-What kind of crazy person would think of something like that?

-Facebook advertising is for big companies.

-Advertising on facebook would cost way too much money !

These would be the things you would hear if you were to talk to a small business owner about advertising on Facebook. However, these “concerns” above are absolutely mistaken!

Everyone sees the ads on the right sidebar of your Facebook screen that is probably up in another tab as we speak. But have you ever thought about advertising with Facebook? Probably not, and if you did, you probably figured it would be too costly. Maybe you thought it wouldn’t work because your business is not an online company and instead is “offline” and just a few miles from your home, or is in your home. Well I’m hear to tell you that advertising on Facebook for small businesses can be very effect!

When everyone in your city is on Facebook, shouldn’t your ad be?? 

Recently I spoke with a lady who lives in the small town of Pflugerville, Tx (I’d never heard of it before either). The city poppulation (according to Google) is 48,753. The lady I spoke with, has 27 years in the Optical Industry and tired of working for someone else making them all the money while she was doing all the work! After taking the hardest step in March 2012 and creating her own Opticianry, she is staying a-float, but would love to increase her customers and her income! After speaking with her a little, I started thinking about how many other small business wanted to increase their income too. My discovery was astonishing! Well apparently ALL  of them would like to! Which lead to my second question, how many small businesses do I see advertising on Facebook? I came to this conclusion..none!

Why don’t small business advertise on Facebook? Was the question that came to mind. The only logical answer that came to mind was the simple fact is that they are not informed (no, I didn’t say stupid). Remember that whole saying, “Knowledge is power”? Well I feel that the knowledge of how easy and potentially effective advertising on Facebook can be, has not been taught to these small business owners! So here I am to learn you stuff! -I mean “teach”, common mistake, I swear.

I will teach you through an example ad based on the story of the Optician.

Tools needed:

1. Business
2. Facebook account
3. Facebook Ads (can be found on Google)

Location, Location, Location. Probably one of the most common sayings in business and realtors.  Well location is of course the most important thing when it comes to advertising for your small business! Especially if that business has doors, a sign, and a building! Why wouldn’t you only pay to advertise only to people in your area?

Facebook gives you different options of who to advertise to based on location. For my scenario, I chose “by city” because that’s the location of my business. Out of the total population [of Pflugerville, Tx ], 17,920 are age 19+ and on Facebook! I wanted to have a little more than 17,000 people to advertise to, so I chose to also advertise to the cities within 10 miles since that’s not a far distance either.

Narrow down your customer based on their interests.

For this part of my add, I didn’t add any interest or “Broad Category” for the simple fact of this, not many people are going to “Like” a page called “Glasses” or “Contacts” because that’s what they wear, they just wear them. (Note: I put the age for 19 because typically anyone under that age will be having their parents buy optical stuff for them.)

What’s the number of people in my area that I’m targeting?

Not too bad of a number. Not too ridiculously big, but enough to advertise to.

BUDGET. 

One of the most important things when it comes to small business, as well as advertising! In my opinion, for your first ad, only spend between $100-$300. Now on facebook you can chose to have your add run continuously (NOT recommended) or for a limited time (Recommended). For my example I chose to have a budget of $20 a day and run the add for 2 weeks (14 days).

Choose your pay method !

Now you can choose whatever pay method you’d like. I personally care for the “optimized for impressions” choice (but who cares what I think?). In all honesty though, either method is a great choice and I’d recommend trying one of the options the first time, and then make at least one other ad using the other and seeing what’s better for you.

Summing It Up.

In total,

• I’m targeting 64,180 people
• My add is running for 2 weeks (14 days)
• And will only cost me $280

WHAT’S NEXT?

Measure how effective your add is, make changes (like description wording) and run another add at the same budget and time frame (maybe try the other pay method this time) and measure that second ad. At the end of the month, see which ad specifically was more effective, and in total, was the month of advertising on Facebook effective. (Note: The “average” return on advertising is 3-5%. So don’t expect a flock of 64,000 people raiding your business all wanting to give you money! The one’s you do get, make sure that when they leave, they are happy customers that will be sure to tell their friends about you!

Thank you for reading and I look forward to hearing back from you in a month with your results and what seemed to work best (if anything) for you!