The use of a Facebook page as a part of your digital marketing strategy is an exercise in futility without a strategy and a budget for Facebook campaigns.
Yes, you can organically grow a Facebook page; reach people, engage an audience and develop a community without spending a dime… but it is slow, frustrating and can completely ineffective in delivering sales.
So, crack open the wallet and let’s create a Facebook campaign that delivers a community that engages AND buys.
The 5 Steps of a Successful Facebook Campaign
- Well defined and realistic OBJECTIVES
- Step by step TACTICS to achieve said goal
- Strong CONTENT, both in copy and imagery
- TRACKING on all pieces of the campaigns, links, and content
- Positive RESULTS with the ability to modify & improve future campaigns
To show you how it all works, I’m going to give you the outline version of a real campaign I built for a brand that sells luxury makeup products – dubbed “BrandX”.
(If you want a fully built Facebook campaign, let’s talk!).
Currently, BrandX’s Facebook page has under 1000 fans, and they want to grow that fan base with engaged fans that are potential customers and drive sales through their Ecommerce website using Facebook. We do not have a set ‘growth’ number for their fan base because they do not JUST want a large number of random women, but a growing number of ideally targeted women. BrandX has zero sales and negligible traffic from social media, so there is no ‘hard’ number outlined in the objectives there either. However, once the first rounds of campaigns run, the traffic and sales objectives will be updated with CPC and Conversion rate numbers. Their total Facebook budget is $3000 a month.
OBJECTIVE
- Increase BrandX’s Facebook fan base with women that fit their target market
- Drive targetted traffic to the website from Facebook
- Convert the Facebook web traffic into sales
TACTICS
- ($500 budget) Post 3-4 times per week on the Facebook page with content designed to encourage engagement while building the brand story. Use boosted posts to increase reach to fans, friends of fans & target market.
- ($2500 budget) Multiple paid Facebook campaigns with the goal of:
- ENGAGEMENT & BRAND EQUITY – utilizing the extensive options in Facebooks audience selection to specifically target BrandX’s ideal fan/customer base.
- TRAFFIC & SALES – narrowing the BrandX target market further with monetary/purchase qualifiers.
CONTENT
The Facebook Campaign Content should accomplish a goal:
- Fall in love (So pretty! So glamorous!)
- Envy / Imitation (I want to be / am that person, this is perfect for me too)
- Impulse buy (OMG! I HAVE to have that now!)
- Researched purchase (This is exactly what I have been looking for!)
Pick an emotion and dedicate the image and copy to it.
BrandX has 4 different core audiences. Once the audience is selected, the copy and images are developed based on that person/group of people for each campaign. The campaigns are created using a mix based on the likelihood of purchase and / or engagement.
For BrandX, the following mix will be used for their Facebook campaigns to drive the most engagement and sales based on our understanding of their marketplace, customer and goals:
- 3 Campaigns focused on LOVE – Focused on their top 5 product offerings (Budget: $600)
- 1 boosted post, 2 ad campaigns (1 carousel, 1 singular image with A/B testing on copy)
- 2 Campaigns focused on ENVY – Using 2 brand ambassadors to show off how they use the makeup (Budget: $400)
- Run both as boosted posts and ad campaigns simulaneously – boosted to fans only and ad campaign to competition fans
- 6 Campaigns focused on IMPULSE – Focused on their top 5 product offerings (Budget: $1500)
- Ad campaigns based on web traffic to those pages + targeting based on potential customers. 2 different images per set of copy for A/B image testing
- 1 Campaign focused on RESEARCH – Building the story of the brand and why they are trusted in the industry (Budget $500)
- 2 images, 2 different sets of copy with each image for A/B testing. Science vs legacy. Brand ambassador vs product details
TRACKING
All campaigns need to have as much tracking in place as possible. On the website side, this means Facebook pixels were put in place for the different conversion options (add to cart, purchase, specific products added, etc) as well as unique URL’s for each campaign utilizing UTM structures. On the Facebook side, it means that each campaign is named in a unique way so we can monitor the results easily and we created A/B testing in the campaigns to determine what garners better results. On the data side, it means understanding what each data point means, how it is effected and what you can do to change it so that you can modify future campaigns based on the results you achieve.
RESULTS
The results you need to mark your campaign successful will depend on your objectives. In this case, BrandX’s Facebook Campaign objectives will be measured through: 
- Engagement Rate (actions vs reach)
- Fan Growth (% increase)
- CPE (Engagement Campaigns)
- CPC (Traffic Campaigns)
- Conversion rate (Sales Campaigns)
It is important to track only the data that actually tells you something about the campaign, rather than all possible data figures. Data overload doesn’t help anyone.
Facebook will be a successful piece of Brand X’s digital marketing strategy because their campaigns have defined and realistic OBJECTIVES, step by step TACTICS, strong CONTENT, link TRACKING and positive RESULTS.
What questions do you have about building a Facebook campaign? Are you ready to get started with a strategy for your brand?
Facebook Icon via Land Of Web
Featured image: Flat design vector illustration of creative office workspace by karnoff
