This article discusses a simple, but effective, 3-step B2B facebook advertising funnel that you could implement in your business today.
Suppose you are interested in dipping your toe into the wonderful world of Facebook advertising for your B2B company. In that case, this article will give you a highly practical framework to do so.
Required Reading
This article is a direct follow on from a previous post, in which we attempted to debunk the myth that social media advertising does not work for B2B.
So if you’re thinking that to yourself right now, be sure to check out this article first.
Goals Of Social Media Advertising
2 of the primary goals of social media advertising for B2B are:
- Education of your prospects
- The positioning of your company
This simple, but effective, funnel attempts to tick those boxes whilst ultimately driving high-quality B2B leads.
The B2B Facebook Advertising Funnel
As shown below the three steps in this funnel are:
- Content
- Case Study
- Conversion / Call To Action
Below we explain each in more detail.
Step #1: Content
At the very top of the funnel, we have content.
Ideally, this is high-quality content that your company has produced, developed specifically for one of your ideal buyer personas, to hit one of their potential pain points.
Further, this pain point should have direct alignment with the problem that your company solves.
To illustrate this point and the rest of the funnel, let’s make up an accountancy firm which services small business owners, and let’s call it ‘Pennywise Accounting‘.
Pennywise Accounting could develop a series of blog articles or videos on how small business owners can take the stress and time-suck out of developing and lodging their company tax return.
After they develop this content, they use the powerful Facebook advertising platform to put this content in front of small business owners within say 30Km of their offices.
NB: Targeting small business owners is beyond the scope of this article. However, our targeting mini-series covers this in-depth.
Whilst this content might sound boring to many, for the business owner who is struggling with their tax is highly likely to engage with this specific, relevant, helpful and timely content.
By engaging with this content, they are putting their hand up as saying “I am feeling the pain of this right now”.
And what’s more, if the content is of high enough quality it will position Pennywise Accounting as an expert in the space of small business tax returns.
Step #2: Case Studies
The Facebook advertising platform allows you to retarget people who visit specific pages on your website with additional advertising.
So in step 2 of the funnel, you retarget anybody who engages with your top of the funnel content with a highly impressive and relevant case study.
This case study should be;
- Informative to the reader
- Relevant to the pain points they would like to address
- Cement your company’s position as an expert in that field
For Pennywise Accounting, in step 2 of the funnel, they use Facebook to retarget the small business owners who engaged with their ‘Small Business Tax Returns’ series at the top of the funnel.
They would do so by promoting a highly impressive and relevant case study.
For example, “How John smith’s small business saved six figures on their annual tax bill through Pennywise Accounting”.
Whoever has engaged with this case study has now read a piece of fantastic content from Pennywise and has also been shown that Pennywise can solve the problem that they have, in this case, tax return issues.
Step #3: Conversion / Call To Action
Conversion or call to action means it is time to go in for the kill.
It means asking for someone’s contact information or enquiry for the product or service you are promoting. Whilst there are many devices for getting the conversion, at the bottom of the funnel here you are retargeting those who have engaged with both your high-quality content and impressive case studies to say ‘let’s take our relationship to the next level’.
In the case of Pennywise Accounting, they could promote a landing page for their annual tax return services for small businesses.
This landing page is where they go for the ask, with a call to action that could say something like “Apply For A Free Small Business Tax Return Savings Session!”.
The best bit is that those that submit an enquiry on this landing page are a warm inbound lead.
The Most Important Variable: Content Quality
One final point is that whilst this framework is essential, one of the most significant variables of success in this is the quality of the content.
We have seen cases where the content was just so good; the company did not need steps 2 and 3 – because their clients converted at the top of the funnel.
On the other side of the coin, your ideal clients might take a lot more warming up, with more content and touchpoints at the top of the funnel.
So invest heavily in great, high-quality content to promote.
In other words; don’t pay to promote shit content!