasion tactics when compared to standard ads. It’s best to keep these retargeting ads separate from your standard ad units.

The steps listed above are a simple yet effective way to increase followers to your Facebook page while increasing the traffic to your website. This can lead to more opportunities on your website as well. It is important to develop a website with a solid product as well as a well-designed sales funnel and strategy first before you begin tapping into Facebook’s endless pool of leads. It’s no use doing all this work when your content and website is not optimized to engage and convert traffic into sales.