Facebook has begun rolling out a new update from which you will be able to message friends, family or co-workers across the messenger family of apps seamlessly.

Stan Chudnovsky, VP of Messenger at Facebook, said in a recent post,

"We’ve been working on this for a while, so I’m excited to share that we’ll soon be bringing a new Messenger experience to Instagram. We’re starting to roll it out in select markets today and it will be coming to the rest of the world soon. This new experience will make it easier for you to connect with the people you care about. With this update to Instagram DMs, people will get many new features including the ability to communicate with friends and family across both Messenger and Instagram without downloading a new app, watch IGTV videos or TV shows together, create selfie stickers, and enable vanish mode so your messages disappear after they’re seen."

So what does this mean for you? The business owner? 

Well if you use BOTs like Manychat, you'd best be poppin' bottles 🍾 because this update likely means that you will be able to deploy your BOTs into Instagram as well!

​So as well as being able to deliver a more personalized experience on the Facebook platform and let your customers know about your products and services, you will soon be able to do the same on Instagram

Personally I think this is a sensational move.

Having run several Messenger Objective tests to the "instagram direct" location, the option to now run a Manychat Automated Flow will save us and other business owners a lot time answering FAQs and giving customers direction on the spot

What do you think? Are you excited for this?!

​The "Perceived Value" of your offer is largely what drives successful campaigns on Facebook. If a large portion of people see an immense amount of value in your offer, there's a high likelihood the whole campaign will be a raging success!

Comparitively, if your offer is lacking in the value department, you will have a hard time with it on Facebook and your campaign will seldom deliver any result

Now you might be thinking, "I don't want to give discounts or lower my value with offers" and I'll tell you right now, you don't have to.

An "offer" is not just a discount. 

​Here are a few examples: 

• Get a $50 shopping voucher if you choose to go ahead with our quote
• Get 2x free system cleans when you get your solar system installed by us
• Get 30x new exclusive B2B leads each week guaranteed
• Book a free Facebook Chat to discuss which strategy works best for your business
• Take our Quiz to diagnose how you could do X better

​and so on..

As you can see, in the top two offers above, I've simply added value to my offers at a low expense

In the others, I've simply conveyed the value of solving a problem

There are no limitations, only a lack of creativity

How could you improve your current offer or construct a new one? 

Can you add more perceived value at a low expense?

Can you restructure the words/copy you are using to convey more value?

There's nothing wrong with crafting several offers for your business in an effort to see which works best

That's where a well-constructed Facebook campaign can be helpful

When it comes to testing these offers on Facebook, you'll want to be thinking about how to deliver it

Here are some ideas:

• A 30 second video explaining the offer (useful when education is required)
• A carousel ad with several before and after pics (beauty and fitness business' need not bother as Facebook doesn't like body pics)
• A slideshow, created within Facebook to convey the offer quickly
• A lead generation campaign, which opens a customizable form in Facebook (a great place to start for anyone wanting more leads)
• A collections campaign, which opens an "instant experience" (landing page) in Facebook (More so for ecommerce business selling products online)

​

Those are the more common ways we deliver offers when setting up new campaigns for clients

The most common question we get asked at this point is, "Great, I've got a few offers to test, how much should I spend?"

We test on a 4 day cycle.

We take an assumption, craft a vehicle (campaign) to test it, let it run for 4 days and then assess our results. Simple.

As an example, say I want to test my two new offers.. 

I craft 3-4 ads for each offer in Ads manager, whilst targeting the same audience. 

I then leave the campaign running at my preferred budget for four full days

After four days has past I then see that offer #1 is working the best so I leave it running, and switch off the other offer

The 4 Day Cycle is a simple test and measure structure

At this point you might look to see which offer generated the most leads or sales (by at least 50% to be statistically significant) and then switch off the under performing offers

Now to answer the question of "How much?", I would recommend setting your budget to whatever you can comfortably afford over the 4 days of your testing cycle, with a minimum spend of $10 per day


As this is all generalised information, if you are unsure about how to make it work for your business, feel free to book a Free Facebook Chat to set your strategy


In conclusion, your offer is one of the quickest ways to more successful Facebook Campaigns, as they only take a bit of brainstorming, a touch of creativity and a solid structure to test them with

I hope you found this helpful!​

First let's discern the main difference between the two platforms:

Google - Users search for their desired solution i.e, your product or service. This makes them a much higher "intent" audience who are actively looking for a solution to a problem.

Facebook - Users are presented ads via "pattern interrupt" whilst scrolling to gain consideration toward a product or service that they may or may not, be actively seeking out. Users are served ads based off of the targeting options available to us advertisers.

 So as you can see, there are slight differences in the type of audience you can reach on either platform.

Now let's talk about the good stuff..

How Do You Use both Facebook and Google together?

Watch the video below for an in-depth walk-through

The diagram is a visual representation of the following sales & marketing funnel:

User clicks on a Google/Facebook Ad --> User hits the webpage --> [Variable] Did user purchase/enquire? [YES] --> End of funnel. [NO] --> Google/Facebook Remarketing Ad now shows to users who visited webpage.

With this strategy we are able to reap the best of both worlds. 

Drive high intent customers from Google and generate consideration from Facebook, then remarket to both types of audiences at the same time, if they do not purchase or enquire.

This results in multiple opportunities to sell your product or generate leads for as long as you see fit.

On average we see at least a 30% reduction in "cost per purchase" and/or "cost per lead" using this synergistic strategy between Google and Facebook

Be sure to give this a shot and as always,

I hope you found this helpful

Having worked with several Fencing companies across the US, UK and Australia. I've been able to refine a strategy to get fencing leads that works almost 95% of the time - pretty good odds when you think of all the other ways you could waste money trying to generate new leads for a fencing business!

Specially in this article I'm going to outline where we get the most 'bang for our buck' and that is from Facebook.

Now for those of you who have a bad taste in your mouth or perhaps haven't had success with Facebook Ads, hear me out.

It works, and it works exceptionally well only when setup and run correctly.

So let's talk about the strategy that you can use to generate some new leads into your fencing business

Firstly, you'll want to have a) A Facebook Page and b) an Ad Account, both of which you can google how to setup.

Second, you'll want a 4 to 5 images of your work, we've often used colorbond fence pictures as they tend to draw a lot of attention.

and Lastly, you'll want to think about an offer that you can entice new fence customers with!

We can talk about some offers that have worked well by booking a chat here if you like!

From here you can begin to setup the Facebook Campaign itself:

• Go into your Facebook Ad Account and select "Create Ad"
• Then select the objective "Leads"
• Then you will be directed to the adset level, where you can select your target audience
• Once you click continue, you will see the opportunity to create your Facebook Ad
• Upload your 4 to 5 images and select to use them in the Ad
• Write a bit of text which explains exactly what your fencing offer is and how people can get more info
• Then hit publish

The Facebook Campaign will then go into the "review" process and hopefully will be approved within 24 hours.

The above points are the exact framework that we've used to teach 100's of Fencing companies how to setup and run their own Ads to get more customers and obtain more leads.

Having said all of that, there are 3 specific details you need to remember when using this framework.

The first is your offer, the second is the target audience you use, and the third is the Ad.

I've recently put a short webinar together which explains how we setup our Facebook campaigns to get fencing leads and how you can do it too.

If you would like to watch and learn how we're getting a 'truckload' of new leads for fencing businesses, book a call with myself and I'd be happy to share the info: ​http://bit.ly/FreeFBChats

Within a flurry of new features within Facebook, it comes as no surprise that they have added email marketing to the list of business building tools!

Users can upload email contacts from other email marketing platforms and send emails directly through the Facebook platform.

You will find the tab "Marketing Emails" when viewing your Facebook page from the business manager.

Below that you will see an opportunity to upload contacts into the "Contacts" tab.

Imagine checking out a pair of shoes on Nike's website and then after not purchasing, you see the same ad over, and over, and over again. 

Safe to say it would fast become annoying and may even put you off the brand in future.

That's why it's incredibly important to retarget a user with relevant marketing messages.

Instead of hitting them with the same ad that brought them to the website in the first place, consider what may re-engage them or refresh their memories as to why they considered purchasing in the first place. 

Example: Bob sees a pair of work boots that he considers whilst on Facebook, so he clicks on the ad, to the brand's website, but he doesn't purchase. That evening he's scrolling away on Facebook and sees the work boots again, but this time the ad is showcasing the main benefits that the work boots provide over any other, but Bob isn't swayed unfortunately, and doesn't click the ad.

So the next day while he's waiting for his coffee he sees another ad. This time the ad is portraying testimonials of other people who love these work boots, and this provides Bob with a bit more trust toward the brand so he clicks the ad and this time he initiates the checkout process on the website!

​But just as he is about to pull out his credit card, the barista yells out "Bob?" and Bob promptly puts his credit card away and proceeds to collect his coffee.

Damn we were so close!

​However, luckily we have an 'ace up our sleeve' and at about lunchtime when Bob is on his break, he goes for a casual scroll and BAM, another ad. This time the ad says "These boots were made for walking, so don't let them walk out of your life - here's a 10% discount coupon." and Bob completes his purchase.

If you ever wanted to completely immerse someone in your product offering, Instagram Stories could well be the opportunity to do just that!

Not only does an Instagram Story cover the entire of the user's phone, increasing the real estate you have to work with, but Instagram Stories only go for 15 seconds so you can create quite a few different ads to test with ease.

You can use either video or images in this placement as well. But testing both at the same time is always best practice and 'hedges your bet' so you get a true representation of whether an image or a video is performing best for your brand.

The Instagram Story placement is also a great deal cheaper than is big brother Facebook.

Where it may cost you around $12 to reach 1000 people on Facebook, it may only cost you $6 to reach 1000 people in the Instagram Story placement. The contributing factor to this is simply the fact that there isn't as much competition for this placement when compared to Facebook.

We've been able to reduce the average cost per purchase or cost per lead by 30% on average, just by using the Instagram Story Placement.

I frequently use them for retargeting for my brand with varying call to actions

Here are a few examples of what I've used in the past

​

People who have already spent money with you are more likely to spend money with you again.

This is true with serviced-based businesses and online ecommerce businesses.

Have you noticed when you purchase a product online, you often get followed up with their sales, promotions and offers by email? 

It's insanely effective and is your lowest hanging fruit when extracting more sales from your current customer base.

So include this strategy in your Retargeting Campaign!

Example:

If Janine buys product X today, we wait 7-10 days for it to be delivered, then she will begin to see retargeting ads showcasing product X and Z, which may actually complement product X.

Similarly, if you're a service-based business, the above strategy may look like:

Grant fills out a lead form on Facebook to get a quote for a colorbond fence, then for the next 5 days he begins to see package deals for a colorbond fence and outdoor blinds - which increases the average order value per customer immensely.

​The only limit to cross promoting is your imagination! So be sure to try all your offering to see which converts best for your brand.

They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

With retargeting, you not only get a second chance, but a third, fourth, fifth and more.

In the highly competitive world of digital marketing, you want to utilize every advantage possible and maximize the value of each of the visitors you drive.

In the case of retargeting, you are leveraging your own website visitors, which is the most valuable type of audience.

This is what makes retargeting so compelling and why its use should be a part of every business owner’s strategy.

I hope this has been helpful my friend ​🙂

Facebook are releasing a new function called "shops" ahead of schedule in an effort to help businesses affected by COVID-19

Facebook announced on Tuesday the 19th of May that it is adding shopfronts to it's long list of features paired with some new functions across it's spread of apps.

These new features put it in the same ring as Amazon, Etsy and eBay being a platform where users can purchase goods directly from!

Facebook Shops will allow business page admins to create digital storefronts on the platform where they can host a range of products and either send users off-site to complete their payment, or take a payment directly through Facebook.

Basically, Facebook could potentially be your new ecom store!

On top of that, users will also gain access to a function to tag their products in live video. Enabling people to purchase products in a very warm manner, by seeing them live either for the first time or after seeing the benefit they provide.

Facebook said these features were pushed ahead of schedule with COVID-19 affecting small business owners.

“We’re seeing a lot of small businesses that never had online presences get online for the first time,” Mark Zuckerberg said on Tuesday. “For a lot of small businesses in this period, this is the difference between staying afloat and going under.”

 My thoughts 🤔

I love it

I just imagine an even lower barrier to entry for new and aspiring business owners to enter the market with product and immediate have access to all the tools they need to thrive.

Could it possibly negate the need for a website? No more shopify? No more squarespace? No more landing pages?

And don't get me started on tagging products in Facebook Live videos! Flash sales here we come!

We'll see how this all fares in due time

As a Digital Marketer managing quite a few different brands - both online and local business, there's a lot of uncertainty in whether or not you should be advertising online at all right now. 

So here's my take backed by some facts..

Right now, 28 of the 33 brands we manage or mentor have seen a 20% decrease in lead cost/cost per purchase, this was between the 4th and 15th of March 2020 when fear of this spread was increasing dramatically. 

Not only that but it was/is also cheaper to advertise on Facebook right now. 

One of the ways we measure that is by CPM or 'cost per 1000 impressions' - How much it costs to show your Facebook Ad 1000x

This figure usually sits comfortably at $12 CPM most days of the week. 

Right now across the accounts we manage that figure has dropped FORTY ONE PERCENT to $7 - that's 41% just in case that didn't stick..

SO,

Not only are you able to get cheaper leads and sales right now but IT'S CHEAPER TO ADVERTISE IN GENERAL!

The last time it was this cheap consistently, Facebook had just got done for the cambridge analytica privacy breach.

But let's talk about WHY this might be - Ask yourself. 

Are you trying to conserve your spend right now as a business owner? 

Are you anticipating a drop in sales? 

Do you think every other business owner is thinking the same thing? 🤔

Given the above facts - do you see the opportunity to not only generate new business, cheaper - but also acquire a huge foothold in your industry whilst your competitors are shrinking their marketing efforts?

We've even upped our spend quite considerably to make the most of the current terrain!

So if you're a little unsure - or you need a strategy to navigate the landscape with certainty.. 

Feel free to book a chat and I'll throw some strategies at you free-of-charge

CLICK HERE TO BOOK
*spots limited*

I love dabbling in other marketing platforms.

Don't get me wrong, Facebook is by far the most powerful platform to market yourself online, but just like a good investment portfolio - it's a good idea to diversify.

Plus it's fun 🤓

Snapchat allows you to get in front of an age range of 16 - 35 year old people consistently.

And no it's not just a "young person platform" and even if it were, they'll grow up someday - so whose brand would you like them to recognise?

Right now Snapchat is something I'd consider to be "underpriced attention"

Clicks are cheap, just .28c in fact.

Imagine only paying $28 for 100 targeted people to visit your website - then retargeting them on Facebook

​With this particular campaign pictured above, I was generating interest for my mentorship course.

We got 1720 "swipe ups" a.k.a clicks @ 28c each

146,000 impressions (eyeballs on my ad)

and a CPM of $3.29 - basically how much it costs to reach 1000 people at a time (compare that to the average CPM on Facebook of $12 and you see why I'm stoked)

Ad Creation 

Creating the ad is a tad bit fiddly I must admit.

Snapchat have their own self-serve ad platform similar to Facebook

Your image or video needs to be a PORTRAIT style and I have found just turning the selfie camera on and speaking tends to be one of the better performing types of ad content - don't be afraid to get in front of that camera!

Also you'll need to have your logo in the video/image as well.

They don't allow for any "perceived negative" before and after pics in the content either - basically if you follow Facebook's guidelines for advertising then you should be right.

All in all, if nothing else, Snapchat is a great tool for branding - letting people know who you are and what your business does
​
And cheaply I might add 😉

story by Gaby Del Valle

Instagram is somewhere between a social media app and an advertising platform. Regardless of how you’ve chosen to curate your feed, you’re guaranteed to see ads in between meme posts and pictures posted by your friends.

Now Instagram is making it even easier for brands to advertise to its users: Starting Tuesday, Instagram users in the US can buy products from more than 20 brands without ever leaving the app.

The Facebook-owned platform has given brands the option to include “product tags” on their posts since 2017, which give users — i.e., potential customers — information on items that appear in posts and Stories, as well as the option to buy the products from the brand’s website. Now instead of redirecting users off the platform, Instagram is letting users shop directly through the app.

Here’s how it works: When users tap on a product to look at the details, they’ll see the option to “Checkout on Instagram.” From there, they can enter their billing and shipping information, which is stored for future purchases, and track their order. That’s basically it. It’s designed to be easy and, presumably, to enable impulse shopping.

For now, the feature is only enabled for 22 brands. It’s a mix of really high-end stuff — Prada, Balmain, Oscar de la Renta — and fast-fashion companies like H&M and Zara.

This is a natural move for Instagram, a platform whose users have become accustomed to being advertised to left and right. Brand posts are advertisements, as are many posts by influencers and micro-influencers, even when they don’t bear the requisite #ad tag.

According to Instagram’s own metrics, 80 percent of users follow at least one business account. And brand accounts are a vital source of revenue for Instagram: As of 2018, there were more than 25 million businesses on the app, 2 million of which used its ad functions. The Motley Fool reported last week that the app could bring in more than $2 million in ad revenue in 2019 alone. According to a spokesperson, Instagram will introduce a “selling fee” to fund the checkout process and to “offset transaction-related expenses.”

Of course, even if you don’t follow a single business, brand, or influencer on Instagram, the products you do see aren’t just shown to you by happenstance — the ads you’re served are the result of sophisticated data collection algorithms that know literally everything about you, including what kinds of ads you’re most likely to click. By letting brands advertise and sell to consumers directly, Instagram is cutting out the middleman even further.