4 Steps to Mastering Facebook Advertising

I’ll never forget when I started using Facebook advertising to promote my business a few years ago. I had no idea what I was doing, and my method was to have a go at it and see how it went. In the process I lost money, time and faith in the entire Facebook advertising platform.

Now I love Facebook, and so does our tribe of Studio Owners. You see, over the last 12 months, Facebook has really reached the next level of advertising, making it an awesome platform for you to promote your Dance Studio.

I want to give you 4 steps to mastering your Facebook advertising campaigns today because it’s recently been such a popular topic of conversation between me and Studio Owners throughout my Facebook groups. In the past 6 months, our members and I have spent more than $30,000 on Facebook advertising. With that kind of experience, I’m bringing you our latest learnings on what works and what doesn’t.

First, let’s talk about the biggest way Studio Owners are WASTING money on Facebook advertising—and that’s by buying likes. Spending money on getting more likes on your studio’s Facebook page results in your number of Facebook followers growing, but not your student numbers or revenue. Instead, you need to turn that ad spend into money spent more efficiently. You do that through targeted campaigns that result in new student enrollments.

Here are 4 steps to mastering Facebook advertising today:

1. Bull’s-eye Targeting

The studios that are blowing it out of the water are the ones creating super-targeted adverts. Potential dance parents and students want to see relevant advertisements, which means you need to step it up. It’s time to stop doing the blanket advert that covers all ages and all styles: remember, when you talk to many, you talk to no one. Instead, you need to target multiple types of student and parent. For example, you might create an advert to enroll more preschool-age children; this would be very different from the advert that you’d create for your 8-10-year-old hip-hop class. The first step is to clearly define what age groups and styles you want to target. Get specific! Facebook allows you to target locations, so ensure you’re not wasting money targeting an area that you know people won’t travel to your studio from.

2. Perfect Match

Once you know exactly who your advert is targeting, ensure that your image and copy (text) are aligned. For example, if you want to fill adult jazz classes, use an image of an adult doing jazz. It might sound simple, but you’d be amazed at how many times I see a mismatch between the image and the target. You’ll also want to look at the copy you’re placing in the advert. If you’re using the regular ads dashboard, you’ll be limited in the amount of text you can place. The solution to this is to use Facebook’s power editor, which gives you more freedom and flexibility in creating high-performing adverts. Your text is very important, so make sure you’re speaking exactly to the person the advert was created for. Tip: images can only contain up to 20% text.

3. Convert Like Crazy

With over 10 different types of Facebook advertising available, it can be difficult to know which one to select. Let’s simplify by using an example: say you want to gain new student enquiries. Most Studio Owners would do a clicks-to-website campaign, but I want you to go deeper by creating a campaign with the objective of website conversions. This means that when someone gives you their details for a free trial class or similar offer, Facebook will track that and count it as one conversion, which will then assign a price per conversion. This means you know exactly how much it’s costing you for a new student lead. You can set this up in the power editor.

4. Test and Measure

The most important step in Facebook advertising is to test and measure. There’s no magic pill when it comes to figuring out what’s going to knock it out of the park for you, which is why you need to test (with a small budget), look at the results and then decide whether to scale your advert up or down. After 24 hours, check the advert to see what your conversions are costing; then, after two days, decide whether to adjust it or leave it. To take testing and measuring to the next level, start split-testing the adverts by changing the image or text to see which version performs best.

There you have it: my 4 steps to mastering Facebook advertising. If you’re not already using Facebook advertising to promote your studio and class, it’s time to take that step.

Take care,

Clint

If you want to receive business and marketing strategies in your inbox each week to help GROW your Dance Studio, click here!