6 Tips To Help Grow Your Small Business Online

by Karen Petrauskas | Mar 15, 2019

As a brand we hope that you are using social media in some form or another, for those that are still to discover a social media presence – we need to talk!

But for many brands, social media is the best form of marketing and advertising that their company can use in order to gain the attention of their audience.

Building a social media presence will not create a magical income stream straight away and as with anything it needs to be built upon and content carefully crafted and planned out. Businesses that hope for miracles when they post sporadically often give up at the first hurdle when they don’t see results straight away. However, building a marketing strategy that can be followed in order to achieve certain goals and increase sales, raise brand awareness and build a solid foundation for customers to get engaged with WILL get a business noticed.

As a business, you need structure and a plan – you need a marketing strategy.

Start with a SMART marketing goal

Decide what’s important to you, what goals you want to achieve and then how you’re going to achieve them.

An example of a good SMART goal for social media marketing would be something like “Increase our Pinterest response rate by 50% by the end of the first quarter.”

Specific: “We’ve specifically identified the social channel (Pinterest) and a metric (response rate).”
Measurable: “The response rate can be measured from Pinterest for Business analytics dashboard.”
Achievable: “It’s a realistic goal that with focus and creativity, can be achieved.”
Relevant: “Our goal will have an impact on our overall social media presence, making it very relevant.”
Time-bound: “The goal has to be met by the end of the first quarter.”

Now, Pinterest as an example is a very positive social channel that when used correctly can drive traffic to a website in the hundreds! We love Pinterest but choosing a platform that works in line with your business is essential for the strategy to work and be productive.

By making SMART goals for each step will give it purpose and a relevancy, aligning it with your overall core values. Does your goal fit with your business plan? Does it reach out to the audiences that you want to speak to?

Grow your audience

Now you’ve got the strategy and plan on what you want to achieve, it’s time to put that into practice and grow your audience using social media.

We may have chosen Pinterest as our example, but many brands will start off in Facebook as their chosen platform of choice, so thinking about using Facebook, what can you do to see results? The main point if anything to take away today, is that you need to ‘show up’ every single day and you need to show your audience that you actually care about them. Use your business page, create a members groups, reach out to individuals through your personal profile – as long as it’s in line with your SMART goals, go for it!

By using great content, experience, expert knowledge and advice all coupled together, it will help to build your audience. And you want to be right in front of them, to be there when they need you and ready to answer and engage at the most crucial times.

Strategy comes from vision

The idea behind putting a marketing strategy in place is so that you can achieve the goals that you set out to achieve when you started your business, these goals come from visions and dreams that you may have had for many years. Lay out all your visions, decipher your dreams into segments and create a brainstorm of everything that is important to you. You’ll be surprised at everything that comes out from a simple exercise like this! Start with one point, one idea and the rest will flow.

What lifestyle do you want to be living? Will the achievement of your dreams have an impact on your lifestyle? What financial goals do you want to achieve? Be clear on all that you dream of – it will make it so much easier to create a plan if you know what you want from it.

Ensure that all your plans align with your core values and your personal vision.

Pricing

Some people lack the confidence that they are worth what they want to charge in their business. They see the experts charging high ticket prices but when it comes to their own self-belief, can often hit barriers that do not allow them to charge their worth.

Remember that you are an expert in your niche – that’s why you’re doing what you’re doing.

From your goals you will already be aware of what you need to achieve financially throughout the year. This figure then needs to be broken down in segments of the services that you offer.

How many XX services do you need to sell to achieve £XX’s? You can have different levels of pricing / packages depending on who you work with and the level of service or support you offer but create a pricing structure that works with your goals.

You may not think that this will directly grow your business, but by knowing what you need to charge and sticking to those prices, you will gain confidence and assurance in what you are doing. When someone asks you “How much do you charge for XX?”, you will be able to answer straight back with a price, rather than lacking in confidence to quote the price you know it should be. Confidence shines through in all areas of your business and being clear on pricing is a great place to start.

Speak directly to your audience

Do you know that what you’re offering is hitting the pain points of your audience? Is it actually going to serve a purpose and create solutions? That needs to be a deciding factor on how you market your business and which direction you take it.

Everyone needs something, and researching your product or services will determine the people that are looking for you – the people that you need to reach.

Using a simple keyword tool will help you determine what your audience is searching for. When you understand specifics, then you speak directly to them and relieve their pain.

Gain customer feedback – are you approaching your idea from the right angle? Are you dealing with a problem that is real?

Even tapping into your competitors social feeds can give you insight into what works and what people are seeking.

For example, someone may be searching the internet for ways to keep up to date with social media planning. Now for us here we could dive straight into connecting with the people who are looking for this, build a relationship with them and then offer our social media planner as a solution.

People won’t buy from the first introduction but by creating a relationship with them and giving them a reason to trust you and your brand, it becomes a whole different story. Recommendations and word of mouth advertising is valuable and still extremely powerful. Learn to love and nurture your audience and provide value in every conversation and people will learn to love you back, and in turn recommend your services.

Positioning

One of the most important aspects of your marketing is the positioning of your brand in the market. It needs to be built into the marketing strategy not used as an add on at the end. So how do you position yourself in a busy and competitive online society?

Focus on one or two things – not multiples. It’s better to do one thing well and be successful than try to do everything and do them badly.

We’ve all heard this before but it’s true in marketing also. It’s true when it comes to your social media marketing, it’s true in your services, it’s true for everything that your business offers. Focus on what you can do well and then position yourself in the market as an expert in that niche.

Be more user friendly. A customer wants a good journey when they interact with your brand and for everything to be one click away. Searching for a button to be able to contact you, or not knowing how to find your social channels, or when they do, not gaining a response… it’s all comes down to a customer’s experience and how easy it is to do business with you. Make this a pleasant experience and one that’s easy to travel down and you’ll find more people will engage. Make everything clear and transparent, even if it looks over simplified to you. Not everyone knows the business as well as you and it’s better to spell everything out in plain sight and with clickable actions for each part of the journey.

At the end of the day, you have to love what you’re doing. You have to be able to inspire yourself to do well and to succeed. When you have a passion inside of you that just wants to see results, all the above will fall into place.

If you’re new to business and have not put a marketing strategy together before, we’re here to help and your success is our success! We want to see you grow your small business online, we want to help you implement strategies and tactics to see results.

Use our contact form to get in touch and let’s see your business booming this year!

You can also connect with us on our Facebook Page and get to know us a little better too – we hope that your customer experience with KJP Creative is a good one!

Look forward to hearing from you.

Grab your copy of our 2020 social media awareness days calendar – and get organised with your social media marketing…

How To Grow A Business Online

by Karen Petrauskas | Mar 6, 2019

Are you struggling to get your business to move forward? Are you finding it hard to see an increase in sales or to see a profit at the end of a year?

If the answer is yes, what can you do to turn this around and see more success going forward?

Perhaps it’s time to take a deep hard look into your business, digging into your values and your priorities and working out what is important to you and how you can use that to add value to other people.

A business grows when it’s creating a solution. A business is successful when it is providing value to those who have a need. If you’re not reaching out to people who need your services, you’re not going to see results as these people won’t want or need what you are offering!

Ideal audience

Therefore you need to work out who you are trying to reach and who your ideal audience is. You will need to think about who will really have an impact when they discover your services, who you can impact the most with your offers. With everything in your arsenal, what type of person will benefit most when you work together? When you discover your complete ideal person whom you want to work with, who you want to target, who you think will love your product, then you have a basis to work from in creating a strategy that speaks directly to them.

Uniqueness

You are unique! Did you know that? There may be a thousand people offering similar services to you but there is something within your business that makes you unique and different from the rest – what is it?

If you search for your niche on your favourite search engine – what results do you come up with? What similarities can you see between you and the results? Are there many businesses offering the same thing?

This is your chance to stand out from the crowd and discover your own uniqueness -use that to promote your product or services. Your USP (unique selling proposition) gives you an advantage to sell your business on its own credit and with its own glory.

When you determine what makes you unique, along with your ideal target audience, you’ll be in a position to stand out and be noticed. Use this in your marketing strategy and you’ll be in a position to become known, grow brand awareness and attract more of the people that you want to be working with, and sifting out people who are not right for your business.

Be honest

Honesty is the best policy, in life and in business. When you are honest about who you are, what you value and honest in your approach to working with individuals, you’ll find it easier to work with people who want to get to know you and love you for who you are. There is pressure in a busy online world to be the same as the next big company and to offer services the same as the latest successful entrepreneur. However if it’s not what you have been called to do, or that aligns with your objectives and goals, you’ll be heading for a path of disappointment or regret rather than success. It can be easy to follow the big names and to get caught up in what they are offering, with the promise of a 6-figure business if you follow their rules – however is this really what you believe in? Is their product or method the way that you first visualised your business going in? Get back to the basics of why you started your business, what drives you forward and what goals and ambitions you have.

Tell your story

Your story is what helps to sell your business – and every business needs one! It’s the best way to strengthen a brand and how to power your marketing strategy. All the great brands are built upon a story, so if the best are doing it, it’s time to jump on board and follow suit.

Your story can follow different paths but it needs to have structure as with any good novel.

Set the scene: How and where did your business start? What were the foundations that were set to enable you to get started and what is the mission that you are working towards?

Empathise with your audience: Make your story personal, touch the emotions of your readers and get them to understand what you are about. When a person feels a connection with your brand they will begin to trust what you are saying. Build on that relationship and nurture each potential customer giving them a reason to love your product.

Why is your story different: What makes you stand out from anyone else who is selling the same as you? You are unique and there is something that will appeal to individuals seeking your service – find that detail and focus on it within your story telling.

Values

What does the word values mean for you and your business? Defining the definition of this will help when it comes to being clear on what your business stands upon. It could refer to a set of beliefs, company culture, an understanding of what the business is about; your values are unique to your business. It’s about educating the people around you of your mindset and what’s important to you. These could come from a personal value that you’ve built your business upon and this will be clear within your story telling – your values can play a part in that.

Maintaining core values is vital to the longevity of your business and looking for sustainability and growth. It will give both team members and customers a sense of purpose and guidance and will help keep everyone on the same path as the company grows.

Use social media

Many businesses use social media to increase their engagement and drive traffic to their website. If you don’t have a strong presence on social media you could be missing out on a great number of opportunities! If you’re not increasing your audience and traffic, your content is being seen by the same people over and over again – who, if they are not buying into you, are perhaps the wrong target audience. But where do you begin to increase your social media presence?

Great content is always a must. To get people even to notice you, you need to be using eye-catching visuals that appeal. Secondly you need to be encouraging followers to engage and go through your sales funnel. The two parts together draw people to where you need them to be in order to guide them on their customer journey within your business. Their journey needs to be a good one in order for them to stick around.

In all your content ensure that you’re providing value every step of the way. You drop this batten and you lose a potential client. Value, value and more value.

Use micro-influencers

You’ve seen the big brands using celebrities to get their message across, this is called influencer marketing. But good news is that it doesn’t just have to be for the big brands – you can use it too!

Micro-influencers actually can have a lot more influence around the audience that you are targeting and can benefit your business much more than you realise.

First off you need to research micro-influencers in your niche. Then get in touch with a few and discuss how they could promote your product in their circles. When they start to promote your products, more people will get to hear about your business and your brand awareness will expand. You are effectively jumping onto their audience and using their marketing tactics to grow your business. They will share their personal experience about your products / services and provide you with a bigger exposure. Their stories are real-life, engaging and authentic – in this way their audience will relate to them and believe what they say.

You can use more than one influencer, depending on what your business is about, and pursue different avenues of audiences.

Starting a business can be one of the best decisions of your life but it can also be one that brings terror, anxiety and tough situations. But with the passion and desire to succeed and push forward, taking on board advise from people who have been there, you can get there! Don’t forget to celebrate each stage you get through. You are part of your business so it makes sense to play a part in all that happens – the good the bad and the ugly!

Looking for more for your business? Could you do with coaching or practical social media advice? We’d love to help – get in touch and let’s talk!

Download our FREE Social Media 2020 awareness days calendar and get organised with your social

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How To Use Social Media For Churches

by Karen Petrauskas | Feb 15, 2019

Is your church on social media? Part Two (find part one here)

Your church may already have a social media presence, but is it enough? How can a church reach those in need, their local community, or their own congregation?

It’s not possible to reach every single person you hope to, however using social media gives you a better chance in reaching more people than you could offline. Social media gives a church more opportunity to reach its members, the people in their community and those searching for more to life. It’s a way to engage directly with these people in a manner that they’re comfortable with, where they are and in their own time.

Social media for churches can mean becoming known in the local area, and becoming a place that people are talking about… “Hey what’s going on at XXX church?” are the types of conversations that could start from posting on social.

Just watch any group of people, young and old – many are spending their time looking at their phones or mobile devices. The majority will be on Facebook or searching the web for information. They are searching for something significant. Something that gives them substance and a meaning. If a church can get in front of them in their place of ‘go-to’, it can be a step towards growing the church and seeing lives changed.

Where do you start?

Not all churches have the resources to be on every social platform that’s out there. In fact, unless you’ve got a dedicated marketing team that has time to do social, it can be hard for any organisation to spread themselves over all the social media channels. But for churches, as we mentioned in our previous post, social media is often the first thing to be dropped when there’s not enough time in the day. Therefore, it’s good to establish what platforms would work for your church, establishing where people are hanging out, and then focusing on these platforms to grow an effective community.

This could be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube … the choice depends on where your church audience is most likely to be. Then when you’ve established what channels will work best, use the strengths that lie within your church team. Are they creative? Are they good at photography? Do they enjoy writing?

Each is a specialty for a social media platform. Use your teams strengths to build a profile and start engaging with your audience.

Start engaging

Once you’ve chosen which platforms to use, it’s important to be active on them. Most churches will have a Facebook page however it doesn’t look good for anyone searching for local churches to land on your page and find that the last post went up over a month ago. In today’s society, people are on social and that’s where they expect to communicate. That may be through an image, a blog post, a quote or bible verse – but they want to see engagement on social media and if it’s not there, they will move on quickly.

There is so much content online that it’s easy for someone in one swipe to be on another church Facebook page, instead of yours. If you’re not familiar with how social works or have tried to stay away from it as much as possible, it’s not time for that to change – or to find someone that can do it for you! It’s important to meet the people where they are.

Churches are not called to sit inside and keep riches for themselves – no, they are called to go and make disciples of all men (and women!). Therefore, it’s time to use social media to spread the gospel, to invite others to Sunday services and midweek meetings, it’s time to bring the children into Sunday school and to youth groups and whatever else you have going on in the church throughout the week.

Talk to people through the church pages and posts, create posts that ask questions or invite comments or feedback. Be proactive in your approach for every post that is delivered. And more importantly, when people do react, take time to respond to each individual – show love, care and attention. If you’re not sure on what type of content to post, try looking a few other church social profiles. You’ll get an idea of whey content people are engaging with, what works well for a church and how you can adapt their ideas to help you grow your audience.

Don’t wait until it’s too late

The church needs to grow. There are people everywhere we go who haven’t heard the good news so it’s your time to make a difference and to show that there is more to life. Your church could be in front of those people on a daily basis if social is handled correctly. You could provide the answer to their problems, if you are there to listen. By being active on social media on a daily basis, you can give hope to a searching crowd. Nothing will kill your online presence more than an inactive social media account. Set up, engage and be proactive – and keep going with it.

It’s a lifeline

Social media is a lifeline to your community and one that needs to be used and exercised if you want your church to thrive and to grow. It’s not about conforming to the ways of the world but it’s about being diverse in the ways that you reach out. Promoting events and showcasing news about the life of the church only enhances your presence and draws people to a place that’s active and on fire for God. Does your church have something to shout about? Do you want to be a lifeline to your neighbours? Use social media to communicate.

Get started with Facebook

Facebook is the place to start when it comes to social media for churches. It’s the most common, most expected and most sought out place for a church to be found, other than a website. If you’re not already on Facebook, this needs to be a priority. From there, a church and its leaders can engage with other church groups, which is a fantastic way to promote your own church page and get people engaging with your content. Facebook is a place where [most] people have a presence, so it’s a brilliant way to let your congregation know what’s on that week. It’s also somewhere to give study notes, to share a countdown to an event, to offer prayer, to give inspiration or motivation, and a place where people feel safe communicating.

People love visuals

While Facebook is the most popular platform for churches, Twitter is slower to catch on and only approximately 13% of churches are using Instagram but still highly effective for those who do use it [well]. However Instagram is popular place to be and especially for the young at heart. Do we want to see youngsters in our churches? They are not the church of tomorrow, they are the church of today and they need reaching as much as anyone else. Integrating an Instagram strategy into your church marketing could be a brave step to take but so worth it. Instagram users tend to be active on a daily basis. The engagement rate is high and relatively easy to maintain once you’ve set up. 65% of Instagram impression ads are video content, you can use that! Your pastor could do regular 1 minute snippets, the youth group could give matchstick testimonies, you could include a clip from Sunday services.. there are many possibilities and ways to get creative. From there you can promote charity events, mission news, your weekly church diary, bible verses and images from the life of the church. Instagram for churches is a positive step forward in reaching an audience right where they are.

Have a marketing strategy in place

As with anything you that effects other people, there needs to be a policy and your social media is no exception. Planning out a strategy of how to use social media effectively is a key to its success. By implementing the above points and using a designated person(s) to take care of your social, you’ll be able to see effective church growth and a channel for communication taking place. Take the time to understand what the different channels do and the value they can provide and establish which ones will work for your church. Not every church is the same, and not all platforms work for every church. Once you’ve started planning and putting those plans into action, ensure that you monitor the results and be sure that what you’re doing is worthwhile. The idea behind social media is to be social, is that what you’re achieving and if not, how can that change for the better?

For each channel you choose to work with, create a goal or purpose for using it and measure the results that come from it on a regular basis. It can be quite eye opening when you look into the analytics of a social media account to see what posts or content have the most engagement and what is attracting people to your profiles. Engagement is the key to growing an online presence. And finally, be sure to promote your online channels on any offline content; newsletters, notices, on the church notice board outside, flyers and event promotions – wherever you have a chance, share your profiles. You want your audience to engage with you, so they need to know where and how to find you online. The most important step for any church using social media, is to not let it slip or fade away. Where there is a presence, it should be a good one. It’s better to have one or two profiles and do them extremely well, than to have six or seven and for them to not mean anything or provide value.

Use the people in your church who can do social media well, who understand its importance and who have a passion to see it used properly. If the task if given to someone who doesn’t enjoy it, the job will not be done to a high standard. As churches, we should be aiming for excellence, not ‘it will do’. God always gives you the best, He wants the best for all His children, and as a church we should be providing the same in terms of value to others.

If this has got you thinking about a social media strategy for your church but you’re not sure where to start, KJP Creative have a passion to work with churches and Christian organisations and would love to help. Get in touch to find out what we can do to get your church on the social media map. Blessings, Karen. PS. You can also grab our free downloadable social media awareness days calendar to help you get organised with social.

6 Reasons Why Churches Should Use Social Media

by Karen Petrauskas | Feb 7, 2019

Is your church on social media? Part One

If you want to reach more people, you have to be where the people are. Fact. That is relevant to businesses large and small as well as churches – of any shape and size.

Often the church gets left behind because it doesn’t see the need to be like other organisations or businesses, by being online or on social media, or even without a website in some cases, but in fact as society evolves and more people turn to technology, the church is left in an open space of not reaching out in effective ways to grow and build their church.

If you take some time to Google ‘why should churches use social media’, you will be bombarded with case studies and reasons as to why the church should be online. It may even be too much for you comprehend but in the society that we live in, it’s important to get a grasp and understanding of how important social media is to the life and community that our churches are within.

So why should a church be on social media?

Your church needs to be found

When people are searching for a church, gone are the days where someone will look in the yellow pages or local newspaper to see what churches are in their area. A person is 95% more likely to turn on their computers or mobile device and Google ‘churches in my local area’. From that point on, it is down to what they can source online as to where they may end up on a Sunday morning.

They may find your church through the website listings, they may even find it through a relevant Facebook post, but a website and social media work together to build an online presence where the church is reachable and attractable to those they want to reach out to.

When planting a new church, a church needs to dedicate time to ensuring they can be found on the map. This means including SEO (search engine optimisation) into website copy, speaking the language of your audience and building an online foundation of what your church is about so people can experience before they try. (this is a whole topic on its own really, so feel free to get in touch to find out more about SEO for churches)

Social media and websites do not compete for attention, they work together to build a customer’s journey and experience and to build relationships.

When a church can be found online, it allows a person to experience what the church is about before they even decide to make a visit. The more they can find out online either through a website or a social media presence, the more they will know if it is a place they feel called to. Social media provides customer experience, a reason to want to find out more, and gives an open invitation to all those who are seeking.

Churches on social media can have influence

Putting time into building a social media strategy for your church is so worth its time. Often it’s the social media marketing that gets left behind when a church runs out of time, money or resources but how many more people could you reach if a strategy was laid out to specifically grow the church and target people in this way?

We are called to help and serve others, to influence and be salt and light – how can we do that if we’re not connecting with the world? How can we know what influences are attracting our young people, what issues are surrounding our community and what emotions people are feeling if we are not right there seeing it with them? It’s about supporting a hungry and hurting world in a place where they feel safe and secure. If people realise that there are churches there ready to help and get stuck in, they’re more likely to take a step of faith to come into the building on a Sunday (or any day of the week for that matter) and start connecting with you.

Church, be where the people are

People are on social media. You only have to walk past the bus stop, look in a coffee shop, stand in the university canteen to see that a large majority of people will have their heads down in their mobile devices or laptops. People are hungry for information, people are searching for answers. If the church can get out in front of those people and provide the answers to their questions and show care and attention to detail, they will respond. People are crying out for life support – and we as a church should be there, ready and willing to dive in and help. We can’t wait for people to walk through the church doors, we need to step out, be a beacon of light and invite them in. These invitations can come through the tactfulness of a social media post, a Facebook campaign or even network groups where relationships and trust can be built.

Social media can build relationships

Why are you on social media (personally)? It’s to connect with friends, to check in with family, to see the next job opening, to keep up with news. And the church can use this in just the same way to build the church and to reach their community.

A church Facebook page should automatically attract the members of that church, if the content from the page is engaging and fulfilling, it will encourage those users to share the posts. These posts will then be seen by the friends and family of the people sharing the content and before long you have a whole new audience who has the potential to see your posts. What can you post that will grab the attention of a non-believer? What content could you share that will spread the gospel? What images and videos can you post that will share the love of Christ throughout Facebook? If a social media plan is followed, a church can easily build up a stream of content that is there to build relationships with their whole community and way beyond.

Just like walking the local streets and leaflet dropping, a single Facebook post could have the same effect with more impact than that one leaflet. And it’s a lot easier for people to share that post with others than handing one leaflet around to friends. The potential in social media posting is incredible and the church can really get to know people, can start to communicate with individuals and help where they can through the various social media platforms.

First impressions count

We could emphasize the need for social media in churches all day but if accounts/profiles are not updated on a regular basis, it will not give a good impression to the people who stumble onto their page. Just like anything, social media needs to be a regular occurrence. It’s better to do something well than to do it badly. And this is the sad case with many social media accounts. Churches see a need to set up a Facebook page for example but then leave it idle for months on end, meaning that when people are searching for churches in their area or something for their youngsters to get involved in for example, the church looks disinterested, old and tired.

The same goes for a church website.

Whether it be a Facebook page or a website that a user finds themselves on – if it doesn’t look attractive or meet their needs, they will leave and search for something else. What could you be including that will meet a need?

We need to strive for excellence, we need to give people what they are searching for. Take pride in the appearance of presentation and your online presence. Be excellent in all that the church stands for.

Showcase your church’s vitality

Social media platforms are the perfect opportunity to showcase what your church is about. This is a place where people come expecting to see what is happening, what groups are on, what help they can get, what youth and children’s work is taking place. Social media is a place where you can get visual and creative, bringing your Sundays and mid-week meetings to life in front of thousands of people. With the use of Facebook, Live video, Instagram and other ‘visual’ platforms – how much more of the church can you share with others! You can reach people on a Sunday who simply can’t get out of the house. You can let the world know that you have a safe place where children can come and play, meet new friends and learn more about the love of Christ. Social media is supposed to be engaging and social! Use that opportunity with every ounce of passion you have to reach the lost and seek to see your communities changed.

Does your church offer free wifi? If so, you can encourage your attendees to share their experiences of your church whilst there! Church life in action, so to speak.

Social media is no longer a fad, it’s here to stay and it’s only going to get bigger. Are you ready and prepared as a church to use social media to have an impact on your community? Are you ready and prepared to use social media to grow your church? Are you ready to step out and take action in order to reach those who need the church? Churches need to be doing all that they can to engage with the public online and in this way – your church needs to be accessible.

Here at KJP Creative we love to work with churches in order to see all the above taking place, and more! We have a heart to see souls set free and hearts won for Jesus, and we do this by working with churches to help to achieve this. If you’d like to work with a Christian social media agency, we’d love the opportunity to speak with you. Get in touch today!

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10 Reasons Why You Should Be Using Facebook Advertising

by Karen Petrauskas | Feb 1, 2019

Are you using Facebook advertising for your business?

As a business owner, it’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of everything that’s going on and jumping in with two feet trying to do it all: video marketing, blogging, email marketing, SEO, social media marketing – there are many options, it’s endless.

But the reality is that we cannot do it all – that is without burnout! Therefore, we must focus our efforts on what works, where our audience is likely to be and what attracts them. If we’re not reaching our audience, we might as well give up.

If we try to do every form of online marketing, we can find that we stretch ourselves too thin and work becomes sloppy, disengaging or not to the point and sales become a dream. In order to make online marketing effective for your business you need to establish what works for your business and stick to it.

There is one fact we know. Your audience is on social media. The social platforms are dominating all things online and this is where you need to get specific and dig deeper into how to target your audience at a personal level. Don’t throw all your eggs into one basket either, test what gets results and measure what works for you.

There is one platform though that can give your business amazing results if worked correctly, and that’s Facebook, in specific, Facebook advertising. Why do we choose Facebook? Here’s why:

Your audience is on Facebook!

With Facebook being the biggest of all social networks (2.32 billion monthly active users) it is providing individual businesses the biggest opportunities to get right in front of their ideal audience. It may not be your ideal platform but your target audience is on there somewhere, if you know where to look.

Facebook ads are cheap!

They’re not free, but they can often not be far off. Facebook ads can be the cheapest form of online advertising if your targeting options are correct. You can easily set daily budgets so you can be assured you don’t spend more than you intend to.

How far can you get with the budget that you have? It’s about creating a clear focus and following a simple strategy that aligns with your targets, goals and budget.

Helps organic reach

Facebook encourage businesses to advertise and want you to spend money (of course!) but favour those who do. This means that your organic social media reach will go further. We totally believe in organic posting for Facebook – adding in paid Facebook ads will help boost your organic posts.

You don’t need a huge budget

As we said, you can do Facebook advertising on a budget. Typically, £5 worth of ads could get your business in front of 1,000 people. Just think how much £50 could reach, or even £100 – amazing, right! And you can be extremely picky on who those people may be by using in the targeting options when setting up your ads.

Facebook Ads are fast

Yes, Facebook advertising drives traffic almost instantly, and you can see immediate results. You could start reaching thousands of people today! If you’re looking for a quick way to drive traffic or to create conversions, this is a fantastic way to make this happen.

Brand Awareness

This is what all small businesses are striving for in a busy digital society, to be recognised and known. By using Facebook advertising you can create brand awareness very easily. It’s a great way to let people know what you’re offering and to promote services or products. If someone has seen your business in their news feed, they will be more likely to make a purchase when they realise this is something that they need.

It’s easy to target customers

Facebook ads are brilliant at being able to target specific details, whether that be demographics, interests, job titles, or down to post codes – you can get specific with your audience. And you don’t have to just use one target, you can layer those details depending on what your promotion is offering. Save your target audience for another time or change them as you go – the options really are endless.

Once you’ve found an audience that converts, you can replicate them – this is called ‘lookalike audiences’. Facebook will take a custom audience and reach new people who are similar to that audience – meaning new targets for your business and new opportunities for conversions.

Facebook re-marketing

This option is also amazing! Re-marketing basically allows you to target people who have already taken an action, for example visited your website, used your mobile app, or given you an email address etc. These ads are presented when users visit other websites or use social media, watch videos and such like. It’s an extremely effective and powerful tool that could triple your conversion rates.

This option is ideal for hard offers – for sign ups, downloads, consultations etc.

Facebook increases website traffic

Facebook advertising is a great way to get more traffic to your website. By simply setting up a website click campaign, you can have users visiting your website in minutes. Once you’ve done this a number of times, you’ve got a batch of information to use for further retargeting campaigns and to entice people who have already taken the bait. Website click campaigns can be done from all forms of advertising but the joy of doing it within Facebook is the fact that it’s so precise and cost-effective which makes it more beneficial than other forms of advertising.

Quick advertising

Facebook adverts have a simple set-up process and produce fast results – the perfect equation for any advertising campaign. Compared to Google advertising, managing Facebook ads is a lot easier and once you are familiar with the process it can become an easy task to complete.

Don’t forget that using Facebook adverting will bring new users to your website and you will see an increase in your activity but this is not the end game – you want to see conversions! Ensure that when users visit your site or landing page, they are presented with something that is true to your business, provides value and gives solutions to what they are looking for. Make sure that your landing page doesn’t look tacky and it’s branded exactly the same as the advert they clicked on in the first place, including your tone of voice.

Your Facebook ads are still the voice of your business and should be professional and welcoming at all times.

Have you tried Facebook advertising for your business? What are your thoughts?

If you’d like to see bigger results this year and are ready to push forward with targeted social media advertising, we’d love the opportunity to chat with you. Get in touch and let’s talk.

Have you tried our 2020 social media awareness days calendar? Download for FREE and get your social organised.

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