Market, Scale, Grow: Facebook Ad Marketing Strategy for Teacherpreneurs

181 | Being Selective with FB Ads: Smart Strategies For Running Ads

• Jenzaia • Episode 181

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Ever wondered if you're wasting your time and money on Facebook ads? Learn how to make smart choices in creating your marketing plan.  Do you even need to be running ads?


In this episode of Market Scale Grow, we'll cover...
✨ the absolute basics to cover before even considering ads
✨ 3 things to have in place to ensure success beyond your ads
✨ the exact types of ads I recommend you run


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Market Scale Grow. I'm your host, inzea, and this is a Saturday Strategy Session. Hello, happy Saturday. I am super excited to be here with you today.

Speaker 1:

Let's jump in to being selective with Facebook ads. I'm going to take this in three different ways. So the first one is being selective. Maybe it's two different ways, like if you should be running ads or not, and I'm going to talk about my own personal opinions about whether or not everyone should be running ads, other opinions that I've heard out there and why I agree or disagree with them. And then the second thing we'll talk about is questions you can ask yourself to know if you're ready or I guess more like a checklist to know that you're ready to run ads. And then, last, we'll talk about being selective with the ads you're running so that when you are ready to run ads, how to know that you're running the right ads. So let's dive in.

Speaker 1:

There are quite a few content creators, quite a few Facebook ads gurus, if you will that. Previously, I will be completely honest and I have intentionally unfollowed and stopped listening to their podcasts and their social media because I found it was clouding my thoughts and I just didn't want that. So I have intentionally disconnected from other Facebook ad gurus, with the exception of a Facebook community like Facebook group that I'm in for ads managers. I was in the ads manager school and it's like the community of graduates of that. So I am still part of that. I still interact with them or like read and follow that quite closely, but otherwise I have really really disconnected and it's been good for my like creative juices and my independence and really building the thoughts that I have. And I highly recommend that if you are getting confused of whose ideas are in your head, then to just be selective. And if you're starting to question your own thoughts and this probably is is what really happened to me is I started questioning my own thoughts and if they were mine or if I was wrong for thinking them because other people were saying other things. And so one of the things that other gurus say or previously have said I've no idea if they're still there is that you should run ads right away, as quick as you can get ads turned on, and I've never really like that idea, has never really sat well with me, because I think that there is a lot of good in building your business organically first, and I do think most people, especially in the teacher business world, wait too long to start ads. But I don't think they need to get started immediately and my reason for that is mainly how beneficial the organic piece can be. Yes, it takes significantly longer, but that group of people, that community of people that you build organically, is going to be so much stronger and so much like better quality than if you start with an ads based audience and I'm not saying that in general. An ads based audience is is not as good quality. It's just initially. And my reason for that is most of us don't really know exactly who we're helping or how we're helping immediately. Know exactly who we're helping or how we're helping immediately.

Speaker 1:

I knew I wanted to do Facebook ads but I didn't really know what that looked like initially and what the questions people would have. I started with teacher business owners but I had full intention of branching off and then I tried and I did a little bit of dabbling and I have definitely had clients outside of the teacher business world. But I just always come back to this, the space. I love helping teacher business owners, I love working with other teachers and so this space has really called me back multiple times.

Speaker 1:

When I was first starting, I was way wishy-washy on who I was helping. I was pretty sure I was going to run Facebook ads, but I didn't know how, I didn't know what my packages were going to be, I didn't know what would be included or what wasn't included or any of those little pieces, and it makes it really really hard to create an offer, whether a free one or a paid offer, if you don't know who you're speaking to and you don't know what you're trying to sell. Again, I'm using sell, like what you're trying to sell, whether it is an organic or sorry, whether it's a free sale, quote, unquote, or a paid sale, I would still consider it. You're selling your freebie because you do need to do some convincing to get people to exchange their email address for that free thing. You're selling your freebie because you do need to do some convincing to get people to exchange their email address for that free thing.

Speaker 1:

And so I think that it is really important to at least initially build your audience prior to running ads a little bit. That is going to give you time to figure out how you're serving people and who you're serving, and I don't subscribe to the belief that every single person needs to have a well-defined, very specific niche, and I don't believe that everyone has to have a very specific way that they help people. I think that different businesses are going to have different models that they run, and so some will have a very specific niche like I serve teacher business owners and they will also have a very specific specialty I run Facebook ads but others are going to be more general, like I have a couple friends who are VAs for teacher business owners and they do a whole bunch of different things. And then I also know, like people I've worked with, who do like podcast services or VA services or editing services for business owners typically female business owners but they don't really have a very, very specific niche. And all of these people that I'm referring to have highly successful businesses.

Speaker 1:

And so what is important before you start running ads is that you've dialed in your messaging and you know how to get people interested in what you're offering. You know how to get people to convert. So, whether it's for that freebie, that means you know how to get people to convert. So, whether it's for that freebie, that means you know how to get people to sign up, or it's something paid, you know how to get people onto your like to buy the thing. That's the really, really important thing, which means you need to have converted some people already. Again, I know that it is more time consuming to do it this way and that, especially at the beginning of the business, everything can feel really, really hard and ads might feel like an easy solution of if I just throw some money at it, it'll go faster. Yes, absolutely. You'll bring in more traffic and you'll see what's working, what's not working. You can make updates and changes, but the people who find you organically are going to be your, your raving loyal fans, and they are going to rally around you and they are going to grow with you, and that there's something just amazing and powerful with that. So I don't subscribe to the belief that everyone needs Facebook, running Facebook ads running from day one. If you choose to go that way, I'm not saying it's the wrong choice. I just don't think that every single business needs to go that direction. So, with that being said, how do you know when it is time to run Facebook ads?

Speaker 1:

If you've listened to any of my more popular episodes, episode 44 is a really great one. It's all about the holistic marketing braid and I talk about my holistic marketing strategy again and again. There's three strands to this strategy, and the reason why I refer to it as a braid is because these three strands overlap on each other and build together to make a really strong foundation to your strategy. So if you think about a braid, you're layering the strands over top of each other and each individual strand is going to be stronger once they're part of the braid. So the first strand and the first thing that I really highly recommend you have in place before you're running Facebook ads is some sort of content marketing strategy. It can be a podcast, it can be a blog, it can be video content, some sort of long-form content that you are using to nurture people once they found you, once they've figured out who you are and that you're the right person for them, that there is some content like this podcast right here that they can digest. So do you have long-form content available? It doesn't need to be a ton, maybe like three to five posts at least, and then a plan to be consistently putting out additional content going forward, because when someone finds you, especially someone finds you through a Facebook ad and they haven't heard of you any other way. They're going to want to see that you're a reliable source of information and that your business is currently active and alive and flowing. So make sure that you have some sort of strategy in place, that you are putting out new content, whether it's weekly, bi-weekly or monthly, that there is some consistent content coming out while you're running ads.

Speaker 1:

Number two on the checklist and part of the holistic marketing strategy, is your email marketing. This is even more important if the type of ads you're running are lead generation ads. But no matter what ads you're running, you need to be doing email marketing if you're running ads, so this is sending out emails I would highly recommend that it's on a weekly basis, but again, bi-weekly or monthly can be a good option if that's the frequency that you can be consistent. It's extremely important, if you're running Facebook ads to grow your email list, that you are emailing people because you don't want to be emailing them inconsistently and they don't know who you are or paying to get them on your email list and then completely ghosting, because if you're not consistently sending out emails, they'll forget who you are, they'll find someone else to find to fill the gap or they will just unsubscribe when you do send an email, because they will have no idea how and they might even feel like, oh, this is spam or how did they get my email address? Because 90% of people won't remember you, unfortunately, if you're not sending out consistent content. If, when they get onto your email list, they sign up for your freebie, you send out five to ten emails as part of that welcome sequence and then have consistent weekly emails going out after that, they are much more likely to remember who you are because your name has shown up in their inbox consistently ever since they signed up for your newsletter. So check number two on the list of if you should, if you're ready to run ads, is do you have a consistent email marketing strategy up and running and then strand?

Speaker 1:

Number three of the holistic marketing strategy, and also number three on our checklist, is your community building strategy. This is likely going to be your social media platform. Whether it's a Facebook group, instagram, tiktok, some other platform that I haven't heard of yet, it doesn't really matter to me. However, I will say that if you're running Facebook and Instagram ads, I do recommend that it is either Facebook or Instagram where you're showing up or that you're repurposing your content. So if TikTok is your jam but you want to be running Facebook and Instagram ads, repurpose those TikToks onto Instagram, which is pretty easy to do. Yeah, highly highly recommend that you have a social media presence, because those ads are going to be showing up in people's social media feeds and one of the things people do is click on your username like the username that's in the ad to go see your profile. And if you have nothing in your profile or it's one of those nine grids or you haven't posted since last November, that's a problem.

Speaker 1:

You need to be showing up consistently, similar to the long form content. You need to have a consistent presence so that people know that you're a legitimate business and that you're still active and you're still alive and that you are still in this game. Ads can do a lot of the work, but there needs to be that presence that recent, current presence on social media, so that people have that trust and know that they can rely on you. I don't mean that you need to be posting five times a day or even daily, just a couple times a week, maybe updating your stories again, just so that people know that you're alive and that things are going well when they click on the ad because they will. They will click on your name, especially on Instagram, before they click on the link to go wherever you want them, they will click on your name and go see your Instagram profile. So this is really, really important. So now, if you have your content marketing strategy in place, you have your email marketing strategy in place, you have a social media presence. You're building your community. You can go check, check, check. Yup Gen Za, I've got all those things down, perfect, great, super excited.

Speaker 1:

You could choose to start running ads at this point. A couple other things that I would factor in is what is your business model? Are you running a one-to-one model? So I, my business, has a one-to-one model where I work individually with clients through strategy sessions, through providing Facebook ad services, by doing consulting. So do you have a one-to-one business? Or do you have a one-to-many business where you're one person teaching many at the same time? So this could be a group program, it could be masterminds, it could be a course those two you're much more likely to need ads to propel your business forward.

Speaker 1:

If you have a one to many model my business with the Dreamlist Essentials on the regular I needed to be running ads to continue growing my email list at a rapid pace because your list is only so big and if you're not growing your list and you have a one-to-many model, eventually probably sooner than you think you will exhaust that list. People that I work with actually everyone you will exhaust that list. People that I work with actually everyone. All of my current clients have one-to-many models. They're not doing one-to-one services. I very infrequently work with people who have one-to-one models because the client demands. The number of clients you need is so much lower so you can typically wait longer to start ads if you have a one-to-one model for your business than if you have a one-to-many If you're.

Speaker 1:

Again, if you're running a one-to-many business, the sooner you start ads probably the better because it will help to grow and propel your business forward faster. But you still need to make sure you have those three things in place. First, the content marketing content marketing, email marketing and community building strategies. If you want a deeper dive into that, I already said it, but go check out episode 44. I'll link it in the description so that you can see and so you can easily like flip to it. It goes into into the three pillars in more detail and it's the very first podcast episode I did about it, so it's one of my favorites still, even 100 plus episodes later. So you're ready to run ads.

Speaker 1:

Now let's talk about being selective with the ads you're running. 80 to 100% of your budget should be on lead generation ads, growing that email list because of the value it provides. You own your email list. Make sure you're downloading it. Download that CSV file in case anything happens. But you own that email list. It's yours to market to, to use as a tool for your business. Those are your people, those are your warmest leads, your warmest audience. So growing your email list is going to be the best thing that you can do, the best place you can spend money by far, and I don't think it really matters what type of business you have, whether it's a course based business, a mastermind based business, a product based business.

Speaker 1:

I work with tpt sellers. Growing their email list is essential. I work with course creators. Growing email list is essential. I have also worked with teacher business owners that have memberships. Growing the list is essential. With teacher business owners that have memberships, growing the list is essential.

Speaker 1:

It is so, so, so important to be growing your email list and I highly recommend that the majority like I said, 80 to 90% of your budget is spent on lead generation ads. There's a couple reasons for that. Number one your email list is going to grow and so, especially as you're first getting started and you're not 100% sure what ads are going to look like and what they is going to grow, and so, especially as you're first getting started and you're not 100% sure what ads are going to look like and what they're going to do, knowing that you're growing your email list can be a very positive feedback. You're paying money to get people on your list and you're seeing your email list grow. It's an easier ad to run than a sales ad and so it's easier to get it working and to get it working well, and so you can feel that the endorphins kick in, if you will, that there's success, and that's really important. It also is really important because it helps you to build your confidence in running ads because, again, it is a bit easier.

Speaker 1:

There's a little bit less technicality to running lead generation ad than running a sales ad. You need less, fewer landing pages, you need fewer thank you pages and typically you'll need fewer different programs and softwares that you're working with and making things talk. If you're running a lead generation ad, it is typically significantly easier to get started with, and many businesses can succeed exclusively on lead generation ads and nothing else. This is because they are going to be doing all of that sales marketing on the back end through emails, through promotions that they're running to their email list and to their warmest followers, and they never need to use ads to close the sale. That's something that's taken care of through the email list, through the emails that are going out weekly, or if you have a focus sales period like a launch or a challenge or a webinar or whatever, it might be right.

Speaker 1:

The second ad that you can add in, if you would like to expand, would be what I would consider a nurture ad. These are ads that you're going to run to your long form content to get people to engage with the that long form content. These work really, really well. With the lead generation ads, you can send like a podcast episode, for example, out to cold audiences asking them to do nothing except listen as soon as they've listened to or engaged with the ad in any way. So like it, comment on it, click on the link to go listen to the podcast, whatever it might be.

Speaker 1:

Once they've engaged with the ad, then they start seeing your lead generation ads so you can get them on your email list. But having them listen to the podcast is a very low ask, like it doesn't take much of them. They don't need to give you an email address. There's nothing that they need to do except spend a bit of their time and hopefully you're picking an, a podcast episode or a blog post, whatever is that is going to be highly valuable to them, so they're not wasting their time. They're walking away with something powerful and then, after they've engaged with it, they see the lead generation ad that you already have up and running and then they are on your email list.

Speaker 1:

You can also run these ads to warm audiences people who are already on your email list, in case they haven't heard the podcast episode or read the blog post, in case they did a long time ago. Like I'm at episode 180 something and I keep talking about episode 44. Even if you've been listening all this time and you listen to episode 44 you might have even listened to it a couple times I doubt that you have a specific, like word for word, memory of what it said and so, so you could go back, re-listen to it and take something new away from that, which is why it's great to reuse that content from last year or the year before to further nurture your warm audience. So those nurture ads can go in two directions to cold audiences to bring them in to your world, and also to warm audiences to keep them engaged further, nurture them and move them towards the sale. Which brings me to the last ad that I recommend you put in place, and actually I run these ads very, very infrequently.

Speaker 1:

These are sales ads and I would only put these in place for short periods of time for a focused selling. So if you're doing a launch after a challenge or after a webinar, or if you have a summit and you want to have a focused sales period, or if you have a TPT product and, like, halloween is coming up so I have a couple of clients who are starting to run ads for Halloween products, right, of clients who are starting to run ads for Halloween products, right, you have a very short period of time focused selling. I do not recommend running sales ads consistently ongoing. I don't recommend running sales ads to cold audiences. This is what I'm talking about being selective with those ads, thinking about where the best place to spend your money is and, hands down, it's going to be those lead generation ads. So, if you're not sure, put the money towards lead generation ads, call it a day. It can be a freebie download, it can be a webinar, it can be a challenge, it can be a summit registration, it can be a small ticket offer, as long as you're getting people's email addresses. That is the main goal and if you are running ads, that's what I recommend.

Speaker 1:

So, to recap, because this episode is getting pretty long, it's been a while since I've had an episode go over 25 minutes, so I'm really excited about, but also time to time. To wrap it up as a recap, we chatted about my own personal opinion. Not everybody actually most people shouldn't be running ads from day one of their business. You need to figure out who your audience is first. You need to figure out what you're doing first. Get that messaging figured out so you can speak directly to people. We also talked about the three things you need in place before you run ads. That's a content marketing strategy, an email marketing strategy and a relationship or community building strategy. So that's your social media. And then, last but not least, we talked about being selective once you do start running ads and how to select what ad, what type of ad, to run. My recommendation, hands down, every single time, is to run the lead generation ads. So thank you so much for being here. I'll be back in your ear next saturday with a brand new saturday strategy session.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to this episode of Market Scale Grow. Every week on Saturdays, we release a new Saturday strategy session, sometimes with amazing guests, and I'm so thankful that you've taken some time out of your busy schedule to make me part of your journey. If you love this podcast, don't forget to share it with your friends and then head to your favorite podcast app to subscribe part of your journey. If you love this podcast, don't forget to share it with your friends and then head to your favorite podcast app to subscribe so that you won't miss next week's episode or any of the upcoming ones. And if you loved it, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts so that other people can find this podcast and we can impact teachers and teacher business owners around the world. Thank you so much for listening and I'll be back in your ears next week with another Saturday strategy session.