We all know the impact that Facebook has made on everyone’s life, especially how companies and professionals market to new potential customers and clients. So, it only makes sense that loan officers such as yourself should be utilizing Facebook ads to pull in new clients and generate business leads.
Think about it. The majority of the population spends tons of time scrolling through their newsfeeds, looking specifically for people like you to satisfy their loan needs. Even if they’re not actively searching, Facebook’s algorithms can find them for you and place your ad right in front of their eyes if they’ve scoured the internet for relevant information in their recent past. All you have to do is create highly targeted ads and designed to entice people to click and go to your website.
Unfortunately, doing this on your own for the first time might be quite a challenge. Even if you have some experience with marketing, Facebook is a whole new ball field. Users respond to different types of ads than what you’d traditionally use for marketing your service.
We will go through the key-points of generating useful leads with Facebook ads designed from the ground up to be successful and produce a satisfactory ROI.
Understand the Platform
First and foremost, you need to understand what you’re doing on Facebook in the first place. Many times, inexperienced loan officers, or service providers, in general, create a business page and hope clients find it. That is not how you generate meaningful leads.
Facebook has a built-in advertising system that allows you to set a budget, create your ads, and let the platform do the rest of the work. You have to decide how the ad is targeted to maximize its effectiveness. Don’t try to take the cheap route and weasel around the ad system.
Basic Requirements
You will need to set or create four different things to make your ad successful:
- Campaign: This is your overall effort. Ideally, you will create multiple ads following the next three bits of guidance. They all fall into your campaign goal or what you’re trying to achieve. In your case, you most likely want to funnel traffic towards your website or professional Facebook page. Each ad in your campaign should have synergy with this end goal.
- Imagery: When people are scrolling through Facebook, they’re not stopping for long paragraphs of boring nonsense. They stop when an image captures their eye. You want a professionally crafted image that stands out and captures the attention of people who may not be actively searching for your service, as well as those on a hunt to find you.
- Copy: Once you’ve gotten their attention, you need to make it count. Your “copy” is simply the text included with the image in your ad. It is your chance to create a compelling headline and tell your audience what it is you want them to hear. Make it count, and hire a professional if you are not the best writer.
- Targeting: Your Facebook ads will function differently than the pay per click ads you are used to. Facebook is focused on people, not clicks. You’ll be asked to identify your target demographic, and Facebook will take care of putting your ad in front of them. However, you need to figure out who that is before you go paying for an advertising campaign.
How To Do It
Setting up an ad campaign is easy, and you can get it done in a matter of minutes. Just make sure your material is ready to go when you start setting up your ad.
First, go to your business page and click “Create Ad.” It will bring up the ad creation system.
As a beginner, choose Ad Manager when prompted. As you progress, you’ll get more out of the second available option: “Power Editor”. Follow the on-screen prompts, but make sure you choose “Increase Conversions to Your Website” instead of “Boost Posts”. Your Facebook posts aren’t your end goal, and conversions are far more meaningful.
Now, you will move on to choose your campaign’s goals. We recommend clicking “Leads”. It is the most beneficial option for loan officers since you most likely won’t sell anything on your website.
From here, you will just be choosing the parameters for your target audience. You’ll choose from a range of ages, interests, and similar criteria.
You will have to know your audience to fill this out effectively.
Finally, just set up your ad. You can add your imagery, copy, and anything else you’d like. Once you’ve finalized your decision and launched your ad, you can monitor all your ad’s conversions from Ad Management. It’s that simple.
