how to put the right message in front of the right target … · 2017-08-21 · in some ways...

1© Dominate Web Media 2017

How to Put the Right Message in Front of the RIGHT Target Audience so you Can Start Every Campaign with the Most Upside Potential

M O R E T R A F F I C M O R E L E A D S M O R E S A L E SD O M I N A T E W E B M E D I A


This is the Customer Buying Cycle. It doesn’t matter what you’re buying... whether a new car, hairspray, or attorney services… there’s a specific subconscious process we all follow… it’s human nature...

Think about it…

What was the last significant purchase you made?

If you’re like most people, when you think back, it probably started with a problem you wanted solved.

Now a problem doesn’t have to be a major catastrophe, a problem can be some common everyday scenario like wanting to look good for an upcoming school reunion, generating more customers for your business, or where to take your special someone for your anniversary?

To be able to solve your problem, depending on your current level of market knowledge, you may need to do some research (e.g. you may already have a favorite romantic restaurant Vs you haven’t purchased a fashionable item of clothing in the last 10 years). Research could entail visiting your local mall, performing a Google search, reading Amazon reviews or asking your family or friends for recommendations.

After gathering information, the next step is to evaluate options… not necessarily from a logical perspective but from an emotional one i.e. how will this product/solution make you feel?

When a solution feels right… all that’s left is finding a great logical reason to go ahead and buy.... remember the mind always justifies what the heart wants.

After you’ve purchased… if you truly love the product/service you might become a raving fan and start telling other people about it. People do this for two main reasons:

1. To help others

2. To further justify their own buying decision i.e. if your friends buy the same solution and love it, you’ll feel better about your purchasing decision.

This last level is called Brand Ambassador… and where we strive for all of our customers to end up.

And that’s basically the customer buying cycle in a nutshell...


THAT’S WHY FACEBOOK’S SUPER POWER IS YOUR KRYPTONITE

You’ve probably heard Facebook collects an incredible amount of data on its user’s including what websites they visit, what they like, what they click on, etc…

MIT’s Technology Review states it’s “the most extensive data set EVER assembled on human social behavior”.

The mistake most people make when advertising on Facebook is thinking it’s all about targeting. That leveraging this incredible wealth of data to show your ads to an extremely targeted audience will yield success and fortune...

But unfortunately, in my experience, rarely does this strategy work. Letting yourself get enamored with the potential targeting & retargeting options typically causes people to miss the big picture. And that is...

HOW FACEBOOK FITS INThe first point to understand is…

Don’t confuse Google Adwords with Facebook Advertising… they are two completely different animals. In fact, a lot of the skills needed to be great on Google Adwords don’t really carry over to Facebook.

In some ways Adwords is actually easier than Facebook Advertising (but also more expensive).

The reason for this is because people searching on Google or YouTube are already showing intent… they’re actively looking for a solution to their problem… so we have an idea of the conversation that might be going on inside their head...

If we look back at the Customer Buying Cycle, Google or YouTube Searchers are beyond the first step of the Buying Cycle and already into the 2nd step– “Interest”.

Think about it…

What was the last thing you Googled? Were you looking for an answer to a question or trying to solve a problem?

So when advertising on Adwords, offering a specific solution to a specific problem is a winning strategy i.e. if your water pipe bursts in your basement and you see an ad saying “We fix broken water pipes, we won’t rip you off and can be there in 30 minutes”… You’re probably going to click that ad, right?

FACEBOOK IS VERY DIFFERENT…

But the previous plumbing ad example would be a disaster on Facebook.

Why?

Because Facebook Advertising is interruption marketing.

NO-ONE on Facebook is actively looking for a solution. In fact, chances are they’re looking for the exact opposite… they’re looking for an escape e.g. catching up with family or friends or watching the latest viral video.


BREAKTHROUGH ADVERTISING

In 1966 the late great Eugene Schwartz published the now classic marketing book called “Breakthrough Advertising”.

Inside the book Eugene describes five levels of product awareness. They are:

1. Most Aware – These people know your product well. They are brand ambassadors, they’ve made multiple purchases and openly endorse your product or services.

2. Product Aware - These people know your product but haven’t purchased yet. They’re familiar with what’s available in the marketplace but not sure if your solution is the right for them.

3. Solution Aware – They know of different solutions to their problem but don’t know which solution is right for them. They don’t know your specific product or service. 4. Problem Aware - Recognize they have a problem but don’t know what to do about it.

5. Unaware - Don’t even realize they have a problem.

STRATEGY & MESSAGING BEATS

TARGETING & NINJA OPTIMIZATION

Because even if you are showing your ads to the right type of people on Facebook… you have no way of knowing what problems or concerns are top of mind at that very moment… or if they’re even actively looking for a solution. In fact they mightn’t even know a solution exists… or worse yet not even be aware they’re experiencing a specific problem.

So what do you do? How do you move someone through the Customer Buying Cycle if you don’t even know where they currently are in the Buying Cycle?


To illustrate how to use UPSYD I’m going to share with you a behind-the-scenes peek at a campaign we ran for a brand new business called Ketogenic Living

In just one month we went from concept to over 29,000 fans & over 5,000 leads for this brand-new business.

To give you more context, let me first give you a little background about their niche… Intermittent Fasting.

INTRODUCING UPSYDTo make this incredible framework easy-to-remember and Facebook friendly… I’ve reversed the order and come up with the acronym UPSYD (pronounced “upside”).

UPSYD will change the game for you. You’ll be able to diagnose why previous campaigns didn’t work… how to fix it… plus exactly who you should target…

As corny as it might sound… there really is a lot of UPSIDE from embracing “UPSYD”.

So what does UPSYD stand for?

U = UNAWAREP = PROBLEM AWARES = SOLUTION AWARE

(*Deal = just need a great deal to purchase)

D = DEAL*Y = YOUR SOLUTION AWARE


Intermittent Fasting is in the Health & Wellness space. It’s a different way to approach eating... it’s not so much a diet but more changing the timing of when you eat... more specifically increasing the amount of time that you DON’T eat. For example, if your last meal of the day is at 8:00pm, your next meal mightn’t be until noon the following day giving you a 16-hour fasting period.

The benefits of Intermittent Fasting include weight loss, reducing your caloric intake (because you’re eating less), natural detoxification, normalizing blood sugar & hormone levels, plus increasing energy levels and focus...

When I first tried Intermittent Fasting, I lost almost 30lbs… and I didn’t even think I was overweight!

CREATING ADS

For a business like this, someone from a Google Adwords background might create an ad using Intermittent Fasting as the main hook… i.e download your FREE Intermittent cheat sheet now… where the cheat sheet positions their product as the next logical step.

This makes a lot of sense if you’re targeting someone who is Googling “Intermittent Fasting”…

But there’s a problem with this approach on Facebook...

If we look back at UPSYD… an ad talking about Intermittent Fasting would only work if your audience was “Your Solution Aware”.

U = UNAWAREP = PROBLEM AWARES = SOLUTION AWARE

Y = YOUR SOLUTION AWARE

D = DEAL*

Here’s what I mean...

If the circle on the left represents the entire Health & Fitness Market… this might include people who are interested in publications like Men’s Health Magazine, Women’s Health Magazine, Atkins Diet, South Beach, different fitness celebrities, etc...

There’ll be a certain percentage of people in this audience who might be interested in the benefits of Intermittent Fasting but don’t know what it is... just hearing the word “fasting” might actually turn them off thinking it’s a religious ritual...

So even though a percentage of this audience might be interested in what we’re offering an ad talking about Intermittent Fasting is going to go straight over their heads… it may not even register on their radars. To be effective these people need to be educated first to progress through the levels of awareness.

If we look deeper into the Health & Wellness Market, there’s a reasonably large segment of people who are interested in dieting (circle on the right). They might have interests such as low carb diets, Atkins Diet, South Beach Diet, etc...

These people are aware that changing what you eat can cause weight loss but may not be aware that changing when you eat can also do this.

D = DEALY = YOUR SOLUTION AWARE


Once again, even though a percentage of this audience might be interested in what we’re offering, an ad talking about Intermittent Fasting probably won’t work with this crowd as they too need to be educated… perhaps not as much as the more general audience… but still some education is needed to progress their awareness level.

Then there’s a much smaller, more targeted segment of the Health & Wellness audience who already know about Ketogenic Diets & Intermittent Fasting, and perhaps are looking for a way to get started or perform better. They might have interests like Bullet Proof Coffee, Ketosis, Dave Aprey, etc..

This is the segment where our ad would probably be most effective, it’s the low-hanging fruit so to speak, but it’s also a small audience… which means it’s going to be challenging to scale using this marketing message.

CRAFTING YOUR PERFECT FACEBOOK HOOK

Think about UPSYD as a staircase with giant steps, where U (Unaware) is at the bottom and D (Deal) is at the top.

Now imagine standing at the bottom and stepping up onto the first step... how challenging is that? Not too bad, right?

Now try skipping a step... go from standing at the bottom and stepping up onto the second step…

This is a little harder, requires a little more effort but still manageable...

Now what happens if you try to go straight to the 3rd, 4th or even 5th step?

Gets more and more challenging, right? In fact it’s no longer possible to step from the bottom to the top… it’s more like a leap!

This is how I want you to think about your Facebook ads.

When you don’t know exactly what your audience wants… use your targeting to figure out where they might be on the UPSYD staircase. Once you know where your audience’s awareness level is… now figure out what’s needed in your messaging to get them up the rest of the steps.

The higher you start on the staircase the more direct you can go for the sale, but also realize your audience will be smaller. The lower you start on the staircase, the more value you need to provide to move people up the staircase but the easier it is to scale because you can target larger audiences.

Now this might go against traditional direct marketing. You’ve probably heard the saying “the riches are in the niches”. Which is true…

Remember, you can always use the content in your ad to niche down... but I’m telling you... if you can target big and broad audiences and give the Facebook’s algorithms a chance to do its magic... you’ll be much better off in the long run.

Let’s bring this back to our Ketogenic Living example...

So a hook that talks about Intermittent Fasting… targeting people who already know about Intermittent Fasting is like starting all the way up on Step 4 – “Your Solution Aware”. You will get sales and may not have to work too hard to get them but you’ll find it very challenging to find enough audiences to sustain your business long-term.


MESSAGING FOR BROAD AUDIENCESHere’s an ad we used to target people who were down on Steps 2 & 3… we could have even targeted people on Step 1 and exponentially increased our potential reach…

... and look at the results. After reaching 469,000 people, this ad has 1,100 likes and 557 shares. That’s a 2 to 1 Like to Share ratio which is really good...

Typically in a B2B market a 3 to 1 Like to Share Ratio is really good… so a 2 to 1 is doing really really good.

You’ll also noticed there’s a lot of comments, so people are engaged, and people are tagging their friends to check out the ad. In the real world that’s called a referral.

So how did we achieve these great results?

Let’s take a closer look at the Long Copy Ad we used…


AD BREAK-DOWN

Basically what we’re trying to achieve is give our audience a “Big Aha Moment”... something that goes against conventional wisdom… something that grabs attention... coupled with great content to add value… which makes people want to share...

We decided to use the hook “Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day or is it the most important meal that should be skipped”.

You may have heard me talk about the 6 principles of why people share before, which comes from Jonah Berger’s book “Contagious”.

Here’s a quick recap…

Jonah uses the acronym STEPPS to explain why things catch on, where:

S = Social Currency i.e. We share things that make us look good

T = Triggers i.e. Top of mind is tip of tongue

E = Emotionsi.e. When we care we share

P = Public Visibilityi.e. When something is built to show it’s built to grow

P = Practical Valuei.e. Something that you can use

S = Storiesi.e. Information that can be shared in an entertaining manner

The hook “Is Breakfast really the most important meal of the day or the most important meal that should be skipped” is trying to leverage as many of these principles as possible.

i.e. It’s a piece of useful information that makes the reader look clever if they share, provides hope of what’s possible, wrapped up in a story of my own experience, that has the potential to be re-triggered daily whenever someone sits down to eat breakfast.

The ad also provides value by educating about the two biggest myths associated with eating breakfast, which are:

1. Breakfast kick-starts your metabolism in the AM.

2. Skipping breakfast causes weight gain.


You might be wondering why I used my own personal story (how I dropped 30lbs) rather than make a promise to my audience i.e. Want to Drop 30lbs?

That’s because Facebook hates claims & promises.

Facebook is a young company full of young professionals with a culture of making the world a better place. They much prefer you to talk about your product or service and spend much less time talking about your audience, especially if you are calling out flaws or imperfections...

This goes against the whole “WITFM” direct marketing principle but if you don’t follow their rules, you can’t play their game…

For example you can’t write “Lose 30lbs in 30 Days”... that will get your ad banned. But if I share how I lost 28lbs in 6 weeks.. it’s ok because I’m sharing my own results. Testimonials work well too but there are certain rules in some industries, like you can’t show before and after pictures in the weight loss niche.

So now that I’ve caught their attention and sparked their interest with the hook, it’s time to introduce the solution, which is Intermittent Fasting.

Here I’m providing further proof on why Intermittent Fasting is so great.

And now we start to pivot into a pitch.


BACK TO UPSYDThe goal with your Facebook ads is to move people from awareness to intent.

The purpose of this ad is to target people who are “Problem Aware” i.e. know they need to lose weight, would like more energy, more focus, etc.....

…but by using the breakfast curiosity hook it’s also possible we might start to attract people who are in the “Unaware” segment i.e. thinking they’re healthy but don’t realize there might be a better way…

Now if someone is already “Solution Aware”... this ad will still work. It’s a good hook plus educational.

If someone is “Your Solution Aware” and wants other people to not think they’re crazy because they’re doing Intermittent Fasting... guess what they’re going to do? They’re going to share this. So it’s going to work well for these people as well.

Now if you’re trying to target just people who are “Your Solution Aware”... you may or may not use this ad. You could use a much simpler & more direct ad e.g. one that goes straight to your product’s sale page.


IS IT REALLY POSSIBLE TO JUMP ALL 5 STEPS WITH JUST ONE AD?

Believe it or not we actually have several clients who target large broad audiences and sell them a physical product taking people from the bottom of the staircase to the top with just one ad.

Now we also use retargeting strategies with these clients to maximize ROI… but I just wanted to make it clear that it really is possible to sell directly on Facebook.

How do we do this?

By using our 3-Step Video Ad Formula & the UPSYD framework.

In other words, in this example, you could use the same hook and copy we’ve discussed here for the Long Copy Ad and make it into a video...

…and because video is such a great medium to build trust, make connections, offer value and build your brand… it’s much easier to ascend the 5-steps in a very small amount of time...

Plus video ads have other advantages...

With Video Ads you’re building warm audiences quickly & cheaply. Just some of the new audiences you can create from a video ads include: people who have watched 3 seconds of your video, people who have watched 10 seconds of your video, people who have watched 25% of your video, people who have watched 50% of your video, people who have watched 75% of your video, and people who have watched 95% of your video…

…and because you can build these audiences fast, in our experience, these are also some of the best sources for creating Lookalike audiences i.e. providing Facebook large amounts of data to go out and find more people who are just like your current prospects and customers.

So in conclusion, to win big on Facebook you’ve got to understand UPSYD… you’ve got to be perpetually moving people up the staircase from Level 1 to Level 5.

The best way to do this is to start with Level 3, build some momentum and then expand out… identifying the best messaging for each level. People think Facebook is all about targeting when really it’s about getting your messaging right. It’s understanding the conversations in people’s minds and meeting them where they are... connecting with them… adding value... and increasing their awareness of both you and your business…

…and when you couple the right messaging with a video ad, now you’re in the position to take your business to a whole new level.

I’ve seen it happen over & over again…

how to put the right message in front of the right target … · 2017-08-21 · in some ways...

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