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How to generate high-quality leads on Facebook (B2C)

In early 2018, Zuckerberg announced Facebook would return to its original goal of connecting friends and relatives through meaningful interactions. Given this shift, you may wonder whether Facebook is still a good place to generate new leads for your business.

Attracting new customers ‘organically’ is more difficult on Facebook these days, but that’s not to say that Facebook is a dud tool for lead generation. On the contrary; Facebook offers targeted advertising opportunities and collects very detailed personal information from new leads.

The truth is, Facebook is definitely still worth your attention, but you should take note of recent algorithmic changes. In terms of organic reach, you’ll need to attract new customers through meaningful interactions rather than click-bait. More importantly, investing in Facebook’s lead ads tool will allow you to locate the people who actually care about your products/services. With that in mind, let’s explore how Facebook can generate high-quality leads for your company.

Social media and lead generation

Thanks to the internet, cold callers have discarded their headsets and moved online to search for new customers. If you’ve been trying to attract new customers to your business, you’re probably already posting regular content on your blog and optimising your website for Google. Perhaps you’re on social media, too. But are you taking full advantage of this powerful tool? One of the most effective ways to target new leads is through social media; particularly Facebook.

Finding new customers on Facebook organically

Before we discuss Facebook’s lead ads, it’s important to say a word about organic reach. Organic reach refers to lead engagement that is achieved without spending any money on advertising. Even when you spend money on ad tools to catalyse your growth, it is still important to consider organic reach, because this will ensure your page stays fresh, interesting, and click-worthy.

So how can you achieve good organic reach on Facebook? Remember the importance of generating meaningful interactions and you won’t go far wrong:

Avoid like/share/tag bait – this is where you invite existing followers to like/share/tag themselves to win a prize, so you can gain exposure to their network. This is the kind of passive activity Facebook is trying to root out.

Start conversations and always reply to posts – remember, meaningful interactions will help your page naturally get more exposure because Facebook’s algorithm will detect it as high-quality.

Create a group – this will allow you to engage with your existing network and beyond.

Post videos – videos tend to generate a lot of discussion, especially live videos.

Post interesting and relevant content– your followers will share thought-provoking content with like-minded friends, so make sure your content is relevant to the audience you’re targeting.

Think of these as the ‘best practice’ principles for slowly growing your reach on Facebook. But what if you need to generate new leads more efficiently? Facebook lead ads can achieve a high-volume of qualified leads almost overnight.

Facebook lead adverts – how do they work?

A lead advert incentivises a user to submit their personal details in return for a discount, estimate, access to gated-content, or some other kind of benefit. After submitting their details, they can be directed to an external landing pagewith other calls-to-action.

Facebook’s lead ads are superior to those you’ll find on other platforms. Firstly, they let you target specific types of people to ensure you get qualified leads. Secondly, they collect detailed personal information from your leads, thereby offering easy access to a large pool of potential customers. Let’s see how this works in action.

Facebook lead ads can be targeted according to location, age, and other demographics. This helps to ensure you only receive qualified leads, thereby avoiding the ‘stab in the dark’ approach to lead generation. You can even upload a CSV file of your current clientele to create lookalike audiences! Lookalike audiences share similar characteristics and interests to existing clientele, so they are likely to be interested in your business.

In 2017, an agency working on behalf of Audi Ireland built lookalike audiences to help source new leads. Over a single month, 69 new leads were generated, and €190,000 worth of sales were made as a result of the lead campaign. This equated to a 22x return on ad spend!

Once the user clicks your ad, they will be invited to submit their personal details, including telephone number, address, email, and date of birth etc. Crucially, this data is prepopulated by Facebook, so leads do not have to bother filling out the data manually. Because the data is so granular, you can use it for creating lookalike audiences and running sophisticated data analysis. It should be said, you can also add custom questions to your ads. These can provide really useful data for marketing purposes, but it’s important to use them sparingly as the consumer will have to input this data manually.

Creating lead adds that convert

Lead ads can be published in several different formats, including static images, carousel images, or video. An advertising study by Facebookfound that showing consumers two static images (spaced 4 days apart) was most successful at increasing traffic to the marketer’s website compared to other ad types. However, showing a video ad and then a static ad (spaced 4 days apart) resulted in more conversions than any other ad type (i.e. the lead became a paying customer). What does this tell us? Probably that a combination of video and static imagery is optimal when it comes to generating and converting new leads. Whatever form of ad you choose, it’s vitally important to make sure it is high-quality, and the visuals are relevant to your campaign.

Finding new customers on Facebook

The most efficient way to locate new leads is through good-quality lead ads. These ads provide a good return on investment, not only due to the immediate leads they deliver but also the data insights they can provide.

Nonetheless, don’t ignore the potential for organic reach. Make sure you’re posting regular, interesting content, communicating with your followers, connecting through Facebook groups, and posting video content from time-to-time. If you follow these principles, you’ll provide ample opportunity for those meaningful interactions to occur!