Intro
In today’s world, photographers are constantly being pulled in a bunch of different directions by companies wanting us to advertise with them. It seems like there’s a new website popping up every week that promises to help you attract the ideal client. If you currently subscribe to websites like TheKnot, Wedding Wire, etc., you will see that they all are giving you less and less value for more and more money. The Facebook Pixel puts the ball back in our court.
The Knot even recently stopped giving you the lead’s email address, and that was where most of the value came from! These types of methods of advertising do work but they require you to constantly ‘feed the beast’. By that I mean you have to continue to pay their monthly fees in order to continue to get leads that may or may not even be interested in your services. In addition, they are a little greedy with their SEO. What if you could create a better lead source that kept you in control the entire time?
Facebook Pixel
So what is ‘the’ Facebook Pixel and how can it help you? Stick with me here as some of this info may seem complicated, but it’s worth investing the time to figure it out. The Facebook Pixel is simply source code that you install on every page of your website/lead page/thank you page etc. Once you have installed the Facebook Pixel it will start tracking website traffic for you. (Use the Pixel Helper to make sure you have the Pixel installed on each page correctly.) You can then use the info you receive to optimize your ads, re-target people that have visited certain pages of your website, create custom audiences and much more.
Re-targeting the people that have visited your website is a huge benefit. Whenever someone visits a page on your website the Pixel is activated. From there Facebook uses the rules you pre-defined in your custom audiences to decide if that person meets any of the requirements to be targeted with an ad. You can even create a separate audience for every page of your website. (You are limited to 20 audiences) You can check out more information about the Facebook Pixel and how it works Here. Below is a screen shot of the Pixel Base Code.
I thought Facebook was dead? Isn’t it?
No. Facebook is actually one of the most effective forms of targeted marketing available these days for service and product-driven businesses. People think just because something is no longer free, it no longer has value, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Facebook has put the power into our hands to be able to reach our exact client.
Why paid advertising?
Think about it this way… You most likely woke up to the alarm on your advertised iPhone and then went to the kitchen to brew your advertised coffee. From there you may have showered with advertised products and then put on your advertised clothes. Let me guess, you then drove to work in your advertised car? For lunch you grabbed the new advertised deli-sandwich at your favorite local shop. Getting the point? Paid advertising works and our lives are full of it. Even if you are so busy via word of mouth alone, you could be making more.
Paid advertising doesn’t necessarily equal smart advertising. By that I mean you can waste a ton of money on paid advertising if you are not smart about it, and there are a lot of money pits out there. Smart, precisely targeted advertising with a good follow-up system in place can change everything for your business. Did you know only 20% of people buy impulsively? The other 80% need a reason to justify their purchase. This is based off of the 80/20 rule that applies to so many things in life. They need to know that buying “x” will either save them time in the long run or save them money. They need to be convinced that they need whatever it is you want them to buy. You can read an amazing article called The Five Stages of the Consumer Buying Process to learn more about this topic. This is where your Facebook ads can be crazy powerful. Seeing an ad 1 time may or may not impact someone. However, seeing it several times gives you a much better chance to close the sale. Seeing a targeted ad multiple times that solves the problem the customer didn’t even know they had…Priceless! How you craft your ad is also super important. You can use Facebook ads to target your exact clients.
Above is an image from a recent ad campaign we ran using a custom audience. This ad did extremely well for us because the video includes images that draw you in even though no audio plays until the ad is clicked.
PRACTICAL APPLICATION
So why should you be using the Facebook Pixel and Fb ads to market your business? Well, really, the possibilities are endless. Let’s suppose you want to attract new wedding clients via FB ads. What I have done is imported a bunch of my past brides emails into the Facebook pixel. (You can also create a custom audience based on the traffic from a single/multiple pages on your website traffic.) From there I create a custom “lookalike” audience and named it ‘Past Brides lookalike’. Once that is ready to go, I create an ad using the past brides “lookalike” audience. I then tweak some of the details to add additional criteria like “recently engaged in the last 2 weeks”, the age range desired, etc.
After that is done you will need to come up with your ad copy and a good image or video to go in your ad. You want the image to be vibrant and full of colors so it grabs the viewers attention like the above image. I have found that indirectly marketing to brides produces great success rates. What I do is promote something other than “book me!” Some ideas would be ‘Top 3 Wedding Planning Tips’; ‘3 Reasons Why You Should Have An Unplugged Wedding Ceremony’; and ‘Top Three Do’s And Don’ts For What To Wear To Your E-Session’. Now the key is that when the bride clicks the link on Facebook’s ad, they shouldn’t be able to view it without giving you their email address first. This way you can follow up with them in another email in the next day or two. That follow up email could even say, ‘Call us right now we are free!”
Below, I have made a video to show you how to add the Facebook Pixel to your website. I also show how to create a custom audience as well as a “lookalike” audience. Take some time to setup your pixel and feel free to reach out with questions.
Conclusion
I am not saying that Facebook is the only way to advertise, and I am also not saying using other advertising services like The Knot or Wedding Wire don’t work. What I am saying is that paid ads on Facebook have some of the best conversion rates out there. This is due to the fact that they give you the power to define exactly what type of client you are looking for, and then they give you the tools to reach them.
[REWIND: Wedding Workshop One | Communication, Planning, & Happy Clients: Wedding Workshop Part One Trailer]
It is also important to note that your ideal client should not simply be described as a “DIY Bride”. That is way to broad. You should know everything you can about them; What is the median income level in your market? Where do they live, work, and play? Where do they shop? Are they easy going or Type A personalities? These are the things to consider when figuring out who you want your ideal client to be. Hope this is helpful to you all! You can find out more about The Facebook Pixel here.
As always you can find more of our content for photographers, including our free e-book , on our website LuRey Photography.
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