Social Media Ads can be an effective way for service businesses to connect with their ideal customers, here are five ways to use them correctly.
If you’re a service-based business, the right approach to advertising online can feel overwhelming and downright frustrating. You may not be getting the calls and leads you want from your current marketing strategy, but social media advertising can be an effective way to help you generate the results you want. Let’s dive into why this is the case and some best practices and suggestions for advertising your service business on social media.
1. Adapt for Your Consumer Buying Journey
If you’re responsible for delivering a service, having a great web presence and online reputation is important to your prospective customers. Consumers want to feel comfortable and confident when purchasing from a company. These buyers typically spend more time thinking about their purchase decision, so it’s important to have the right reputation offline and online. Potential customers may take some time to check out multiple businesses, look at websites and reviews, ask friends and family for recommendations, compare prices, and more. With social media advertising, local companies, as well as national companies, can effectively remind people of their services and convert more interested leads.
What are the things they consider in their decisions to purchase?
What are your USP’s and stand-out features vs other options or competitors?
These are the messages that can be highly effective in some simple remarketing ads.
2. Actively Manage Your Social Media Accounts
While the days of it being easy to gain organic reach may be gone, there is still an important function of your socials if you run ads: if a user sees your ad, they’re likely to click on it to get a sense of who you are. If your presence is dull with a few status updates, no responses to posts, and negative reviews – chances are high they’ll move on. Think of your Page as your storefront that people are walking by.
What do you want them to see?
It’s essential to simply like positive comments and address any negatives if any. It’ll probably take just a few minutes of your time, but it clearly shows they care about their audience and are willing to help. Make sure all your business information is complete, and post regular updates (e.g., tips, offers, specials, photos) so users will form a positive view of your business at first glance. Make sure to respond to reviews and comments you receive on your posts or pages. It shows users you are there, the lights are on, and someone is actively managing the business presence!
3. Get Results: Choose Your Goal Wisely
While Social Media ads look a lot like display ads and work to grow brand awareness and interest from users, many campaigns can generate tangible results for a service business. Selecting a campaign goal that can capture leads, have people contact you via Messenger, or drive web or in-person visits can help you generate inquiries and leads.
You can also pair that with the Offer feature to give potential customers a deal they can save and redeem. This could help them decide between you and your competitors or push them over the decision line on trying your service if they never have. Users tend to like to stay on a social platform when they’re there, things like Lead Generation goals or Message goals can help potential customers communicate with you without the friction of having to go to your site and contact you there.
4. Target Ads to Your Ideal Consumers
There are a lot of powerful targeting capabilities out there, this can make it a challenge to decide exactly what’s best for your advertising campaign. Start by getting back to basics and understanding who your target audience is. For a home-service business, there are a few key consumer demographics and targeting tactics to think about:
Where Your Customers Live
First, a local service provider should determine the ideal geographic area to target, looking at your typical service area and how far you’re willing to stretch that area is the first step in targeting your Facebook ads to local prospects. Facebook allows you to choose one or more locations to target. it can include specific postcodes or a radius around a specific location, a city, or a country.
Desired Demographics
Many advertising programs allow you to show your ad to users with specific demographics or desired traits. For example, if your services have a higher cost, such as pool installation, you might want to target interests such as swimming.
You can also select an age range – such as users over the age of 18 – specific interests and more to find that sweet spot of your ideal customer.
Relevant Niche Demographics
Users that provide information like their life events can be a goldmine for service providers, for instance, if you are a lifestyle photographer who wants to reach people who have recently gotten engaged or had a baby, you can do so if they’ve provided that information. This enables your ads to show only to people who have an actual use for your services and may already be in the market.
You can also exclude certain users based on their demographics, interests, and more if they’re outside your target audience, and you don’t want your ads to show to those users.
Retargeting & Custom Audiences
If you’re already getting many visits to your website, you can opt to retarget them to remind them of your business, however, if you’re using Social Media to drum up a new business, one of the best ways to do this is to target ads to the people who are most likely to work with you. This can include your current clients, people who have previously contacted you, newsletter subscribers, and others who haven’t purchased for one reason or another.
You can also leverage lookalike audience features, which use its data to create a list of new prospects that “look like” the people on your list and target them with your ads.
While there are a vast number of targeting options available, you don’t want to narrow your audience too much, as this could severely limit the amount of engagement with your ads and drive up your costs.
