6 Things You Need To Know For Successful Small Business Marketing On Facebook

If you’re a small business owner and doing your own marketing, you’ve considered Facebook and Instagram. Or maybe you’re already advertising on both and realizing it’s not as easy as “make an ad telling people what you do” followed by “get clients.”

As someone who’s conducted thousands of marketing campaigns for small businesses on Facebook and Instagram, I’m going to give you my checklist of things that (almost) ensure success. 

How to pick an audience on Facebook

Facebook has a large selection of built-in audiences you can choose from. The easiest way to find what you’re looking for is to type in your ideal audience, then hit the “suggestions” box to see what Facebook’s AI recommends. 

I’ve found their audience suggestions to be incredibly helpful and pretty accurate. 

You’ll want to create logical groupings with your available audiences. 

For instance, in the above image, I might group “small business owner” related titles into one ad group, and “founder” & “CEO” into another. 

Why?

Because people who describe themselves as “owner” and people who describe themselves as “founder” may have very different mindsets in how they run their businesses, so different ads and landing pages might appeal differently. 

There’s no hard and fast rule to this. You’re just going to have to put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself questions.

Luckily, you aren’t permanently locked into your decisions. Once your launch, you can always combine audiences, turn some off, or include more. 

How Big Should My Facebook Audience Be?

I’ve seen the best performance for audiences over 1,000,000 people. 

But if you’re a small business owner marketing local services in a small town, you may not get anywhere close to that.

My general rule is, if I can’t define an audience of at least 1,000,000 people, then I’ll just target everyone in my target geographical area. 

Facebook’s algorithms have significantly more datapoints to choose from than you do in the ad manager, and once Facebook figures out who your target audience is, then it will automatically start targeting them without additional input from you. It takes a little longer to do it this way, but if you can’t define your own audience and hit that minimum size, then that’s going to be your best option. 

It will take a bit longer for the algorithms to get everything figured out, so be prepared for a longer-than-usual ramp-up period (at least a few hundred dollars in ad spend) before you start seeing results. 

What Makes a Facebook Ad Successful?

I’ve seen agencies and individuals get this wrong more often than anything else. 

The thing you have to understand to make Facebook ads successful is platform psychology.

That’s just a fancy way of asking “why are people on Facebook?”

Your first impulse was probably to say “talk to friends” or “argue with strangers on the internet” or maybe even “shop.” But you’d be wrong. 

They’re on Facebook to feel something. 

Hear me out.

Facebook, and other social media, is quite literally a drug. You scroll through posts until something catches your attention that makes you feel something. Different people could be looking for distraction, or humor, or a feeling of superiority gained by arguing with an idiot who voted for that other guy in the last election.

When you find something that triggers the emotion you’re looking for, you stop and indulge the emotion.

And when it wears off, you continue scrolling down the feed looking for your next hit, just like a junkie looking for their next dose.

The key to a successful Facebook ad is to indulge those emotions long enough to catch their attention. 

Next time you’re scrolling through Facebook, pay attention to any ads that got you stop for a second and pay attention. They did something out of the ordinary to stand out. Their copy made you feel something. 

They promised a solution to a problem. Or offered a better life. Or got you to imagine how things could be with their product or service. Maybe they made you laugh with some good wit. Maybe they made your angry by highlighting a moral outrage. 

Whatever they did, they made you feel.

And that’s what you need to do if you want people to stop and pay attention to your ad. 

What Kind of Copy Makes A Facebook Ad Successful?

I’m going to ask you two questions, and I want you to not think of the answer.

Ready?

What is 2x2?

You thought of the answer, didn’t you? You couldn’t help it.

Ok, next question, what is (17x23)/2?

Easy to not think of that answer, isn’t it?

Sure, you could figure it out. Even if you’re not a math person, you’ve got a calculator. But if you don’t think there’s a payoff to figuring it out, you’re not going to do it. 

Copy is the same way. 

People can’t not read copy that’s short and big. The brain will read it whether you want to or not.

But you can easily skip a paragraph.

So the best performing copy on your Facebook creative is going to be big (so they can’t miss it) and short (so they can’t not read it) and emotionally compelling (so they feel something from it). 

If you can accomplish all 3 of those, your Facebook ads are going to work significantly better. 

What should my Facebook Ad Look Like?

My most successful ads have been nothing but some designed copy that I made in Canva. 

If you’re not a designer, then don’t pretend you are.

Colors that stand out and contrast tend to catch people’s eyes and make them look, if you’ve got copy (like we discussed above) that forces them to read it, you’ve now forced someone to pay attention to you and read your message. 

So let’s say you’re not a designer, but you’ve got a piece of copy you think will make someone think and feel about your offer. 

Use a bright orange background and put your text in dark purple. Then create a few variations of your copy (at least 5 total) and run them all. I can almost guarantee you’ll start seeing more traffic and people engaging with your ad. 

I’ve had more successful ad campaigns run with creative like this than just about anything else. 

Disclaimer: It may not be the same for you, so have some variations ready to go. Get creative. As long as you follow the principles I’ve outlined here, you’ll eventually find something that works. 

What Makes Facebook Ad Description Copy Work?

This is the Bible for “what should I talk about?” and “how much should I talk?” 

If someone is already aware of both their problem and your solution, you don’t need to say much.

For instance, if someone’s pipes have burst and their house is flooding, and you’re a plumber, they don’t need a bunch of copy about how you started your business 10 years ago, you’re family owned, and you use only the latest and greatest tools and technology. 

What they want to know is this.

“Emergency Plumbing: We’ll be there in 10 minutes. 10 year warranty on all parts and labor.”

And they might not even care about the warranty. 

If, however, you have something no one has ever heard of, or you’re solving a problem people didn’t know they had, then you’re going to need more copy that 

1. Explains their problem. 

2. Explains what happens if they don’t fix their problem. 

3. Explains why you’re the person to fix their problem.

4. Explains the benefits of fixing their problem.

5. Offers an incentive to start fixing their problem today. 

So using the image above, ask yourself where your target market sits. Then get copy that starts the journey at whatever location they’re at. 

Conclusion

Facebook Ads are hard if you don’t know the rules and principles of the platform and people. But once you have a good grasp of why people take action, and how to catch their attention, you’ll find success on Facebook to come much easier.

If you have an agency and feel like their marketing isn’t performing as well as it should, we offer the industry’s only small business marketing audit. 

We’ll tell you what’s working, what isn’t, and help you figure out what needs to happen to get your revenue moving in the right direction.