There are more than 2 billion monthly active users on Facebook. That makes it an excellent platform for finding new leads for your HVAC or plumbing business. But getting started with Facebook marketing can be tough if you’re not familiar with it.

That’s why we’ve put together this article. We’ll give you step-by-step instructions to help you go from nothing to leveraging Facebook so that you can start finding more leads for your company.

Let’s get started.

Understanding Facebook Marketing

There are two major types of marketing that you can do on Facebook: organic and paid. Each can help you get more customers for your business.

Organic marketing on Facebook involves using your company’s page and posts to attract new leads without paying for any ads. Paid marketing involves paying for strategically-placed Facebook ads to get your company in front of people who might not see it otherwise.

The best Facebook marketing plans use both of these strategies to attract and convert as many leads as possible. We’ll tell you how to do that below.

Why Marketing On Facebook Is Worth Doing

If you’ve never marketed on a social media platform before, you may be hesitant to get started. But advertising on Facebook is a great idea for a few reasons.

First, about 45% of global consumers turn to platforms like Facebook to connect with brands. Additionally, there are nearly 1.9 billion people who access the platform every day.

Collectively, statistics like these show that you have a great chance of connecting with people who are truly interested in what you have to offer when you advertise on Facebook.

What’s more, you can also do organic advertising on Facebook by sharing posts that your users find interesting. So you don’t necessarily need to blow your entire marketing budget on Facebook ads in order to start seeing results from being on the platform.

Step 1: Set Up Your Business Page

The first step to marketing on Facebook is creating a page for your business. You can do this, under the pages section of the Facebook home page.

You can make your business page stand out by adding the following features to it:

• A recognizable profile picture (your logo may work best)
• An engaging banner picture
• A call-to-action button that brings people to your website
• Pinning important information to the top of your page
• Pricing information in an easy-to-see location

Using Your Business Page For Marketing

You can get a lot of effective marketing done with just a solid Facebook company page. You don’t have to pay a ton of money for Facebook ads if you don’t want to.

That being said, you need to use the right strategy if you want to achieve this. So here are some ideas that you can use to turn your Facebook page into a powerful free marketing tool:

• Make sure to respond to questions and messages quickly
• Share blog posts that appeal to your target audience
• Partner with other local companies to benefit from their audiences
• Consider using a social media calendar to optimize when you share your posts

Step 2: Access Ads Manager and Choose Your Ad Objective

If you’d like to do paid Facebook marketing, the first step is opening up the Facebook Ads Manager from the drop-down arrow on the left sidebar. This is where you’ll start your first ad campaign. But before you can do that, you’ll need to pick an objective. Here are your options:

• Brand awareness
• Reach
• Traffic
• Engagement
• App Installs
• Video Views
• Lead Generation
• Messages
• Conversions
• Catalog Sales
• Store Traffic

If you run an HVAC or a plumbing business, then you’re likely going to want to select traffic or lead generation. This essentially means that the goal of your campaign will be to find leads and get them to your website.

Step 3: Name Your Campaign, Set Your Budget, and Your Schedule

The next thing that Facebook Ad Manager will ask you to do is to name your campaign. Your audience won’t be able to see whatever name you select. So feel free to choose one that will be easy for you to track. You just want to be sure that you have an easy way to differentiate your campaigns from one another if you’re going to run several at the same time.

After that, you get to set your budget and your schedule.

You can set either a monthly or a daily budget for your Facebook ad campaigns. That, and your schedule will determine how many people see your ad and when. It’s best to try and pick a time that you know your target audience tends to use the computer. For example, it may be smarter to schedule your ads for before and after the normal workday instead of during it.

Step 4: Choose Your Audience and Your Placements

Facebook Ads gives you a ton of control over how your ads get shared on the platform. At this step, you can choose between various platforms (like Instagram and Messenger) as well as various placements within someone’s feed.

If you’re not sure what will work best for your company, don’t worry. You can try a few different things and use Facebook Ads’ analytics feature to figure out which ones are worth investing the most into.

Step 5: Create Your Ads

At this stage of the process, you’re ready to start creating the ads that your target audience on Facebook will see. We’ll go over how to do that in the sub-sections below.

Types of Facebook Ads

First, it’s worth taking a second to review the different types of Facebook ads that are available to you. So here’s a look at each of them:

• Image Ads
• Video Ads
• Carousel Ads (a series of images that show the same product from different angles)
• Collection Ads (a series of images showing different products)

The specific type of ad that’s right for your business will vary. But HVAC and plumbing companies tend to do best with standard image and video ads. That’s because you’re selling your audience a service – not a series of products that you would advertise through carousel or collection ads.

It’s easier (and usually cheaper) to make image-based ads, but video ads tend to stand out a bit more. So you’ll have to figure out how much you’re willing to spend in order to decide which is right for you.

How to Create Great Facebook Ads

The efficacy of your Facebook ad campaigns will ultimately come down to how much your ads resonate with your target audience.

If you can put together ads that stand out and grab people’s attention, you should be able to get a lot out of your marketing activities on the platform. The question is, how do you do that?

Here are some tips to help you take your Facebook ads to the next level:

• Use high-resolution images to have a good first impression
• Keep your ads simple and to the point
• Make sure you have a clear call-to-action
• Put user-generated content, like testimonials into your ads
• Use A/B testing to figure out which types of ads work best for your company

Step 6: Direct Traffic From Facebook To Your Website

The goal of Facebook marketing is typically to get people to go from the social media platform to your website. You do that by creating ads that incentivize people to take this action.

There are a few different ways to incentivize someone to visit your website. You can try offering them a special deal for doing so. Or you can advertise services that are relevant to their interests.

Another idea is to share content on your website that you know your target audience cares about. For example, you could start a blog that talks about HVAC or plumbing topics that homeowners commonly search for online. You could then advertise those blog posts through Facebook.

Converting Your Website Traffic

You typically start working at converting a user once they get to your website. But that’s easier said than done. Here are some strategies to get you started:

• Put valuable content behind information gates
• Track your website analytics to see what pages give you the best results
• Create content that appeals to each unique type of customer that you have
• Reduce risk to encourage buying (for example, giving a customer a free consultation to get them started with the buying process)

Okason Software Can Help You Create a Better Website

Ultimately, you want to start getting more leads with Facebook marketing to your website so that you can convert them into paying customers. But that’s only really possible if you have a website that stands out.

It’s why you should consider reaching out to Okason Software. We provide professional-grade websites that can help you get more out of both your existing web traffic and whatever new traffic you can generate through strategies like marketing on Facebook.

Get in touch with us today to learn more about what we can do to help.