Ideas
The Law of the Lever:
Using Your Audience’s Enthusiasm to Catapult Reach
“Ads are too expensive!”
“You’ll never reach enough people to have any kind of meaningful impact!”
… or so some would have you believe.
The truth is that your CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) on Facebook advertising can vary greatly, and there’s a number of things you can do to give yourself a leg up in the auction process.
Facebook’s number 1 priority is to foster an environment of meaningful engagement on the platform. Studies have shown this leads to healthier, happier users (who are likely to stick around on the platform for years to come).
So, what does this mean for us?
If you can create content that is both meaningful and engaging, Facebook will reward you handsomely with increased reach.
I recently worked with Ice Kart Racing, a local business in Minnessota who were looking to create excitement about their brand new track.
Through thoughful editing, minimalist copy and a spirit of engagement, we were able to reach a whopping 4.2 million people and get over 150,000 engagements on the video.
Scroll on to find out how we did it!
The Process
1) The Video
The client was able to provide a 5 minute video of customers engaging in ice karting for use at the top of funnel. We tested both 15s and 30s edits of this video, with 15s getting the better engagement right off the hop.?The key to the edits was finding a 15 second portion of the video which told what I’ll call a “micro-story”.
Our brains are constantly looking at the world and categorizing things into narratives. First this happened, then that happened, and the end result was this. It helps us make sense of the world and keep our thoughts organized.
Even when using 15 second long videos, try to encapsulate a narrative. So, for example, instead of just showing random clips of people playing archery tag, show someone hiding behind a corner, then emerging to tag an unsuspecting opponent, only to then get tagged themselves.
These types of micro-stories are more satisfying to the viewer and more likely to get reactions, comments and shares.
2) The Copy
It is crucial, at the top of the funnel specifically, to not scare off potential customers. People love discovering new, exciting things (especially when they’re bored, killing time on social media), but they’re not too keen on being SOLD things by people they don’t know.
The goal here is to invoke curiosity. Make the prospect want to know more. If your product or service has value to them, they will figure out how to learn more. Either way, they’re in your retargeting funnel. Try not to let the fear of letting them go cause you to scare them off with CTAs.
Speaking of which, there was no CTA used on this campaign. No “buy now” button. Not even a headline. Simply the video, and one line of copy which invoked curiosity… “Who’s ready for ice karting?!”
3) Targeting
This couldn’t have been simpler: we targeted folks in my client’s state and surrounding states who had shown an interest in Kart Racing and similar activities. We used CBO to distribute the budget, but gave each ad set a minimum spend to make sure each interest got a fair shake.
Often when targeting interests with a video view objective, the algorithm may favour one gender over the other. Be sure to create a separate ad set specific to each gender. We were very pleasantly surprised to find how interested women were in our activity, even though Audience Insights suggested it was men who were our ideal audience.
4) Response
To our surprise, messages started pouring into our inbox right from day one. Hundreds of them. People wanted to know where, when and how they could book their spot. It was phenomenal. We put a comment on our own post thanking folks for their interest and inviting them to DM us their email and location.
We now have a spreadsheet with over 1,500 leads in my client’s state who have shown a serious interest in visiting the track.
The post has 155,000 reactions and comments and approx 22,000 shares. This has catapulted our reach to over 4.2 million people.
All of this was generated over 10 days for a total ad spend of ~$500.
We’re anticipating an extremely successful launch later this month.
The bottom line is, (if possible) keep things fun, tell a micro-story and try to avoid people feeling like they’re being sold to at the top of the funnel. It’s incredible what can happen when you get the audience on your side.
Ready to take your Facebook and Instagram Advertising to the next level?
Schedule a free call with me today!
Milo
