Recently, I’ve gotten a few requests from business owners who want help with Facebook ads. As I dig a bit more into what they are really looking for, I hear a lot of the same things:

 

  • “I have a phenomenal program, but need to get it out to my cold market.”
  • “I’ve been posting regularly on social media, which is wearing out my warm market.”
  • “I need something that will widen my reach, and bring in leads.”
  • “I basically just need help creating Facebook ads and all of my problems will be solved!”

Of course, the Agency Side is more than happy to help with Facebook ads, but I am very specific about how Facebook ads fit into a wider online marketing strategy. What I often find with clients who come to me only seeking help in this one area is that they don’t actually have effective sales funnels in place. They don’t have any real marketing strategy and they are looking for a magic bullet.

Here’s the thing, because of Black Friday and the flood of promotions on Facebook recently, ads aren’t seeing the same ROI as they had been a few months ago. While a well done ad can bring in plenty of leads, lately it has been harder and harder to get ads approved. The ones that are approved are not going quite as far as they used to. In fact, my last ad’s budget wasn’t completely utilized, because Facebook doesn’t have the real estate to run ads in a cold market that makes sense for me.

Facebook ads are not going to do all of the work for you. You’ve got to focus on some other strategies and systems first. Then you can use Facebook ads to bring people through your funnel.

Instead of pouring time and money into Facebook ads, I am strongly advising my clients to focus on getting leads through referrals and word of mouth.  This means, I am asking my clients to build exceptional programs that get results, then create structured affiliate programs to get out into their cold market.

Building an effective affiliate program requires:

A program that is extremely effective and gets clients results.

Before building an affiliate program, you have to spend time and energy making sure your services, products and offerings are more than exceptional. You need to create programs that get results. Without this as your foundation, people will come through your programs and leave without any desire to return. If your programs bring about true life transformation, people will be willing to sing your praises to all of their family and friends. Those family and friends will be far more likely to sign up for something that someone they know and love is raving about, than they will be to sign up for something they see on Facebook. If your programs change people’s lives, they will shout it from the rooftops and grow your business for you!

A structured affiliate program.

Once you’ve got an amazing program in place, with some die-hard clients, you need to create a structured way to incentivize them sharing with their friends and family. Make it worth their time by compensating them generously for their referrals. Not only will this bring more people into your programs, this will reward those who have been loyal to you. I have a very specific process I use for this through Leadpages. If you are interested in learning more about that, check out my Business Accelerator program. However there are plenty of ways to effectively set up an affiliate program. Do some of your own research. Set up something that is easy to use and clear cut for both you and your affiliates.

Reaching out to influencers.

This is not directly related to affiliates, but is another way to break into your cold market. Look for someone who has a following that is similar to your niche market. This doesn’t necessarily have to be someone who has 10,000 followers. It could be a micro-influencer: someone who has a smaller, but loyal following. Reach out to them, letting them know about your free content, and how it may be beneficial to their audience. If they are willing to share that on their social media platforms, that gets you in front of an entirely new audience, while providing value for their followers. If you bring those people through a well thought out, tight marketing funnel, you can turn these leads into your warm market, eventually converting some into clients and affiliates. I did this with an influencer recently and it brought in close to 700 leads to my email list. Do not be afraid to reach out and share your value with influencers. The worst they can do is say no, or not reply. At best, you get your brand in front of a completely new audience that is more likely to listen to an influencer they know and love, than they are to click on a Facebook ad.

Facebook ads can absolutely bring in results, but they are not a stand alone solution to all of your marketing needs. You’ve got to be willing to put in significant time building an effective program so that your current clients see amazing transformations. If you do that, you will easily be able to leverage an affiliate program to grow your business in 2017. I absolutely believe this is going to be a critical strategy for female entrepreneurs in the online space. Instead of spending your time and money on Facebook ads, make sure you have a firm foundation in place: a strong comprehensive marketing plan, a dialed in sales funnel and an amazing product. Then, we can chat about getting some Facebook ads out there for you!