Want to connect with local customers on Facebook?
Have you considered targeting them with Facebook ads?
Facebook ads offer a quick, easy and cost-effective way to reach local customers. Discover how to get your business in front of local customers using Facebook ads.
Once you’ve had a chance to play around with Facebook ads, you’ll see that they can be an incredibly powerful tool for your salon because there’s no better way to promote your local businesses than using Facebook ads.
You can…
- advertise on a small budget
- target your ideal customer and your existing customers
- turn campaigns on and off
- promote offers quickly
There’s also the social aspect.
Your customers can help promote your business to their family and friends on Facebook, and we all know how effective word of mouth is.
Better still, running Facebook ads for a local business is also fairly easy.
Why?
Because you know exactly how to target your audience and you know where they live.
Facebook even recently created an entire objective for local businesses.
Before we start if you simply want to supercharge your week and save time, get your copy of our Facebook Ad/Post Templates. Join the Social Hub and get your copy here…
#1: Choose Your Ad Type
You can target any type of Facebook ad to a local audience.
Go to ads manager or power editor and select the objective for your ad. The objective determines the type of ad you’re going to run. What you choose depends on your goals, and of course, what you’re actually promoting.
Facebook loves to change just when we get used to it so here are some recent UPDATES.
Some objectives have now been moved into similar objectives. These changes don’t affect any existing campaigns you’re running.
Local Awareness
You can now use the reach objective to promote your business locally. If you previously used local awareness to promote your business, you’ll use reach instead.
Offers
You can now use the traffic and conversions objectives to create an offer. If you previously used engagement to create an offer, you’ll use these objectives instead.
You can now choose new and simpler advertising objectives that better reflect how you plan, buy and measure your campaigns.
Simpler names for objectives
Objectives now have simpler names to help you choose the best objective for your business goal:
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Increase brand awareness → Brand awareness
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Reach people near your business → Reach
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Send people to a destination on or off Facebook → Traffic (website clicks)
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Get video views → Video views
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Collect leads for your business → Lead generation
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Get people to claim your offer → Engagement (offer claims)
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Promote your Page → Engagement (page likes)
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Boost your posts → Engagement (post engagement)
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Raise attendance at your event → Engagement (event responses)
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Increase conversions on your website → Conversions (website conversions)
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Get people to visit your store → Store visits
New objectives
Objectives with the same business goals are now combined:
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Traffic: Send more people to your website or app.
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Conversions: Drive an action on your website. This objective combines the website conversions and app engagement objectives.
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Engagement: Get more people to engage with your business on Facebook. This objective includes the post engagement, page likes, event responses and offer claims objectives.
Boost Post – will serve up your ad with an engagement objective to more of your fans or a targeted audience you have already saved. You can do this from a post on your page or choose Engagement as a campaign objective.
Reach and Brand Awareness – targets people in your area. You can choose one or multiple destinations. The Reach objective lets you maximise the number of people who see your ads and how frequently they can be seen. If you’re looking to build brand awareness the Reach objective lets you maximise the number of impressions your ads receive.
#2: Set Up Location Targeting
Select the location you want to target. If you want to change the location, drag the circle around the map or enter an address in the box below it. You can also adjust the radius you wish to target using the Radius drop-down menu in the bottom-right corner of the map.
#3: Refine Location Targeting
Having the ability to target ads directly to customers according to their precise location is an invaluable tool for marketers.
But it’s not quite enough. You need to look beyond location targeting.
This should be enough to separate basic customer types, and it will help prevent, say, a men’s barbershop from displaying an ad to local ladies. Unfortunately, that’s as far as it goes.
This applies whether you’re boosting a post, promoting your page, or trying to send people to your website. However, it’s far less effective if you operate in a smaller target market.
#4 Use Boost Post Button
Do you post status updates to a Facebook page for your business?
You can boost a post for as little as $3
Boost anything that would be interesting to your audience!
Post before and after photos of your clients. Post a testimonial from a customer… the possibilities are endless.
Boosting a post is a good way to get organic traffic to the post and see the engagement before you use that post in an ad campaign. It’s a relatively cheap way to do some testing.
Post something interesting on your Facebook page and give it a boost to see how your community reacts.
#5 Call Out Your Audience in the Ad or Post Copy
If you’re scrolling through your newsfeed, you’re most likely to stop and read something that’s written specifically for you.
You’re much more likely to notice an ad that has the name of the city/town where you live within the copy. The ad seems more relevant to you.
When you’re running ads to potential customers, use the name of the city/town in your ad! It adds specificity and will catch your target market’s attention.
#6 Create An Event
Creating and running ads for a Facebook event is a great way to get people to visit your salon/spa.
Hold special events to teach people hairstyle/makeup, promote a new product or celebrate a new service.
The best part about events is that once people start to mark that they are interested or going, it will show in their friends’ newsfeeds.
PLUS… events are GREAT for word of mouth.
When holding an event, give people a reason to attend! Offer discounts or free food and giveaways, create a theme, make it a party!
#7 Offer A Discount
A great way to catch your potential customers attention is to run a free promotion or discount.
Try a value add on that will attract their attention like… ‘Bring a friend for free’, ‘$10 Gift Voucher for new customers’, ‘Get partial foils for free with a colour and style on Tuesdays’.
Even if the service is a loss leader or just covers the cost, you need to think about the lifetime value of that customer. Think seriously about what are you willing to give away for free or at a discount in order to acquire a customer?
People who are looking for a new stylist or salon will absolutely respond to the offer because it’s positioned as a promotion.
#8 Remember to Create Content That Educates Your Ideal Customer.
Creating posts that appeal to your ideal customers is ALWAYS a great way to catch their attention.
You could write a blog for your website and link to it, use Facebook instant articles, lead ads, notes, and carousels.
There is also Facebook Live, slideshows, and videos. All the tools on earth to get attention, engagement and drive traffic to your website.
Conclusion
There are many types of posts and ads that can be used on Facebook, whether you are into being techy or not.
Just getting in front of your customers, being interesting and getting their attention is the beginning. Building relationships with potential customers is the name of this social media game and with Facebook, you have an incredible tool to be relevant and specific with your ideal customer.
Use this checklist every time you post or write an ad. Did you?
- Get specific with your targeting.
- Choose the right type of post/ad.
- Use the name of the city/town in the post?
- Give them a reason to take action now with an offer?
- Give them a reason to engage with you with content?
- Educate, entertain, demonstrate or inform?
If you want to Build an Online Presence That Gets Your Salon Noticed
Join the Social Hub
There are Blogging & Branding Checklists so you can craft your salon’s brand for success, Facebook Post/Ad Templates to take the hassle out of your social media posts this week, and an Ideal Customer Worksheet to help you uncover who you want to notice your salon online.
