When I think about how much this one oversight has cost me, it makes me sick to my stomach.
Let me tell you a story…
We own a laundromat in our hometown of Eau Claire, WI.
We had a spare piece of land next to another business and we wanted to do something with this lot.
So we decided a laundromat would be just the ticket.
And to be fair, it has worked out well over all the years we’ve owned it.
But . . .
A few months back my sister and I were talking and she mentioned seeing another Laundromat in our town advertising on Facebook and she wondered why we weren’t.
That hit me hard.
After all, I own a Facebook marketing company.
Why wasn’t I using Facebook to promote it?
After I thought about it for a bit, I remembered a talk we had with our accountant shortly after we opened the laundromat.
He informed us that the location of the business and a nice sign on the building were all we would need. He had never seen a laundromat advertise effectively any other way.
We took his word and the business took off, grew a few years, and stabilized.
I forgot about it.The laundromat just chugs along doing what it does within a few dollars every year.
The thing is that the conversation I mention here happening in the late 80’s.
There are more options now than ever for promoting a business and many of them don’t cost much money like you know, Facebook.
I didn’t even have to learn how to use Facebook or what strategy to use.
In an hour we had a Facebook page set up and were running our first ad.
Even for an expert, starting with nothing takes a little time.
The results we’ve gotten have astounded us and made us happy but as I look at how much money I could have made had I done this earlier… I get a little depressed too.
Here is what we did:
As our market is in a fixed location and people visit it, we are limited by what audience we can target. But on the other hand, that also makes our job easier too.
So we targeted everyone living within 5 miles of the Laundromat.
The goal, or objective, was to raise awareness that we existed.
We have used both page post engagement ads and local awareness ads.
Our budget is $5 a day and we have the ads running 4 days a week. We have tested running the ads seven days a week, and the results are just as good with 4 days.
So now we’re spending money advertising what did we get from it?
We reached over 16,000 people in our area at only a little over $2 for every 1000 people who viewed it. What’s more important is those 16k people saw the ad over 67,000 times!
That is all good you say, now what about the actual money?
Since what we’re selling can’t be bought online I don’t have the number of sales directly related to Facebook, but here is what happened with the sales:
The first six weeks our sales showed an increase of 20% over the past year.
After that, we’ve leveled off with a 10% consistent increase and this is a business that has been stable for years.
We spent about 15 minutes a week now managing the Facebook account for this business and we’re spending approximately $20 a week for a 10% increase in sales over a year.
We are returning more than a 10 to 1 return on our investment of money in Facebook.
Setting up and managing a campaign for a small local business isn’t hard.
It can be created and maintained with a small amount of time invested.
And better yet, nothing fancy needed. No Custom Audiences, or Pixels, or elaborate multi-step funnels with email autoresponder and multiple landing pages needed.
Just an engaging ad to people around the business and we’re seeing success.
If you have a local business I would give this strategy a try.
Who knows, maybe you will be the one feeling a little sick to your stomach as you look at the increase in your sales.
If Facebook isn’t bringing you a consistent stream of new customers and sales, let’s chat! In our free 30-minute Smart Facebook Marketing call, I’ll share 2-3 strategies that can help you get better results. No pressure. No obligation. Just great info. Click Here to schedule YOUR call.
Have a great day!