How To Sell On Facebook (Why A Deliberate Funnel Is Key)

Almost every business has potential to sell on Facebook.

But most do it totally wrong.

Today, we talk about why you need a funnel to really sell on Facebook like a pro.

There are 2 billion active monthly users on Facebook. Chances are pretty good that some of those people are in your target market.

That’s why it’s a great idea to set up a Facebook sales funnel so you can better sell on Facebook.

You’re probably already familiar with the concept of a sales funnel. It’s the process that leads people from awareness about your brand all the way to the point where they make a purchase.

A Facebook sales funnel, as the name implies, uses Facebook advertising to nudge folks along that journey.

In this article, we’ll go over how to create a Facebook sales funnel that transforms cold prospects into paying customers.

Why You Need the Funnel to Sell On Facebook

You actually do not always need a funnel that takes a user offsite. In many cases, you can actually sell goods within Facebook.

But, the funnel concept is still important nonetheless.

Let me explain.

You might think that all this talk about a sales funnel is pointless. Why not just pay money to advertise on Facebook and watch the customers come rolling in?

The answer is simple: when users log in to Facebook, they have no purchase intent (this is shifting a little though, now that users are getting used to native ads).

Think about it: why do you use Facebook?

Do you use it to engage with old friends, share photos of your family vacation, and react to posts from people you know? Or do you use it to look for something you want to buy?

If you’re like most people you use social media for social purposes. You don’t use it to go shopping.

That’s why you need to develop a sales funnel on Facebook. That funnel will first make people aware of whatever it is you’re selling, build trust about your brand, and then gently lead them further down the funnel so they purchase your product or service.

Much of Facebook marketing is about transforming cold prospects into hot customers. To make that happen, you’ll need a sales funnel.

How To Sell On Facebook – Start With Content

Begin your Facebook sales funnel off of Facebook.

Start by creating awesome content on your website. That content can include a long-form post about something related to your brand, a great video, an infographic, or a shareable image.

As you might have guessed, you’ll eventually promote your content with a Facebook ad.

Keep in mind: you might already have some awesome content that went viral. If so, feel free to use that in your sales funnel.

Want To Sell On Facebook – Segment Your Market

Once your content is ready for sharing, it’s time to take a step back and think about who you’d like to share it with.

It might be the case that your content will not appeal to everybody in your target market. Perhaps it will appeal only to a subset of your market.

Identify that subset. You’ll need that info when you specify your audience in Facebook.

For example, let’s say you’re selling blue jeans and you’ve got some awesome content about faded blue jeans. Further, your market research indicates that young women prefer faded blue jeans more than any other segment in your market.

If that’s the case, you’ll want to promote your content to millennial women. Fortunately, Facebook makes it exceptionally easy to do just that.

Share With Your Fans

Now, it’s time to “test drive” your content. Do that by sharing it with people who are already familiar with your brand.

For example, share it with people who already “like” your page on Facebook. Alternatively, you can also share it with people who’ve visited your site in the past with a retargeting campaign.

The reason you want to share content with people who “know” your brand already is to get a feel for how well they respond to it. If they respond favorably, chances are pretty good that people who’ve never heard of your brand will also respond favorably.

Create a Facebook ad campaign with “Engagement” as your marketing objective. Then, link to your great content within the ad itself.

Remember, though, to narrow your audience based on the segment that you’re targeting as described above. When you get to the point where you create your audience, be sure to filter your audience based on demographics and interests.

Once you’ve let your campaign run for about a week or so, check the engagement level. If you’ve got high engagement, then you should promote that content to cold prospects.

Finding Cold Prospects is a Must For Selling On Facebook At Scale

But who are these cold prospects and where can you find them? Once again, Facebook is your very best friend.

When you create an ad on Facebook, you’re asked to define an audience of people who will see it. Facebook also gives you the ability to create a “lookalike audience.”

What’s a lookalike audience? As the name implies, it’s an audience of people who are similar to fans of your Facebook page. They share the same interests and belong to the same demographic groups as people who “like” your page.

In other words, when it comes to fleshing out cold prospects, Facebook has already done most of the heavy lifting for you!

Fortunately, it’s easy to create a lookalike audience when you create your campaign. On the “Audience” page, you’ll see a “Create New” dropdown. Under that dropdown, select “Lookalike Audience.”

 

From there, everything is fairly intuitive. You have the option to create an audience that looks like your current fan base.

You also have the option to choose your audience size. You can select anywhere between 1% and 10% of the population of the countries where your ad will run.

As a rule of thumb, it’s best to choose a smaller audience rather than a larger one. You can always expand the audience size later if your ad is doing well.

How To Sell On Facebook – Promote Your Content

Once you’ve created your lookalike audience, it’s time to promote the content that performed well with those who know your brand.

Keep in mind: you’ll need to do this repeatedly.

You can’t expect people to view your content once and then whip out their credit cards and make a purchase right away. That’s not how Facebook marketing works.

You have to start by building brand-name awareness. Then, you’ll add trust.

Finally, and after some time, people will start throwing cash your way.

Until that time arrives, though, you need to keep promoting great content. Consider it “priming the pump.”

Retargeting

Once cold prospects start checking out your content, they’ve become warm prospects. They’re candidates for retargeting.

You can learn all about retargeting in this video I did here or below.

What’s retargeting? It’s a way to market specifically to people who’ve engaged with your brand in the past.

In this case, retargeting candidates are the formerly cold prospects who clicked on your Facebook ad to view your content.

Keep in mind, though, you’ll need a Facebook pixel to track people who’ve visited your website.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of the Facebook pixel, it’s a snippet of code that you place on your site. It tells Facebook which of its users have landed on one of your web pages.

That kind of info is marketing gold because you can use it to run ads specifically targeting people who’ve visited your website in the past. After all, if they’ve engaged with your brand in the past, there’s no reason to think they won’t engage with your brand again.

You see where this is going, don’t you? Use retargeting to lead people further along in the sales funnel.

Here’s how you can do that with Facebook ads: when you launch a campaign and get to the point where you create an audience, select “Custom Audience.” In the popup that appears, select “Website Traffic.”

On the next popup, you can choose to narrow your audience by time or by pages on your website that they’ve visited. In this case, you probably want to limit your audience to people who viewed the content that you promoted in the previous step.

Once you’ve completed that step, it’s time to select the content you want to promote to your warm prospects.

Content for Warm Prospects Helps Sell on Facebook

So what kind of content should you promote to move people further down the sales funnel? There’s no “right” answer to that question that works for every brand.

Suffice it to say, you’ve moved the prospect beyond the awareness phase. Since the prospect clicked on your link, it’s also safe to say that he or she is beyond the interest phase.

Now you want to move the prospect past the evaluation phase.

One way to do that is by comparing what you’re offering against the products or services of your competitors and explaining why your brand is superior.

Of course, there are other options as well. If you’re running a service-oriented business, share a case study that shows how you helped a client succeed. If you’re selling products, offer your audience some social proof in the form of statements from satisfied customers.

Split-testing is also very useful at this point. Employ a couple of different strategies and determine which one gives you the best return.

The Hard Close (Sometimes You Must Ask!)

Once you’ve moved your warm prospects closer to purchase, it’s time for the hard close.

Remember: even though you’ve warmed up prospects, you still need to ask for the sale. Don’t expect people in your market to push themselves through that last step.

One way to go for the hard close is with another retargeting effort. In this case, target only warm prospects who’ve visited a page that you’ve set aside for them.

For example, let’s say you shared a price comparison chart with your warm prospects. That chart shows that your prices are lower than the prices of your competitors.

For the hard close, you should target only people who’ve visited that page. Recall that Facebook allows you to target people who’ve only visited a specific page on your site.

How exactly should you word a hard close ad? That depends on the nature of your business and exactly how “warm” you think the prospects are.

If you’re selling products that don’t cost a whole lot of money, a “Shop Now” ad might be just the ticket. On the other hand, if you’re running a service-oriented business that requires a significant investment, you might need to reiterate your benefits and provide a link to the checkout page.

Also, keep in mind that you may need to make multiple hard close overtures before landing a sale from some customers. That’s the nature of marketing.

Selling on Facebook – Wrapping up for Now

When it comes to building a sales funnel on Facebook, start by using people who are familiar with your brand as guinea pigs.

And do not be afraid to use a social media agency. They might save you time and money.

Advertise your best content to them to determine which articles get you the best engagement. Then, promote those articles to lookalike audiences and retarget people who click on your link. Finally, close the sale to those warm prospects with ads that will drive conversions.

How are your Facebook sales going? Comment below.