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How to increase sales for your eCommerce store with prospecting on Facebook & Instagram
If you’re looking to boost sales for your eCommerce business, why not leverage the world’s largest social media platforms? Facebook, the largest social media platform in the world with 2.91 billion users, and Instagram, the fourth largest one with 1.48 billion users, are the perfect places to gain new customers through a prospecting campaign. Prospecting ads target a large group of your potential customers and gives them the first taste of your product through ads while they are scrolling through some posts. The leads that are generated from your prospecting strategy can then be nurtured and turned into loyal customers.
In this article we tell you what prospecting is, why it matters, how you can choose audiences, create a good ad, and, finally, how prospecting fits into your sales funnel. If you’re ready to increase online sales through social media, keep reading.
Contents
What is prospecting?
Prospecting involves using information to target specific audiences that are likely to be interested in purchasing your product or service. If they are, then they become a prospect that can be moved further along the marketing funnel, which we will explore in a bit more detail later in the blog.
Prospecting can be undertaken through telephone calls, direct emails or flier distribution, but in the case of ecommerce, prospecting most often takes the form of targeted ads online.
As mentioned in the introduction, Facebook and Instagram are two of the best platforms for prospecting customers — this is due to the:
- Large number of users.
- Amount of data that can be drawn on.
- Ability to measure ad performance.
- Ability to customize campaigns based on your objectives.
- Variety of ad forms available.
- Budget optimization features.
All these benefits allow for the effective targeting of prospects.
Why is prospecting important?
Simply put, prospecting is one of the most effective strategies to increase sales. Identifying prospects confirms their interest in your product, allowing you to filter them further through your ad funnel, leading to more sales and increased revenue.
Good prospecting can deliver the following:
- Exposure to your product without new users having to visit your site.
- A more complete picture of the kind of leads you want to nurture.
- A larger customer base over time.
- Higher ROAS (see more below).
We’ve established that effective prospecting is your way to boost ecommerce sales; but what’s the best way to start a campaign? In the next section we’ll show you the two main ways to get started.
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Choosing audiences for prospecting
Running your first prospecting campaign? Just as important as your message is your prospecting audience. We will look at the two audiences that are used to increase online sales through Facebook.
Broad interest audience
Your broad interest audience can be generated through targeting certain parameters, such as location, gender, age, and interests. For example, if you are interested in selling cologne, you might choose an audience that has already displayed an interest in cosmetics or a brand name such as Chanel. Broad interest targeting works well if you already have a good idea about who is likely to buy your product, as it needs to be done manually.
Lookalike audience
Unlike the broad interest audience, your lookalike audience is created by Facebook. It is called lookalike as it will be based on data that Facebook has already collected through Pixel about the interests and behaviour of your current audience.
How to create a good prospecting ad
Now you understand the importance of prospecting and how to increase sales on Facebook through different audience types; but how to create an ad that really captures the attention of your prospects? Here are our tips for creating great prospecting ads.
Be clear and concise
Your goal is to hook people that may have never heard of your brand before, therefore you need something that is direct, catchy and memorable. Keep your message short and make sure the product itself is clear.
Highlight benefits
While we did just say that the product’s function should be clear, don’t forget to highlight at least one major benefit. No one wants to just read a description; they want to know what the product can do for them.
Explore the power of images and video
The beauty of Facebook prospecting ads is that you can exploit multimedia to reach your target audience more effectively. Single image, carousel, video — these are all at your disposal. You can showcase up to 50 products in a single ad, meaning you have the freedom to experiment until you find a set of ads that really work for you!
Incorporate a good CTA
Invite your audience to engage further. Prospecting in sales isn’t about just “buying now”, you can invite your prospects to “learn more”, “visit your site”, or “take part”. The most important thing is that you build awareness, brand recognition, and interest.
Use emojis with care
Emojis are a great way to liven up a text, attract the eye, and inject some color and fun; but, they must also be used in the right way. Overdoing emojis or crowbarring them into a delicate message can not only seem inappropriate but also just make you look like you’re trying too hard, undoing the atmosphere created by your text.
Going beyond prospecting to improve sales
We’ve now covered the basics of prospecting, but where to go from there? Prospecting to find new customers and increase sales should be an ongoing campaign, but it will only be effective if backed up by strong re-engagement and retargeting efforts.
How do re-engagement and retargeting work?
As we saw in the image above, re-engagement and retargeting are the next stages of your marketing funnel, and crucial to retaining the audience you’ve first engaged through prospecting.
Re-engagement is fairly self explanatory — it involves re-engaging an audience that has now gone cold. Maybe you had a great prospecting ad that encouraged them to click, but then went nowhere. Well, re-engagement involves targeting those very prospects with more ads to remind them who you are, what you do, and why your product is really worth purchasing!
Retargeting comes at the stage where you have a solid lead that has shopped on your site but then abandoned the purchase at the checkout. What went wrong? You can address their concerns through a targeted ad, giving them the final push to make that purchase.
Get a proven larger ROAS by prospecting with Adwisely
Prospecting, re-engagement, and retargeting are three crucial steps to increase ecommerce sales, but how can you get started? This is what Adwisely is here for. Through our intuitive dashboard we help you to streamline your ecommerce operation and maximize results through data-backed strategies. Simply put, this means less work but more profits. While the average ROAS with prospecting sits around 100-200%, Adwisely users experience a 400% average.
To run a prospecting campaign on Facebook with Adwisely, here’s all you need to do:
- Click “Run Prospecting” on the Adwisely dashboard
- Confirm or customize your ad message along with your daily budget.
- Click “Run Campaign”.
No further steps required! We do all the rest for you 😉