Everyone is connected via social media platforms, from friends to family, professional networks to businesses.
As a business, your customers and clients expect to find you on social platforms to stay connected with you, communicate with you, know more about your business and even do business with you.
And while you may believe that’s more of a B2C business strategy, that’s far from true! B2B businesses can leverage the power of social media platforms and create a strong presence and digital identity.
You don’t need to be out there and create a presence on every single social platform that’s out there today. In fact, you must pick and choose the right platforms that further your business goals, are more suited for your nature of business and industry, and allow you to do more rather than be irrelevant or spammy.
Why your B2B Business Needs Facebook Ads
Facebook is one of the oldest and most popular social platforms that offer a pool of opportunities for B2B businesses to grow and flourish.
Okay, so if you’re still reading, I’m assuming we’re on the same page about Facebook being a great place for B2B businesses. However, let’s flip the page and get on to the next chapter––Facebook Social Ads for B2B.
Hear me out. Being on Facebook isn’t enough––you need to get out there and get noticed. And yes, you can be seen by the right audience, the one that matters to you and your business.
What can Facebook Ads bring in for your B2B business? In a nutshell:
- Lead Generation
- Sales
- Website Traffic
- Brand Awareness
Learn how to get started with Facebook Ads with this infographic from the experts at 3 Media Web.
How to Ace Your B2B Facebook Social Ads
While it might be easier for B2C businesses to get noticed on Facebook with fun contests, giveaways, and direct communication with their customers, it can also be equally rewarding for B2B businesses.
B2B Facebook Social Ads work if you learn how to make the most of them. Your ads strategy, communication, and messaging need to be well crafted to get the desired results. As a B2B business advertising on Facebook, you need to know your audience to create targeted ads that reach your audience at the right time with the right offer.
Additionally, as a B2B business, you cannot always spam your audience with ‘Buy Now’ ads. You need to create a balance between lead generation, marketing, re-marketing, and promotional ads to help your audience build that trust in your business, know what they get by doing business with you, and keep you top of mind.
B2B Facebook ads are directed toward high-level business decision-makers. It’s not a teenager buying a new pair of sunglasses but a CEO buying a new solution to be implemented organization-wide – you get the difference, right?
Keeping that in mind, your B2B Facebook social ads must be convincing, value-based, fact-driven, and presented as a solution to a larger industry problem. The messaging must showcase how and why your products or services can help improve work, increase productivity or get more profits for a business.
Keeping that in mind, here are the different kinds of Facebook Ads you could create for your B2B business:
Ads to Boost Brand Awareness
You’re not hard-selling in these ads. You aim to help your audience know who you are, what you offer, and why they should do business with you. Focus on pain points, gaps, or problems faced by your audience that you are solving. Build trust by presenting yourself as a solution.
Ads that Present Social Proof
Create ads that show how your industry recognizes you – news and customers. If you have been featured in a news article, your PR campaigns, customer testimonials, awards, and recognitions – leverage these to create Facebook social ads to build credibility further.
Ads to Announce/Launch New Products
While you may have a dynamic launch strategy that showcases new and upcoming products to existing customers via your blogs, website, newsletters, and PRs, Facebook launch and announcement ads could help you generate more leads by targeting a wider audience. Consider these as cold sales ads that you can boost to a newer market or even get noticed by someone interested in your products and services.
Ads to Share Insights and Tips
Ads don’t always have to sell and promote! You can create interesting ads for Facebook with industry tips and insights, thought leadership content, and insights and tips about your products.
Ads that Offer Free, Original, and Useful Shareable Content
Have you created a case study that could help your customers? Do you have original market research? Did you create a playbook or a guide for your products or industry? When you create detailed and original content that can be accessed and used by your customers or industry to better their own business goals – share it! Original content is deeply valued and can help your business stand out.
As you start creating these Facebook social ads and see the positive results, you can get even more robust with your Facebook Ads strategy. You will have the data to create targeted ads to upsell, remarket, and more.
Facebook makes it easier for B2B businesses to reach their audience. With Facebook, when you create ads, you can define your ‘Audience Type’ to get more targeted results. There are three primary categories you must leverage:
1. Interests Audience
When creating a new interest audience, you can add specific demographics, behaviors, and interests under detailer targeting. Here you can directly target Employers, Industries and specific Job Titles.
2. Custom Audience
From website visitors to blog readers, newsletter subscribers to free trial users – you can define the custom audience you’re trying to sell, resell, upsell or remarket to.
3. Lookalike Audience
With the idea that people similar to your existing customer base will have similar interests and needs, Facebook’s lookalike audience feature allows you to double your potential. You can choose which existing audience’s lookalikes will benefit you most, for example, your website visitors or customer base, and reach out to their ‘lookalikes’ on Facebook.
Get Started with Your Paid Facebook Strategy
As a B2B business, Facebook social ads can help you do more and get more. You can reach a wider audience, create brand familiarity, position yourself as an industry leader and show value to your existing and potential customers. You can leverage the platform to boost profits and create a dynamic strategy always to stay top of mind.