There are countless strategies which you can use to generate leads for your practice.
You can create a magazine ad, get on the radio, and pay for spots on local TV. While these methods may work, they’re hard to track and are usually expensive to get started.
Though cost is a factor, it’s not the only problem with these marketing channels. Another thing to take into consideration is the inability to tweak an ad or marketing campaign if it’s performing poorly.
In this article, we’ll look at a few of the many benefits of Facebook marketing for lead generation.
Facebook marketing for lead generation is cheaper
Traditional advertising channels like radio, newspapers, and magazines haven’t kept up with the times. It’s become more expensive to use them and circulation is down year after year.
Take the Oprah Magazine as an example. It’s a widely distributed and respected publication with an approximate readership of 2,436,000 people every month. A full-page black and white advert has an estimated cost of $118,240. For every 1,000 people that see your ad (CPM), it’ll cost about $49.
We can assume the cost for a half page ad is 50%-60% of that amount which will give you a CPM of roughly $25.
Compare that to Facebook, which had a median CPM of $9.82 in 2018. The bottom line is that to reach the same number of people with magazine advertising, you’ll pay about 5x more.
Keep in mind this is the median which means many people are getting the same results for much less. With properly optimized ads on Facebook, you may be able to get these impressions for less than $5.
With a magazine, it doesn’t matter if your ad is great or horrible, you pay the same amount.
You’re also able to utilize Facebook without paying for ads. It’s possible to make Facebook pages, groups, and otherwise interact with potential clients by investing your time or hiring a firm to do it.
The icing on the cake with Facebook marketing is that if something isn’t working you can turn it off, test different variations, or target different users in a matter of minutes. You can’t do that with magazines, TV, or radio.
Can instantly spread ads to multiple platforms
Facebook has a much larger reach than many people realize. Yes, there’s the main website but they also have apps such as Instagram and Facebook Messenger.
Instagram has higher engagement than almost every other social media platform and over 600 million of their users are 25 – 64 years old. The beauty of it is that 91% of the people who use Facebook also use Instagram.
In addition to those two powerful platforms, it has a network of partner websites (it’s officially called the audience network) where you can push your ads and continue to get in front of your prospects.
It’s often said a prospect has to see your message multiple times before they’ll take action on it.
Facebook has a feature called retargeting. In a nutshell, it’s the ability to show another message to someone who’s visited your website, interacted with your posts, or has taken one of your desired actions.
This is where Facebook’s massive reach comes in handy. You’re able to continually show the same people relevant messages and valuable content. This process drives down the cost per lead and creates a positive impression in the minds of your prospects.
The Large Pool of Facebook Users
You may have already guessed this but Facebook is massive. There’s a reason it’s worth billions of dollars.
Worldwide, it has 2.32 billion monthly active users (MAU) and 1.15 billion daily mobile users. In the United States, it has 220 million users and that number is estimated to increase by 3 million users over the next few years.
Instagram is no slouch either. It has over 1 billion MAU worldwide and is expected to pass 110 million MAU in The United States by the end of 2019.
If these numbers weren’t impressive enough, Facebook is able to deliver a billion more impressions every month via its audience network.
I’m not here to tout the success of Facebook or make the case for why you should share your memories there. I’ve mentioned these figures to illustrate what’s possible when you choose to use Facebook marketing for lead generation.
Command the attention of your audience
Attention is the currency of our times. With it, you can establish thought leadership, parlay your reach into TV appearances, and stay booked year round.
Without it, you fade into the background.
A unique feature of Facebook and Instagram is how much their users interact with the content found on each platform.
Users spend close to an hour each day on Instagram or just under 30 hours a month. This wouldn’t mean much in itself but while they’re on the platform they’re liking 4.9 billion posts a day and have an engagement rate of 2.2%. For context, Twitter has an average engagement rate of 0.15%.
Facebook also has a high user dwell time with people spending almost an hour on the platform as well.
On both Facebook and Instagram, your followers will comment, like and share your content. This increases your reach organically and gives you the opportunity to drive more users to your website.
Dr. Swanson is a great example of this. She commonly gets hundreds of reactions, dozens of comments, and a lot of shares. This helps spread her message, establish authority, and bring in new patients.
Conclusion
Facebook marketing for lead generation is a powerful way to grow your practice and reach a large pool of potential clients.
It has a few distinct benefits which I’ve covered in this article.
- It’s cheaper for you to acquire leads and easier to measure when compared to traditional lead generation methods
- The large reach gets you in front of people who wouldn’t hear of you otherwise
- It has a large reach and potentially limitless pool of new clients
- When you do it right, you have the undivided attention of your audience
There are, of course, even more, benefits with you use Facebook marketing for lead generation. I’ve just scratched the surface. It’s up to you to decide if you want to tap into the largest social network on the planet to grow your practice.