I’m sitting in what has become my favorite writing spot, looking back at what happened in 2019.
It has been an exciting year with many changes in the online marketing world.
In some ways, the changes have made it harder to successfully (profitably) use online marketing and in other ways, the changes have made it easier.
The days of running a Facebook or Instagram ad and having people flood to your site or business to buy products or to book your services is over.
And the cost of using Facebook and online marketing keeps increasing. While it’s still inexpensive it does cost more than it did a year ago and a year ago it cost more than the year before.
As more people jump on the bandwagon and there is limited space to sell, costs go up.
Then you get to consumers. Are they using the same or different platforms and are they willing to buy? I talk to some people who have never bought from a Facebook ad and they hate them as they feel they’re being interrupted, and I talk to others who love the ads, as they are products they want and might not have known they existed. These people buy regularly from online ads.
Many times you can get in front of your customers inexpensively, but they aren’t willing to buy on a particular platform.
What’s a business owner to do?
First:
Have a plan. It’s more important than ever that you know what you want to achieve. After all, you can’t reach your destination if you don’t know where you’re going.
“Begin with the end in mind.” Stephan Covey
Second:
You need to understand and keep up with the changes happening on the platforms you’re using, or one of your staff, or you need an outside expert to help you. It’s easy to have a campaign that’s working and let it go, but with changes Facebook makes, what worked last month, may not continue to perform at the same level. Someone needs to be watching this for you or it could cost you $1000s of dollars.
The one thing that is constant is change.
Third:
You’re going to have to be more creative with the targeting options you use to reach the people you want to reach. While there are thousands of targeting options available, some of the old favorites are no longer available. It’s still possible to find these people, but it takes more research and testing to find them.
Facebook continues to get blamed for knowing too much about us. As marketers, it’s a valuable asset to have access to this, but pressure from the public and the government can reduce how much we have to use.
Fourth:
You’re going to have to trust the Algorithm to get you the results you want. In the past, the algorithm didn’t know as much and didn’t work as well. Over the past year, this is changing. Once you show the algorithm what you want and who you want to target, it goes to work finding these people. As long as you told the algorithm who you wanted and what you wanted them to do accurately it will find them for you.
One of the changes that come from this is that Facebook wants larger audiences to work with. In the past, I used to recommend audiences of 500,000 to 2,000,0000 when you were doing lead generation advertising. Now we have audiences up to 20,000,000 working and we find anything under 2,000,000 isn’t working as well.
For those of us who like to control everything, this is an uncomfortable change.
Fifth:
Video is continuing to gain popularity and to get results. This is a trend that started several years ago that continues to accelerate.
Live video, while effective, isn’t as common. Maybe that’s because Facebook realized that the average person doesn’t want to be live on video. They prefer recorded so they can edit or redo the video if they make a mistake.
The more that people can see and hear us the more of a connection they feel for us an the more likely they are to take action.
If you’re selling a product having the product as the star works great. Many eCommerce sellers get results from videos of their products.
Get used to being on camera.
Sixth:
Following Facebook’s rules is imperative. While we might wish they weren’t there, they are. If we disobey them even unknowingly, we will get our accounts shut down.
The flip side is if we follow the rules and create ads Facebook approves of, our results will improve. Facebook is looking for businesses that want to be part of the community and they want you to succeed with your ads. That way you’ll spend more money with them.
Final thoughts:
One of the items that have remained constant since I started using Facebook over ten years ago is change is a given, embrace it.
When I review what we did back then and what was common practice, I’m amazed. First of how little we could do and second what Facebook allowed.
If we did many of the activities now that were allowed in 2011 and 2012 our accounts would be shut down.
In 2029 I may look back and see that what we did in 2019 and 2020 aren’t allowed, but as long as the platform continues to provide profitable results we’ll still be promoting our products and services on it.
Have a great day!
Brian “Looking Forward to 2020” Hahn
P.S. if you’re looking to add online marketing to your business in 2020 or want to move to the next level with Facebook and online marketing schedule a call with me. We’ll look at your business talk about YOUR goals and I’ll give you my recommendations. Go to www.gosocialexperts.com/callbrian30 to schedule a time. I guarantee that you’ll get at least three ideas you can implement right away from our call.