Facebook is no longer all about B2C
The received wisdom in digital marketing circles has always been that Facebook is great for B2C marketing - and stalking old schoolmates - but not really worth the effort for B2B. This attitude is based on the assumption that the majority of people don’t want to see, much less share and engage with, work-related content on Facebook. After all, it’s where most of us go to blow off steam, watch cat videos, and catch up with friends.
Consequently, most marketers choose instead to focus their efforts on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter - but they’re missing a trick. In a recent survey of B2B marketers, almost three-fifths of respondents reported that Facebook ads delivered the best ROI of any platform.
If 2016 has taught us anything, it’s that the received wisdom can’t always be trusted. With that in mind, let’s take a look at how you can buck the trend and build an effective B2B marketing strategy for Facebook.
The numbers
It almost goes without saying that Facebook is the number one social network. When computer science student Mark Zuckerberg designed ‘The Facebook’ from his Harvard dorm room way back in 2003, few could have guessed that it would eventually become one of the world’s most valuable companies. With a membership of 1.86 billion people - more than WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram combined - Facebook gives you access to an audience of truly gigantic proportions.
You could argue that membership volume is irrelevant; what really matters is engagement. Well, if it’s engagement you’re after, then consider this: Facebook accounts for more than 90% of all social sharing. Conversely, Twitter comes in at a (very) distant second, with a comparatively meagre 6%, while LinkedIn accounts for just 2.5%.
We could sit around and talk stats all day, but the headline is this: Facebook is simply too big a marketing opportunity to ignore.
Changing times
The world of digital marketing is in a constant state of flux. Although it might have a bad rep among B2B marketers, Facebook is increasingly being used for more than just idle time-wasting: it’s where people go to network, make purchases, and even find jobs.
Facebook is constantly updating its products and services in order to make itself more appealing to B2B marketers - after all, they’d rather you spent your advertising budget on Facebook than, say, LinkedIn.
Recent innovations like Facebook Marketplace have also helped to normalise the idea of Facebook as a commercial entity, paving the way for a new breed of B2B marketers who want a piece of the action.
Targeting
What makes Facebook especially appealing for B2B marketers is its sophisticated range of targeting methods. As well as the standard options like location, age and gender, you can also target people based on their education, workplace, and even job title - LinkedIn, eat your heart out.
For instance, let’s imagine that you’re the marketing manager for a small, local business that sells stationery and office supplies. You could use Facebook to target secretaries and office managers within a 20-mile radius of your office, and then serve them ads about your amazing products and low, low prices.
If you wanted to be really canny about it, you could also tell Facebook to run your ads during office hours only, when you know your audience members are in a position to buy.
Custom Audiences
When it comes to brand loyalty, B2B customers are notoriously fickle; the bottom line is always their primary concern, which means they won’t think twice about switching over to a new supplier if the price is right. That’s where Facebook’s Custom Audiences come in.
Custom Audiences allows you to use Facebook to reach out to your existing client base, which is useful for B2B marketers who want to nurture their existing clients and cultivate long-term customer loyalty.
All you need to do is upload a list of customer contacts - whether phone numbers or email addresses - and hey presto: you’ve got a bank of qualified leads just waiting to catch a glimpse of your ads.
You can take this a step further by enabling Lookalike Audiences. This powerful tool lets you target people who are similar to your existing audience, based on their demographics and interests, which helps take the guesswork out of finding potential new prospects.
Remarketing
Have you ever been followed around the internet by an ad for a product you recently viewed? That’s remarketing - and as pesky as it might seem to some people, it can yield some seriously impressive results.
In a survey by AdRoll, over 90% of marketers said that remarketing was as effective as, or more effective than, traditional digital channels such as paid search, email marketing, and general display. And the good news is, it’s now possible to remarket to people on Facebook.
To start, you’ll need to insert the Facebook ‘pixel’ (a piece of tracking code) into the backend of your website. When people navigate to your site, the pixel will place a unique cookie in their browser; the cookie then tells Facebook to serve ads - your ads - to them next time they visit.
You can also segment your remarketing audience according to which section of your site they’ve spent time on. For example, you could serve ads about pens to people who visited the pen section of your website, and paperclip ads to those who visited the paperclip section. This makes remarketing a great way of keeping your product or service top-of-mind among potential customers - or even generating sales.
To use the stationery company example again, let’s imagine that Kevin the office manager has spent the morning searching the web for great deals on printer paper; your site was one of many he viewed during his research. Later on, while browsing Facebook on his lunch break, Kevin sees your remarketing ad for discounted printer paper and orders five boxes. Congratulations! You just got yourself a sale.
The future
These are just some of the many ways you can use Facebook to reach out to your B2B customers - and as Zuckerberg and Co. refine their advertising offering, we can expect to see Facebook become an even more attractive option for digital marketers of all stripes. Whatever happens, it will be fascinating to see what the future holds for B2B marketing on the world’s largest social network.
Thanks to Ross for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. A Ross Howard is the Marketing Editor at Insights For Professionals - a unique content hub that gives you free access to the latest insights across marketing, HR, finance and more.
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