Facebook and its sister site Instagram, can be a cost-effective way to reach a highly targeted audience. Here are 5 ways to achieve good ROI from your efforts.
1) Video Rules
Facebook video is a key component of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. The more recent introduction of Facebook video ads can also help clinics to engage with clients and drive treatments.
To make your videos compelling, focus on key messages from the first frame. You have 3 seconds or less to convince users to watch your video, thus every second counts. Include a call to action (CTA) or special offer directed towards your target audience. You can also use a dedicated hashtag or bit.ly URL for this purpose. You can add captions to your video, as in some cases, video content may be viewed with the sound off.
Live streaming has rapidly been adopted by numerous social platforms including Facebook Live, YouTube, Instagram Live, Twitter and Snapchat. By way of explanation, live-streaming video is broadcasting in real-time to an audience on the internet. According to Facebook, 78% of their users are already watching live stream videos, they spend three times more time watching them, and comment over ten times more during live videos. Live streams are perceived as more authentic than pre-programmed social media. Consumers now prefer live streaming videos to reading a blog entry or Facebook post. When audiences feel more connected to your clinic or brand, they may convert to actual patients faster.
Promote your live streaming episodes through teasers as to when you will be presenting next and on what topics on relevant channels, such as Instagram for Facebook, etc. Use compelling descriptions to pique interest among the right target audience.
2) Messenger Advertising
Facebook Messenger is emerging as a smart way to reach fans of your Business Page. Messenger ads allow brands to have conversations directly with their customers (i.e. fans) through the messenger interface. They use the same measurement tools and targeting criteria as the newsfeed, but they appear directly in the chat window between your clinic and your existing clinic fans on Facebook. This can be used to start a dialogue where people can ask about products and services, share their experience or schedule an appointment, right from the messenger app. For Facebook users, it bypasses the need to click out to go to your website.
Facebook Messenger ads are messages that appear as conversations in the user’s Messenger app. The user can interact with the messages just as they would with any other messages coming from friends or family. You can tailor a message to a custom audience.
3) Insights and Audience Analytics
To gain a deeper understanding of your audience, use the free analytics tool for your Facebook Business Page, called Audience Insights. Audience Insights allows you to obtain demographic and behavioral data about your audience and that of your competitors. This feature offers data on what other pages your audience visitors, where they spend the most time, how often they log on, from what kind of device, and other behavior.
Page Insights allows you to review what worked and what bombed to finetune your Facebook marketing strategy. You can analyze your Page and performance over a specific period, and drill down on specific posts, measure page views, likes and reactions, comments, and total reach per post.
4) Lead Generation
For an aesthetic clinic, a ‘lead’ is someone who has shown an interest in the products and services you offer from your marketing efforts. This may mean that they filled out a form for an e-book, requested a sample of a skincare product, or responded to an invitation to a seminar.
To turn Facebook fans into real customers, capture their data to market to them within the platform and directly. Tactics that can accomplish this include icreating landing pages for special timed offers, videos to promote events and relevant clinic news, Facebook Live streaming video to demonstrate a new treatment or how to use a product, and Facebook events for upcoming seminars. Facebook ads can shorten the click-through path to get users to access your offers and information without leaving the Facebook app.
For Facebook ads, choose the Ad Manager and an objective: awareness, consideration, and conversion. Facebook will walk you through steps to define your audience in terms of demographics, interests and behavior. A catchy headline is critical to get results. Images need to fall within Facebook guidelines, and the more text on your images, the less your ad will be shown. Don’t get discouraged if you’re not seeing results right away. Executing successful Facebook ads demands testing and experimentation.
5) Groups
Groups offer a wide range of marketing advantages, including to promote products and services, build a community, offering 5-star customer service and networking opportunities. Groups allow you to build micro-communities of users who are interested in a particular subject or theme.
You can grow your Facebook Group by promoting it within your clinic. Examples may include offering a gift certificate or complimentary mini-treatment or product if participants post a photo of their results or using a product they got from your clinic and tag your page, or offering a 20% discount for anyone who purchases a product from your website on a specific day. Assign an administrator for the group who can approve or reject posts, accept or block members, stay on top of negative posts and block spammers.