This article was a downloadable pdf that I produced, but I thought
it would be useful to make the info available to anyone that lands
on the page without having to provide their email address.
If you do want to download the full pdf though then feel free
to do so at the bottom of post.
Enjoy!
Ricky
“The 5 Biggest Mistakes That Fitness Professionals Are Making With
Facebook Ads That Is Damaging Their Brand And Costing Them
Money”
Biggest Mistake Number 1:
Not Targeting Your Ideal Clients
Part of the reason for this is that trainers are not creating a USP (Unique Selling Point)
about themselves and their business.
Remember if you’re not a specialist, the chances are you’re a generalist.
If you had a heart attack would you want to go and visit your GP or the best Heart Surgeon in
your country?
How much would you be prepared to pay?
“Yeah Ricky, but that’s a life and death scenario?
For some of these people that we’re sitting down with the pain
they’re in on a daily basis through lack of confidence and self
worth feels like life and death.
Get this right and you will be able to charge more as well.
Plus you can use Facebook to then find your ideal audience
from age range to sex and start only showing your ads specifically to those people.
You can craft your marketing message talking directly to them. Use language and
images that they can resonate with.
My target market for my training business is women between the
ages of 30 and 45 that live in Northampton and are interested in Physical Exercise as a
way of losing weight.
Take a look at the targeting example below:
So I will then set up an ad that talks directly to those women.
Only using language and images that they will resonate with.
Guess what?
When you do this your ads will perform better, they will cost less, you
will get tons of leads and raving fans!!!!
TAKEAWAY:
Decide on a part of the market that you enjoy training the most and then
go all out with your marketing using Facebook targeting to get your ad in front of them.
- l What’s your USP?
- l What makes you different to the trainer down the road that is charging less than you?
- l Why should they train with you?
Biggest Mistake Number 2:
Not Using Custom Audiences
This one thing alone makes Facebook one of the most powerful ad platforms EVER!!
Picture this for a second…..
Someone lands on your website – your homepage.
They have a quick look around and if they’re like the majority of people they will
then move on to another website – surfing.
Now let’s say later on in the day they’re at home and casually scrolling through
their newsfeed when an ad pops up saying
“Did you find what you were looking for on our website earlier?
We’d love to offer a free session just for considering us. In fact we’ll even
let you have our infamous ‘healthy eating recipe’ guide for FREE when you come in!”….
This is called retargeting and hardly anyone is using it!!
Take a look at the example below:
There are 3 different types of audiences above.
Take the middle one first – FBBC email list Jan 2015.
This is a Custom Audience. I have uploaded the email addresses from one of my email lists into facebook.
Email addresses are checked by them and any that match upload to this audience –
so you can see there were 900 at that time.
Now this means I can show that specific 900 local women a very targeted ad along the lines of….
“You’re already on my email list, how about you LIKE my page as well…..”
Now take a look at the bottom one. This is called a Website Custom Audience.
There is a piece of code (retargeting pixel) that I put on my website that captures
the details of those people that land on my website (think of the example I gave you earlier)
and creates this as an audience. There were 4,500 people on that list!!
Now take a look at the top option ‘Lookalike Audience’.
All I’ve done here is got Facebook to look at the profiles of those people who’s email address
I uploaded earlier and then it’s created a UK audience of people that closely match that profile –
interests, age, spending patters, time on FB etc. –
There are 425,000 on that list, but as soon as I narrow it down to just Northampton
it brings it to a sensible reach.
Given that most people DO NOT buy off you (or anyone) first time, this becomes a very
powerful feature. You can keep showing these audiences great quality content until
you feel ready to make them a compelling offer – by which time they completely
Know, Like and Trust you. They’ve had the opportunity to get to know you.
TAKEAWAY:
Get your email addresses uploaded to Facebook as a custom audience.
Create your lookalike audience off the back of this and also create one
based on those that have liked your page as well.
Get your retargeting pixel set up on your website.
(If you’re unsure how to do this then just watch this
FREE video on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3FYX2zjk-Q
BIGGEST MISTAKE NUMBER 3:
Not getting LIKES to page.
Back in the day you could post something on your page and most of the people that had
liked it would see it – this was (and still is) called organic reach.
Not now.
Now, when you post something on your page a very small % of people see it.
Organic reach has come right down due to how competitive people’s newsfeeds have
become with ads and having too many friends.
People have taken this as a reason to NOT grow their like audience by paying for it.
I get it.
There’s no immediate and noticeable win from it.
BUT
It’s still worth doing and I want to share 2 really good reasons why:
1. You will get a better Return On Investment (ROI) when you show your offers
later down the line to people that have already liked your page.
They have been warmed up a bit. They clearly like something you have said previously.
So your ads will be cheaper by showing it to Page Likes.
The more you have the greater number will convert.
2. Social Proof: Think about your local target market.
You can target friends of people that like your page.
When your ad is shown to someone that has a friend that already likes your page
there is a greater chance that they will take the action you are asking from them.
TAKEAWAY:
Set up a nice and simple LIKE campaign. Target your audience properly
and set daily budget for around $3 per day.
Then keep it running in the background until price per like goes too high.
BIG MISTAKE NUMBER 4:
Using really poor images
When it comes to Facebook Advertising the image you use is more
important than anything else. So spend a bit of time getting this right.
Action shots are normally the best and preferably use something
that is taken from one of your sessions –
whether one to one, semi private or group. Overcome objections before they arise.
For example, most women when they hear about us think that it’s
going to be full of really fit and skinny women.
They’re thinking of negative experiences that they’ve had at the gym and feeling intimidated by this.
So if you can post an image of just normal women working out of
different shapes and sizes then this can really help them to subconsciously be saying
“they’re just like me”. That doesn’t look too bad.
Also, you have an opportunity to get some more text on your image
(as long as it represents less than 20% of the ad) so why not use it.
Take a look below:
Just use a FREE picture editing tool like pic monkey: www.picmonkey.com to add the text and border.
TAKEAWAY:
- Take some action shots of your sessions.
- Sign up to www.picmonkey.com
- Get some quality images in front of your target audience and get testing
BIGGEST MISTAKE NUMBER 5:
Not testing different ads.
This one is so common.
Most trainers that use Facebook will only upload one image to one
audience through all channels and just hope for the best.
MASSIVE MISTAKE.
Here’s a quick example:
This is in the ‘Ad Set’ screen (the one in the middle between Campaign and Ad).
This is where you set your targeting up.
This was all for one campaign. Using the exact same ad.
The only thing that was different was who the ad was being shown to.
You can see the top one with 20 website conversions (that represented just
under £2k by the way as each conversion was worth £99).
That was being shown to a custom audience (refer back to Biggest Mistake Number 2 from earlier).
You can see how powerful it is to have that custom audience up and running.
The next one down with 16 sales at £99 each was my Likes.
So only being shown to people that had liked my page.
The next one down with 15 was only shown to a lookalike audience
that had expressed an interest in physical exercise.
….and so on.
So you then scale up the daily ad spend on the ads that are working really
well and then you ditch the ones that aren’t doing well.
You apply this exact same principle at the very outset with images. Test for 48-72 hours with about 4-5 different images. Try them to just one big audience that
fits your demographic and then stick with the one that is converting the best and ditch the others.
TEST, TEST and TEST again.
I am constantly testing everything.
This is how you can then optimise your campaigns and get the biggest bang for your buck.
TAKEAWAY:
With your next ad, get 4-5 different images and show them to around 20,000
audience of people that broadly match your target. Then let them decide for you.
This is the cheapest and fastest way of getting market research done.
Set your budget for around £5 per day.
Bonus: Staying Compliant!
Do you keep hearing about other trainers getting their ad accounts banned?
If so, this section will help you to stay out of trouble……..for the time being.
One thing that Facebook have been very guilty of but are
taking steps to rectify is their trigger happy ‘account disabled’ policy.
Any accounts that are repeat offending are getting disabled without explanation.
As long as you stick to the guidelines though you will be fine….
until they move the goal posts again.
But for now, here you go.
Just some Facebook basics that are essential you are always aware of:
Make sure your landing page (the page you take people to away from Facebook) has a link to your:
1. Home page
2. Privacy Policy
3. Terms
Templates to use are here: http://www.seqlegal.com/free-legal-documents
Make sure that if you’re using leadpages.net for your landing page that you
download the wordpress plugin and then publish the page via your website.
Watch this short video tutorial if you’re unsure how to do this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60wuuIfqe2g
Your facebook ad:
* Don’t show photos of before and afters
* Don’t promote weight / fat loss results
* Don’t promise people that they will lose weight / fat
* Don’t make people feel bad about themselves
Your landing page:
* Similar to your ad
If using video:
* Same rules apply as if it was an ad – be aware that FB seem to be stricter with video
With all of the above, there are inconsistencies.
Don’t be surprised if you manage to get one through only for it to be rejected a few days later.
Don’t be surprised if you get one through (that is borderline) and it doesn’t get
picked up only for you to try again a few weeks later and it be rejected.
Summary:
These are the biggest mistakes that I come across.
They’re easy enough to rectify and the takeways provided above should
give you some concise action steps to take.
If you’re really serious about using Facebook as a way to generate quality
leads for your biz and start growing it exponentially………
Then apply to join my PT100K Club.
As I said it’s a really cool membership site where you get access
to the most up to date Facebook marketing training videos –
specifically for those in the fitness industry.
If you have questions, then I personally answer them every day in the support group.
Everything is set up for your success……and it’s only £59 per month! (as of June 2015)
I didn’t used to have an application process but I suppose
like any profession there are a minority of negative people that will go
out of their way to sabotage their own and other people’s businesses.
That’s cool if they want to do that – they just won’t do it
on my membership site.
So head on over right now and get your application in
right now as I only open the doors periodically throughout the year…..
All the best,
Ricky
ps. download the full report just here
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