Sometimes the easiest way to attract leads is through social media. If you have an email lead form that works, but you just need more eyes to see it, then you can pin it to the top of your Facebook page.
Facebook doesn’t allow you to build an organic lead post but you can create a lead ad using the Ads Manager. You can then post this ad to your wall and pin it to the top so that anyone visiting your profile will see it first.
Create the lead ad
To begin, create a new campaign in Facebook Ads Manager by clicking on the triangle icon in the upper-right corner of your company’s Facebook home page. Select ‘Create Ads’ and then choose ‘Lead generation’ as your marketing objective (in the Consideration column).
Name this campaign and select ‘Continue’ to proceed to the Ad Set stage. Choose the page on which you want to post the lead ad and accept Facebook’s Lead Ads Terms.
Now you can play with the budget and schedule, however, you don’t need to spend any money on the lead ad to post it organically to your page. Putting in a small budget will get the post more views, though.
Choose when you want the ad to be posted, and how long you want it to run for – an initial run period of 24 hours is a good start so that you can make any changes if needs be. Don’t worry about targeting and placements as this lead ad is just going on your page, so leave those settings at their default.
Continue on to create the copy and visuals for the lead ad. Scroll down to the ‘+ New Form’ button and click on it. In the ‘Settings’ tab, change the default sharing settings from ‘Restricted’ to ‘Open’ to allow anyone to see the ad and share it.
Next, click on the ‘Content’ tab and start building your lead form. Enter the text that you want the audience to see when they click on the form. You can also add an introduction, ask questions and create a thank you screen. You will need to include a link to your website’s privacy policy on the lead form.
Once you’re happy with the look and feel of the lead ad, click ‘Finish’. Facebook doesn’t allow you to edit a lead form once you’re finished, so be sure that everything is perfect. If you do spot a mistake, you can duplicate the form and make changes to that version. The last step is to click on the green ‘Confirm’ button to submit the lead ad for review.
Connect your lead form to your CRM
Once you’ve submitted the ad to Facebook, they will ask you to connect it with your customer relationship management (CRM) system or email provider. This will let you get your leads in real-time. MailChimp is a great email provider that offers a free membership option if you don’t have a CRM or email provider already.
Sign into your CRM or email provider from within Facebook, then link your lead form to the right list (i.e. mailing list). You’ll need to match the lead form fields (such as Group, Source, Last Name etc.) using the drop-down boxes. Once completed, save the form.
Any leads generated from the Facebook ad will now be sent directly to your email provider and mailing list in real-time.
Post the lead ad to your Facebook page
Once your ad has been reviewed by Facebook and your lead form is connected to your CRM system, you may publish the ad as an organic post to your Facebook page. In your Facebook Ads Manager, click the menu icon in the upper left corner (three stacked lines).
Click on ‘All Tools’ at the bottom of the window and then select ‘Page Posts’ in the ‘Create & Manage’ column. In the menu on the left-hand side of the Page Posts window, select ‘Ads Posts’, then click the checkbox next to the ad you just created. Click on the ‘Actions’ drop-down menu and choose when you want to publish the ad to your Facebook page.
Once you’ve posted your ad organically to your wall, go back into your Ads Manager and turn off your ad. This will ensure that you’re not charged any money unnecessarily.
Pin the lead form to your Facebook page
To give your lead form more visibility, you’ll want to pin it to the top of your Facebook wall. To do so, open the post, click the three dots in the top right corner and select ‘Pin to Top of Page’. Easy.
The next step is to actually drive traffic to your website from the post. You can achieve this in a number of ways, but the easiest is to include a link to your website in a comment on the post or in the ‘About’ section of the Facebook page. Both of these locations are easy to see.
You can also engage with your target audience more directly by participating in groups or joining discussions on pages. Remember to provide something of value to these discussions rather than spamming everyone with sales pitches.
To sum up, Facebook lead ads and forms are a great way to generate leads for your business and to collect the email addresses of potential customers. By pinning your lead ad to the top of your Facebook page, any users who find your page will see it first.
If they are interested in what you have to offer, they will click on the form and hopefully subscribe to your mailing list. If you wish to partner with someone who knows how to apply the best practices to achieve your online goals, don’t hesitate to email us at zani@mobimeme.com.
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