It has been a common belief that LinkedIn Ads outperform Facebook ads when it comes to B2B lead generation campaign effectiveness. B2B marketers, daunted by the huge presence of B2C brands on Facebook, have traditionally allocated a significantly large chunk of lead generation dollars to LinkedIn ads and even Twitter ads, over Facebook with a summary assumption that Facebook is only effective for B2C companies. Many large B2B corporation have shunned Facebook altogether for commercial advertising and left Facebook strategy in the hands of the Corporate Communications group.
While a lot of those assumptions are already incorrect, from my personal experience in being able to generate viable ‘new name’ leads from Facebook in the past, it came at the expense of investing in very tight integration with Facebook, allowing a smooth transition from ad-click to form submission. Integration that actually helped us increase Facebook ad conversions up to 15%.
BUT FACEBOOK JUST MADE IT EASY FOR EVERYONE ELSE…
Have you discovered Facebook Lead Ads?
If you read my last post on Social Retargeting, I presented an analogy about how social re-targeting ads need to be created with the ‘grocery store checkout lane‘ mindset. One of the most important things is to reduce FRICTION in the registration process.
All my lead generation campaigns follow the basic principles defined in this (slightly cryptic) formula
I believe Facebook Lead Ads, by virtue of keeping the prospects experience completely on Facebook, will be able to increase conversions significantly by:
- Lowering Friction (F – Complexity): Since the registration form and action happens right in Facebook, it reduces complexity and will significantly increase the chances of people filling in the rest of the information.
- Lowering time commitment (F – Commitment): The fact that you can go right back to your social activities on Facebook after you fill in your information to show your interest for a product or service will prompt more people to click on ads they find interesting.
With out-of-the-box integration support for Marketo and Salesforce, this technology is perfectly poised for smart marketers who can combine other conversion optimizer principles with this to make a major impact.
As you jump into Lead Ads, just be aware that the basics of social selling is still going to be of paramount importance in your success. And one of the hurdles you will face as a B2B marketer is that the information you get may not be complete or correct enough to hand over to your sales team directly.
Here are my TOP TIPS for using Facebook Lead Ads in conjunction with some traditional digital marketing techniques to create an effective Net New Lead Generation funnel in a B2B scenario:
- It’s all about reducing Friction and lowering Commitment…to Maximize conversion.
- Make sure you are Not asking people to register for a High Commitment item like a Free Trial of your business software or to attend a 30 minute+ Webinar
- Reduce (F – Friction) by keeping the number of questions on your lead ad form to a Maximum of 5.
- It’s a good idea not to ask for the default Email Address and select Work Email and Work Phone instead.
- Increase the prospects (M – Motivation’) to convert by making sure your Context Card has an Attractive Image.
- Try to define a valuable Time Bound (I – Incentive) to this image to make the user take the action Now!.
- Clarify your (V – Value Proposition) by using Bullets in place of a text blurb to explain the value prop.
- Make sure that the CTA Button defines a Specific Action like Download Paper or View Video.
- Remember, you will not have automatic Data Validation with services like Demandbase but don’t let this deter you.
- Once the user has registered, use the company information and tools like Informatica REV to blend data from services like Demandbase and Dun & Bradstreet and other business databases to create a complete business profile of your lead and update your CRM records.
- A word of caution: you may not want to push lead ads directly into your CRM system without doing the above the step first to prep the data for appropriateness.
- Once these leads are in your CRM system, use ‘Progressive Profiling Forms’ and nurture emails to ask these new leads to give you the additional information you need.
- A simple way to do that is to offer valuable items like Free Trial software or a chance to enter a ‘Giveaway’ to these leads by just asking for 1 or 2 more pieces of information (e.g., Job Title, Department, Business Need).
- Progressive profiling software like Gigya can be very useful in this use case to create a low friction environment to convert these leads into full blown enterprise contacts.
- Facebook lead ads will be a great way to expose your brand to a brand new audience.
- As you generate ‘Net New’ names from your Facebook lead ads, don’t sit on your laurels.
- Run regular targeted banner ads leading to progressive profiling forms to get more people from these ‘Net New (brand new companies)’ accounts to register for similar products that the original registrant showed interest in.
- Why not just use more lead ads for expanding your depth in new accounts? Well lead ads will be great to get brand new names, but there is a lot of extra work associated with those leads to make them complete and valuable. Use lead ads to discover interest in new companies and then go after those companies with proven Account Based Marketing techniques to expand your presence in that account.
True social selling is using a combination of social and traditional tools at your disposal to maximize the lead generation and brand engagement quotient of every marketing dollar in your war chest.
Till next time…
Ciao!