How to use Facebook to grow your email list
Facebook ads are a great way to grow your email list, drive traffic to your website and leads to your business.
Through advertising on Facebook, you can use your engaged social media audience to build your email list.
How do you start?
Planning:
The first step is to think of your goal.
Do you want to drive page likes? Do you want to grow your email list? Do you want to expose more people to your post?
Once you’ve established your primary goal, you can create a landing page on your website that supports that goal.
Important to note: the landing page should include something of value to your audience, since your paid ad is going to drive people to that landing page.
Figure out what information your audience finds valuable and then create something that they’re willing to share their email address to obtain.
Once you’ve made a sweet opt-in offer, decide on the budget you want to set for a paid advertising campaign strategy that supports that goal.
Creating:
Once you have your goals, landing page and budget, it’s time to start the creative process.
To help you get started, below is a case study of how I created a paid advertisement for my business:
Step 1. The goal: grow my email list.
Step 2: The landing page: my free social media starter guide.
Step 3: The budget: $16.
Step 4: Make the advertisement. (I decided to create a video ad, since these are performing best on Facebook right now.)
Some things to keep in mind when creating your ad:
- Consistency: Does your advertisement match (in copy, images and headlines) the landing page that users will be taken to upon clicking your ad? Facebook wants you to be direct and clear. If you’re driving people to an opt-in list with a guide, your ad copy should allude to that. Don’t try to trick people into opting in to your list; it’s unethical and could get your Facebook ad account shut down.
- Use compelling ad copy and imagery: You want to be sure that your copy and imagery captures people’s attention. You also want to be sure that your copy is clear and direct, states your desired call to action, and details the benefit they’ll receive from clicking your ad. Be sure to tell people exactly what you want them to do after viewing your ad. Clear calls to action go a long way towards driving conversions.
- Target your ideal customer: Facebook lets you get really granular when it comes to audiences, so don’t waste time or money targeting people outside of your target audience. Get clear on who your ideal customer is in terms of demographics, preferences/interests and online behavior. Then, create audiences with the demographics and behaviors that best match your customer avatar and target your ads only to those people. I’d rather have 5 small businesses/prospects on my email list than have 500 friends who won’t ever buy or benefit from my services.
The result?
I generated 2,400 impressions and 45 clicks to my website. The website traffic resulted in 10 new subscribers who opted-in to receive my email communications.
Have you used Facebook ads to grow your email list?
Comment below and share your advice!