It’s been a while since my last post here, as I’ve been spending more time walking the walk than talking the talk. That, and I’ve been trying to figure out the line between revealing too much and not adding enough value. I think I’ve found that line (hopefully those aren’t famous last words!), and I’m back to blogging.
My Purpose In Life (At Work, At Least)
I’ll always remember my answer when asked “What’s the goal of marketing at a startup?” when interviewing for my current gig. The answer: “Drive sales.”
Before moving on from a declarative statement like that, I should add a small caveat. There are some startups that simply don’t have anything to sell. So let me change my answer to “Drive the pre-defined success event”. It really doesn’t have the same ring as “drive sales”, but you get the picture. If the goal is to get people to sign up, that’s the success event. Moving right along.
Using Facebook Ads To Generate Leads
Back in January, we released the first paid version of our software. Prior to that, we had a free version, and most of my lead generation activities for the free app were, well, free. I did a lot of outreach, listings, etc., but didn’t really spend much money. With the release of the paid product, I was able to do a little bit of PPC spending.
Sure, I’ve done a lot of AdWords campaigns, but they just don’t work. The price per click is very high, the conversion rate is low, and those that actually signed up for a free trial of our product were few and very far between.
Enter facebook.
My preconception: Since facebook is primarily a place where people update their friends and play games, it would NOT be a good lead generation avenue.
Looking Back: Boy, was I wrong.
I’m obviously not going to share the raw numbers with you, but I can tell you this: facebook is by orders of magnitude the best lead generation channel we have. Here’s what’s so great about facebook ads:
1. Targeting is awesome.
With facebook, the targeting is HUGE. You can target geographically, by age, by gender, and by “Likes” (called Keywords here). The keyword field lets you target interests, by scanning what users have indicated within their profile.
2. Ads are cheap- Right now I’m looking at around $0.70 per click, which is FAR less than AdWords and the leads are highly targeted.
3. Ads are fun- Since this is facebook and you’re trying to compete for a visitor’s attention, you really need to come up with some interesting, fun ads. Here are a few that have worked well for me.
4.Time To Campaign Is Fast- It literally takes minutes to get a campaign up and running. Where AdWords can take days to give you a single impression, facebook ads go up in minutes, and you start getting impressions immediately.
All right, that’s all for now.
In the coming posts, I’ll be talking about things like:
- Using one-day only facebook ads
- Micro-targeting using facebook ads
- The lifecycle of a single ad on facebook (hint, it’s short)
- Running a branding campaign using facebook (succeeding without ever getting a click)
Comments on this entry are closed.