There are few places you can go without a guru scolding you for not running more Facebook ads.
The problem is a lot of business owners aren’t in a position where they need to make this move.
As a matter of fact, in my experience, it feels as though most business owners love throwing money away without seeing a return.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for investing in yourself and your business.
The huge issue is tons of entrepreneurs are wasting their money trying to learn Facebook ads.
… Forking over a few thousands of dollars a week in ad spend when you’re just starting out isn’t necessary.
This is even more true if you’re not an ads expert and you plan on running the ads yourself.
Problems With Running Ads Too Early
There are a few main problems with small business owners trying to run Facebook ads too early, and that’s what I want to touch on quickly.
– Facebook is continually changing: Not only will you have to learn how to run your advertising but you’re going to have to keep up with the newest advertising policies which change often.
– Time to learn strategy and tactics: You’re a business owner right? You have duties and responsibilities in your business that are a bit more important than spending loads of time learning an advertising tactic that changes every few months.
– They don’t care: Now, if you have the money to invest in an ads expert, you may think you’ve found a jackpot because you don’t have to spend on education and time to learn and run ads. The problem is it’s tough to see an ads expert who knows what they are doing, can get you excellent results, as well as truly understands your business.
The sad truth is you can spend years fiddling with ads trying to get it ‘just right’ or you can steamroll through these four overlooked (but extremely valuable) ways to generate leads without ads.
Sound good?
Let’s get started…
Working With Instagram Influencers
Using other peoples’ followers is one of the easiest, quickest, most affordable ways to build and profit from an influential Instagram following.
The owners of large influencer pages have spent loads of time, energy, and money into developing their followings.
The pages who don’t sell any products or services make their money via paid shoutouts, promotions, and affiliate offers.
The best part is it’s easy to get featured on these pages and get a flood of new leads when you do it the right way.
Having worked with dozens of Instagram influencers, I wish I started to do this even earlier in my career.
Here are a few key points to keep in mind when you start working on these pages.
– Make sure the followers of the page are your demographic and would be a good fit for your business.
– Follow the directions the influencer page gives you to contact them, as your message often goes unnoticed.
– Be sure to do your research and make sure the page has high engagement. Use Later.com for this.
– Include an enticing and engaging call to action, so the reader takes action.
– Have a way to capture the new leads’ information, so you’re able to follow-up and market to them.
Working with Instagram influencers has been a vital part of growing my business, and when you figure out how to do it the right way, it’s going to change your business.
The Video Story Feature
The video story feature on Instagram and Facebook is an untapped goldmine.
In the past, email marketing has been the go-to resource for marketing, storytelling, and selling your customers after you’ve built a relationship with them.
In today’s world, the video story feature is beginning to replace text-based email marketing.
Now, I’m not saying email marketing is dead, but the video story feature is an unintimidating way to build a relationship with your audience and strike up a conversation with new leads.
A video is a fantastic way to speed up the relationship building process with your audience because they’re able to connect with you quicker.
On top of that, you’re able to use direct messages to contact and connect with a lead as soon as they reach out and strike up a conversation.
Tell stories, give your audience a behind-the-scenes view of your business, expert tips, and other information they find useful.
Be sure to include a call to action for your viewers to engage with you such as comment, like, poll, reply to a question, ask a question, inquire, etc.
Incentivize Your Reader
People love to win prizes.
A great way to get new leads into your business is incentivizing your readers to take an action of some sort.
The key is to make sure you’re doing it the right way.
A common mistake I see with business owners incentivizing readers is they give them something that is utterly unrelated to whatever product or service they sell.
For example, if you sell golf equipment and give away an iPad you’re going to get a lot of people to sign or join in, right?
On the outside, this may seem like a successful campaign because you’ve acquired a boatload of new leads.
The problem is you’ve also increased the chances of acquiring new leads who don’t care about your business one bit, which defeats the whole purpose.
The goal for incentivizing readers with contests, giveaways, and special deals is to bring in more people who fit the criteria for the perfect customer.
By running these campaigns, you’re able to get your business in front of eyes you probably would have never reached if you just relied on word of mouth.
Once you get these new leads, you’re able to continue the relationship building process with your content and video story selling as I mentioned above.
Wrapping It Up
As you can see, paid advertising is just the tip of the iceberg.
I wrote this article to display three easy and profitable ways you can grow your business without dropping loads of money on advertising.
If you’ve been frustrated with running Facebook ads and aren’t seeing the return you’ve hoped for, I highly recommend starting with one of these 3 options.
Then once you’ve experienced good results, you can move on to another method in this article until you’re easily running all 3 and getting new leads.
