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Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach and engage with target customers. However, building your email list can be very challenging. Too many marketers rely entirely on organic traffic, which may not always offer enough volume to sustain a business model.
Your email marketing strategy relies heavily on earning new subscribers through effective marketing channels. Here are some of the key benefits of using Facebook advertising to grow your email list.
1. Add sign up forms to your Facebook page
Most advertisers drive Facebook traffic to their main website. However, you can actually gain email subscribers from your Facebook page as well. Installing sign-up forms on your Facebook page and promoting it with Facebook ads is a great idea for multiple reasons:
- Facebook‘s advertising policy can be very strict and is often vague. You don’t want to worry about having your ads disapproved by promoting another site. You are less likely to violate their content policy by promoting your Facebook page instead.
- Conversion rates tend to be higher when you make the transition within your funnel as seamless as possible. The same users will be more likely to convert if you drive them to your Facebook page instead of a third-party site.
- You don’t have to worry nearly as much about optimizing your Facebook profile page. Any layout you choose will probably work, but you can always split test different themes.
- Facebook uses a quality score to determine CPCs. Ads promoting Facebook pages tend to be cheaper, because they tend to provide a great user experience.
You can use Facebook form creation tools like ShortStack to build customized forms and contests to build your email list. In addition, you can invite your email contacts to participate in your Facebook promotion. This is an easy funnel to set up, because it only takes about 30 seconds to connect your mailing list app to your Facebook business page.
2. Running contests
Polls from the Content Marketing Institute have found that 80% of marketers feel contests and other dynamic types of content have superior results. Used appropriately with other types of content, they can boost brand appeal and engagement.
“The research also revealed what type of interactive content these marketers have used. Half or more of respondents had created assessments, calculators and contests. Meanwhile, wizards and interactive lookbooks were reportedly deployed least commonly. More interestingly, CMI uncovered other valuable benefits of interactive content for content marketers. For instance, 79% of respondents agreed that this type of content can be reused and subsequently encourage repeat visits. Another 79% said that interactive content, when combined with traditional content marketing, can help strengthen their company’s message.”
Facebook is a very social website. People use it to engage with others all the time. This makes it an ideal platform to promote contests, which can have exceptional ROIs.
All contests require people to share their personal contact information, so users won’t he has a tent to fill it out. As long as your contest seems interesting and you are offering a lucrative price, your conversion rate should be excellent. Some brands promoting contests have found that their conversion rate was over 70%.
3. Promote products with discounts
Offering discounted products can be a great way to generate valuable leads. Many brands actually try to break even selling discounted products, simply so they can generate leads to upsell later. Some even offer products for free.
ClearlyContacts is Canada’s largest supplier of glasses and contact lenses. They used a Facebook campaign to promote free designer glasses.
Once a Facebook user clicked the ad, they used their landing page to collect the customers information to promote additional products later.
There are several things to take note of between their Facebook ad and landing page that increases conversion rates. This is especially important when you are promoting products using a discount or special offer because your cost per acquisition is going to be much higher.
- Make sure you are using the same ad copy that the user will see on the landing page. This includes the overall messaging or offer as well as conversions buttons. For example, Clearly is offering “your first pair of glasses free” in both the ad and landing page copy. This may seem obvious but it is often overlooked.
- Use the same call to action between both. If your ad copy says “Get the Guide” but your landing page says “Submit” the user may get confused about what they are actually getting.
- Don’t ask for too much information on the landing page. Too many form fields can annoy prospects. Make it as easy as possible for them to convert. Only ask for information you absolutely need. You can always get additional information in the future.
Using landing pages that are optimized for Facebook traffic, like those from GetResponse, will ensure higher conversion rates. Make sure those landing pages are integrated with your email marketing platform so new subscribers can automatically be put into email segments for personalized email campaigns.
4. Promoting eBooks or white papers
Facebook is an excellent platform to promote eBooks and white papers. I would argue it is even better than AdWords, because it is easier to reach a large base of customers looking for a particular solution. Many authors use it to sell their eBooks, but it can be easier to use eBooks or white paper as lead magnets.
Navid Moazzez used this strategy to promote Virtual Summit Mastery (VSM), one of his new flagship courses. His ROI was 876%.
Here are some tips for marketers that intend to incorporate ebooks and white papers into their Facebook marketing campaign.
Gauge Interest First
Estimate the number of users that are likely to have an interest in a topic before creating informational content around it. Creating an ebook or white paper can cost $3,000 or more and several months. You want to make sure that you will attract enough new leads with it to get your money’s worth.
The best place to start is by using Facebook Audience Insights. This tool will help you see how many people on Facebook meet the demographic criteria that will be interested in your ebook or white paper.
You can also try using the Google AdWords Keyword Planner. Look for keywords with a strong buyer intent such as “cheap vegan cookbooks” or “buy vegan cookbooks” to gauge the general interest. If there is a strong interest among Google users, then you should be able to reach people on Facebook too.
Hire Experts to Create Your Content
Just because your resources are free, doesn’t mean that people will download them. You need to create exceptional quality content if you want to use it to generate leads. Even if they sign up, they aren’t likely to stay on your list if you didn’t give them high quality resources. People will look at reviews, your synopsis and sample content to get an idea of what to expect from your white paper or ebook.
Some marketers repurpose content from their blog to create their informational product. This can work if the quality of your blog content is already impeccable. However, it is often better to create content from scratch. Either way, your content needs to be created by an expert. People want to read an ebook on cybersecurity from a cybersecurity professional or nutrition from a dietician. Not from a professional writer that is just syndicating content they pulled from the Internet somewhere.
Don’t skimp on price. The ROI of your content will be insane if it is high quality. You are going to get what you pay for, so look at it like an investment.
Know Your Audience’s Key Needs First
You don’t’ want to start creating content without any direction. You need to find out what your followers are looking for first. Understand their biggest concerns and pain points.
It is easy to make poor assumptions about what people are looking for in an ebook or informational product. Conduct some marketing research beforehand. You can run polls on Facebook or other digital platforms to get a better grasp of their concerns first.
Do everything that you can to address their three biggest concerns in your informational product. You will have an easier time attracting leads and you will build a stronger rapport with them after they join your email list.
Facebook Advertising is Excellent for List-Building – But Define Your Audience First!
Using carefully constructed Facebook ads and landing pages can be an excellent way to generate email leads. However, you need to refine your targeting first. Know who is most interested in what you have to offer and test different subgroups to optimize conversions. Once you target your ads properly, your ROI should be exceptional.
I recently implemented the strategies outlined in this blog post, and I must say, it’s been a game changer for my email lead conversions. Facebook ads combined with well-optimized landing pages have significantly boosted my campaign’s success. Thanks for sharing these valuable insights with us.
Email marketing plays a key role in the marketing process (even though i feel it’s an old school process). I am new to the “email marketing” process and do not know how to target people. Can provide some ways from which I can get emails of people. Awaiting your reply. Great post though. Keep writing.
I loved the part where you explained the importance of quality content and also that it should look at like an investment. Well, I am a beginner in the blogging world and still trying to set my base right with SEO. I understood that to set that base I will have to focus on providing content quality, so could help me in that respect with a few crucial pointers? Nice post. Cheers!
I’ve been struggling to improve my email lead conversions, and these 4 strategies for combining Facebook ads and landing pages are a game changer. The step by step explanations and practical tips provided here have already started making a difference in my campaigns.